alacant

It defaults to 9600. You can change the rate in the indi control panel. There's also a drop down on the initial ekos window, but I've not needed to do so for my -albeit old rusty- eq6. Cheers

One other thought. Check that the mount limits are set to something sensible.

Hi You can test it in daylight. It doesn't matter where the mount is pointing. Plug in your spare eqdir cable and choose a star near the home position.

Is the mount un-parked? Send the log if you still have trouble. Cheers

Hi everyone Just my quarterly bump to keep the thread alive and enquire about any new converts. Have lock-down restrictions given anyone the urge to have a go perhaps? Or maybe there have simply been too many clear nights to be able to power down your rigs;) Cheers and clear skies.

I don't think so. It's just another cable to get tangled. Even here in Alicante, we've not had trouble with cooling; just leave the telescope out a while before you begin imaging. We only have the single speed focuser but yes, it's a world apart from the flimsy sw affair. You may need to tighten the springs a little, otherwise your focus point is going to be further than necessary from the tube. But BE CAREFUL WITH THAT METAL ON GLASS possibility. Collimation wise, you have the springs covered. If anything, it's gonna be either tube flex (get a thick wide dovetail plate) or that stupidly heavy metal secondary holder. There are some great lightweight holders on AliExpress for that. Obviously, try it first.

Well done. Nice job. Next: the fan on ours caused vibrations so we removed it. To tighten the guiding, you'll probably need to mount the guide telescope on the top rail along with a Losmandy width dovetail plate for the bottom. Or 80x15 aluminium plate and an angle grinder. Of course. You just got a new telescope! Do post your images:)

Love the galaxies:)

Good luck:)

6 springs, yes, the same length as the originals, BUT in a thicker (more resistant to compression) wire than the originals. I posted the link here. Using the nomenclature of the AliExpress outlet I linked to, I used 1.4mm x 12mm x 15mm for my f5 (Gso supply only 1mm wire). For your f4 you may want to go with 1.5mm. Until you've dismantled, you don't know what length you'll need. As the 203mm mirrors have the same mass, my guess would be the same as the f5. HTH

? Why do you want to move the mirror up the tube? It will serve only to move focal plane further from the tube and destabilise the focuser, make your camera more prone to tilt and the main mirror more susceptible to lateral movement. You have ample backfocus as it is:) If you do do it, it will make no difference to the focal ratio. The mirror remains at the same focal length. At f4, we need all the help we can get. Don't make life more difficult than it need be! Cheers

The main advantage for us is that you can be in London/the pub/at work and still have control over your session here in Spain. If you don't like fingers on a tablet, you can plug in a mouse. A refurbished laptop is another idea and probably more economical than a nuc and a long cable to trip over! Cheers

Well done. One final thing: be careful with the length of the new bolts. The mirror cell design is such that if the threaded portion is too long, there is a risk of the bolt bearing directly against the glass of the mirror if tightened clockwise too far (sic). IMHO, a poor design option. Make certain that when fully tightened, the bolts clear the mirror. There's only about 3mm of cork clearance. Fortunately, you haven't used shear nuts so you can shim with washers rather than having to shorten the bolts. Fast imaging here we come:)

Hi Not necessarily, but much easier if you do. Leave the camera attached to the telescope at the very least and +1 for @smashing's recommendation of plate solving to get you back to the same place. If (unlike us!) you have the patience, you could do e.g. 2 hours before and 2 hours after the meridian for 3 sessions; 12 hours whilst you sleep:) Cheers and HTH

Hi The lens remains 85mm no matter which camera you use. If you want the same size m31 on your sensor as on the OP's 6d, you must also use a 135mm lens. Cheers

Hi For planets you don't really need a guide telescope. For anything else I think you're gonna need an off axis guider. We tried and failed with an old orange tube c8. The mirrors just don't stay put. But at the time, we had little experience and of course YMMV. I think the rule of thumb is to use a guide telescope of focal length not less than 1/4 the fl of the main telescope and -to guide a c8- a guide camera with small pixels. HTH

Wow. Thanks vlaiv. That's amazing. You're gonna have to give me time to digest it all!

I want to capture M1 using my DSLR using: 1. The 2000mm f10 telescope at La Palma. 2. My 200mm f4. No change of pixel size. You're saying my telescope is faster?

So the illusion that f4 is brighter than f5 actually isn't an illusion at all. F4 is brighter than f5. Nice:) Cheers

Mmm. Same aperture, same camera, same number of pixels, same number of photons... From where do the extra photons come? Confused!

Not sure. Take a shot of m38 with both. Make them the same size on the screen. The same; neither darker nor brighter. Maybe you mean it seems brighter because it's smaller? Hands on tells us that with our 208mm f3.9, the GPU beats the Baader and the gso by a noticeable margin. Cheers

Hi No. f4 or f5, the brightness will be the same. The only way to get brighter frames would be to use a telescope with a larger aperture. Cheers **EDIT: +1 with @vlaiv on choice of the GPU cc, Especially if you go with the f4.

+1 StarTools. A refreshing move away from the levels and layers of the 90s. For calibration and stacking: Siril. To make it look nice: DarkTable. Cheers

The Original plate from 1888, when it was first identified.

Hi everyone High haze so needed something easy familiar to process. A little disappointed not to capture more red glow. Anyway... Thanks for looking. Do post if you've had a go at this. 700d @ ISO800