samtheeagle

Thanks all for the advice! 

@Starlight 1 - The new guide scope of mounted in a piggy back fashion, all firmly bolted down. Not even guide scope rings... And yes, I reset PHD2 to default settings and then set it up for the new scope & camera combo, so that all looks good.

@Owmuchonomy - Good to know that it's fairly common and nothing too untoward, hopefully.

@PhotoGav - Thanks for the binding tip, I had always wondered and worried if I'd over tightened things, but I've never heard any squealing, so if anything things may be too loose.

Good to know that I can try the RA worm gear adjustment without too much stripping down... I did follow the whole strip down process when I got this mount secondhand, just to check it out and clean out the default nasty glue pretending to be grease. But it's been a long time since I have looked at the guide. I shall attempt to give the mount some TLC over the long weekend, and test it out when we're next graced with some clear skies.

One thing that I did find when checking out the balance of things is that my DEC axis is very heavily out of whack... And I have no possibility to resolve it atm, I need to get an extra long dovetail so that I can shift the whole setup forward a bit. Right now the securing bolts are up against the saddle, and the scope is as far forwards in the rings as it can go... So a quick order to FLO incoming

Thanks again all, will update as and when I have any further news.

I'm starting to worry about my mount  I've got a quite significant wiggle in the RA axis when the mount is powered off in it's parked position (clutches locked of course). Before I embark on a full strip down following Atrobaby's guide I thought it would be worth asking if anyone had suggestions for a less drastic investigation / fix?

I'm not sure how recently this issue has come up, I've only just become aware of it after an equipment upgrade. I've just replaced my guiding setup of a 50mm finder coupled with an SPC900 webcam, to a Celestron 70mm TravelScope with a Touptek Mono guider. When I made this change my guiding went to hell, with a crazy amount of oscillation on the RA axis, which is what led to to start looking for flexure etc. and thus I found the RA axis slop...

Now I understand that my new guiding setup has a much tighter FOV, and therefore will make the guiding errors look more pronounced than I am used to with the finder guider setup, but still I'm getting graphs with massive errors and corrections, sometime 2-3 pixels worth of motion. The DEC axis looks ok, but RA is all over the place, and I wonder if it's down to this wiggle? I've tried adjusting the balance so that the mount is at least always working on one direction, but that didn't appear to help much last night.

So can anyone offer me some advice?

Thanks in advance

Those are some damn fine looking gates

That looks to be doing a great job... does anyone know what...

"Will also provide much improved results on refractors with focal lengths narrowly outside this optimised f/range."

really means ? The optimised range being f/5.5 to f/6

Yeah, I want to know this too... I've got a wee f/5 scope that I'd really like to correct if possible. I guess if the nice people at FLO are good enough to let people try them out I might have to give one a whirl at some point. Obviously the faster a scope is the trickier it is.

Anyone out there using one of these on an f/5 scope?

DOH!

Cheers themos... I have found that it helps to apply the update to the latest version :S

Press ALT+B to enter dynamic background subtration mode

I nicked the source image example from above, just to have a play with... Perhaps it's not appropriate?

Yeah, looks like a quality technique... Just downloading the free version now to try out later on. Thanks rikyuu!

I've reworked that raw data more times than I can remember! It's worth having another go at it, and then another... and so on I have found that if you are brutal, and I do mean BRUTAL, with the selection of only the VERY best subs it pays off. Maybe that's even more important when you're only working with a very small amount of data. One duff one will have a greater effect on the good uns.

Here's my first "proper" attempt at a DSO... The wonderful M13

I've developed a strange affection for this blob. It eluded me several times when I first tried to locate it, through a mixture of physical obstructions and LP. I can't tell you how happy I was to finally get it into my sights!

I'm pretty pleased with the image overall. It's only about 4 minutes worth of exposure, with the subs being about 30 seconds on average. Processed in DSS and the GIMP.

I'm exceedingly new to all this so I'm not as structured in my attempts as I should be... There's a bit of bloating going on, but this was before I fully got the polar alignment dance (at least I think I've got it now). Plus I'm hoping to be guiding soon!

I think the coveted "propeller" is showing up quite nicely

If you want to see my actual first ever DSO, and a laugh, check this linky out http://imgur.com/CB4CK.jpg M45, very short (~1 or 2 sec) single exposure on non-tracking mount. All bow down in awe at my astrophotography skills!