Alien 13

Looking forward to it...

Alan

8 minutes ago, DaveS said:

Some Astro Essentials bits to pimp out my mobile rig with guiding, plus a guide to Affinity Photo.

Nice, must get the Affinity Photo book myself..

Alan 

5 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

Indeed.

One of my goals when getting this scope is to actually see how good "all-rounder" type scope this is. I intend to submit it to:

- planetary/lunar visual - so far excellent

- imaging planetary / lunar - this part shows planetary performance and I think it passes with flying colors here as well - lunar is being processed as we speak (again, a bit of surprise there as well, or maybe not surprising after seeing this)

- EEVA / imaging platform - this will be demanding

and of course DSO visual - probably weakest point since it is lacking widest views.

Look forward to the results, I love my Mak because its so camera friendly, can hang a very heavy DSLR off it with no issues and no back focus problems..

Alan

Very good images, sometimes think the smaller Maks get overlooked as being good scopes in their own right rather than just filling up a manufacturers range..

Alan

I run my EQ3-2 single axis motor off a 5V mobile phone/tablet powerbank, the motor is designed to run on 4.8V anyway (4 x 1.2V rechargables) so the real 5.2V from the powerbank is fine and whats more they are as cheep as chips even for the 10A/H ones. You will have to make up a lead though from an old USB cable or graft one onto the existing lead...

Alan

29 minutes ago, Macavity said:

Cited before sometime... But Mr. Helvelius' telescope? (Just spotted the "Button Boy"!) 🙀

And the matching camera..

Alan

27 minutes ago, x6gas said:

Well Affinity Photo is the newish kid on the block that seems to be getting some traction...

I have some problems with it as its macro feature isn't anywhere near as good as Photoshop's actions and there are one or two other limitation like fixed sample points only reporting single pixel values (rather than a multi-pixel average) that are really annoying.  But for a capable, layers-based photo editor it's great for the price.  Nik Szymanek is doing a series on it in Astronomy Now...

I agree its not perfect, am annoyed that it cant handle ICO files or Nvidia plugins for game design but the software does seem to evolve reasonably fast so I am confident it will get there..

Alan

If you want an alternative/better option than CS3 then Affinity Photo is the way to go..

Alan

The trouble is that even a small 70mm frac will require a 2 inch correct image diagonal (which are as rare as hens teeth) to get decent low magnification views so it might be better to get a dedicated imaging scope and a pair of binos.

Alan

I dont think so, I have used the Sony A7 with lots of Canon glass but that required an extension in the adapter so it wont work the other way...

Alan

8 minutes ago, John said:

"Mak the knife" because it's so sharp ?

 

They are sharp, my Celestron C90 was female so called her Luna..

Alan

I would look at a used 60D or even a 70D on sites like MPB or Wex, might just be able to get one for around the £400 mark and will be far better than the 200D you looked at.

Alan

29 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

Cheers Alan. It does look really blue. I tried but didn’t get that result. Overall your colour adjustments looks better 👍🏼I wonder would it be hard to get the background a little more neutral and keep the ion tail blue etc. 

I am sure it will be easy, all I did was a couple of auto colour iterations..

Alan

Looks blue to me, rough and ready PS colour balance.. Nice capture.

Alan

I am biased but think the 90mm MAK is the best in the range due to its f/13 ish focal ratio, some reports say the Celestron versions have better coatings than the SW offings but who knows...

Alan

4 hours ago, Leewfc said:

I've decided to go with 2x 64gb just to make sure not going too large

I have never managed to fill my 64Gb card even shooting HD movies with my 80D so you should have no problems with space.

Alan

On 18/07/2020 at 23:06, rl said:

Buck converters and flyback converters are cheap (reasonably), very efficient, widely available..lots of plusses. They still suffer slightly from output noise at the chopping frequency which might get in to the kit and cause banding issues on images....might be worth looking at some filters just to make sure what goes in to the camera is really clean. It's the one area where a linear regulator might still have a place.

I always use the metal box versions which helps contain noise issues. 

Mounts and dew heaters don't care about any reasonable amount of noise. 

High frequency switching noise is actually hard to eliminate, ceramic capacitors close to the load and having a few turns of the output lead wound around a ferrite toroid is your friend. I do like linear PSUs having designed many for high end audio use but some have a fatal flaw if using series regulation, a failure of the output device will almost always cause it to go SC causing the full unregulated voltage (which can be 20-30V) to appear at the output.

Alan

I know that not all Canon RAW files are created equal and some software struggles with certain versions although I cant confirm this is the problem you are facing. What has worked for me in the past is the free software "Adobe DNG Converter" this converts a Canon RAW file to a standardized Digital Negative which can be processed as a normal RAW, the software is easy to use and can do "batch" conversions and as said is universally compatible with all image processing software. I would give it a try to see if it helps.

Alan 

I would stick to 32Gb or 64 Gb if you realy need the extra, as for brand I always use Sandisk extreme pro..

Alan

22 minutes ago, Uranium235 said:

Looks like its on guys.... watch this space

Nice one..

Alan

I am not entirely convinced by this lens, not enough elements for my liking but would like to see a head to head with the Canon 200mm f/2.8 set to f/4 or even the "cheap" 70-200mm f/4 L lens used wide open.

Alan

I have wondered about exit pupil size many times and have several rifle scopes that go well above 20 mm and they are fine but everything is bright almost like having night vision. Have looked through some military spotting scopes that again push the exit pupil into double figures and again they worked brilliantly on the night sky, possible better than any commercial scope/eyepiece but you do need a dark site.

Alan 

At least astro kit is cheap compared to other interests like audio..

Alan

Yikes my TV is 65 inch and lives in a 3x3x3 meter cube that is my living room, hate those high ceilings...worst of all missed the program.

Alan

A popular choice for hand held binoculars are the 8x42 models but for me I stick the the Patrick Moore recommendation of 7x50s..

Alan