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jimbo747

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Everything posted by jimbo747

  1. I've just bought that exact lens for £40 off ebay, yet to try it out but that image is fantastic! I'll be using mine with a cheapo SLT mount and inferior 1300d (which I'll be modding) but 30s at that focal length should be do-able. I've seen a few posts where shooting at f/4 isn't that great and you don't like the resulting stars (I love diffraction spikes personally ). Was there much CA to deal with in processing?
  2. Superb. Wouldn't look out of place on the 'proper' imaging forum. Give it a few years and I really think cameras will be sensitive enough to mean an EQ mount isn't required.
  3. How did you connect the camera to the lens, and then the whole assembly to the scope? (Sorry to go OT, I used to attach my DSLR using rings to my 127slt but it's too heavy for the mount.
  4. Apologies to anyone in Derbyshire. Since my starsense arrived 2 weeks ago there hasn't been a single clear night, it's still on the box in fact. I'm off out Friday, so of course it's forecast to be crystal
  5. Can't get behind the scope to align by sight, need to use a combination of the dSLR to find a bright star, finder scope with webcam to get closer and then with APT and sharpcap try and get a star bang in the middle of the 224mc tp get goto spot on- not easy to do with a 2.5 Barlow on a slow scope when the 224mc, ps3 eye cam and 1100d don't exactly line up. Decided to do what i normally do when i have a problem, chuck money at it. Got a starsense and Bluetooth serial adapter arriving Monday, just in time for a fortnight of cloud. (They both on Amazon which swung it for me and massively cheaper than elsewhere, there's one starsense left in stock now @£269). Probably have to get skysafari now.
  6. Seething. Raging even. Last night I decided to properly sort my scope out, focused the mak with barlow and 224mc ready for some jupiter shots, attached the IR and UV cut to my 1100d, perfect focus at 10-12 degrees, spot on alightment, set scope to park, connected via my remote intel nuc in my mini observatory ready for tonight. Moon looks good, jupiter now above houses, will see orion, lovely calm night, best one this year. Turn on mount, get laptop and a glass of wine and boot up teamviewer... no connection. Try another laptop and same... Just read as of 10 minutes ago teamviewer down for 8 hours of maintenance!!! Just my nonefamilyfriendlyword-ing luck!!! Remote desktop not setup. None of the software setup on my laptop and I'd have to do another alignment which is a pain to do without line of sight (took an hour last night). I just wanted to use the 224mc and modified dslr for the first time, and the Gods are laughing at me. If something happens tomorrow night, theres a free keter max storage box, raspberry pi with linear actuator, SLT mount, 127 mak, 1100d, asi 224mc, intel NUC and a load of filters, web cameras and storage cases available for collection from derbyshire FOC.
  7. Well if you happen to find out, please let me know (mines a SLT mount but imagine should work the same). Don't know whether to get the wireless adapter instead, or both... Stellarium no longer playing with my mount so it's sat outside unused for 6 months. Cheers James
  8. With starsense can you control the scope remotely still like with pc stellarium or mobile app?
  9. Don't blame you, you've pushed the envelope with alt az imaging as much as anyone, your processing is pretty damn good so you're limited by the quality of the data now. Improving the mount is the next logical step. I will pull my finger out one day and finally setup and use the equipment I've spent hundreds on and join in (still not taken a single image with it, its just sat there outside!), would love to get something half as good as what you've achieved.
  10. This site doesn't work properly on my mobile. Every time I reply it tries to include a quote from parallaxer! Anyway Filro, version 2 is spectacular. Short of full on observatories with camera rotators I doubt anyone has made better images on an alt az mount. I need to pull my finger out, remotely opened my observatory to use at night for the first time yesterday, went to get kids to bed. Came downstairs and had no stars on my finder guider or 224mc on laptop. webcam showed clear sky. I know mak was in rough focus and finder never loses focus, just wanted to align then I'll remotely alter focus on mak after. Reinstalled sharp cap, rebooted remote PC, installed drivers, still nowt. Sharp cap showing frames being sent. Went outside to give it a right kicking. I only went and left the friggin solar filters on from last week... proper head in hands moment. Didn't bother setting up so went to bed in a sulk, need to put my DSLR on anyway. Have bought some hosepipe rings as can't find telescope rings for a 127mak, will bodge it this weekend and then join the fun!
