cuivenion

Amazing image!

What mount is it?

Could it be a problem with the USB socket? Maybe try reinstalling or updating the usb drivers.

Once you've actually set up a connection to your mount, all you have to do is select your mount in the list that comes up when you press the telescope control button. Then just press connect.

If you have Pixinsight Starnet is native process in the latest version.

Cheers, I missed that one.

Just came across this  while browsing:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/products/sky-watcher-field-flattener-for-evoguide-50ed.html#faq

It's a new Skywatcher field flattener for the Evoguide 50,  a lot cheaper than the starizona one and in the UK. Thought some of you might like to know.

Took this one on Monday morning at about 4am at the end of an imaging session. It's a single 4 second shot at 800 ISO of the crescent moon showing earthshine, Venus near the bottom of the image and M44 the beehive star cluster inbetween. It was taken with a Canon 600D and a Takumar 200mm F4 lens stopped internally with a circular stop to around f5.6-6. Processed in Pixinsight and GIMP.

Wow, thats a goodun!

Cheers guys.

Hi, This was the best 4000 frames from a 3 minute video taken on 14/08/2020. A Revelation 5x barlow was used so this was shot at F25.

Mount: Skywatcher HEQ5

Scope: Skywatcher 200P

Camera: ZWO ASI224

Captured with Sharpcap, stacked with Autostakkert 3 and processed with Pixinsight. It's easily my best Mars so I'm very happy with it. I've got a motorized focuser now though, so hopefully the results will improve. Any comments or criticisms welcome as usual.

Hi, I have a Skywatcher 130PDS and a 200p. I use the 200p exclusively for planetary and lunar imaging and the 130PDS for DSO imaging. I was thinking about swapping the secondary mirrors in the two scopes as the 200p might benefit from a smaller secondary for planetary (less diffraction effect) and the 130PDS from the larger secondary (larger illuminated field).

Both scopes are F5 so any offset should be the same. I'm not an expert so any advice would be great.

Cheers Pete. Hopefully I can have another go tonight.

As well as a better fan you might look at experimenting on it's speed. I run the fan on my diy cooling at about 1/2 speed and it still reaches the same level of cooling as full speed. It's much quieter and there's much less vibration. I used a 12v to 5v step down converter between the power supply and the fan.

Thought I'd add to this. It was a problem with Sharpcap, it wasn't recognising the PEC tracking rate correctly. The bug has been since been corrected.

Cheers guys, I'll definitely keep at it.

This Mars image was taken on 09/08/2020 at 3.20am. It's my first planetary image in over two years, and it was nice to get back to it. Can't wait to get my motorized focuser sorted, manual focus on planets isn't easy! Transparency was good but seeing wasn't great unfortunately. I'm happy with the result though.

Mount: Skywatcher HEQ5

Scope: Skywatcher 200P

Camera: ZWO ASI224

I used a Revelation 5x barlow lens so the focal length was 5000mm. The software used was Sharpcap for capture, Autostakkert 3 for stacking and Pixinsight for processing. The image uses the best 4000 frames from 43827 from a 3 minute capture:

Any comments or criticisms welcome as usual. One question; is there a site where you can compare your image to a globe of Mars to check you're not introducing artifacts in the processing.

Fantastic image.

Thanks for that. I knew about the screws but I wasn't sure how you would measure the tilt.

3 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Have

Have you tried adjusting the focuser tilt?

Is there a guide to adjusting tilt in the 130pds focuser?

There are screws on the focuser that allow you to adjust it, but two of them are obscured by the focuser knobs, so pretty useless in hindsight.

Thanks Peter, I'm still unclear though. Does that mean collimating after tensioning the focuser won't solve the issue?

I have a Skywatcher 130PDS scope with a dual speed crayford. I'm using it with heaver imaging equipment than I have been using so I've tightened the tension on the focuser so it doesn't slip, however this has introduced tilt in the focuser tube. I can see the tube on one side has a smaller gap between it and the wall of the focuser.

Does this matter for imaging as long as the scope is properly collimated after the focuser tensioning?

I've not got a problem with QHY personally, but I've seen much more recent posts than that I'm afraid.

I've never used a QHY camera, but I have seen periodic posts on a few forums talking about driver problems.