sagramore

Hi everyone. Thanks for looking. This is my first post in quite a while but I finally got some good weather one a weekend and decided it was time to get the big scope out again.

Here's a 1h15m time lapse of the Ganymede transit of Jupiter from last night.

Jupiter and Ganymede Transit
2021-07-18
02:30 - 03:45 BST
Oxfordshire, England

Skywatcher Skyline 200P Newtonian Reflector
Unbranded 3x barlow for a total FL of 3600 mm, f/18
Skywatcher NEQ6
ZWO ASI120MC-S
    - Gain 40, 40 ms exposure, 2000 frames per video
    - Stacked in AutoStakkert!3, best 20% of frames for each video
    - Wavelets, colour balance, and tweaks in Registax 6

GIF assembled in Photoshop with a final tweak to levels

Overall I'm pretty pleased with how this turned out, although I should have started a little earlier but I was distracted by Saturn (which I haven't imaged for years!). Bonus Saturn still, below

Thanks for looking and clear skies to you all.

Hamish / sagramore

You have had a lot of good advice in this thread already but I see some similarities with how I started so I wanted to add some advice from my personal experience and hope it might help.

I started the same as you, with the same binoculars, and I was instantly hooked. It only took me about 2 weeks to find a second hand telescope to buy. I did a bit of research and I decided that for visual use you couldn't beat a dobsonian reflector and I bought a Skywatcher 200P, with 8" aperture. The views I got from this even with the basic included eyepieces I found very impressive - across galaxies, planets, the moon, etc. Again I was more hooked. The ease of use of a dobsonian - just take it and put it on the ground - was amazing. People get scared of collimation with reflectors but there are some incredibly good guides online and once you have practiced it is no big deal and (in my experience) if you don't roughly move the scope a lot then you won't need to do it very often. It's a great way to continue learning the sky using the finder scope and some star maps to hop around and locate your targets. A good skill to have in this hobby for sure.

However, once I started to look at astrophotography (AP), things escalated very quickly  If you are serious about AP then starting off you need to look a spending a lot more money on a good equatorial mount. You can take great photos with an average scope / camera and a good mount, but even with the best scope and camera in the world, if you have a poor mount, your images will likely be poor as well. I ended up buying another reflector, a Skywatcher 130-PDS - there is a great thread of images from users with this scope here: 

 This scope was not expensive, however after doing some reading I paid around 5x the price of the scope on the mount to ensure that I had good tracking. Only now, many years later, am I considering paying more for a better camera.

Astrophotography, for me, has completely overtaken visual use, and my 200P dobsonian sits in the shed unused most of the time. So you maybe need to consider if you are likely to be heading into a lot more AP in the future, or if it is only visual use that interests you, because very often the hardware for one is not so good for the other (although of course there are exceptions).

Anyway, my final word would be do not be too afraid of reflectors. I believe for the price/aperture you can't beat them for visual use! They can also be great for AP, but that requires a lot more expensive hardware.

Hi 130-PDS owners. I'm a long-time lurker here and I've posted a few images but my scope has been sitting unused for a while now and I am hoping for some advice from you experts!

I've got the 130-PDS mostly stock, although I moved the primary a little up the tube to avoid the focus tube protrusion issue that many see here when imaging. I use it on an NEQ6 mount (no mods) and have an Startravel 80 guide scope with ZWO ASI120MC guide camera and usually do OK for guiding with this setup. I've almost exclusively used the setup with an old Canon EOS 550D/T2i (also unmodified) and I use the skywatcher 0.9x CC with no additional tweaking of distances as I think it's about right, at least within +/- 1 mm or so. I have had persistent issues for years, however, with the camera disconnecting from my laptop during imaging and this is what has led to my lack of use. It is infuriating to spend a few hours getting it all set up and ready to image and then having the camera disconnect mid-exposure repeatedly, wasting almost all the imaging time I have. I've thrown a couple of my best images using this setup at the bottom of this post so you can see approximately where my ability level lies. Recently learning how to plate solve in Astrophotography Tools was a game-changer for my framing and setup, but alas I have still yet to obtain any good images recently because of the camera problems. Also, for what it's worth, I do all my processing currently with DSS and Photoshop (with some plugins like gradientXterminator and the Astronomy Tools actions set).

