Owmuchonomy

Have you consulted this thread? On the second page Ian posts an excellent diagram of the consequences of incorrect spacing. http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/225831-flattener-spacing/page-2

Yes, the GTX site has the info. I also did the trial but I can't remember if I added GTX at that point or after the purchase.

Another possibility is that the trial version has limited functionality of course.

Hi Peter, GTX and various other plug ins work fine on my PS CC but I am running on Mac and so have the Mac versions downloaded. Is it a win problem maybe? I can go and find out how I did it if you wish?

Ditto.

The simple way I got my head around this was to take a normal image, I used my M42, put it into Photoshop and choose LAB mode. Then if you look at each channel in this mode it is possible to see how much information is contained in the luminance channel compared with the others, most of it to be honest. An expert imager may come along soon and explain it.

Read Mike's excellent post, then read it again. Most stuff is in LEO and what isn't is moving much slower (or apparently not at all) relative to our vista. I see such events sometimes here. It's the Army playing in their Apaches.

Hi Alistair, here is a bit of info in my thread: http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/224854-heq5-pro-worm-drive-bearings/?hl=worm+bearings#entry2428931

Thank you very much. Follows up the Planetary Nebula post very nicely.

Hi Gary, I'm not much of an expert in guiding to be honest, although i do manage it with PHD2 but my guiding pixel scale is 5.15"/px.

The thing that stands out to me from your thread is the FL of your guide scope. 800mm is longer than most imaging scopes. Mine is 328mm and that is consider long for guiding. I'm not familiar with the camera type you describe. Are you using PHD 1 or 2 as 2 automatically steps the gain up and down until a suitable star is selected.

As Merlin says and make sure as much backlash is adjusted out of your mount as possible. I find I have to change my Dec imbalance depending which side of the meridian I'm pointing which fits the targets you mention. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

A very comprehensive report. Does this version of the 9.25" OTA have a mirror lock?

I am fairly new to the forum this year. I find this article absorbing, stimulating and beautifully illustrated. Thank you for taking the time to put it together.

Lucky you. It indicated at my location it would be clear from 5pm until 2am. By 9 pm the clouds rolled in. I got a 30 minute window of clear sky about 11pm.

As Peter says don't try and fix a major fault yourself. If the housing is badly machined that's a major fault, and a bit surprising. My point is to make sure you have done all the DIY adjustments correctly before assuming there is a major fault. Absolutely the worm gear adjustment will make a difference to rotation by hand or with the motors. If you can rotate the mount in RA with the motors without the motor clutch screaming at you then I doubt this adjustment is the issue. When my mount arrived for example the RA worm drive shaft lock nut was so loose it was rattling in the housing. It was a quick adjustment to fix it.

Did you adjust the the fine adjusters (small Allen screws) to set the worm gear spacing as described on Astrobaby's site? It is a very fine adjustment and makes all the difference. It takes some trial and error to get the play correct but it's an important final fine tuning step.