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JohnSadlerAstro

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Interests
    Aerospace, Aviation Gaming, RC Aviation, Electro Swing, Technology
  • Location
    Chippenham, Wiltshire

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  1. Hi everyone 🙂 My first attempt at processing with PixInsight, I have been quite relaxed with most of the processes there's probably still some room for improvement. M51, 4.5h of 120-180 sec subs @ ISO800. Eos 1000d, NEQ6 mount, autoguiding with asi120mm mini. I'm amazed by how many small galaxies are lurking in the background, there's a huge cluster underneath the bright star at the lower left. John
  2. That is absolutely incredible! I love the detail at all the brightness levels, from the really faint star clouds around the spiral arms right to the centre of the core....it looks like something from Hubble! With this as the L, i don't think a colour version can go particularly wrong, it will be interesting to see what extra detail colour can bring out. John
  3. Because I wasnt able to use the scope for several months, this happened rather badly to mine, there were lots of cobwebs so I ended up taking the back mirror cell off and pulling them all out. I'm not sure what the effects of spider droppings on the mirror could be though.... 😐 John
  4. I didn't sadly, while there was an dew shield for the 127 mac there was none to fit the 130pds. In the end I made one out of (you guessed it) cardboard and black paper. It has lasted for a couple of years already, and is showing no signs of falling apart. Just as good as the camping mats some owners use! John
  5. Hi, I don't have one of these myself (I bought the film and made a cardboard filter), but I have purchased an Astrozap dew shield which was listed for the 127mm Mak. Unfortunately it was around 1-2 cm too short, so I would advise you go for the 155-165 mm size which is recommended for a 130mm Newt. I think its the ring which holds the cross vanes in place which makes the Newt's diameter a lot larger than its actual mirror size. Hope this helps John
  6. I had exactly the same experience, the seeing was very varied but settled down occasionally to show really impressive granulation. The spots have shrunk to something really tiny, I couldn't find them visually but got them with the asi120. This is a 320x320 stack, 15% of 25k frames with 130PDS (650mm f). Im really pleased to have finally seen a sunspot, I was forgetting what they looked like, its been so long! John
  7. I find the collimation on my 130's secondary never seems to hold, as well. The number of times ive had to adjust it is really frustrating, especially as it always seems to end up a bit hit or miss as to whether I ever actually acheive anything like collimation! It's definitely worth pulling the primary down towards the back end of the tube though, the light spill is quite impressive if the mirrors all the way up. I use a couple of hats to keep the light out now. John
  8. Hi, First of all, thank you for all the advice and suggestions, I really appreciate it! I've been working through the suggestions: I made sure the drivers were the latest version, and updated the firmware. I also tried the ASCOM drivers, and set it to 8-bit. The issue almost went, I thought it was cured at first, but after leaving the camera running for around 5 mins it hung and would not restart, I had to make a couple of attempts to begin the looping again. The end result is: I decided to order a 120 mini as a guidecam replacement, I hope to continue to use the 120mc for lunar/planetary and possibly some livestacking. Thanks again for the advice, eliminating these causes helped me reach a decision I didnt want to make, but needed to! John
  9. Some really nice images above, this weather combined with the new moon is brilliant! My first image this year is more of a test to be honest, the guide-cam incompatibility was just too bad to do guiding. (replacement is ordered ) I decided to do a quick half hour unguided run, to get something out of the session, and to check that the tracking and DSLR are still in good order. I'm surprised by the lack of trailing, I didn't do drift alignment, just quickly used the polar scope. Stacked & Processed in APP, I converted to B&W because the background colour noise was too strong, and there wasn't much genuine colour signal in the galaxies due to the short integration. From looking at the stars, I suspect I need to do some collimation. It doesn't look anything bad, hopefully just the primary! 😐 49*40sec @ ISO 1600, EOS 1000D. 130P-DS on NEQ6, unguided. Thanks for looking John
  10. What version of windows are you running? From consultation with a few other imagers it seems that recent versions of Win 10 have caused the problems with this camera to get worse... Unfortunately the behaviour has continued, so I may need to get a replacement that PHD can work with properly. Im eyeing up the ASI120MM Mini, its been recommended as the solution to the 120MC's woeful compatability trouble. Apparently dropped/split frames and corrections are a very common issue with the 120MC. That has certainly been my experience, even when the camera was "working". Its odd because for some people there seems to be no issue whatsoever. 🤔 John
  11. Hi, I am attempting to get the setup ready for imaging tonight (first time in many months, so its a learning curve all over again!). Everything seems to be working well except the guidecam. I'm using an ASI120MC through a 50mm SW finderscope, its always been a little funny with PHD2, but today I'm having trouble even getting the image looping started. Once the looping begins, frames are very slow and irregular, and entirely stop if I take the cap off the finderscope. It isn't a connection speed or camera issue as far as I can tell, I just got over 26fps in SharpCap using the same image size etc. Drivers are all up to date (from the ZWO website). Is there anything that i can do to make PHD recognise the camera's photographic abilities and work properly with it? 🤔 John
  12. Im hoping to get the 130PDS out tonight on my NEQ6, its been at least 6 months since the setup was even assembled (university mostly to blame, but that's been called off now so i have no excuses ). Currently checking over everything, except for the USB hub it seems to be in good-ish shape so hopefully I can get some test images in! John
  13. Thats a shame. 😢 But its good that we know today rather than having really short notice. A big thank you to everyone who helped get it together, hopefully next year the weather will be a bit better. After saturdays rain we would need to go to mount everest to stay dry John
  14. Complete incompetence in setting up a tent! 😂 I'm probably going to arrive around 5ish, so it will be a race against darkness I fear. 😉 Is anyone going to bring a tractor to pull us out of the mud? John
  15. I'm wondering about bringing the NEQ6 and 130pds, although everyone's lights will probably dim when it slews! (perhaps thats a good thing, we are meant to keep lp to a minimum) John
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