With the pandemic meaning little money has been spent going out and about I have got a bit of spare cash and I'm considering a serious upgrade to my kit and I'm looking at going narrowband with the ZWO AIS1600MM. I have read so many good and bad things about this combination. I feel like the better camera, while involving a significant upstep in complexity and processing learning, would open up the opportunity for some improved imaging. I am, however, a little cautious about my ability to focus without an auto focuser as well as some comments about focuser droop/flex with this camera and filter wheel hanging off it.

Does anyone have any strong feelings for or against this setup? I'm also very interested in whether or not people suggest there's any strong vignetting with 1.25" filters and whether I should be looking at 31 mm or 36 mm filter sets if I do go down this route? I am interested in just going all in on a "kit" from FirstLightOptics like the one shown here: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/zwo-cameras/zwo-asi1600mm-pro-usb-3-mono-camera-efw8-125-lrgb-filters-125-ha-sii-oiii-filters-bundle.html but for similar prices you can get sets that have all different filter sizes.

Also, should I be able to focus OK with the 1600MM without moving the primary back down the tube?

Thoughts and comments gratefully received!

Flickr album for example images: https://www.flickr.com/photos/hcavaye/albums/72157673412838217

Edit to add: My apologies - I realised that I had actually already posted a separate thread for this question in the middle of last year and then totally forgotten about it. I had some great responses there, from some of you in here too, so thank you! I think my "buy now" finger is getting itchy...

On 18/10/2020 at 04:34, Galen Gilmore said:

I finally got around to doing some more stuff with the good 'ole 130PDS!

I used a new processing technique called the arc hyperbolic sine stretch to edit this image, and it has done absolute wonders to make the image feel more natural!
Here's the link to the video in case anybody is interested.

 

Thanks for sharing that. I'm always interested to see processing techniques in PS as I am certain that my processing leaves a lot to be desired still! I'll have to give this one a try sometime.

On 05/10/2020 at 22:40, Whistlin Bob said:

Couple of different  processes of the Wizard nebula.

The acquisition details are:

R,G,B – each 20x 30s (Stars)

Ha,Oiii,Sii – each 100x 60s (Nebula).

All at Gain 250 on ASI1600mm with ZWO filters, HEQ5 with, of course, 130pds using SW Coma Corrector.

There’s 2 presentations: the first is SHO, but with the green channel then mostly re-distributed into yellow and blue, the second is more naturalistic with Ha and Sii fed into Red and Oiii into blue and green, with a 50% multiplier on blue and a reduction in Red where Oiii is present. So not very naturalistic!

This is a bad post for my wallet... I've been considering the 1600MM for a few months and tried this target with my Canon 550D recently (very unsuccessful without any modding, and big camera connectivity issues).

Great pics, I really have a thing for SHO pallette....

On 28/09/2020 at 20:11, Stargazer33 said:

Great animation and nicely processed too.

Thanks, that means a lot. I am often guilty of over-processing a lot of my astrophotography data (especially of deep sky) and I'm trying to bring it back a notch, do without a little detail but keep it looking "real". I'm just so pleased with how this turned out given the awful seeing / low altitude I've had with Jupiter for the last year or 2 of trying!

11 minutes ago, CraigT82 said:

That's a superb animation, really well done! Loads of detail and can barely see any difference in the frame quality as it goes, the seeing must have been nice and consistent. Is this with the 200p in your signature? The frames of the animation look slightly more detailed than the singe image.

Thank you! Yes, the seeing just seemed... brilliant all the time I was out there and I couldn't believe how stable it was across the ~1 hr of the time lapse.

You're right about the single still detail being less than the animated frames - that's probably just my own processing though. I think I took a lot more care with the animation (in fact, it was my 3rd go that I actually uploaded). I just love the movement though so I couldn't focus on the stills 😄

Edit: Forgot to add, yes, it's the 200P reflector in my sig that came off the dobsonian. It's a nightmare to locate objects with it at that FL but once you do, it really shines.

