gaz81

This is what I did. With inline fuses.

Yeah, flocking isn’t that expensive. Maybe about £10 off Amazon for some black stick on velour stuff.

Thought this might be useful, I had an idea for a dew shield. so popped to Screwfix and got a few things, a 150mm pipe connector and a 150mm pipe. These happen to fit perfectly inside the front of the 130pds. Course all needs a proper build, flocking, gluing bits together etc etc. Also… it’s cheap! Basically, the pipe connector is a snug fit into the front of the 130pds tube, and the pipe goes on the end of that.

Looking good. Looking forward to see the roof.

With mine I use Green Swamp Server, but that connects via the ASCOM device hub. Then PhD2 and Nina connect to the device hub and not Green Swamp directly. This helps with different apps talking to the mount at the same time and confusing it… at least that’s been my experience. Are you doing a polar align with the polar scope first, or is that view blocked? Might be worth trying the traditional way first 🙂 That way you can rule out the polar alignment being so far off it always drifts? That said… I’m also lazy and have a Polemaster… love it 🙂

Probable depends on the scope… I have more ‘affordable’ stuff where there isn’t any real adjustments it’s just more a case of refitting the focuser etc.

No cyber Monday then? 😞

Been having the same issues with my 72ED Also did the paper target on the end and fired a laser collimator through it. I had to adjust the focuser seating as it was way off. Always important to collimate the collimator first though!

This isn’t exactly super technical… but I had (maybe still have) tilt issues. Mainly I think because I took things apart but didn’t put it back together again properly. So pretty bad stars in one corner. But that corner would change when the camera was rotated. So seemed not to be the camera itself (1600MM pro). So I had a laser collimator kicking around, I collimated that as best I could and then fitted it to the scope with a paper target on the end… and it was way off centre. Reseated things and it’s now more or less in the middle… I also turned it carefully in the scope to make sure it didn’t draw a big circle! just need to clear nights to test it. Maybe not the best method ever… but will have to wait and see. Anyway, thought it might help.

My EQ5 will give an error if the handset has power but the motor controller does not. are you sure it’s all plugged in and all the right bits have power turned on?

EQ5 I know… but might help a little to get a feel for things.

My EQ5 Pro was built pretty poorly also, it’s sad really. Although it was expensive to me, it’s not expensive in mount world. Guess I should have returned to FLO (not FLO’s fault, it’s Skywatcher’s)… but waited ages for it in the first place. So I stripped it all and rebuilt it, was a little nervous at first but it’s pretty straight forward. Everything then aligned up pretty well. Just dont rush… and get some better grease than the chewing gum SW use. Lots of videos out there to help. I followed an MP Astro one.

Yup, will make a donation 🙂 Was a paid up user of APT also when I used it. Haha

It's been a fair while since I posted an image on here. I've changed kit over the summer, also learning some new ways of editing... first trying Pixinsight, until the trail ran out 🙂 Now learning Siril, and actually like it (and its price). The newer versions of Siril are much improved compared to when I tried it last when I was getting into this hobby last year... or maybe its just not as scary any more! I moved to mono from a DSLR at the start of the year, but have been on a tough learning curve with that, the EQ5 that replaced a GTI and of course all the software! I was using a laptop with APT etc... until recently... I like to tinker with tech! So the weather in the north west UK has been pants for ages, and over summer here at 53 degrees there is no night. Now at last there were some clear nights, so time to put my (hopfully) learned skills to the test. So my setup right now is as follows: Skywatcher 72ED Skywatcher EQ5 Pro with ADM saddle and pier extension ZWO 1600MM Pro Stellamira field flattner Starlight Xpress mini filter wheel Astronomik 12nm Ha, SII, OIII, Green and clear filters SVBONY 120mm guide scope... just fitted and not used for this image, used generric 50mm (200mm FL) guide scope Altair 290M GP2 guide camera Raspberry Pi4 2gb with 128gb SSD running EKOS/KStars, remote controlled with VNC Siril for stacking and calibration Lightroom for finnal tweek So EKOS is pretty different from the Windows software I was using to start with. Once thing I do love is the polar alignment in EKOS, I find if much better than sharpcap. Now... at last some clear and dark sky to try it all out! After a few stumbling blocks with guiding... which numbers wise still not happy with with... but image wise am I got some imaging done! For the first time had a proper go with Siril also, and did manual stacking so I got my head around how it work and then stacking using the pre-built scripts which was very nice! I ended up going for the Cygnus Wall rather than just NGC 7000.... it was pretty much straight up, so was probably pushing the EQ5 a little hard. I managed around 55 each of Ha, SII, OIII. 180 second subs, gain 200 and offset at 50. being the different channels was cool, and how the really add depth in narrow band. I'm happy with my image in the end... the first colour one was as is from Siril and was going to leave it like that, but in the end gave a little tweak in Lightroom CC. It's kind of hard to not go to far with he editing though... but guess this all comes with experience. I added the mono channels, Siril export and LR edit so if anyone is interested then can see kind of how it came together. Cheers! Gary

I did also try one of these a while back… but was kind of spotty.