dannybgoode

Ooo that's nice. Looks very similar to this: https://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/primaluce-lab-esatto-2-robotic-microfocuser.html

Thanks Adam. Yes they look great and if it will fit my TMB then so much the better. The focuser on it is an oddball thing. Built like a tank but totally bespoke to the early TMB/LZOZ scopes and they have a single speed rack and pinion gear. It is helped by the fact the focuser wheels are the size of Mini tyres so you get some fine control and it works well for visual however when doing AP I spend a good chunk of the night trying to find focus on the L filter and then don't bother refocusing after that and the Blue in particular could do with it. Given I have a Moonlite focuser on my SCT I can just move it across to that as and when also which appeals (although if it works as well as you describe I will probably end up with two!).

Interestingly I am looking at this combo as well or the FocusCube v2 with the PowerBox Advance. If I went with the FocusCube I would gett he hand controller as well so I can use autofocusing for imaging and have a handy controller for visual also. Look nice units . Let us know how you get on...

This is potentially exciting as having had a good look at the specs of the universal mount version of the FocusCube v2 it may well fit my original TMB CNC focuser which I would love to have autofocusing but am loathe to modify given its pedigree and importance to the integrity of the history of the scope itself. Before I pull the trigger has anyone used one? Are they any good?

I have an EQ AZ6GT so can carry a reasonable load...

I am struggling a bit to decide what long FL scope to try next. I spotted a 127mm f12 frac on eBay which coincidentally has been mention on here late last year and having enquired a bit about it @John kindly linked to a couple of reviews, one of which was by Neil English and he compared to a similar focal length newt. Much of what he said about size and usability makes a lot of sense but I have a bit of frac fever at the moment so don't know whether a long FL frac is an itch worth scratching. That said a sparkly mirror scope is perhaps a worth exploring. However I have an older Meade 10" SCT but for some reason it just doesn't quite do it for me. It's a fabulous moon cannon but much beyond that I haven't fallen in love with it. Can't put my finger on what it is but I just find it cumbersome to use, it dews up the moment the temperature drops below 30c, it's heavy and I just don't like it as much as I should. I bought it secondhand for a fair price and wanted so much to love it however it just annoys me so doesn't get used. I could perhaps buy some dew heaters for it and give it some more time but I am not convinced it is the way to go. I have an SW 150P Newt as well which is a great grab and go scope and has given me many of my astronomy firsts. I paid £50 for it and it's not going anywhere as it's fun to use. But, it's the short tube version so only 750mm and that is dangerously close to my current frac which is a TMB 105/650. I don't care what Neil or anyone else says on the subject - if I am at home then that is what I use as it blows the Meade and the SW out of the water visually and for AP there is no contest. But at 650mm - I just hanker after something with a bit more reach. So, my question - what to go for? A big frac - 120mm+ f10+, try another SCT or Newt and if so which one or something else entirely? Over to you guys. Will mainly be used for visual - bit of everything really but with a focus on double stars, lunar and planetary but may strap a camera to it too. The other factor for me to consider is portability and I know this is where a long frac loses out. I have use of a nice dark site once restrictions are lifted but it is 30 miles away. I have transport though and I can drive right up to where I set up so a bit of lifting isn't an issue. Budget - hmm. I'd like to stay under £1k if possible but if there were a compelling reason to go to £1500 I would...

Thanks John. Interesting piece by Neil and food for thought. Trouble is once you have frac fever, even though much of what he says on the subject of a good reflector being more useable, just doesn't matter!! Rather than hijack this thread any more I'll start a new one in the Whole Scope section - thanks again

Slight thread resurrection however this scope has piqued my interest. I am potentially in the market for a long focal length frac and this is local to me. Can anyone tell me anything about it. Price is perhaps a shade on the high side but looks a nice thing...