Hi everyone. Thanks for looking. I know we're inundated with Mars pictures at the moment but I've not seen buckets of time-lapse and this marks a significant personal best for me so I really wanted to share it. I've not had seeing this good for a long time, especially with a planet this high above the horizon (I'm looking at you Jupiter & Saturn.....).

Only 12 frames spread across ~1 hour, but nice to see some movement. One single still as a bonus too

Edit to add acquisition & processing:

• Skywatcher Skyliner 200P reflector (off my dobsonian), 1200 mm, unbranded 3x barlow for 3600 focal length, f/18
• Skywatcher NEQ6 Pro mount
• ZWO ASI120MC-S - gain 33, 20 ms exposure, 2000 frames per video

• Each video recorded with 5 minute spacing. 12 recorded in total.
• Stacked in Autostakkert 3, best 30% of frames. Wavelets, colour balance, and tweaks in Registax 6. GIF assembled in Photoshop with a few final contrast and levels tweaks.

Thank you for sharing this fantastic image and annotation. It has helped me identify the correct way up for my images and made me realise that the animated GIF I shared had the frames reversed! No wonder I couldn't work out why Mars seemed to be rotating the wrong way... 🙄

3 hours ago, vlaiv said:

If you have stock EQ6 that is about what you will get at best - 0.8" RMS.

Its not down to seeing, it's down to mount performance. If you suspect that seeing is problem - try longer guide exposure to see if it changes anything.

Btw - acceptable guide RMS is the lowest one you can get with your setup . It always impacts final result in negative way. It needs to be quite a bit smaller than other factors to be "masked" by them.  Guiding error half the size of seeing error will act as if seeing error was increased by about 12% and guiding error was 0. We can say that when guiding error is less than half that of seeing it starts being "masked". Only problem is that you must match "units" for this calculation. Guiding error is in RMS while seeing error is in FWHM. There is conversion factor of ~2.355. This means that when seeing is 4" FWHM you actually need 4" / 2.355 and then half of that in guide error - ~0.85" RMS guide error.

You always want the best guiding you can get really.

Hi vlaiv, thanks for the detailed reply. It is comforting to know that a total RMS of ~0.8" is considered OK/good. Your other points make sense and are helpful too. As you say - get it as good as you can!

I am still tempted by the belt mod as I have heard good things about them and, living in a pretty populated area, it would be nice to have a quieter scope. I felt like I was keeping the neighbours up last night slewing....

1 hour ago, RolandKol said:

Welcome back
Platesolving, - is probably the option I cannot imagine myself imaging without

as per NEQ6 upgrade, - I would postpone it... 0.7/0.8 is good enough for our image scale, - not perfect but really good.

Especially, if you will go after CMOS astrocam, - 3min exposures will be enough, so no need to push NEQ6 further (at least in my opinion)... I would better save money for the modern/better mount instead.

As per NB imaging, - it is completely different Level of imaging... HUGE step UP. Literally HUGE!
And it does not matter which location you are in... The darker your place is, - the larger step up it will be

I am based in London, - imaging from back garden bortle 8/9... you can check my images on the Flickr... It has a clear trace from Canon, to ASi1600 LRGB and NB.
Images are not professional, - "advancedbeginner" level, so will be closer to your possible results.

Thanks, Roland! That's all really useful information. I'll keep an eye on my guiding stats. Last night they ended up averaging over 1" for most of the session but the seeing was poor and the temperature was so high my Canon sensor was at ~40 C the whole time, it was noise galore!

As for the NB imaging, I feel like I'm getting closer and closer to giving it a try! 

Hello 130PDSers!

Having just learned about plate solving (and how to do it properly in APT, which I use for capture) I have revitalised my interest in imaging. I was having real trouble locating targets and centring them but since getting plate solving working I feel WAY more ready to move up in the world.

