Phillyo

I've been scouring the net to find the best way to connect my camera and lens to my astrotrac but I'm a bit stumped. I have the ZWO ASI533 arriving in a couple of days along with the Samyang 135mm lens. I use an astrotrac with the 410 Junior Geared Head and a ball head on top to the camera (Currently a Sony a9). I'm looking for some 70mm rings that I can connect to a doveplate I'm assuming? Or if I buy the ZWO camera mount will that be strong enough to hold the lens without flexion in the imaging train? Any advice greatly appreciated! Phil

Good evening all, I've decided rather than sell my astrotrac TT-320x AG and spend lots of money that can be better spent elsewhere (for now), I'm going to keep hold of it and try to make better use of what I have. So question time: I've just purchased the ASI533 to use with a Samyang 135/2 lens to begin with, then maybe next year I can (will) get something like the WO Redcat 51 to give me a little extra reach. With the 533 having a pixel size of 3.76u and the focal length of 135, I will be quite badly undersampling. So to increase the resolution of the images I was thinking of heading down the drizzle route in PI, however to correctly drizzle you need to dither. Is there any way to connect the astrotrac directly to a PC so that software like NINA or APT can dither in RA without the need for guiding? I know that both NINA and APT CAN dither without guiding, but I am assuming that's using an ASCOM compliant mount like an EQ-6 etc. Can I connect to the ST-4 port of the Astrotrac via some kind of ST-4 and EQDIRECT cable to tell the mount to move in RA like PHD2 would if it was guiding and dithering? Thanks for any help. PS. Sorry to anyone around Lincolnshire. New gear arriving = more bad weather

I've been toying with the idea of a mono camera too and I've been looking at the 294, although I can't decide over the ZWO or QHY version (QHY has the 2x2binning unlocked so you can use 1x1 binning for smaller pixels). For filters I used to have Astrodon but they're super expensive so I've been looking into the Antlia Filters sold at 365astronomy. They're 3.5nm wide and aren't as highly priced as the Astrodons. Having never used them though I can't comment on how good they are.

From everything I've seen it's just a slight rebrand of the Sharpstar 61 EDPH II at a much higher cost.

I could be wrong (it's been known) but I think all you need is an M48 to T2 adapter to connect directly to your camera?

Yeah I think I want to stick with mono really. I used to have a QSI583wsg and loved it. Wow but things have moved a LOT in the last 5 years. CMOS is now the flavour of the week apparently! I'm very interested in the new ZWO294MM sensor though so I might head in that direction. Anyway, enough post hijacking! Thanks for the replies. Again, stunning image Adam. Nice to see people so local getting such images. Fills one with inspiration!

I live in Washy so it's not terrible, though getting worse. I don't have any real kit at the moment, sold everything about 5 years ago but looking to get back into it again. NB is where I'm leaning, but I'm very tempted to get a OSC with a portable set up (Sky Guider Pro, Redcat 51 etc) and head out towards Donington on Bain or Stenigot to set up in a darker area.

This is awesome. I notice you're in Lincoln too. Do you image from your back garden or go to any remote dark sites? (Wolds area is nearest I'm guessing).

I would imagine it isn't just to do with the same sensor. Do any/all have a dew heater built in? USB hub built in? USB3 support? Firm/software levels. Build quality. IR/UV filter built in. Cooling ability etc. There's more to a camera than just a sensor.

Good evening one and all. So I used to image quite a lot until about 3-4 years ago when I gave it all up due to other commitments, cloudy skies and...light pollution (LP) from a growing Lincoln City. However, I really miss it. I have 5 years left until I retire from the military and I'm considering using some of my pension to get back into imaging again. I have toyed with the idea of trying to get the kit abroad and finding somewhere to host it but that has a lot of issues involved, so it got me to thinking. How important is light pollution, or a lack of it, for imaging? I understand that narrowband is affected less than LRGB, but lets assume I want to do a bit of both. Is LP just a game ender? Can you get around it with LP filters and/or more exposures to increase SNR? Now, I live outside of lincoln in a village that has an SQM of 20.47 (for those that know that it is), so I'm not in the middle of a major city (London has an SQM of about 17.44, a true dark sky has an SQM of 22) so I know it could be a lot worse. Thoughts/opinions? Do most people that image remotely do it more for the clear skies or is it a mixture of clear skies and LP? Thank you. Phil

I've joined this thread late so please forgive me if this has already been suggested or the issue has been solved (I read first page then skipped to last one), but a very simple and easy way to check your images for Polar Misalignment is to do a no rejection stack in pixinsight. You will have something that looks like the image posted. This is basically an overlay of my subs and you can see that everything was revolving around a point just out of frame, which turns out to be the star my OAG was using to guide. So although my guide graph was lovely and level, the image was rotating around that star slightly due to not being accurately polar aligned. If this is no use or I've just made a fool of my self then feel free to ignore/delete the post Phil

Mindblowingly good. I think everyone else have used all the superlatives available so i'll leave it at that. Thank you for sharing this. I'll be staring at this for a long time! Phil

I'm up for it if this is still going...? Phil

This was my first image back in Dec 2011. Taken with a Nikon D60 through an Altair Astro 8" Newt on a NEQ-6...with no clue what I was really doing! Pretty happy though