MattJenko

Long time ago, 4 panel with an Atik 414ex and Skywatcher ED80:

I went from my ED80 to an Altair 115 triplet. As mentioned above, I saw no point in upgrading to a similar FL system, as the difference would not really justify the leap in cost, and I wanted something different. I really haven't regretted it. I do switch between reducer and a flattener to give me FL options, but actually prefer native FL. Its all about image scale at the end of the day with pairing it with a suitable camera and I find the FL with thin scope marries really well with the newer CMOS chips and the skies that I image under.

I can only speak for myself, but the process of progressing with astronomy and AP in particular has taught me a lot, and not just about clouds. I moved from a DSLR to a modded DSLR to a small mono CCD to a larger chip CMOS, and now to a low resolution spectroscope, and it has been an evolving process on where I want to go, given what I have learnt and where my interests turn. There is so much more that amateur equipment can do if you get frustrated needing multiple hours/sessions of data to improve on images you may have already taken, and others will have done better. The cosmos is a changing place, there are only so many professional telescopes and there are lots of pro-am collaborations to be had once you decide to dabble in photometry and spectroscopy. This also has the benefit of not requiring the same volume of subs as glorious APODs, so even short sessions can produce results that you can really be proud of and can genuinely be used for research, with the bonus there is a very good chance no-one else has that spectrum at that point in time. I know it is not for everyone, but as mentioned right at the start, the journey for me has absolutely been worth bothering and while I may at times have long breaks because of circumstance, as the saying goes, the stars are still going to be up there when I have the time and the inclination and those cursed clouds part.

Nice, only had a go at this once, back in my trusty ED80 days and my even more trusty 414ex.

As a previous owner of an ED80, I regret letting mine go. I learnt a huge amount using it, and it would still find a place in my scope collection, despite costing less than a reducer for some of my other scopes...

Your Evo ED80 is certainly not something you need to upgrade first from the list of equipment you currently have. I would look at a mono cooled CMOS camera as the first step up upgrade. I still use my HEQ5 as well, over 5 years later...

bit late to the party, but I always got some spikes from my ED80 on brighter stars which I attributed to the how the lens cell was held in place as there are very slight intrusions into the light cone. I never minded them.

Not the same scope by any stretch of the imagination (TS60ED reduced to 260 FL), but the exact same 3nm Chroma Ha and ASI1600Cool - older one, not the Pro. Could be argued there are some blurry halos around my stars but at this resolution its hard to tell. I would tend to attribute to the camera given my experience with it as opposed to the filter as I have used it with an Atik 414ex and a 460ex and not a hint of halo with those.

Tis indeed the second one from iTelescope. They get things nice and oriented. I actually prefer the data from my RC6 though, despite the gradient I can see after posting. Just goes to show how much the $$$ racks up to get those last few % improvements and how well you can get things working with a scope that costs less than a single filter in the iTelescope setup. 

Been meaning to do this for a while. Not exactly a like for like, given the home scope was just over 6 hours and the iTelescope scope had just under 3 with a bit of a few missing Green subs (half the number of B,R).

Home scope: Altair Astro RC6, HEQ5, Atik 460ex. 0.69 arc-sec/pixel

iTelescope 21 : Planewave 17CDK, Planewave Ascension 200HR, FLI PL6063E, 0.96 arc-sec/pixel

Which is which?

On 11/06/2020 at 03:23, Louis D said:

Seems like having multiple co-mounted scopes with dedicated cameras would be less troublesome.

I think you are probably right. Means I can get exactly right equipment combo per application as opposed to a do it all single rig which might need to compromise somewhere

Has anyone seen one of these up close or even in action?   Rotarion

Tempted to utilize something like this for a combined spectrograph/imaging setup as opposed to a multi scope operation.

I have the RC6 and run at native F9 and I use an Atik 414ex (equivalent to your 314L and an Atik 460ex. Great little setup for me.

Been a long time since I had the opportunity to spend a bit of time gathering data. Native F9 with the little RC6 on my HEQ5 with an Atik 460ex for an LRGB image of around 12 hours total. 2x2 binned RGB. Multiple sessions and a lot of discarded subs due to rustiness and those pesky high clouds blowing over, but more than happy with end result. Nice to be back processing my own data.

I bought a second hand ST80 in my early days of astronomy and it still gets regular usage as a guide scope as I have moved to focus more on astrophotography. Not many bargains in astronomy, but this scope is one of them because it is so flexible.

1 hour ago, MarkAR said:

Always nice to see another Wave 115EDT.

I do love mine!

For those rebels who actually look through their refractors, and to those who have an aversion to clutter, I suggest you look away now.

A kind of dual imaging setup, one which is based on flexibility than both scopes imaging at once. Each one can guide the other, giving me options in one setup.

