MARS1960

Focus looks ok to me, have you tried using a bhatinov mask?

An excellent first attempt. 

I must try this myself soon.

I have an ED80 with a rubbish focuser.

So i spotted a Baader and reviews were great.

Being an impatient guy and with a few clear nights forecast i decided to take the plunge.

I rang 365Astronomy and asked the guy (not Zoltan) if they had the 2" BDS for refractors in stock and if they did express delivery, he said yes but let me check stock first, 5mins later he came back with good news, yes to both my questions,this was about 11.30am.

I then said can i do it over the phone or should i use the website? he said website please.

Phone down and item ordered, came to pay by paypal and page pops up saying something like "cannot complete sending you back to 365Astronomy, aargh.

Tried again, same thing, third time clicked pay by card and at end still offered paypal so clicked and all went through, so did the other two payments.

I immediately rang and was passed to Zoltan, he seemed to know there was an issue and said he would refund two of the payments.

Great, all is good, next day, checked paypal, no refunds, checked email, no confirmation email and no dispatch email

Rang again, spoke to Zoltan, sorry, sorry and sorry, money refunded within half hour, promised order by next day.

Next day comes and nice man delivers box, open it up and find that it doesn't fit my ED80  

Rang again and spoke to man (not Zoltan) asked first why he didn't dispatch my promised order, i was brusquely told i don't do orders only emails ?.

Got put through to Zoltan who apologised.

I then told him it doesn't fit my scope, he said and i quote "there are hundreds of refractors" i said "in that case why wasn't i asked what refractor i had as it may not fit", he said and i quote, "you should have told us",  as you might imagine i'm now more than a little frustrated, i eventually get fed up listening to him try to shift the blame on to me and told him were to go.

I now have to send the item back at a cost of £11.00 for insured special delivery, i am utterly flabbergasted by the response i got from Zoltan and his colleague.

I know where i wont be shopping in the future, this is by a million miles the worst customer service i have ever had the displeasure of receiving.

This is a wholly honest review of exactly what happened to me when purchasing from 365Astronomy, I know the "customer is not always right", but, the customer in this case was certainly not the one in the wrong, i feel utterly sick about the way i have been made to feel regarding this whole scenario.

Cracking set, i particularly love the first one, it is stunning.

What settings did you use? Can you upload an image?

On 27/11/2011 at 12:11, Mr Spock said:

I still want the title 'Science Officer', but I'm not going to get it

And i thought Mr Spock knew everything .

I don't know of a solution but the first thing i would do is to install it to a different directory and see if that works.

IMO PI is worth every penny if you are serious about imaging DSO's.

Very nice Gina, i look forward to seeing some images taken with it.

You could use a DSLR and Backyard EOS which you can trial free for 30 days, or just use a DSLR and Canons EOS Utility app.

Modern astronomy do and adaptor specifically for this job.

Also you may find this helpful.
https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/71628-diy-50mm-guidescope/

For mac os,  lynkeos is for planetary video stacking, very similar to registax, for DSO's you can stack in PS.

Welcome to SGL Dave.

If that's what you have already decided on you could start by enjoying it with what comes with it and add bits as and when you choose, get a feel for what it can offer in stock form first basically.

During this time you could do what i did and become a sponge for knowledge from people with no agenda's.

Apart from the great help and advice on here, youtube can also be very helpful in showing you what will do what.

14 minutes ago, patricmooriamnot said:

Thanks for you reply Peter, I will try taking much longer videos and see how that goes. I still can`t get my head around the stacking bit I have downloaded deep sky stacker so will have to just practice using it. Dark skies. 

It's exposures you need for DSO's Phil, save the video for lunar/planetary.

You and me both. Iv'e had 4-5 attempts on M42 and still come away with nothing.

Darks are easy, after you have taken your lights just put the lens cap on and take a few shots using the same settings, i have been taking around 10% darks to lights.

Are you taking long enough exposures? and enough of them.

Yipeeeeeeee, excellent thank you Jonk, all is good in the world again, now we just need these damn clouds to disappear

Some adaptors only work if you connect via the scope's handset in 'pc direct mode' rather than directly (in the case of skywatcher mounts, not sure about others) - have you tried this?

