gnomus

That’s as maybe, but haven’t you guys heard of dithering?

I'll add my 2c.  I have 2x Moonlites and 1 x Feathertouch.  First off, my Feathertouch is certainly rotatable, but I don't know the range well enough to say whether or not they all are.  I have found the Feathertouch to be entirely reliable.  The Moonlite has 'slipped' on several occasions when under the load of a camera plus wheel.  I would be happy using the Moonlite with lighter eyepieces, and with my planetary cameras.  I wouldn't use it with a CCD and wheel (I have tried it and it wasn't reliable).  I would feel a bit anxious putting a big (say 1kg), expensive eyepiece in it on my refractor.  I haven't had a problem, but because of the issue holding the CCD, I just wouldn't feel relaxed about it.  My second Moonlite is on my Dob.  Because of the way this works - the weight is all downwards - I am quite happy using the heavy eyepieces with it.

6 hours ago, kirkster501 said:

.... And now I got looking into the QSI690 as well to make it more complex!  Indeed why not the G3-16200.... Doh!

...

I like my 690 with my Esprit 120 (f/l 840 mm).  It gets me imaging at 0.9" per pixel which I am comfortable with.  With your Tec (f/l 980 mm) you would be imaging at 0.78" - perhaps that is starting to become a bit of a tall ask.  Your Baby Q is a intended to be a 'widefield' scope - why then use it with a smaller chip?  On the other hand, are you certain the Baby Q would give a flatfield right out to the edge of the 16200 chip?

28 minutes ago, kirkster501 said:

.... I have to think hard and question if that sort of outlay can be justified as I hardly use the stuff I already have.

As I've said before, Steve, if you need to 'unload' any of that stuff ......  

I too am waiting for a Moravian G2-8300.  My astro dark ended on Sunday (and I think I may be south of you).  You can try some NB during nautical dark.

I had a look at SIPS, but I had already bought SGP.  I'd strongly recommend that you take a look at that if you have not already done so.  It has its various wrinkles, but it seems to me to be the easiest program to set up and get running.  I had a trial of that Maxim DL for a bit .....  My reaction to that would be filtered out if I posted it.....

2 hours ago, swag72 said:

Horses for courses...... I would still spend over £3k on a KAF8300  

If I were buying a CCD camera for astro work today, I still think that there is very little to touch the KAF8300.  I am struggling to understand the antipathy.

21 hours ago, tomato said:

Thanks for the replies.

I do take the point about having all the required filters in a single wheel to avoid repeated changes.

...

 

Yes - that would be a deal-breaker for me, but if you get a 7 or larger position Moravian wheel, you won't need to do this.  And it is still only one power cable and one USB.  If you speak to Zoltan he will sort you out.  I do wonder if the website is misleading on this point because we almost declined the Moravian because we thought it only had a 5 position wheel.  

5 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

.....

And finally IC447, LRGB TEC 140. An eleven hour quickie!

 

Have you any idea how annoying that sentence is?  Eleven hours takes about a month where I am.  

The setting up and tearing down of telescopes, coupled with our 'unreliable' weather must be one of the most frustrating aspects of the hobby and my guess is that it is this that is a major factor in folks giving up.  I lost count of the number of times that I got to the end of a 40 minute set-up only to find the clouds had rolled in.  I got to the point that I would set up only when it looked like everything was going to be (near) perfect and the forecast was predicting a good few hours of clear skies.  As such, I missed a lot of good-but-not-(near)-perfect nights.  

I now have an observatory, but you do need space for these and they can be quite expensive.  My observatory has a 'permanent' rig set up in it, and I am very reluctant to tinker with that, but I do have other scopes, so I recently added a small pier out in the garden, next to the observatory, so that I could get quick set up and tear down of these scopes.  

