wornish

Thanks Vlaiv for the explanation. You should create a blog or perhaps a separate section on here that explains all this and gives the formulas to use. I am sure many members have the same struggle to understand all the factors involved and the trade offs. I think you might have just convinced me to spend money on a longer focal length scope.

I am struggling with this discussion. Like the OP I would love to go for smaller targets, but have held back from going for a longer focal length scope. Surely the longer the focal length the smaller the image scale for a given camera. (that is defined by the cameras pixel size) I agree that a mount has no idea what scope is on it. Mounts can guide to a given tolerance depending on : a. The mounts physical design and constrruction b. The guide camera focal length but when it all boils down given a reasonable mount and good guiding what matters is c. The Seeing. If the seeing in your location is average ( i.e. you are not on Hawaii, in the Atacama desert etc) then seeing is the major factor that defines what you can resolve. Isn't it simply wasting your money if you think you can some how magically fix the physics, despite what all the brochures promise? What am I missing?

Are you using the GOTO++ button in APT that will fine adjust the mount to centre the target. https://ideiki.com/astro/usersguide/pointcraft.htm?ms=AAA%3D&st=MA%3D%3D&sct=MTUw&mw=MjQw

I was thinking of "upgrading" to this mount but this thread has given me serious concerns. Perhaps I will look elsewhere.

This answers so far on this thread kind of confirms the real picture. No software in existence achieves everything for all circumstances. Planetary and DSO are completely different challenges and specialist software is available for both. There is no magic bullet I am aware of. In the end the more you put in the more you get out; a user needs to learn the techniques a software package offers to get the best out of it.

What makes you want to upgrade to Catalina. Are any of the new features of benefit? In my case I can't see any benefits at all and have decided to stay with Mojave. Catalina no longer supports 32 bit apps (Purely a marketing decision) so locks out quite few of the existing apps people may be using. I have been a Mac user for over 15 years and its the first time I have not kept up to date with their releases.

No free ones I know of. Pixinsight does have a process called SNCR which does exactly the same.

Update, I tried clearing everything and purged the configuration then I tried some simple stuff indoors this morning. Starting from Park I Unparked and did a EqMod - GoTo to an Object (Nekker) in the East then another to an object (Merak) in the West. The mount went to both objects in turn and seemed OK, it did do a Meridien flip so that's good news. The only thing I couldn't do was the plate solving and let the mount do the final positioning. Need clear skies to give that a go. I have a feeling somehow the configuration got messed up. But lets see what happens with plate solving doing the final alignment bit. Once again big thanks for all the suggestions. This place is amazing.

Thanks for all the suggestions. When I do Capture and Solve I have it set to slew to target, it moves once towards the target then but it just goes in a loop and plate solves but does not move. It seems to think it is actually on the target. If I select Sync after solving it just moves the mount display icon on the screen to where it solved the last time. I haven't tried the points setting in the align tab - will do. The mount isn't doing a Meridien flip perhaps that what the issue is. Interestingly if I use the mount simulator it works fine . I am determined to fix this, can't just target the Eastern sky:)

Help! - 3 nights of failure, what am I doing wrong. I am running KStars/Ekos on my RPi and up till now it has worked superbly well. I have an AZ-EQ6-GT mount and connect to it using the Indi EQMOD driver in Ekos. When doing a Polar Alignment and using GOTO to go to anything to the East of the Meridien it works superb. Platesolving works and I can get my targets spot on, this has worked for many months. This week I thought I would try some new targets while we have a few nights of "clear" skies in Cheshire but its been a total disaster. I wanted to target SH2-101 but I could not get my mount to point there. I even tried Vega but again no joy. The nearest I can get when I plate solve is always over 2' out! Am I missing something in the Indi EqMod driver settings. Anything to the west of the Meridien is just way out. My scope is polar aligned and the mount is levelled but any target over the Meridian is just off.

If you use APP it allows you do actually do both. Simply click the multiple sessions check box before you load all the data in. Then you can see what it looks like and pick the one you prefer.

