Aidan
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Posts posted by Aidan
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I had planned on doing a mosaic of the Cygnus loop, but for whatever reason, it didnt work out.. Horizontal panels lined up, but could not get them lined up on the vertical plain.. Probably not enough overlap. Ill revisit again at some point.
Went for the Witches Broom.. Overall, it came out quite nicely. Really liking the OSC with the Quadband Filter!
Details:
SW Esprit 100
SW EQ6-R Pro Mount (guided)
ZWO ASI071 OSC
Altair Astro Quadband Filter
21 x 300s Exposures (Total = 1hr 45min)
Processing - PI and PS- 21
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As I thought.. for whatever reason it wasn’t working. Did a power down/up and all working now
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Have you listened to the Podcast from the BBC called 13 minutes to the moon?
If you haven’t, I can’t recommend it enough. It is very good and comes in 13 x 45min episodes... Some amazing detail and interviews with both those who were I. The foreground and the folks who worked behind the scenes.
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I've got an EQ-6 R pro which i control via EQmod.
I want to test a few things.. How can i get the mount to move if its not actually being guided? The idea is, i want to slew the mount on its RA axis so the counterweights are horizontal, start the mount tracking until the mounts are back in the vertical position.. or there abouts.
I thought it might have been a case of just hitting the Star/Moon/Sun icon in EQMod to start it off, but i'm not seeing much movement!
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I took the risk with the 071 as i knew that if it didnt work out, its resale value would be quite high.. So that mitigated a bit. My skies are about Bortle 6.. And i have a street light about 10ft away! Which is about 90 degrees off to the left when imaging the veil. So certainly not ideal by any means
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I am just keeping my fingers crossed that this was not just a fluke! I think I mentioned that my previous experience with OSC was never good, so it was a bit of a gamble to try again... 😊
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Thanks Steve, that’s a very nice compliment. Considering the battles I’ve had in the past with OSC, flatteners and tilt, to have things work as well as this on first light is nothing more than a miracle in my eyes!
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Camera is the ZWO ASI 071 and the filter is the new Altair Astro 2" Quadband
https://www.altairastro.com/product.php?productid=17287&cat=62&page=1
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I'm a bit pleased at the moment!
Considering this was first light with my new Esprit 100... I i didnt expect to be actually imaging last night.. Just testing and adjusting was all i thought i would achieve.
The scope setup worked like a charm from the outset.. Even the spacing for the flattener was perfect.. Never seen CCD Inspector return such good figures!
Also, it i had a Quadband 2" filter in the image train... I really did think i was pushing my luck, but things seemed to have worked out nicely.
16 x 300s Subs
Stacked in PI - BPP with Darks & Flats
Processed in PI and finished on in PS
Cant wait to see how it improves with some more subs- 26
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3 hours ago, Grierson said:
Sorry about the above. Just wondered what significant improvement you are keen to achieve between the 100 and the 120. I keep thinking about an 80 to 120 upgrade but the more I read I seem never to get beyond the thinking stage.
Main thing is field of view. I dont envisage any improvement from a general quality perspective... for the money, its hard to beat the Esprit range IMO...hence the 2nd one to my arsenal!!
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4 hours ago, Hallingskies said:
How did you get the coarse focus knob off so that you could fit your focus motor?
lt’s not obvious on mine.
To get the knob off, Look at the knob, the first hole in the focuser housing where the shaft is... turn the focus knob slowly, you'll see a grub screw appear in the hole, then just a case of loosening it for the knob to come off.
Not the exact same focuser, but its the hole circled where the grub screw is
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Perhaps consider one of these..
https://pegasusastro.com/products/eqdir/
One cable from the box to the mount the rest is Bluetooth. Been using this method for the past year, has never let me down. I e used it with my laptop about 15m away.
Once setup, with ASCOM and Eqmod loaded, was just a case of using the HEQ5/EQ6 driver and everything connected.. PHD2, CdC, SGP etc.
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Lol, it’s normally spotless!
I’ve managed to find pretty much every usb cable at the length I need to reduce having to cope with extra, dew bands are cut to length so each scope has its own loom and cans easily swap the boxes between them without disturbing things too much. With the PC being 12v as well, it leaves me with a single cable to the mount which is a 12v power cable. Access to the pc is via Remote Desktop
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I’ve been wanting an Esprit 100 for a while now, it fits nicely between my Esprit 120 and 70mm Quad.
It arrived yesterday, so got to it this morning getting it all ready. Pegasus Autofocuser fitted.. The new couplers they supply are so much better than the flexi type they used to use. It’s now rock solid and on first test, very little backlash... but, time will tell.
I run the Pegasus UPB along with a mini pc on my rig, Some £3 strips of L profile aluminium drilled and countersunk mount on the top of the tube rings and give a great platform for the UPB and mini PC.. It’s as good as anything you can buy for a lot more money and only a few grams in weight.