The pier is cemented into the ground.  I have one of those AA Pier top adapters.  The idea is that I keep my CGEM mounted on the pier at all times.  That way I don't need to redo polar alignment each time.  Plus, so long as I return it to the Home position, I should be able to use the 'Last Alignment' feature, and not have to go through the tedious 'Star Alignment' routine.  I have one of those external barbecue covers to keep the rain, snow and wind out.  When I want to use it, I just connect the power, clamp a scope in the dovetail, and away I go.   I've only just built the pier, and have only been able to try it out once, but set up couldn't have taken more than 5 minutes and tear down was even less.  I will get round to putting tape markings on scopes and bars, so that I don't need to balance scopes every time.  

It seems to me that having the mount permanently set up is crucial.  Having the telescope outside all the time is less important.  There is, of course, the risk of things being damaged by the environment or some of the unsavoury souls who inhabit it.  But I'd rather take those risks and use the mount than having it sit under the stairs not being used at all.  

In summary - why not build a permanent pier.

21 minutes ago, kirkster501 said:

^^^^THIS

Nothing but trouble from my PC the other night.  Everything had been working perfectly during the nights before, capturing subs within five minutes of rolling the roof off.  Yet, Sunday night, IT (as in Information Technology) would not play ball and my camera would not connect to the PC no matter what I did. I had made no changes whatsoever to the rig beforehand.  Several reboots of the machine and it auto-magically started working, just like that.  By that time the clouds had rolled in.  Doh, AP in the UK.......

Been there .... done that..... You hadn't had one of those Windows 10 updates by any chance, had you?

Looking very good.

Have you any idea how much the new box will have cost you once it's all done?  Who needs a shed, eh?

Steve

That is looking very compact.  The rig seems to be poking up just a little high though - will your sliding roof definitely clear it?  Maybe its just the angle the photo was taken at.

9 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

.......

Now Springbank never did anybody any harm.*

Olly

*This is not a quotation from the BMA.

I've considered your symptoms carefully, and we may have to think about changing the pescription to 'Longrow' pro re nata - which is quack talk for 'as required'.

40 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

Humph, robotic focus. Any of you guys host five robotic scopes? I do, and I also host five fingers on each hand and they are not connected by USB....

lly

Jings Olly, you'll be railing against plate solving next.  I sense you must be running low on Springbank.  We'll have to see what we can do about that.

Jings I'd forgotten about M27 - and I commented on it too.  This age thing is no laughing matter.  Regarding parfocality - I would have thought that a modern chap like you would have everything robofocussed.  

Hi Steve

Your stars have the opposite issue to mine.  Mine formed a radial pattern around the image, whereas yours tend to point towards the centre.  Yours don't look nearly as bad as mine did (albeit with an 8300 chip).  Do you use the reducer?  If so, are you certain you have the spacing correct?  It is possible that most of these would 'stack out' and, as Olly says, you could use a rounding action for the few that remain if they bother you.   I have a PS action and could send it to you if you want it.  But it is very easy to make up your own.   (I have a slightly different action set up for small, medium and larger stars).  The other relevant point that Olly makes is that you are at f/3.9.  I get round stars all over with the flattener on my Esprit - but that is at f/7 which I guess is a much easier proposition.  

I'm probably too fussy and a pixel peeper and a whole load of other things (no doubt the wife could chip in with a few choice epithets).  

PS When are we going to see some images from that TEC?  I saw one at the Astro show in Warwick at the weekend and it looked all new, shiny and very tempting.  It's just as well I had the missus with me......

Regards

Steve   

Love the second photo.  So now we know what happens to all those Taks that get returned.

1 hour ago, ollypenrice said:

.... but I no longer recommend the Baby Q when asked because there are too many bad ones circulating....

So with the demise of the WO Star 71 (which had pretty poor QC in any case, it would seem), and a bar on Tak, what options are out there for the aspiring widefield imager wanting something a little better (or maybe a whole lot better) quality than an ED80?  By widefield, I mean it would need to be able to fit in M31 in a 'oner'.  

