AbsolutelyN

Finally a clear night, and new moon too! Seems like early May since managed a full night imaging. Lost of firsts in this image, first image with my Esprit 80, also my first narrowband image and first time processing in Hubble palette. Taken with ZWO1600mm and the newer ZWO filters. Almost 4 hours of exposure - hope to add more exposure if the weather holds provides an opportunity. Any feedback most welcome. https://www.astrobin.com/413027/?nc=user

I've attached accessories to my Esprit 100 tube rings such as a dovetail plate with these bolts from FLO: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/dovetails-saddles-clamps/1-4-inch-socket-head-whitworth-bolts-x2-3-4-inch-long.html

I currently keep my AZEQ6 outside permanently. Originally I just used a cheap telescope cover which I already had but water somehow got into it and I ended up having to replace the motherboard. Current setup is a dew heater on low power wrapped around the mount head, then two rubble sacks held in place with bungy cord, then the cheap telescope cover again held down with bungy cord. It's been like this for a good 6 months now with no issues and it's never felt wet under the cover. I do plan adding another cover, perhaps a telegizmo to add another layer of protection before winter.

The moon peeking through vividly lit clouds at sunset. Canon 100-400ii with a7r3 last night.

One thing to bear in mind with Canon M cameras is that controlling the camera through apps such as Backyard EOS may be impossible. I believe Canon crippled these cameras in terms of their API support meaning they can't be remote controlled via a PC. Not sure if they changed this with latest versions or not but worth being aware of.

Lovely video - I always enjoy watching your time lapses and appreciate the hard work that must go into them. Good luck with the talk.

I've been reading up on this little scope and have seen quite a few issues with coma. Is the general verdict that this little scope isn't as good as was hyped? I'm looking for a widefield (ideally portable) scope for everything from full frame dslr to 1600mm and this seemed to fit the bill nicely. I'm guessing if you get a good one it's great but it's a risk regarding quality control. Perhaps a Canon 300f4, Z61 or Esprit 80 would be better?

Absolutely stunning image Alex. Is the 6d is modded in any way? As old as the 6d is I'm half tempted to pick one up for travel as seems more HA sensitive than my Sony a7r3.

Thanks for the info here. I must admit as nice as f/4.1 would be I think I'm currently leaning towards an Esprit 80 at f/5 rather than risking a very expensive reducer that could be tricky to get right and potentially unknown image circle size.

I’ve searched and searched and never seen this, thanks!

I've been wanting a reducer for the Esprit 100 for some time and was wondering if anyone here has had success with the Riccardi 0.75 reducer? I've been in touch with TS-Optics who have kindly produced a list of all the adaptors required to make it work with the zwo 1600 with correct spacing. It works out under £700 and that converts it to f/4.1 and about 412mm focal length. I'd be really interested to hear if anyone has done this and if so how sensitive the spacing is and how good the results. The other option is to simply get an Esprit 80 which is not vastly more expensive than going the reducer route, especially if I can source one second hand. Any thoughts welcome.

I've been considering getting a second imaging camera for wide field which would be piggybacked on my esprit 100 for use with with lenses between 35mm and 200mm focal length. I was planning on the 183mm as that would also be handy for extending the reach for the esprit for lets say galaxies. However I'm wondering how feasable it will be to connect everything and wondered if anyone knew how feasible this is. The setup would have 3 zwo asi cameras - a 1600mm, 224mc for guiding and lets say a 183mm. Each would be connected via a dedicated usb cable. Dithering I think would be ok as long as the piggyback scope is wide enough for it not to interfere. However asi cameras seem to have only two slots in sequence generator pro. asi(1) and asi(2). How would you connect the third camera? I was assuming the main camera on the scope would run in sequence generator pro with the guide scope on phd. Then a second instance of SGP would run the third camera and have no control of mount of guide scope. Is this possible? Any thought/advise appreciated.

Stunning!

This is a mix of the stars and starless images together, thanks for the idea Carol.

I wish they'd bring out a reducer for the Esprit range. I know there are other options but they look tricky to get right.

That's a great idea Carole. It was just a bit of an experiment to see how it's done but removing all the stars really degraded the image quality so adding some back could be an interesting option.

Thanks, the starless was done with starnet++ which is a little command line tool. Never used it or done starless before, will look up the methods you mentioned thanks. https://sourceforge.net/projects/starnet/

Still pretty low in the sky, this has been take over two, ever shorter nights. 44x 5min exposures for HA and an hour each for R, G and B. Esprit 100 with 1600mm. Out of interest I had a quick go at making it starless, not very high quality image but found the nebulosity amazing to see in isolation. https://www.astrobin.com/full/406898/0/?nc=user

Ah I see what you mean. I've never had issues with shutter vibrations as I use my 300 2.8 with a Sony A7R3 - no mirror so no vibrations.

Are you stopping your 135 down or using it wide open?

I was worried about filter sizes but this is with the 1.25" filters and EFW mini. I used low gain and vignetting was not even slightly a problem. I was at f/5.6 so perhaps that is too slow for filter size issues. I'm going to try my f/1.4 lens next to see how bad it is with 1.25" as that really should require 2" filters.

That's amazing, thanks so much for such detailed info! I'll have a good look at this, looks like quite a project to get up and running with steep learning curve. Brilliant setup!

Thanks, yes the 100-400ii is very sharp pretty much to edge of field on full frame and you are only using centre with a smaller chip. I used to have the 200 2.8, wish I'd held on to it now, very fine lens. I'm finding the issue is focusing though rather than guiding - this is just piggybacked on my esprit 100 with azeq6. Planning on trying a few of my wider lenses next.

This is my first attempt with the 1600mm pro and a Canon lens. It's taken with the 100-400mm mkII @ 100mm at f/5.6. About 8 hours exposure in total, moon was past first quarter during both nights, skies not very transparent and ngc7000 still relatively low in sky. Found it very hard to focus accurately - used bahtinov mask and stopped down slightly - but unlike scope could not automate focus as temp dropped. 45x Blue @2min 45x Green @ 2min 23x Red @ 2min 53x HA @ 5 min https://www.astrobin.com/405980/?nc=user

Stunning image and really interesting to see how you have mounted the lens. Do you know of any article which explains how to build such a rig? Specifically interested in how to build the belt focus system part, really struggling to find anything on such a setup. Many thanks.