I've been having some problems with my Canon 550D disconnecting from my laptop during imaging and it's really starting to bug me. I've tried troubleshooting in lots of different ways and this has included a complete update of the laptop software, drivers, etc and re-install of all the guiding and capture software. Sadly the problem (while improved tonight, compared to normal) is still present and I am wondering if it's likely to just be the fact that my camera's USB connection is dodgy. 

Alas, on top of this I have always wondered how well my NEQ6 is functioning. PHD2 guiding is usually OK and in the 0.5-1" total RMS range, but it sometimes goes higher, and there's a fair whack of backlash in certain directions.

So, two-part question:

• Has anyone here belt-modded their NEQ6, did it go well and was it worth it? I've been considering it for a while but been put off by the worry that some of the hex bolts are REALLY REALLY tight and I might buy the kit and find myself unable to actually install the mod. I'm also just a little worried about screwing up my expensive mount....
• Considering I live in the middle of a medium-sized town and LP is reasonably strong near me, do you think I'd see significant upgrades moving to something like a ZWO ASI1600MM-pro with narrowband filters? I *love* the look of hubble pallet images but so far have never really dabbled in nebulae imaging because of my light pollution and camera. I'm assuming LRGB will be affected by LP as badly as OSC, but narrowband would help a lot?

I'm just looking for excuses to spend some inheritance but I don't want to waste my cash

PS. Sorry for anyone in here who's already seen another post I made with similar questions but I wanted to hone in specifically on the 130PDS community as that's the scope I have and have so far really enjoyed using.

Thanks, Wim! That makes sense. I was starting to be a bit worried as (at various positions) my guiding total RMS was hovering around 0.8-1.2" but I know for a fact the seeing is pretty poor tonight so I imagine that's affecting my resolution far more. 

I can at least be glad that the seeing is (mostly) out of my control!

Hi everyone. Thanks for coming to read my question.

I have been running PHD2 to guide with an ASI120MC-S on a Startravel 80. My imaging train is a Skywatcher 130PDS newt with 0.9x coma corrector and a Canon EOS 550D.

While looking at my PHD2 statistics tonight, I started to wonder "Are these good? Are these good enough? What is good enough?" and it got me thinking. I started googling "what are acceptable PHD2 guiding statistics" and getting nowhere when I realised that I could probably work out what "good enough" looks like, however I wanted to check that I was thinking about it the right way, so here I am.

Using the tool at https://astronomy.tools/calculators/ccd I entered my focal length and pixel size, which (with the 0.9x CC) are 585 mm and 4.29 microns respectively. This then says that my pixel resolution is 1.51 arcseconds per pixel.

So, my question is this: does this mean that as long as my total RMS error in PHD2 is *below* 1.51 arcseconds, my guiding is "good enough" that it shouldn't have a negative effect on my imaging? If not, what assumptions have I made that are incorrect?

I wanted to post a picture of my PHD2 stats but the laptop is still imaging right now - I will try to add one later.

Thanks!

I just want to say that this thread is one of the most useful things I've ever come across in my time doing astrophotography. Thank you so much!

I set this up today and tonight I had the easiest time finding targets I've ever had BY A MILE. I used to think that my expensive mount was "bad" or "broken" or something because it would take me so long to find what I was looking for, but this has made me realise that actually it was getting pretty close every time and I was just struggling to get that last movement spot on. 

Now though - wow! Thanks again

That makes sense. Although if the OSC CCD option is going to be notably more expensive than ~£1800 for the ZWO 1600MM pro then I'm probably going to stick with mono for now as that's already really stretching what I'm happy to spend

16 minutes ago, tomato said:

I think it is noteworthy that Olly who is a strong advocate of mono + filters is now seriously considering making a OSC camera purchase, food for thought indeed...

On your specific question re the set up, I cannot comment from my own experience as all my recent imaging has been with refractors, however, this  looks to me to be a sound combination based on the FOV calculation, OTA all up weight vs mount capacity, etc.

I think you're right RE: OSC - although as I mentioned above, I love the idea of narrowband as well and I imagine that's not as simple with a OSC camera?