I'll give it a shot in a bit thanks Jonk, it's worth a try.

Alternatively get a FTDI chipset serial adapter - these should work with later versions of Windows

Sent from my SM-G900F using Xparent Skyblue Tapatalk 2

I may have to but this one really should work now it's had the driver downgrade as it is recognising the port (tested on another device) but not detectting the scope, i must really be missing something simple but i think my brain is fried now

Windows will automatically try & use the latest driver installed on your system, which if it is a Proiific device, the latest driver won't work, you need to install and use Version 3.2.

It Is available, but needs to be searched for, but beware the dodgy download sites

yes the simulator works fine and i used these instructions to make sure i picked the correct driver. So even more stumped as whi it wont detect my scope, i must be doing something fudamentally wrong.

Simply install drivers, then go to Device Manager -> Right click on Prolific-to-Serial Comm Port and select Update Driver Software….

In Update Driver Software window chose: Browse my computer for driver software -> Let mi pick from list of devices on my computer, Select Prolific USB-to_Serial Comm Port version 3.3.2.105 model [10/27/2008] from model list and click next.

Did the 2008 driver install and thought all was good but, OMG, error, connect to COM4 failed, no celestron scope detected, i give in, this is driving me crazy.

Sounds likely you have a 'Prolific' chipset adaptor - they decided to pull support for their old devices in Windows 8 (unforgivable in my opinion). You have to download and older version of the drivers and install those to make it work.

http://superuser.com/questions/544485/this-device-cannot-start-code-10-gigaware-usb-serial-adapter

Robin

Thank you very much Robin, i'll try it now.

Thanks also Jonk, i'll let you know.

Port 4 so i added that to ASCOM profile.

I have tried both my laptops as i use one for indoor and the other for outside.

I think i may just buy another cable and adaptor, the one i bought from RVO is an awful plastic bit of junk and only has a 4 pin RJ-12 and not 6.

Does your PC have a real COM (serial) port, or are you using a USB<->Serial adaptor? If you are plugging into a USB port on the computer then it's definitely the latter. Anyway, if it's a USB<->Serial adaptor check that the drivers are installed - sounds like Windows isn't finding your serial port at all, and until you fix that no amount of tinkering in ASCOM is going to help.

cheers,

Robin

Hi Robin, i'm using an adaptor from RVO to plug into one of my USB ports, when i checked my device manager i did click on the box for updates, after a few seconds it said "drivers for this device are already up to date". However it does say in the box which i do not understand:

This device cannot start. (Code 10)

A device which does not exist was specified.

Ok thanks, i have found after more searching i can force a COMport using ASCOM profile.

I did all this and named them according to my device manager as COM1, COM2, COM3, etc, tried again and they now show up but once again i click connect and this time a get a box saying Error: the port COM1 does not exist!!!!!!!, what am i doing wrong?

Force a COM port to appear in the list of available COM ports.

Occasionally, an installed COM port may not be detected by the Platform's GetAvailableCOMPorts command. You can confirm this through the Diagnostics Tool Tools / Available COM Ports test. To force a known COM port to appear in the list, its name should can be placed in the the ASCOM Profile ForceCOMPorts key using Profile Explorer.

1. Start Profile Explorer
2. Click the + next to COMPortSettings
3. Click on the ForceCOMPorts key
4. Click in the Value column cell next to the grey * at the bottom of the value/data pane.
5. Type the name of the COM port and press ENTER
6. Repeat for any other COM ports required(See Figure 3)

Hi all,

I hope this is simple fix.

I have the ascom platform 6, i have the drivers, i have the celstron drivers, i have cartes de ciel.

Everytime i connect up, open CDC i click telescope, control panel, select and click on ASCOM celestron telescope then click connect.

I then get a box saying ascom tescope chooser, i pick celestron click properties but it wont let me put anything in the com port number so when i go back and click connect i keep getting a box saying: Error, the port name cannot be empty, but it wont let me type the port number in the com port box when i hit properties in the configure box, this is frustrating as its actually the only thing ASCOM really needs, i'm lost, please help.

Thanks.