The Esprit 80 looks a good option, but it is on a fixed foot that, I am told, cannot be removed.  It is not clear, therefore, how you can get a guidescope on top of it, unless you are happy with a finderscope sitting in the standard Synta shoe (I'm not sure that I am).  

I feel a new thread coming on........  (You can tell the weather is rubbish in blighty at the moment can't you?)

Thank you Ray.  My issue was not flex in the focuser, however.

3 hours ago, kirkster501 said:

....

My results look pretty good I'd say?

 

Kirkster (I would have used Steve, but there's too many of us about on this thread), you have triggered some PTSD flashbacks with your post.  Aaaaaaargh.  OK - I'll bite......

I have looked at quite a few subs and completed images from these FSQs.  I have seen many that have star defects in the corners - many more than I  would have expected.  It seems that some folks find their corners acceptable whilst with others it bothers them quite a bit.  I guess that it is a personal thing, and who am I to rain on anyone's parade.  (For the avoidance of any doubt, my stars were outside of the limits of 'acceptable'.)  I do wonder about these Petzvals, though, I was attracted by the fact that I didn't have to bother with 'spacing'.  But with a triplet, a flattener (or a reducer) and the correct spacing (which I only have to do once) I get round stars in the corners, not 'acceptable' stars, or stars that I can "live with", or any other euphemism.  

Turning to your image, people who know they have odd corner stars will often say that these round out when stacked.  I don't know if you have posted a stack or a single sub.  The other thing I noticed is that the posted image is only 908 x 711 pixels.   I think your camera is around 2800 x 2200 pixels, so the posted image is significantly reduced and this would tend to mask any abnormality.  100% crops would be better ... BUT .... it doesn't really matter what I or anyone else thinks - the issue is are you happy with them?  If so, then why bother looking for issues? 

1 hour ago, steppenwolf said:

This is, of course, the frustration with both this brand and others - consistency! If you get a good'un then life is great if you get a duff'un then the dream is spoilt! Opticaly, the FSQ 85 may be tapping on the boundaries but clearly, it can perform well - as usual, I guess that this is a QA issue but one would have hoped that at this price level, top notch QA would be included in the price? I'm saddened that my dream 'scope didn't deliver on its promise but I'm always pleased to see the results of one that does.

I was prepared to accept some Q&A issues.  But at this price point I expect to have any issues properly addressed.  What was unacceptable to me was the attitude of the retailer and the importer/distributor.  If you read my story, you will remember that at one point the retailer (having seen my examples) was going to get me a replacement.  It was Tak Europe who said they would not do this.  I could buy a Tak from a different retailer - maybe they would have lobbied Tak Europe harder on my behalf.  But I am still at the mercy of the importer/distributor.  I will not buy another Tak for this reason - well certainly not a new one - no company can achieve 100% perfection and there is always the risk of problems of one sort or another. 

Let me expand.  I am no expert but the stars in your sample images are all heading off in different directions - that is they are radiating outwards from the centre (except perhaps in the bottom left corner).  To my mind, that cannot be 'Tilt' and it must point to an optical defect.  As such, I don't see how a new focuser is going to help.

My view is that if this expensive scope is not performing as you expected (and as Takahshi promised), you should return it.  

You are obviously going to buy one.  The mount is superb.  Don't forget this essential accessory for the portable Mesu user

Another very happy Mesu owner here.  My only concern about it for your situation is that I am not sure how "mobile" it can be - even in the two section form.  It is a substantial piece of kit.  Of course set-up/tear-down can be done and, as we have heard, there are people doing it.  It might be a good idea to try to see one in the flesh so that you know what you are letting yourself in for.  (The same goes for an EQ8 of course).  If I was looking for a mobile set up, I think I would be considering one of the Avalon mounts, but I have no idea how suitable these are for use with large Newtonians.

4 hours ago, Jessun said:

Three OK too?

/Jesper

 

We have a winner!!!!