The two units attach with Velcro so they can be shifted between my scopes. Just waiting on Mr Amazon to deliver some USB cables and dc power splitter... still amazes me that you can order at 9pm and have it delivered the next day!
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The Esprit 100 arrived yesterday, what a lovely scope! Also got the suggested adaptor and it works great! I wonder how many others struggled with this and ended up buying an in line filter draw/slide?
Heres a few pictures which might assist someone in the future. The adaptor is the one on the scope side of the flattener
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Thanks Dan,
I have got one of these which came with my 120, and searched all over to find one for the 100! Thanks for the link, as soon as my 100 arrives (hopefully next week) ill get in touch with FLO and get one ordered.
Rgds
Aidan
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HI All,
Do you own a SW Esprit 100 scope.. with the dedicated flattner? If you do, can you answer me a question please?I have its bigger brother - the Esprit 120 with the flattener. With it i am able to screw a 2" filter inside the adaptor which then connects to the image train. Very handy indeed.
Is it the same for the Esprit 100? There is no mention in the online manual - but things like this can sometimes be omitted by accident..
The Esprit 100 would fit perfecting between my other two scopes, but unless i can get a 2" filter to work without a filter wheel then it might be a deal breaker.
Rgds
Aidan -
I’m sort of half and half. I thrive on the challenge of setting up, configuring and capturing my own images from my back garden and then processing it... but nights are limited and because I have to setup and tear down every session, consistently getting all components singing at the same time is never a gimmie.
Never really considered it, but having the ability to capture images of my choice and then processing does have some appeal to me.. The options I have looked at were too expensive for me.
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26 minutes ago, vlaiv said:
If there is dedicated tilt adjuster - it is there for a reason. Elongated stars in one corner or at one edge mean just that - tilted sensor. Above CCD inspector profile also suggests tilted sensor - just tilt your head to the right when looking at it and you will get much more acceptable looking field.
According to description, there is tilt mechanism.
You are correct. However, it’s not practical. The focuser tube only has about 25cm of travel from fully in to fully out. The problem is, at my focus point, it’s pretty much impossible to get a hex key between the gap to the grub screws.
I would have to wind the focuser out to get enough space. The only option I would have would be to remove the auto focus motor and wind the focuser out manually each time I needed to make an adjustment then re- focus.
If that’s what is needed to get rid of the elongated stars, I guess I need to look into doing it that way
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As always, a very detailed diagnosis.
the focuser does have tilt correction grub screws, but they are so difficult to manipulate, it makes them very impractical.
The image train is ZWO 1600mm Pro, zwo 5 position fw, zwo OAG and a 16.5mm spacer which attaches to the scope.
I’ve just been out and done a full inspection of the scope & image train. Made sure there is no slop and everything is tight. I’ll give it a go later on and see what happens.
As said, I can nearly always crop out the bottom of the frame and still end up with a good image composition. I guess reading how it should be vs how it actually is is not always true!
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I’ve done some good experimentation with ccdi, yes it gives better results with more frames, but in my experience, it only changes a 1 or 2 % over a single image.
So, a single image run through ccdi should give a good starting point.
On a quad or any scope for that matter with a flattener, something in my mind is clearly Isnt right when presented with a 3D plot like this!
Challenge is it find out how to resolve. I don’t have the ability to change spacing !
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As far as i am aware, spacing is irrelevant with a quad. Being in focus should provide the flat filed. Its one of the reasons i bought the quad so as no messing with spacing etc. which, consequently i can achieve no problem at all with my image train. The spacing should only really come into play to keep the focus draw tube as far into the scope as possible to allow you to still focus but mainly to reduce any chance of sag.
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Could anyone assist in trying to solve this please?
ive got a 70mm quad, which produces some nice images. However, I’m seeing slight elongation of stars along the bottom of the image, mainly towards the corners. The other 3/4 of the image seems fine.
Another thing I am seeing is a constant 20% curvature when I run an image through ccd inspector. Although I use a visual approach - Mk1 eyeball and ccd inspector as a confirmation, I’m surprised to see a consistent curve of this much considering it’s a quad scope.
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That’s pretty much the exact same way I attach my guidescope. Very solid. You’ll not have too many problems with this.
I was going to suggest you consider the QHY 5LII mono... but see you’ve already gone for it :-)
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Altair Astro ED-QR Curvature
in Discussions - Scopes / Whole setups
Posted
Hi Roland,
Sorry for the lack of response... been kinda busy! I eventually ended up sending the scope back to AA. I didn't find out exactly what the problem was, they just replaced it. New one is spot on. I wouldn't be deterred by my experience.. You don't often hear folks having problems with AA scopes - and in my experience probelms are very quickly dealt with.