No laughing here. For £40 that's a bargain and I bet you use it a fair bit. I'd have had it at that price

I am lucky to have my lifer - a TMB/LZOZ 105/650. Stumbled across it by chance secondhand and it's an original Thomas Back made one which appealed to my love of slightly obscure stuff with a bit of a story behind it. Optically as good as it gets and versatile enough to be used as a killer visual frac and it's pretty handy with a camera attached also. Just something about LZOZ optics that I like so would highly recommend looking at some of the newer TMB branded scopes, or if you are lucky enough, find a good one on the used market. Of course there is always the question is there such thing as a single lifer scope? I would love a properly big frac at some point - probably a Tak and for pure AP work and assuming you only want new then I'd be taking a close look at their range also. Oh and I wouldn't mind 12" or 14" reflector of some sort however I would also like some darker skies to use it all under

You do not need to reorientate the reticule - just make sure when you are polar aligning that Polaris is aligned to the correct 'time' on the 'clock face'. So, using an app, if Polaris is shown to be at 4 o'clock then just make sure the position matches up. It doesn't matter what the number says on the reticule at all...

@cloudsweeper thank you, appreciated. Yes I've been looking at getting the double star atlas for some time. Birthday coming up so perhaps I'll ask Santa for it

It's reports like this that inspire me to try some double stars as it's not something I've done before. The next clear night I may well give it a go - any hints or pointers and any good starter pairs to go for in the Eastern hemisphere (my view westward is blocked by houses)?

I have too many hobbies and suffer too badly from depression to do many things regularly and given the focus for me over the last few months is to get fit and lose a load of weight many other hobbies have taken a back seat. However, given what a glorious afternoon it was yesterday here in Sheffield I thought I would chance setting the scope up for some lunar obs and tackle a few other jobs I've had on the to do list as well. First up was updating Astroberry and checking I could remember how to use it all. That went without a hitch and after a bit of faffing with IP addresses etc I had my iPad talking nicely to it and everything. For once mount alignment went without a hitch also - I was cooking on gas :). Next up I wanted to align my guidescope with my main scope properly so I could use it together with Astroberry to slew to and plate solve visual targets. In the past I have just used the main imaging camera for this but given my light polluted skies being able to use the guidescope when I want to do visual work will save me a ton of time. This too went surprisingly well although by now seeing had deteriorated somewhat. Anyway, all these jobs ticked off I decided to have a look at the Beehive Cluster as it was still nicely discernible. My first thought? Why the hell don't I use my scope for visual more often - it's an original TMB 105/650 for heavens sake and optically it's perfect. Just such a nice thing to look through. I spent a good 30 mins just drinking it all in - so many stars to see and with my ES Max Vision 2" 24mm the cluster filled the eyepiece beautifully. I tried a few other targets but seeing was pretty ropey by then however I persevered when the moon came above the roof line of the garage and just wow! I have used my big 10" SCT for lunar work but I can get to similar magnifications with my frac so good are the optics and the contrast and resolution are so much better. I have long had a fascination with the moon, could look at it for hours, and the detail I was seeing just took my breath away. Every little crease and crater perfectly visible and such a 3D view of the cliffs and features - just stunning. I must do this more often and now I the guidescope functioning as an electronic finderscope as well I hope to tick off more targets over the coming weeks :). Dirty phone up to the eyepiece photo for reference

One of my little obsessions is trying to get as good a lunar image as I can using nothing more than my Sony RX10M4 handheld at max zoom (600mm equiv.). Tried a slightly different technique tonight with the aim of getting my best result yet; I often play with stacking multiple frames of differing exposure times however tonight I tried leaving the overall exposure the same but shooting at different apertures. I also changed my workflow to do much more work in PhotoLabs 3 and Topaz Denoise before moving over to Registax and then back into PL3 for final tweaks. Quite pleased with the result

Think it depends on the specific mount. My AZ EQ6, even at Max slew speed is a hum at most and certainly not distracting. Being belt drive helps of course. Once it’s tracking its essentially silent.

