Stub Mandrel

My Carl Zeiss Sonnar 135mm is super duper and give me pin-sharp stars compared to anything else I have managed so far.

This tells me I need to get my act together. My long abandoned weather station uses a gray code disk made by laser printing on OHP film. Must look at getting it all working again and adding a few more sensors (I have a humidity sensor or two that have spent the last few years inside their plastic bags.

Good luck Franco, you will need it!

You should make it a bit bigger, add bunks and let it out to the likes of us poor light-polluted folks!

I have to wonder, if you have 8 sensors lined up, doesn't the total cost get rather close to buying a mono camera?

and labradors...

Will and EQ3-2 tripod be enough...?

Fair point!

Or cut the studs off flush with the nuts ;-)

That means you are focused on the secondary mirror and its supports, not the sky. Rack the eyepiece in and the disc will get smaller, keep going until it gets as small as possible (for stars it should be virtually a pin point) and you should see stars appear all over the field of view.

I hardly dare add my images to the ones above!

My first year, lots to learn about how to get the best from my gear and processing. DSOs are definitely the hardest things to get right. Hope these prove its worth having a go at DSOs with an EQ3 mount, even if an EQ8 would have done better ;-)

2015 was my first year of 'proper' imaging, but the combination of a 150PL, x2 Barlow, Microsoft Lifecam and an IR filter helped me make a good start: Venus: Jupiter: Saturn: Uranus: Neptune (& Triton, just!) at the right angle of the triangle.

Thanks Goran, Yes, getting the colours right is tough, I won't clog this thread with more versions though. I'm thinking about a 130P-DS for the same reasons as your ES-80D.

I think it may have been my suggestion? M42 (with Bridge Camera) in May: M42, two DSLRs later in December:Improvement over the Saturn Season, same scope and webcam: And the improvement in Andromeda, same DSLR, via different lenses & scopes, over several sessions: None of my gear is expensive and only some of the bits & pieces are new, which I think proves that practice and getting to know your equipment and software are what counts when you are starting out. I know I can do MUCH better than this within the limits of my equipment, but I find that exciting and a challenge, not frustrating.

I think you need a sturdier mount for that scope ;-)

They may come in handy if Betelgeuse goes pop!

As I found out the hard/expensive way! Hang them high then drop them in a Leylandii, I say!

As Nautical chap my advice is, whatever you do, don't copy the roof of a Dawncraft ;-)

You do know that you need a temperature of 4 degrees and rising to use cement or lay concrete I hope (whichever side of Hadrian's wall you are).

t might be a challenge to get three zoom lenses all set to exactly the same f/l? Search out the PrinzGalaxy 400mmm f6.3 - lots on ebay, affordable and it might stop you inflating the cost of s/h 450Ds while I'm looking for one. This is what I've managed with mine:

The sensor chips will be capable of coping with the heat from a reflow oven that melts the solder (very quickly) A hot air gun might be less likely to melt the solder and require less waving around (although one is capable of melting solder).

That led me here: http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/diffraction-photography.htm the link has an interactive tool that lets you compare the airy disk for any given f-ratio with pixel size. It seems a scope's f-ratio is fundamentally more important than aperture for photography, though the link between f-ratio and magnification Quite a bit of food for thought, but it reinforces the rule of thumb for using shorter camera lenses to drop down a couple of stops from full aperture.

If you stop down a lens, does it effectively reduce the diameter, so you lose resolution. or does it just reduce the light level?