Shelster1973

My efforts to date can be seen here. Have only managed this one time out as the weather has been uber pump for me this year. Am hoping to get back out and am going to using my ccd and Nikon 50mm this time out. As a piece of kit, am very happy with it. Is very easy to setup and get going and have also put the advanced firmware on to it too.

Think I have it all sorted now. Ordered an adaptor from Amazon that converts Nikon F mount to the Canon. Arrived today, fitted it with the spacing that I had done to get the Canon lens to work and the spacing seems to be spot on. The Nikon has a Flange Focal Distance of 46.5mm as opposed to the 44mm for the Canon. Only issue is that the Nikon lenses default to max f-stop when not fitted, so have had to imagineer a bit of folded card that wedges between teh edge of the adaptor and lens that can be moved to manually alter the aperture blades. Have adjusted by eye to what appears to be f-4, which I am basing on eyeballing it when I did a exposure preview. Hopefully it is looking clear tonight, so am wanting to get out and try a bit of Ha action with my 50mm lens. Did try last night with the Canon and was not hugely impressed. Have attached a very quick jpeg conversion of one un-callibrated sub. Seems to be inconsitnet focus across the image. The lens was at f-1.8 as could not stop it down as my Canon I thought I could use is non functional.

and in another twisty turny development..... while looking at the FLO website over lunch, noticed one of these and was wondering if I would be able to use this to convert my Nikon glass into a Canon connector and then use that on the Geoptik. Image train then as follows Nikon Lens > ZWO Adaptor > Geoptik Adaptor (inc filter) > any tubes needed for back focus shenanigans > CCD All I need to know now is how much that adds to the image train and then work out the correct spacing for a Nikon lens.

Aperture mask is a good idea. Am guessing does not cause any vignette issues?

Just remembered...I have a 400D that I bought ages ago to try out the astromod, but decided not to go for it as cold not control it fully from my computer, that is / was sat in the loft. Just dug it out and now charging the battery up for it

Ah...this could get interesting then. I take it the lens maintains the F ratio you set when you take it off the camera then?

Adaptor on the way now 1st numpty question...how do you go about changing the F number on that lens I have ordered? I do not have a Canon camera, so cant be adjusted on there

Have decided to get one of these instead. Will now get the adaptor and see how things go from there

Thinking of lenses...would one of these work on the Geoptik I know nothing about Canon fits sorry.

I think weighing up my options I will be going for the Canon one and then look at either getting a cheap second hand 50mm lens or possible the 40mm pancake

Cheers for the update Dave. Could go for it and then need to look at getting 1.25" filters instead of the Canon glass. Working out distances looks like I would need to get an 8 or 7mm extension tube in there to give the correct distance between lens flange and CCD chip (46.5mm - 21mm for Geoptik - 17.5mm for camera chip depth from front of unit - 1mm if I put a filter into the train)

Was wondering if someone could help me out with a very quick question. As I am now loving and using my Star Adventurer Mount am wanting to be able to put my CCD onto the Nikon glass I have and have been looking at the Geoptik adapter but am a bit concerned / confused over the ability to use filters with it as the blurb says that the ability to screw in 1.25" and 2" filters is only on the Canon model. Is this true? Seems a bit strange as to why it is only available on the Canon one. If there is a good technical reason, can someone explain for me? Do not want to go down the road of buying Canon glass just to be able to use my CCD and filters with it all. Suppose I could look at putting the filter wheel in there as it is, but not sure if I getting close to weight limits and also if I would be able to get sufficient backfocus on there too

Thre are a few pics (not for the squimish) in a post I did a few months back when I stripped mine down here Since then, I have done another strip down and replaced the bearings holding the worm gears and polished both of the worm gears and the toothed rotator collar part that the wom meshes onto. Pics of that bit of fettling are below Since putting it back together, have not had a full chance to take any images due to stupidly poor weather and being away from home when the clouds have cleared, but the night I did get out was good......after some minor adjustments to the RA worm as it was slightly misaligned and too tight, so caused a few issues. Was easy enough to adjust. Just needed to slacken off on the Allen bolts holding it inplace and then adjust the grub screw to provide required pressures My next plan, along with some imaging, is to measure the PE of the mount now that I have fettled with it. Did not do that before, so have nothing to compare this too, but will have a reading that I can use to comare to others who have the mount and have not carried out the drastic surgery that I have done

You should give it a go. You can always flash back to the original if you dont like it. Mine worked a charm last night...when I got over the user error. 1st off I did not put the switch to N after adjusting the exposure time.....2nd was I had it in astro timelapse, where it takes and exposure while tracking, then moves back to its original position before starting the next exposure. Put it into tracking mode and all was great....apart from my focusing which was way off. Was using a nifty fifty on my D7100. Am going to have to get out a wee bit earlier and focus up on a very distant object as opposed to trusing the markings on the lens. Overall, am very happy with this little mount. Fits great in my camera back pack (even with the counter weight in there) and is a breeze tro set up. Powered from a USB battery booster too, which makes it completely portable. Now just need some really clear nights.......

Are any other SA owners using the advanced firmware that you can get from SW? I flashed it onto mine a few weeks back and am trying it out now. Link is here to those that are interested. Found it a blessing being able to change the exposure time for astro work.

Makes sense now I put my thinking head on. Only small problem with it is that due to how I have it mounted if I start with focuser racked in, the stepper moves in the wrong way (ie increase steps moves the focuser in and decrease steps moves the focuser out) Have looked to see if there is a reverse focuser under the AF2 software, but cannot see one.

Am alos going to use this with SGP, but need to get it fixed up to my new focuser once that is fitted. Should be good as the fine knob has similar notches so the belt will fit over. Did notice a weird one the last time I used it. Using the AF control software I was not ablke to go into negative numbers on the steps. If I set initial position to 0 then is fine going upwards but any commands to go lower than 0 and there is no movement. Is no biggie as just set initial position to 2500 or something and then have full movement control

Just kicked mine back into life on SETI. Am a bit sporadic in my efforts on this. Do not have capability to run it 24/7, but can keep it on for the time when I am generally using my computer. So every little helps I suppose

Thanks for putting it up here Dave....feel it will be a god send in the upcoming months. Am quite happy with the speed steps at present...plus am not that great when it comes to tweaking code...give me a hammer and some other tools and I am sorted

Have finally gotten ropund to mounting this properly and also getting it up and running. Have not added the temp sensor, just running with it as a pure focuser. Video of current setup As you can see...when the motor gets down to fine running, the steps are going to be rather wee....

Have been wanting to use my Nikon lenses for widefield with my second hand QHY5L-II-C guidecam and from initial investigations found I needed a Nikon F>C adapter as this is what was needed as this is what the end of the camera has. One was ordered and did not fit......further investigations revealed that I was missing the vitally important scew on adapter that fits the end of the QHY camera. From on here with the great help of @StuartJPP got in touch with the legend that is Bern at Modern Astro. He stated that I had the very early version of the caemra that did not have the adapter with it. Typical. But after a few emails back and too he managed to find me an empty CS barrel that will fit and all for the pricely sum of a tenner with p&P on top, which I can't say fairer than that. He had no reason to reply to my email and help, but being the great guy he is, went above and beyond and will have now set me on the way to another branch of this widely intersting and highly frustrating hobby that is astro photography. Millions of internet cookies to Bern and all the kudos too.