gorann

Aha!

PS. I like that you showed all three versions. I have no preference and I like to see the diversity.

Amazing images indeed, and you found an object that I bet very few of us have seen before, certainly not me. Congratulations to a very good capture and excellent processing Rodd! Olly @ollypenrice: is this one in the expensive book set you just talked me into ordering?

Yes, it is very easy in PS, but I meant the latter - a few sliders at the bottom of the image to make everyone happy, including the French😁

Thanks a lot Olly! I am not French so I may just keep the colours as they are - I also have a weakness for saturation. I wish we could make images with saturation and brightness sliders.........

I just ordered the full four volume set from FLO so I have to make space. I take for granted they are as good as you say🍻

I have an EQ8, bought it new in 2016 and put it on a pier in my obsy. By wiggling the Dec axis I could feel a noticible backlash but was initially afraid to do anything about it. However, after a year or so I found enough courage to adjust it using the manual from Orion (attached here). After that I could at least not feel any backlash. Still, I was never really happy with the guiding curves, at least on some nights and I evetually ended up buying a Mesu 200. However, since I then also had nights with poor guiding I finally realized that there was nothing wrong with my mounts - it was the sky that was playing up. So to be fair to the EQ8 I built myself a second obsy this summer where it now resides lifting 40 kg of Meade 14"ACF. On good nights I get 0.4"/pixel (RMS) guiding with it (ZWO OAG with Lodestar X2), so EQ8 and I are good friends now. EQ8 Dec backlash adjust.pdf

Thanks Simmo, much appreciated!

Really good suggestion - I like that they are organized by constellation. I should try to find place in the book shelf for them!

Thanks a lot Martin! - I aimed deep and dark

Thanks a lot Carole!

Reprossesed the image to emphasize all the dark nebulosity floating around

Impressive Billy & Olly! I once processed Liverpool Telescope data of that galaxy and there is indeed a lot of blue in the arms that may be young star formation. Your image from a 8.6 kg scope is not very far behind that from a 1.25 tonne mirror! https://www.astrobin.com/294571/D/

As soon as it clears, which may not be soon, I will start experimenting, starting at 52.9 cm. As far as I know this is only one of two reducers that will work on Esprit 150 (the other one being the Riccardi) so it could be useful for others to hear of the best distance.

Sorry for getting late back into my thread that apparently got a life of its own😉. I assume we all are or have been fighting this spacing issue quite a few times. I have to say that the dedicated SW flatteners for my two Esprits have worked perfectly at the distances given, but that TS reduser provides a challenge. So, Adam, you are my hope in the astrodarkness (if it arrives - only clouds now), and I will try 52.9 mm, or as close to that as possible. By the way, I, and Wim @wimvb, and my mathematically talented wife, all tried to make a curve fit to that TS table and were all a bit uncertain about the result.

Yes, going from 54.3 to 55 mm made it worse. I start at 53 nest time, if it ever clears....

Spent a few more hours of processing. I think the red and the brightness are a bit better now.

Thanks Vlad, if not even you know a shortcut without experimenting, then I will not feel too much of a fool experimenting! I will start ith 53 mm next time and see what that looks like.

Interesting thread that shows I am not alone with my problem (and I kind of knew that). I was just too optimistic thinking I would not have to waste precious imaging time next time it clears on checking corner stars but I will obviously have to..... I did email TS and ask for the correct distance for their reducer and my Esprit 150 (which they also sell) and their answer was that I need to try it out myself.

Thanks a lot for the comment and inspiration!

Thanks a lot. much appreciated!

I got inspired by the recent post and image by @don4l of this rather rarely imaged nebula, not far from The North American Nebula. So when it finally cleared on Sunday night I pointed my double Esprit rig on it. I had the ASI071 with a 0.79x 3" TS reducer sitting on the Esprit 150 to collect RGB and the ASI1600MM with a 3.5 nm Baader Ha filter sitting on the Esprit 100 (both on Mesu 200), I managed to collect 25 x 10 min with each scope before clouds moved in at midnight. So totally 8.3 hours of HaRGB. Ha added to the red channel (blend Lighten in PS) and also used as Lum. I needed Ha as Lum since I have still not got the right reducer distance figured out so I had long stars in the corners in the RGB image and I had to use Ha to get the star shapes relatively OK (I just posted a thread on that problem). Not enough FOV to catch the whole nebula, which is large, so I aimed at the center. Any comments and suggestions most welcome! Cheers Göran

I have attached a TS 3" 0,79 reducer (TSRED379) to my Esprit 150 and I am trying to get the right distance to the chip of my ASI071. TS gives a table but it stops at a FL >800 mm where the distance should be 55 mm. For shorter FLs the distances are longer (see attached table). Since the Esprit 150 has a FL of 1050 mm, I first tried a slighty shorter distance: 54.3 mm. That gave me noticible (but not terrible) elongated stars in the four corners, drawn out in the direction of the corners (so tangental astigmatism) - first image below shows top right corner. I was then told by @wimvb that this showed that I should increase the distance so on Sunday night I tried 55 mm. The result was rather terrible tangental astigmantism - second image below shows top right corner (unfortunately I did not check the images carefully until next morning) There is a 2013 thread on SGL saying that if a flattener gives tangental astigmatism the distance should be increased (like I Wim suggested and I did) but apparently it made my case worse: And here is a very telling image from that thread: But the advice in the SGL thread was given for a flattener. Could it be that with my reducer (rather flattener and reducer) I should instead shorten the distance when I get tangental astigmatism? Are flatteners and reducers different in this respect? Would be nice with some expert advice: maybe @vlaiv ? Top right corner with 54.3 mm distance: Top right corner with 55.0 mm distance

I have got an Esprit 100 and I am very happy with it in every respect - cannot think of a better choise. With regard to weight issues on your mount I would rather get an extra weight than moving the weights to the end of the bar. The bar on the HEQ5 is rather thin so it may flex a bit with weights at the end and there is also some momentum problems with it, but the good thing with a thin bar is that you can use cheap weight-lifting weights.

Yes, the very best of luck kirkster!