Cosmic Geoff

It depends what mount you are going to use it on, and whether said mount is permanently mounted on a pier, and whether the mount has built-in GPS.

In the case of a permanently mounted EQ-5 Synscan, and a CPC800 with GPS, I have not seen much point in attaching the Starsense.

But attached to a C8 SE it is quite useful as it allows the outfit to be carried outside and got going within minutes.  

The review video seems to be 90 mins of speculation. 

If you look up the size of an IMX533 sensor, this will give you the field stop size of the equivalent eyepiece.  Not very wide-field, I think.

I assume there is no optical see-through, just a magnified view of a small display screen.

Convenience apart, it remains to be seen what this device does that you could not do with an IMX533 chip camera, a laptop and Sharpcap.

I understood this part, Sony IMX533 Color CMOS sensor but otherwise am not sure how the thing works, or how much it costs.

On the smaller 102mm Startravel the dew shield just pulls off.

No idea, except that I stopped using my LiFePo Celestron powertank with my EQ-5 Synscan mount after it shut itself down a couple of times. Now I use a lead-acid car engine starter, which does not have that problem.

You do have to enter the location. if you read the Autoalign manual, it will tell you how.

12 hours ago, woldsman said:

OK so I tested an adapter for a household applicance plugged into the mains supplying 14v. Black probe in the pin and red probe on the side. The reading was -14. On the plug itself there is printed a minus in a circle, a C sign and a plus in a circle. So it is centre positive. Conclusion: the red probe goes in the pin and the black probe touches the side. That gives 14v the correct result. So the 12v battery pack and 9v step up lead are both center negative. 

You still appear a little confused by meter use. As a former electronics engineer, I find it hard to put myself in the position of someone who has no clue about electrics. However, your appliance PSU above appears to be centre positive.   If the meter indicates positive, then whatever the red lead is contacting is positive.  When testing such plugs, it will be less confusing if you always touch black to outer and red to pin, so that centre positive leads indicate (+) and centre negative leads (-).

If you have any round batteries (e.g. AA) lying around, test them with your meter.  The flat end is always negative, and the domed end positive.

No reason why you can't make a wedge, but why is it necessary?  It is implied here that the mount that came with the telescope is alt-azimuth (otherwise it would not need a wedge).  Many alt-azimuth mounts are not suitable for astrophotography even when placed on a wedge, so it would appear a better plan to buy an equatorial mount that is suited to astrophotography.

What are the telescope and mount in question?

A question. How do you intend to fit an ADC to a 200PDS, given the extra path introduced by the length of the ADC, and the limited focuser travel of the typical Newtonian?

42 minutes ago, PatrickO said:

I'm presently using a Celestron C6/8 mount, but it limits how near the zenith I can go.

What exactly is the problem here? I have the same mount, and it isn't limited in how near the zenith it will go. The qualifiers are that being an alt-azimuth mount it does not behave well at the zenith, and you have to set the OTA correctly in the dovetail (i.e. as far forward as it will go) and not have overlong trains of equipment attached to the visual back.  Note that there is a software limiter that can be set to determine how close the mount can approach to the zenith,

You need to tell us your budget. 

Swapping the C8 SE for the CPC800 will give you a sturdy GoTo mount that, with its built-in GPS, is quicker to align, once you have the outfit assembled and in position.  It is heavy, though...  Much better all-round than the C8 SE, asides from the weight.

Adding the Starsense Autoalign system to the C8 SE will make it quicker to setup. I have Starsense on my C8, forming a quick to deploy and align outfit I can carry outside in one piece. 

From a BBC magazine review: As a bonus, the mount has a port for a SynScan AZ handset, giving you the option to turn this into a full Go-To mount.

I don't think we have the full story here.  If you have an EQ-5 Synscan mount, why not just mount the heritage 90 on it instead of on the Virtuoso mount?

I have had error 17 with my SLT mount, which was caused by corrupt firmware and fixed by re-flashing the mount firmware. 

I have also read advice to the effect that mounts should not be powered via the ASIAIR.

2 hours ago, Space Manta Ray said:

It is in my "Igloo" dome observatory in the back yard.

The Starsense system depends on having a fairly unrestricted view of the sky, so I do not expect it to work well from inside a typical observatory dome.

Once you turn the system off, it is irrelevant whether you move the tripod or not. So far as I recall, it does not have a 'Park' and 'Resume from Park' as the Skywatcher EQ series mounts do.

There should be several screw locations on the OTA Mine has (looking from rear)

lower right - used to mount Starsense.

mid right - front and back points used to mount a custom accessory bar

upper right - red dot finder position - only used for initial alignment of the Starsense, or for 'solar system' alignment.  

I suggest you use the mid right or upper right positions to mount the DSLR (you may have to buy or make a suitable bracket).

Anyway, the SE mount is not really suited for imaging, either piggyback or through the telescope.

You will find it less frustrating to use a camera tracker mount for the DSLR, or invest in an imaging-capable mount like the AVX or HEQ5.

Can you clarify whether you have the Autoalign camera system or the smartphone software version?

