JSeaman
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Posts posted by JSeaman
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I'm using an NEQ6 Pro with a 300PDS on and can do 10 minute sub so guess you have some other issues
That said I'm at the limits of the mount and I have been torn between EQ8 and CEM 120. I had settled on the 120 then found a bunch of people with ioptron issues. That said, it's easy enough to find a bunch of people that have issues with any astro equipment as it's a complicated set up at the best of times. Keep us posted on which way you go!
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I would say buy it and you won't regret it
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11 hours ago, Alien 13 said:
Very nice, confused as the Moon is there most nights..
Alan
Not sure if you know how the moon works?!
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Ed,
I use the 300 PDS with a filter wheel and no problems. I was in your position a few years ago and chose OSC (QHY8L at the time) and within a year I went for a mono set up and never looked back. It is night and day better than colour imaging and your first go at Ha will confirm this I'm absolutely sure!
James
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No problem, the issues are the usual in terms of any wind making things wobble and balancing such a big beast which is offset to fit in an observatory and has an ED80 hanging off it. My mount has DEC backlash issues which poses a challenge sometimes. The clutches can't lock this level of weight beyond normal operation i.e. if you bump the scope it will move. I get sub arc-second guiding most nights though on my fixed pier.
Note that I have a RoR observatory now rather than a dome so wind is still very much a factor despite being surrounded on 4 sides.
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I'm running a 300PDS 12" Newtonian on an NEQ6 Pro, I wouldn't say without issue but it works
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I have only had a play with the JPG quickly so you can definitely do more but this is with a bit of sharpening, a despeckle, convert to B&W to remove colour artefacts, shadows/highlights to bring out a bit more of the shadow, crop to suit
Stacking a bunch of short images can help even with the moon, assuming you are using a tripod then it shouldn't be vibration at those shutter speeds. Personally I would be keeping the ISO at 100 or 200 for noise control, you should be able to go up as high as f/11 with that normally.
The viewfinder image is smaller which always looks better, you can hopefully see that in the below:
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Well now I need to gather more data
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I can't say I had good experiences with QHY's products, 12 months is about right and that included the QHY8. I too am now on the ZWO ASI 1600 and can't recommend it enough
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I went dark with this one, the process was:
- DBE on each RGB layer
- MLT noise reduction on RGB
- Stretch RGB and L
- Combinatoin and Levels/Curves
- Starmask/light reduction (0.2)
- Selective colour on L
- Selective colour on RGB
- Combine and brightness/contrast
- Removed some green (curves then level offset) from the final image for a moody feel
- Finally some selective light blurring to remove any speckles- 1
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I tried my best to get what I could out of this one, I took LRGB last night and Ha this evening. It's about 8 hours total exposure and mainly 5 minute with 2x2 binning. First time in a while I've stayed up all night changing filters because the moon is on its way, this is my 65th attempt at processing it!!
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Thanks, was certainly more challenging than expected! I'm not sure more subs would have helped but do feel like better subs would have been easier to work with, one day I will have a Bortle <5 to play with!!
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I had the same dilemma as you with an ED80 on an NEQ6 Pro. I went for a ZWO ASI1600 (very highly recommended) and a 300PDS (very difficult but awesome if you can manage it)
This will help you look at FOVs:
https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/astronomy-field-view-calculator/
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I find it invaluable, and in fact, I don't think I could now image without it. Things I use are:
- I have 2 park positions configured, one to put the scope away and one to point at my flat panel
- Every night at the end of my session, EQMod's timer parks the scope for me
- CDC and EQMod let you do everything you need in terms of finding targets
- I can nudge the scope around while looking at an image on my PC (which is all remote from the observatory), variable slew rates in EQMod also help
- I have actually hooked up a game controller and that is a bit of fun and quite useful
- Limits can be set to prevent the mount smashing into things it shouldn't
- I can force meridian flips early in EQMod when a target is just the wrong side of the meridianI suppose it is in our nature to push the set up that we use but I have tried a few and settled on EQMod and CDC as a really good pair
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This is my second HaLRGB shot, M97 (the Owl Nebula), I find it really hard to make this look good
38xHa, 38xLum, 12xRed, 12xGreen, 12xBlue, all 300 seconds between 20th March and 6th April
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Thanks - such a good target isn't it?!
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Now with Ha ...
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Is a CEM70 enough?
in Discussions - Mounts
Posted
Yeah don't get me wrong it's right at the limit but with a RoR obervsatory I have a keep rate of about 80-90% so not too bad, I lose more to satellites than wind
Agree completely on the comment about good copies, I hope you find a good solution!