Thanks again everyone for the really positive and helpful comments. I think... as I said my wallet does not thank you, haha. I'm getting more and more tempted to go for it, especially as I watch some processing videos. It seems that a lot of my previous experience with OSC DSLR is directly applicable and it just needs some other extra steps.

6 minutes ago, tomato said:

Here is my contribution based on my own experience:

I was blown away by the sensitivity of a cooled OSC CCD camera compared to an un-modified DSLR when I made the switch. I then moved to a cooled mono CCD with filters and saw another positive step change in the quality of my images. Having said that, as Olly mentioned, there are some excellent OSC CMOS based cameras available now, this might offer better value for money vs mono camera, filter wheel and filters.

If you are looking at purchasing some dedicated image processing software, please take a look at APP and Startools, the former does a great job of calibration and stacking (both LRGB and OSC files) and has a very good gradient removal tool, while Startools is an easy to use and powerful image processing package. 

There are some good YouTube how to videos on the belt mod procedure, but if you are not comfortable with doing this I wouldn’t make it your top priority.

Your images taken with the DSLR are excellent BTW, and clearly demonstrate you have got to grips with all of the key elements of AP, so I am sure you will achieve the improvements you are looking for, whichever option you go with.

Thanks, especially for the kind words on the DSLR images!

The setup I'm looking at grabbing would be something like this:

• ZWO ASI 1600MM-Pro USB 3.0 Mono, EFW7 Filter Wheel, 31mm LRGB & Ha/SII/OIII Filters
• ZWO 240V AC to 12V 5A DC Power Supply Adapter for Cooled Cameras
• Rowan Astronomy Sky-Watcher EQ6 / NEQ6 / NEQ6 Pro and Orion Atlas EQ-G Belt Mod Kit (with a spare belt in case I screw up and with the Bearing Ring Retainer Removal Tool too)

Can anyone see any serious issues with putting this onto a 130PDS, NEQ6, etc as described in my original post?

1 hour ago, groberts said:

The general recommendation from ZWO is :

So 1.25″ filters won’t have vignetting up to F5 focal ratio scope and 31mm filter won’t have vignetting up to F2 lens.

I believe your scope in f5? so borderline + the extra size to 31mm is probably the way to go.  They're a bit fiddly to fit but do a good job - here's my write up of First Light with the camera & FW - you will not regret the move to mono, except for even less sleep! 

https://watchthisspaceman.wordpress.com/2017/03/28/first-light/

 

 

A question on this - when I do the conversion between 1.25" to mm you get 31.75 mm - which would suggest the 1.25" filters are actually larger. However, this clearly isn't the case. Is this because the 31mm filters are "unmounted" and the 1.25" filters include a ring and therefore the filter itself is actually smaller?

8 minutes ago, groberts said:

Go to the following attachment and fill in the appropriate numbers to calcukate the minimum filter size for your set-up:

http://www.astrofriend.eu/astronomy/astronomy-calculations/minimize-vignetting/minimize-vignetting.html

which I calculate to be 23.72mm without a Reducer/Barlow.  I use the ZWO1600 + EFW & FF wich gives a similar number and I use 31mm filters + flats with good results. 

Thanks for that link! Very useful. 

When I enter my details for the 130PDS, 0.9x CC, the 1600MM sensor (and use the value of 10mm for filter-sensor distance from the FLO website) it says minimum filter diameter should be 24.04 mm (very similar to what you suggested). It sounds like either 1.25" or 31 mm would actually be perfectly sufficient then and there's no need to go all the way to 36 mm diameter ones. That does help (very) slightly with the cost!

5 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

Let's start here:

• Additionally, my current processing relies mostly on DeepSkyStacker and Photoshop. I have heard some horror stories about how much harder it is to process images from mono+filter cameras vs "one-shot" DLSR imaging. I like to think I'm a reasonably smart guy, with a scientific background, but how much steeper is the learning curve?? I don't want to spend the money on the great kit and then find out I can't actually use any of the data!

