alacant

Hi. Install ascom and eqascom; you need this serial cable. The mount will then appear as eq5/6 in PHD2. HTH

Hi Get a refund. But first... ...go along to an astro club gathering and have a look through some telescopes. I was very disappointed at what I saw through any telescope, including one that was 300mm diameter; my binoculars gave clearer views. Unfortunately during a visit I made, one couple was into astronomical photography and -far worse- showed me a sample of the images they produced. I'm surprised fellow forumeers haven't yet warned you about what that means! Cheers, clear skies and good luck with whatever you decide to do.

LOL, yeah. They'd have to be with me in charge! But TBH, without the wide dovetail plate, aluminium box section and OAG, it's just like any other mass produced Chinese stuff. Out of the box with a guidescope, I doubt you'd get stars like that. Cheers and clear skies

Good question. Usually I think, yes. They are closer to the problems beginners face and explain them in terms that they can understand; no acronyms, no jargon, no get-another-camera etc. Cheers

Hi I did once place a post in imaging: deep sky but the help here is better and far less likely to descend into a discussion on which telescope, mount or camera to buy next! Cheers and clear skies

Hi evryone We've a cute little 6" for the weekend. Not much to look at but with a collimation tweak and a bit of anti tube flex ointment, it's looking good. Not sure about the stars. Once again the blue stars just aren't there. Can't believe there aren't any! Cheers and thanks for looking, eos700d 1 1/2 hours @ ISO800

Hi I think it more accurate to use a Cheshire sight tube with cross hairs (CST) for (all of the) collimation, but essential for the position of the secondary. Once the latter is in place, leave it. You can then use your laser to tweak the primary mirror, although even then it's just as quick with the CST. FWIW, for our 8" f3.9, the CST is the only economical only way we've found to get consistency corner to corner over aps-c As always, never forget the collimation misunderstandings. Cheers and HTH

Hi How about correcting the coma in software? Anything which allows you to make masks will do and most astro processing software will have their own one-click version. That way, you avoid having to pass the light through glass, which always seems to introduce more aberrations. Cheers and HTH

Hi It's been a while (I switched the other way) but IIRC there's a shutter release option in (one of) the custom menu(s). Otherwise, yeah. Just get the histogram somewhere central by fiddling with the shutter speed in M. HTH

Excellent shot. A few more of those and you're onto a winner🙂 Cheers

Hi everyone In praise of the humble Newtonian Telescope without which we'd still be on night three of the same 100 exposure target! A decent frame filling experience for a change. We managed five targets over the weekend. Perfection, no. Fun, yes;) The usual doubts over colour, but at least with galaxies you stand a chance; there's a refreshing lack of false colour efforts. We saw some red, yellow and blue so we unashamedly copied attempted to match. But do tell us otherwise... Thanks for looking and wishing you clear skies. canon eos700d: 2-1/2 hours @ ISO800

Hi. Sure. Put an eyepiece 0.5x reducer on the sensor end of the 174. You'll need to stick it well into the camera but try it first on the existing thread. You may just be lucky. Otherwise you'll need your local model steam engine engineer to turn it down for you. After which don't forget to half the focal length on any guide app you may use. HTH

Yeah, no problem. It just means that you'll be using only a fraction of the camera's capabilities. Good luck, but with a 174, you shouldn't need much:)

Hi. Normal. You've got the two cameras at the same focus on an object. It doesn't matter where the object is, it doesn't have to be far away but decide on one and get both cameras focused upon it. Forget the foreground whatever it is... What a nice problem to have! Assuming you need the T(hin) of the TOAG then something like a binned 120mm -where you could view full screen- would be more suitable. A whopping great 174 isn't necessary. BUT, if you have the back focus, you could move to an OAG with a larger prism that would cover the sensor. Cheers and HTH

Yes, but that's not a bad thing as it means DEC is guided constantly in one direction to counter the drift. Any closer to the pole however and I think you'd begin noticing banana stars; that would be the time to adjust polar alignment using alt-az drift. HTH and clear skies.

Hi. Nice shot. Hot pixels on the camera's sensor. You could use dark frames, dither between frames and stack using a clipping algorithm or -perhaps not the best- nail polar alignment. HTH

Hi Convert the 2000 CR2s to a format dss can read. The current favourite is dng. HTH

Hi. EKOS produces excellent previews here via its fits viewer. Could you post a screenshot of the preview and -a link to- the raw file? Check: camera set to RAW, M, B and ISO800, usb2 cable to usb2 socket direct. Cheers

Hi. asi178? The camera is covering only a small central area of the telescope's fov. You shouldn't need the coma corrector. Try without? Better stars, fewer aberrations. Cheers and HTH

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Try running APT as administrator. astrometry.net is a Linux tool. ansvr is a version which runs on windows. It was installed when you installed ps2 and asps from APT. Unless you reverse the damage bitdefender did, it will not run.

From the link I sent: Confirm that ansvr is running by opening the Ansvr Settings item in the Windows Start menu

Hi. My sadly waning command of English. Sorry. It's taken with a reflector but because we had only a 2 element cc, it has made refractor like halos around some stars. Cheers

It's most likely still there. bitdefender decided to kill it. That's all.

Hi. JTOL... Remove the SD card. Take both light and flat frames as fits files and store on the client. Don't forget the indi control panel: options > force bulb > off press the shutter partially in Av then back to M. Use usb2 sockets and cables. Still no go? How about the fits viewer histogram tool? Get it central and shoot. HTH