Assuming it's the former, I would suggest that unplugging things while powered up is not a good idea, and what you need to do is to provide mountings for Starsense and DSLR simultaneously.  You might have trouble getting the Starsense off without causing the vertical alignment to slip. (On my outfit, the Starsense camera is mounted below and to the right of the OTA, looking from the rear.)

Anyway, the C8 SE is not a great mount for astrophotography. 

Welcome to the Stargazers Lounge.

My first thought on shopping for a GoTo scope several years ago was maybe I could control it and view from indoors.  Several years of owning GoTo scopes later I still have not managed this.  It can be done, but... there are various technical obstacles that make it not as easy as you might think.  If you reply, I could explain in more detail.

I found that surpassing the Seestar images using my other kit was not as easy as the 'experts' seem to suggest. I never wanted to go down the route of buying expensive deep-sky kit, figuring out how to make it work, and spending hours processing the result. 

The Seestar was exactly the device I was waiting for.

A couple of years ago I acquired a DSLR body with the aim of trying out imaging with it. But it just seemed too much of a bother. Even when I bought a lens for it, lugging this big thing around for general photography just made me feel conspicuous. A Smartphone proved a much more practical camera for daily use.

I agree that if you want to produce amazing high-resolution images, the more traditional non-Seestar route is the way to go.

I looked up the Inspire 100 AZ and was surprised to find it was an entry level achromatic telescope (I had assumed it was an expensive APO).

Nothing wrong with putting it on an EQ-6R Pro if that's what you want to do. But I have the somewhat similar 102mm f5 Startravel achromat, which I use for EVAA imaging. It is mounted on a EQ-5 Pro Synscan mount, which works just fine with it.  I even had to buy a lighter counterweight.

There is talk of what ZWO might produce after the Seestar. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if one wanted a 4" Seestar, one could put one together right now with the following shopping list:

ZWO camera, ASIAIR Mini, ZWO eaf, ZWO EFW,  UV/IR cut filter, dual band filter,  full aperture solar filter, 4" ED scope,  equatorial GoTo mount. The total comes to about £2600.

Ouch. But cheaper than an EVoscope or the Celestron.  And you could change components to suit your preferences. 

I doubt that there is any "best camera" and new models are constantly being introduced.   Newer ones have smaller pixels so you don't  have to use a Barlow lens or Powermate to match the camera to the SCT's focal length.  I started with a ASI120MC which worked quite well, then an ASI224MC, then an ASI462MC.  Somebody pointed out the ASI715MC to a SCT user asking a similar question.

For what it's worth, I bought the Celestron Omni 2x Barlow lens to use for planetary imaging with an 8" SCT and a ASI 224MC camera. 
I never got results that were better resolved than without the Barlow, or any better than a kit Barlow lens.  I think the seeing might have been the main problem.

I later switched to an ASI462MC which with its smaller pixels is a better match for the SCT (without Barlow).  

You definitely need an Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector when the planets are at low altitude, like Saturn at its most recent apparition.

If you want to image small galaxies with the C8 (not a trivial task) you will need a mount like the HEQ5, the EQ6, or maybe the Celestron AVX.

Plus an autoguider or off-axis guider (one of those things that attach into the optical path). 

7 hours ago, fintwin2 said:

As a bonus question, I have a white light filter (Thousand Oaks) for solar viewing but really would love to get into H Alpha as I would love to see prominences and such. I think it would be cool to get the zoom of the 8SE with an H Alpha but I am having trouble finding anything about it or if it is even possible/recommended. I am guessing its quite expensive and intensive to do as I am supposing it would need a filter or mirror adjustment due to looking at the sun as well as the H Alpha eye piece to do any sun viewing. If that isn't feasible, or just to costly/intensive, what would be a good Solar scope to see Prominences

I am not familiar with this particular kit, but you need a full aperture filter for white light viewing, and take care not to melt the scope or your eyeball. For H-alpha you'd need a dedicated scope like a Lunt, and they are expensive.  There may be energy reducing filters and H-alpha filters you can stick on a C8, but again they will be expensive.

I did manage to get some planetary images with my C8 SE.

Or you could buy a Seestar S50 and see where you want to go from there.

I originally bought the Seestar S50 on the assumption that I would use it about twice a year on hassle-free visits to dark skies sites, and it was worth it just for that. In fact I have had it for six months and used it more than any of my other outfits, and imaged nebulae I never thought I would be able to image.

To me, the proposition that one shouldn't buy one because an outfit costing four times as much (+ hours of processing time) will give better results is ridiculous.

The back focus (with the Celestron f6.3 reducer) is not that critical.  It's about 10 cm, which you can achieve, for instance, by fitting the camera on the end of the standard 1.25" diagonal. Or, if you have a mount with suitable clearance, fit the camera at the outer end of a flip mirror assembly or straight-thru extension tube.

1 hour ago, Lung said:

Is the accessory L bracket that it came with not a viable solution then? Does moving the mount from the side to the bottom mess up the coordinate system or something?

It seems an insecure means of mounting the OTA.   I have never heard of anyone mounting an OTA that way.