I am hoping not to have to take a laptop with me and control it from my iPad Mini. Plus the site I have in mind is quite a lot more than 100m from where I can park. And of course I’d have to fiddle around with settings I’d rather leave alone as I run it all as local and I might break something! Don’t forget I only need to get the sequence started and then I can disconnect and get back into the warmth of my car. The other option is to set the sequence up at home and then just schedule it. Go to site and set up and leave it to run at the given time. This of course means having absolute faith in it all working. I also have the 7” RPi display. This and a keyboard would be enough to get things running as well. Will have to have a play though at home. I ain’t risking venturing out until I know it all works one way or the other.

Glad you got it working. Should be pretty stable now you’ve got to this point. I certainly won’t be going back to a laptop based solution. My next step is to try it via its own internal WiFi hotspot as I want to go portable so we’ll have to see how well that works. Want to make sure everything does what it should before venturing out.

So here's my effort for what it is worth. I am not hugely good at PixInsight yet but did the initial channel combination, photometric colour calibration and background removal there before saving it as a TIFF and dumping it into Topaz DeNoise. I like DeNoise for astro work - it has excellent noise reduction capabilities which of course it should given what it is for however it also has excellent sharpening algorithms too and is easy to tweak to get the desired results. From there I then move over to DxO PhotoLabs 3. PL3 has a couple of nice tools; it's smart lighting and ClearView Plus options are excellent for really bringing detail out without over doing things plus its colour wheel is brilliant for destroying green. I have a general tweak of contract etc before bumping everything across to Lightroom. Again, whilst both DxO and LR are RAW editors their tools work in subtly different ways. Again for astro work I really like the Dehaze tool and I can make very localised adjustments using the Tone Curve tools. Again I tend to have a fiddle with the highlights and shadow sliders and generally faff about getting to a look I like. Finally I then dump everything across to Photoshop and have a play with the Astronomy Tools plug-ins, have another tweak of levels, hue, contrast etc and then I also had a play with a technique very much from the old school - dodging and burning. Just a subtle going over to have very fine and very localised control over the contrast of the main features of the nebula just to give it some more depth. Yeah sure there are way better image processors than I however I have enjoyed working with such lovely data and I quite like the end result

What was the error message? Things that affect plate solving are the scope and camera not being correctly input so the FoV is not calculated correctly and the exposure time being too short so not enough stars show. Other things to check are the basics; is the location set correctly, time and date right, home position recorded properly. It’s all a proper fiddle at first. I’ve lost many nights just not being able to PA, plate solve, focus etc. Not so bad at the moment whilst the nights are warm but losing a whole night whilst also nearly losing your fingers to frostbite is frustrating to say the least. Then one day it all comes together and like riding a bike, you can just get it to work.

Loads of people image very successfully in the UK with a good frac. In reality you’re going to be collecting the same amount of data time-wise whatever scope you use and, unless your focussing and guiding are spot on there’s a chance you’ll get poorer quality subs from the ‘fast and wide’ scope than you would a nice easy to handle frac.

StellarMate (or if you’re ok with computers a Raspberry zip with Astroberry which is basically the same thing) would be my shout over Asiair. Cheaper, better choice of cameras and very simple to use. It too has a built in polar alignment routine so you don’t need a separate camera. I started off with a laptop but a) setting up ASCOM, EQMod, the imaging software etc is more fiddly and b) like others, I feel much more comfortable leaving an RPi outside than my laptop.

If you’re using DHCP then, depending on the router, you can go in and tell it to assign the same IP address each time. This is better than setting a fixed IP address on the device as it prevents potential conflicts between DHCP assigned addresses by the router and manually set ones per device. Also you could try running as ‘local’ instead of ‘remote’. Works fine for me each and every time. I just use Chrome as my browser, go to http://astroberry.local and I’m in. Works fine via WiFi or Ethernet.

What mount are you using and how are you connecting to the mount? Here are my settings for my SW AZ EQ6GT. I have not had any issues swapping ports at random even mid-session, it has always picked the mount back up. If you look at the bottom where the system ports are mine show ACM0 and for reasons I cannot quite remember this is important. To get mine working I literally just when into EKOS on a fresh install, picked my kit from the dropdowns and hit connect and it just worked. Have you changed the defaults to show like they do on your Mac perhaps?

That's amazing. Looks like a giant crashing wave - really nice.