With minimal knowledge of how to use a computer I went straight into mono-with-filters imaging and got results on the first night.  I do my stacking and calibrating in AstroArt 5 (cheap, simple, fast and effective.) This is the procedure: stack your reds, your greens and your blues separately. Open them. Click to 'align all images.' Open Colour-Trichromy, tick White Balance, put the red file in the red box, the blue in the blue box etc and say go. That's your RGB. How can that be difficult?  You then stack your luminance.  My next two step are in Pixinsight but they can be done in Ps if you buy the plug-in Gradient Xterminator (which you should anyway if you don't have PI.) The idea is to balance colours and remove gradients which you have to do with OSC images as well.

Now you process the RGB and luminance separately. This makes life much easier and is often done by OSC imagers who extract a synthetic luminance from their OSC file. The colour does not need detail. Really it needs strong colour and low noise and little else so it's a dead simple process. No sharpening, no need to worry about careless noise reduction, no need to extract fine details. Next the luminance. Because this was captured with all the light hitting all the pixels it is very strong in signal to noise so it is easy to extract faint signal and easy to sharpen the bright. Paste the L onto the RGB in blend mode luminance and that's it. In my experience it is easier to get a good image from LRGB than from OSC.

Caveat: I just processed 32 panels for a mosaic from a new generation QSI CMOS OSC camera and this was nothing like any OSC camera I've ever used before. The data were sensational. However, if you are fighting LP and want to do pure narrowband then mono remains best.

Regarding upgrades, a cooled astro camera will beat a DSLR. If you want to stay with OSC you can with a CMOS chip. If going for CCD I remain convinced that mono wins quite easily.

Olly

Thank you Olly, that has certainly helped alleviate some fears I had and is very useful information RE: AstroArt 5 and your processing methods.

5 hours ago, Whistlin Bob said:

I can help in some points.

Moved from a 550d to an asi1600mm with the ZWO LRGB and narrowband filter kids at Christmas. It performs superbly:  much more responsive than the 550d in most respects, although I did find my 550d has excellent Ha response. 

I use it on a 130pds and a 200p- I did need to trim a little more off the drawtube on the 130, the 200p was fine. The focus lock must be in to prevent tube sag I've found though. But these are minor challenges: overall I'm very happy with the outcome.

For processing I can't help you so much: I use Pixinsight which has excellent tools for mono- although it does take longer. But you see plenty of excellent mono pictures processed with other packages, so it's clearly not impossible.

It sounds like we have (had?) incredibly similar setups as I have both the 130pds and a 200P dob to go with my 550D. It's comforting to hear that moving from the 550D to the ZWO1600 should be feasible without needing to modify the 130pds itself, or at least only minimally, as I've already been through that process once and while I could do it again if necessary I'd prefer not to. Thanks for the comments!

5 hours ago, groberts said:

I wonder how you power your camera? Some years ago when using a Canon DSLR powered by a mains power adapter the camera went down and after weeks of searching I finally discovered that it was probably a microscopic crack in the cable from the adapter to the camera - new adapter and it was working again, see here for more   https://watchthisspaceman.wordpress.com/2016/08/11/the-eagle-has-landed/

Good luck.

  

Thanks for the comment. I still power my 550D by battery (sometimes with the double battery pack, other times with just the single battery in). It's interesting that you mention power because historically, when I first encountered the disconnections, I found that freshly charged batteries helped the issue. That being said, either it was coincidence or the batteries have all degraded together over time, as now it doesn't matter how many batteries or how charged they are - the disconnections are constant and consistent. I had considered buying a mains power adapter for the 550D, but I don't want to sink costs if I am likely to upgrade to a beefier mono camera, especially if it doesn't help!

2 hours ago, carastro said:

Moving from a DSLR to a cooled camera will be a big improvement, but moving to a mono camera rather than a OSC will give you much more detail and flexibility. 

I did this some years ago and would never now go back to a coloured camera.  Mono gives you much more detail than a coloured camera, and you also have the option of imaging narrowband as many targets revealed themselves better in Narrowband.

I haven't read through Olly's post, as I know we are in perfect harmony over mono imaging so I can safely say I agree with him. 