Isolation of the flooring itself if possible sounds like a good idea, but simply building pier on the existing base is how I am going to proceed - thanks.

I would scour the classifieds for the older generation ccd cameras and filters (assuming you want to go mono). This will get you started at that budget. Cameras like the Atik 314L for example AstroBuy Sell: Atik 314L colour

Something I found in my experience in this hobby is that it is worth finding a configuration that works and sticking with it. This comes from having a setup and tweaking over and over again over the course of session after session to fine tune how it works and behaves. Having a scope which requires basically disassembly to convert between use cases breaks this and sets you back to square one each time and is the classic case of jack of all trades, master of none. I don't doubt the Edge 8 is awesome in whatever configuration it is capable of, but that will come from being in that configuration for an extended period of time, making the flexibility of that scope a little of a double edged sword. If I was to buy one of these scopes, it would be for a particular purpose, not because it could in theory do many things.

OAGs are more fiddly to get working, sometimes require adjustments to the imaging train to get guide stars and overall I have found to be more than awkward to use. For the multiple scope use case you mention, I use the same ST80 guidescope and guidecam and put it on a whole variety of other scopes and it just works. There are loads of stars to choose from, I can choose whatever framerate I need and never have to rotate things just to make it work. Astroimaging is hard, and the simpler things are, the more likely it is to result in usable images, and starting out, its all about minimising things that can go wrong. I am not saying OAGs can't work with small refractors, but they are not required, there is no mirror shift to worry about which is the main reason OAGs are used and you can get good guiding with a less complex setup. Be nice to yourself and get things working to the point where you don't have to worry about them.

11 hours ago, RobertI said:

Interesting to hear about how good the Mewlon is visually. How does it compare to the 250px?

Hi Rob,

To my eyes, its got better contrast, tighter stars and just has an overall crisper feel to the views. Its way more tunnel visioned given the different optical characteristics. The 250px is brighter with the huge aperture advantage, and I use it more than the Mewlon as its a Dob, and I have yet to get a simple AltAz for the Mewlon, but whether its imperfect collimation or something else with the 250px, I just think the views through the Mewlon do it for me. My first light report still holds true : Mewlon First Light

Leave off axis guiding for another day. For an 80mm scope, use a finder guider or a little guide scope.

All the secrets coming out. Must limit the visibility of this thread.

1: Celestron AstroMaster 130EQ. Purchased with my wife as we lived out in countryside and wanted to give astronomy a go after years of little interest. Rapidly hooked. Sold.

2: Skywatcher ED80. Bought as a move into imaging was inevitable. Eventually sold after years of loving use. Regret letting it go. Not that I want this model again, I just want this particular scope back!

3: ST80. What a scope. Arguably the most used scope in my whole collection. Has guided pretty much everything.

4: Skywatcher 250px. Sometimes you just have to see for yourself!

5: Altair Astro RC6. Awesome purchase as an ex display from AA at Kelling. Best astro bargain ever.

6: Altair Astro Starwave 60. Despite my best efforts, we sucked as a couple and this one moved on.

7: Altair Astro Wave 115. Bought off a lovely chap down Gatwick way. Now my main instrument. Not letting this go.

8: TS60ED. This scope makes me smile. Keeper.

9: Takahashi Mewlon 180. Bought just because someone was selling it and I wanted something classy. That it is. Imaging with it is "interesting", but the views, my god the views!

TBC...

Your Fuji sensor already has quite small pixels, at about 3.7 microns I believe. Assuming your 60mm APO is about 300mmFL, that is a resolution of <3"/pixel which works well and is almost certainly not the reason your stars are large.

Larges stars can be caused by many reasons, like bad tracking, bad skies, bad optics. Depending on what colours are big with your stars, that would point to the root cause. If I had to guess, I am going to assert that if your stars are bloated with blue edges, then the issue is down to the APO not being able to keep the blue light focused with the other colours. This can be mitigated to a certain extent by moving to mono CMOS and filters which can be focused individually, but not eradicated as the blue subs will still have bigger stars that the others, but will be much better than the full colour Fuji which has to choose a single focus position for all colours. I had a 60mm "APO" once which was very much in this category, and I now have a different 60mm APO which is much more true to the name and manages this far better. Let us know which scope you have and we can confirm. If this is the case, then a new little scope would serve you way better than a new camera and fall within budget.

Also, post an image so we can help you further.

This looks to be similar to the Altair Astro 130 and the TS130 versions we get over in Europe. I have the AA115 version and it is excellent, so I would imagine the AT bigger brother version is also very good optically. The difference in the brands tends to be with the focusers etc. My AA115 has a monster 3" focuser which requires a bit of TLC here and there but otherwise does what I want of it.