You can get an Esprit 100 ED Pro from FLO for only a few pounds over your budget. f/5.5, 550mm fl. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/esprit-professional-refractors/skywatcher-esprit-ed-100-pro-triplet.html I have one and it never lets me down.

Another vote for KStars / Ekos. All free and it works great.

I learnt quite a bit from your video - Thanks. You might want to point out that HLVG only works on Windows systems not Macs.

Lots of people claim that the counterweights don't count to a mounts payload for imaging. Is that really true? The manufacturers are very careful in what they quote in their advertising blurb and I have yet to find one that actually says that in plain English. i.e excluding counterweights. I struggle to understand that adding say 10Kg of weights to a mount doesn't impact is load / tracking capabilities. What magical physics is going on?

I had the same issue with my Skywatcher tripod. So I made a simple guide assistant using three elastic bands and two pieces of string. Referring to the diagram below. First place your mount with the North Facing leg A of the tripod point roughly north. Using your compass. Attach an elastic band to each of the three feet. Fasten a piece of string to the elastic band on foot B and stretch the string across and attach to the elastic band on foot C making sure it is taught before fastening in a knot to the elastic band. Then get a second piece of string and attach to the elastic band on foot A ( the one pointing north and pull this tight and fasten in a loop around the middle of the other string at point X. You can measure with a tape measure the exact mid point of the string between B - C and mark it with a felt marker. Then simply slide the other string so it joins at exactly this midpoint. If everything is nice and taught then the string between A and X should point N -S. and can be used as your guide to get a more accurate North as you can move feet B and C left or right until that string lines up exactly with your compass. Hope this makes sense. It allows me to get within 1 - 2 degrees of accuracy.

Plus 1 for the Esprit 100. I have one and it never lets me down.

Very interesting advert, seems almost too good to be true. The MESU 200 has only been out a very short period, I think around 1 year or so. Be interesting to understand why the owner is selling it?

The EQ8-R is probably more future proof as it has almost twice load capacity and will handle your 10" RC when you get it. The CEM60 with Encoder however is an excellent mount. The encoder allows you to take much longer unguided exposures regardless of whether its in an observatory or on a tripod out in the field. For observatory use then I would vote for the EQ8. For outside use on a tripod I would go for the CEM60EC. its much lighter and therefore easier to set up.

This is where you need to use plate solving it makes all the difference. There is quite a choice of free software that will do this for you.

The terminal only version does work on Mac, I use it. The PI version does not work on PI running on a Mac yet, confirmed by the developer.

Not been out for weeks. Ha / OIII . Bi color. struggling with the OIII to get detail. 12 x 300s each Ha and OIII. 2 x 60s each R, G, B to get rgb stars. Processed in APP and PS. Ha/OIII stars removed from integrated image using StarNet and then RGB stars added back after processing.

I have used Sharpcap for nearly two years now and it is so easy and quick I agree. I thought I would give the Ekos polar align tool a go and see how it does. What did you end up using ?

Yes I do have an old iPad Air and I just tried what you suggested it works fantastic. Thank you very much. Now just need the clouds to go away!

I use my iMac Desktop indoors to remotely access my mount using VNC. My mount is running Kstars/Ekos on a RPi4 with Raspbian Buster. The whole system works very well. I am trying to use the Ekos polar alignment tool to replace the need to run Sharpcap for polar alignment which only works on Windows. The Ekos polar alignment tool works very well and at the end of its process starts taking images every second to show the stars with an arrow showing the error in alignment. You then simply adjust the RA/Dec settings until the selected star has moved to the tip of the arrow and alignment is achieved. The problem is this image is only visible on my desktop so if I go out to the mount I can't see it! Seems I have a choice to either run my remote access from a laptop and then take that out to the mount for polar alignment or maybe there is someway I could use my mobile phone. I have had a look at KStars Lite which does seem to work fine on my Nokia phone but it cant access the polar alignment tool running on the mount. On reading some of the forums it says it might be possible in future to do that but no date given. Is KStars Lite under active development as all the sites I can find don't say very much? Anyone got any alternative ideas?