Regarding processing, lots of people love Pixinsight, but I decided to stick with Photoshop as it suits me, and does everything I need.  So no need to move unless you really want to.

The coma corrector should be fine for other cameras. 

Combining mono filters takes a little longer to do than simply processing a OSC image, but well worth it when you see the results.   If I can do it, you can do it. 

Carole  

Hi Carole. Thanks for your comments, I often see your posts in the 130PDS thread and enjoy your images. It's helpful to hear that the coma corrector should be fine and that you get your good results with Photoshop. I have bought a few addons for Photoshop (like Gradient Xterminator) so I'd probably stick with it at first regardless of what I choose to upgrade. 

I will admit that, as someone with a scientific background (chemistry and a bit of physics), the idea of narrowband imaging really appeals to me as it would allow me to "see" specific elements emitting or reflecting out there. Maybe cheesy, but it's a nice thought

Sorry - I forgot to ask one specific question about this potential setup. Were I to buy in to the ZWO1600MM-Pro with filter wheel and filters (I would probably go for LRGB + Ha + SII + OIII complete set from FLO or similar), I understand that there are differences in the filter diameters. From my limited reading I believe this is all to do with vignetting and illuminating the whole frame of the camera and smaller filters can cause some issues here. Would it be worthwhile opting for the 36mm filters given my setup (using the 0.9x reduced 130PDS)?

Thank you all of you for your help so far. You've helped me personally, and probably doomed my wallet as I draw ever closer to pulling the trigger on the mono camera (and probably a belt mod to ensure I don't have any issues with my guiding).

I'd still be very grateful if anyone else has anything more to add to the discussion! Thanks.

Hey! Thanks for this - I've been considering the belt mod for my NEQ6 for a long time and finally have the money to think about it seriously.

I wanted to ask specifically if you had any problems loosening any of the bolts in the mount when you did the mod? I've tried to loosen a few of the hex-head / Allen key bolts and some of them felt so tight that I was actually starting to strip the heads before they undid. My biggest worry is I spend the cash on the parts and then I'm unable to actually fit it!

Hi everyone. Thanks for reading my post; I'll try to be as brief as possible!

I presently use the following setup for AP:

• Skywatcher 130-PDS - This is mostly stock, but I have moved the primary up the tube a little as this stops the focus tube from protruding into the aperture too much when imaging with my current camera. I'd prefer not to have to un-do this mod if possible...
• NEQ6 mount - no mods (yet?)
• Canon 550D, unmodified
• Skywatcher 0.9x coma corrector
• Powered either by mains (when at home) or by a home-made 12V leisure battery box with laptop power adapter (when in the field)
• I use a Startravel 80 and ZWO120-MC to guide with PHD2
• All connected via USB to my laptop, which is getting on a bit now but was a high spec gaming rig with Windows 10 when originally bought so reasonably beefy still

Now - the problem. I've always had some issues with the Canon 550D disconnecting during imaging. Originally it was pretty minor, and some sessions I'd have no problems at all. However, lately, it has become unusable as it disconnects CONSTANTLY, which means that even setting up and focusing is infuriating, and once I manage to frame a target, usually I have to quit anyway because I can't run any subs longer than a few seconds without manually reconnecting the camera to the laptop. I have tried different USB cables and different USB ports, I've also tried with and without a USB hub. It's always the same. I can't be 100% sure it's not the laptop, but it feels a lot more like a camera problem than a laptop problem.

As such, I am considering an upgrade to the camera. Again, without too much information, I came into some inheritance money recently and so cost isn't an "issue" but I also really don't want to waste my money or my time and so I'd really like some advice!