  11. Agree. I think that image proves beyond all doubt you no longer need an eq mount. The Ollie's of this world are now dinosaurs. Small caveat being you need a hell of a camera!
  12. Yup. Was really clear at about 7.00-8.00. BBC showed clear skys all night. Opened observatory lid a few hours ago, and just went to check focus on moon/align and its cloudy... Thankfully in an observatory, I'd be in a huge sulk right now if I had to go and fetch my scope in after all the palava I used to have setting it up. Might take this as a chance to try the hibernation feature. Saturday night might be the next chance. Will probably put my solar filters on seeing evening times are a write off at the moment! Edit - Hibernation works! Why didn't I know about this before!?! For some reason I just assumed only fancy pants EQ mounts had it!
  13. Think I need one. Focusing at a focal length of 15 in the cold with laptop in one hand, knob in the other isn't easy. Only on SGL could you get away with that sentence...
  14. 1s exposures. I've got my mak and guide scope setup. Annoyingly I still can't get nexremote to launch with a virtual port - just crashes so can't use stellarium. Focused it earlier this evening, logged in to team viewer just now and may need to adjust focus on the mak before using it in anger. I've got the 224mc connected to the mak, may add my focal reducer to it while I'm at it. Moon disappearing soon, forecast clear, can't wait. No doubt something will go wrong... Edit - jesus I'm a slow typer, about 10 posts appeared!
  15. at 1600mm FL I personally wouldn't bother with a DSLR - thats even assuming you can achieve focus without modifying the scope or changing focuser, you're limited to very short exposures, a few seconds at best before trailing ruins the image (the dslr has tiny pixels) and you'll need thousands of images and if its anything like my canon 1100 it'll be noisy. By all means get one and do some wide field shots but I don't think sticking it on a manually tracked dob will get you the images you're hoping for. There are some images around with someone using a huge dob and 1 second exposures using a low noise camera like a asi 224mc which look amazing, and it'll be perfect for planetary, lunar and solar imaging too.
  16. If I was in to conspiracy theories I'd say the reason why SGL doesn't want to promote alt az imaging is that the equipment used is generally cheap, and this site is sponsored by FLO. If users found that they could achieve quality images using a £80 SLT mount and a £90 DSLR then less people would be prepared to splash thousands on mounts, guide cameras, filter wheels etc. But I'm not, so I won't say that
  17. One quick question, I've seen some spectacular images done with 1 second subs on a huge fast scope with the 224mc. How long an exposure would I need on my f/13 5" maksutov to be equivalent to say a 14" f/5 scope at 1 second exposure (ie same amount of photons captured on the target area)? Is there a formula?
  18. A separate section would be superb, even its just for the gallery and techniques. I've now finished building my budget remote controlled alt az observatory, got my full spec modded DSLR ready - intending on piggy backing on a mak with asi 224mc (and maybe a FR), just waiting for clear skies which looking at BBC maybe a few weeks. Not had chance to try 'first light', unless you count cloud, but I'm hoping to contribute a fair bit. My processing skills are limited so I'll be sharing my raw stack too.
  19. I also make sure to take up any slack when aligning, I center on a star, press enter, then adjust the controls to make sure the gears just start ticking before pressing 'align' - if in the east the mount tracks right so I use a bit of left last. Doing that means I get objects like Jupiter bang on center even with a 2x barlow on my 127 mak. I also only ever use 3 star alignment, partly because the 3rd star is used to calculate angles of the previous 2, and also because I have no idea what stars I'm looking at unless I have my phone and skymap in front of me.
  20. Thats a cracking image, love the colour! My mini observatory is pretty much setup now (although not yet attached the linear actuators and raspberry pi), was hoping to do a few test shots tonight but little one woke up. Not sure what combo to go for, can use the full spec modded 1100d and with 50mm or a zoom lens, attach to the mak or the 70mm travelscope, or try out my new asi 224mc with either a ef lens adapter or attached to the travelscope or mak with a reducer... Quite interested to see what the 224mc can achieve at native focal length of the mak and 5s-10s images over 4 or 5 hours.
  21. Now that was worth waiting for! Superb! You should post that in the imaging forum and ask people to guess the mount used.
  22. Excellent set of images there Admiral! You wouldn't be disappointed if they came from a heq5 or something!
  23. Superb last set of images! I'm moved in now so will get my scope setup soon. Apologies for the incoming bad weather over next few weeks, ordered an asi 224mc last night.
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