So - the questions:

• I could go for a modded DSLR as a direct swap-in for my current camera. I use Astrophotography Tools at the moment and I've been considering something like a full-spectrum modded Canon 60D from DSLR astromod. This option sits somewhere around the £550 mark I think. However, given that I have some money, I could delve deeper and move into something like a ZWO1600-MM with filters. I can see kits with LRGB, Ha, SII, and OIII narrowband filters with filter wheel for around the £1800 mark. Given that the vast majority of my photography will be from my backyard (south Oxfordshire, in a town, moderate light pollution) I imagine that the ZWO camera would give me much better results. Can anyone comment on this?
• Also, if I were to move to the 1600, would I likely need to undo moving the primary up the tube on the scope or should it still work fine? Will the CC also still work? 
• Additionally, my current processing relies mostly on DeepSkyStacker and Photoshop. I have heard some horror stories about how much harder it is to process images from mono+filter cameras vs "one-shot" DLSR imaging. I like to think I'm a reasonably smart guy, with a scientific background, but how much steeper is the learning curve?? I don't want to spend the money on the great kit and then find out I can't actually use any of the data!
• Second to that - I've heard everyone say PixInsight is worth it. I'm assuming that's still true? Is it more true for narrowband/filter imaging?
• How worthwhile is the belt-mod for the NEQ6? I have to put up & tear down the kit every time I want to image so my alignment does vary from session to session, however usually with some time taken over it I get pretty decent PHD2 statistics (sorry I don't have the numbers to hand on this PC). I do sometimes struggle with locating targets though and I wonder if this is a backlash issue with the mount, as slewing large distances often means I have to recalibrate. The cost of the belt mod doesn't worry me, but having attempted to loosen some screws on the mount previously and them being so stuck as to feel like they're starting to strip the heads, this worries me a bit. Any comments on belt modding?

Any other thoughts or comments are gratefully received because I have this great equipment sitting in a shed and right now I just can't get it out to use because the camera is so unreliable and I'd love to get back into the hobby properly. 

Here are a few of my best shots taken to date using the 550D (when it worked!) on the 130-PDS and NEQ6.  I'm guilty of pushing the subs too hard and not suppressing the noise enough probably, but.. sue me

Thanks a lot for looking!

M42

M1

M51

M31

Flame & horsehead

On 30/04/2020 at 18:24, Piers said:

Hello everyone!

I've just bought a 130PDS from FLO, there's going to be a little delay before it's delivered due to the ongoing "situation"

I've also ordered a Baader MPPC III  and a  2" SW Light Pollution Filter (https://www.firstlightoptics.com/light-pollution-reduction/liht-pollution-filter.html)

I now wonder if I should have bought a different filter.

I'll be using a Sony A5000 (APS-C sensor) and I'm in a rather inconveniently illuminated area.

In truth I just searched for LPFs and then bought the cheapest...which is probably a less then ideal selection method.

Would I be better off going with an Optolong UHC Light Pollution Filter(https://www.firstlightoptics.com/light-pollution-reduction-imaging/optolong-uhc-light-pollution-filter.html) or Explore Scientific CLS Nebula Filter (https://www.firstlightoptics.com/light-pollution-reduction-imaging/explore-scientific-cls-nebula-filter-1-25-2-inch.html) instead?

(I've read about the first 30pages of this thread, informative and very impressive images! I'll carry on reading, but I thought it was best to just ask )

Welcome to the club

For what it's worth I have that LP filter and I found it helped me squeeze a bit more time out of my subs in a town-based location using an unmodded Canon APS-C chip (550D) so it might not have been a bad choice. Best way to find out is to try it!

Good luck & clear skies.

I hope this counts because I've done almost nothing with this lovely scope in recent times (hopefully more to come now the nights are darker). It's not really a "planet killer" scope, but sometimes the sun helps out. You're probably all bored to death of Mercury transit shots by now, but I haven't posted in a while and I don't see any others in this thread at the moment so.....

One short gif showing 3 consecutive frames, 5 minutes apart, to show some motion. To get the full solar disc in them I used my Canon 550D. Then just two simple stills from stacked video taken on the ASI120MC-S. Yellow version is colourised in Photoshop. I still can't tell if I prefer solar shots to be colourised or left "natural". All pretty quick processes and I took a lot more data so hopefully I can get something even better out of it.

There's also a (quite large, ~45mb) 30 second gif of first / second contact, very zoomed in, here: http://www.cavaye.com/stuff/astro/2019-11-11/Untitled-4.gif

Thanks!