Philter

18 hours ago, Adreneline said:

I am very happy with the performance of my EAF units, so much so I have three; other than the bracket design I can't fault them.

That's good to hear. Hopefully everything will be ok with it so I don't have to return it!

16 hours ago, StevieDvd said:

I hope I'm already stating what you already know but the EAF does not come as standard with a belt and pulley, as in the posted BDS picture.  Before I sold an ED80 with the BDS focuser it was fitted with a lakeside focuser (and before that a SW DC focuser using a kit from Teleskop Service which included a bracket, screws & the pulley/belt).

Having recently fitted a 5v EAF to my Evolux ED62 I know the adpaters can be tricky. I was lucky that the optional Esprit adapter had the right spacing to fit, I guess there would be no universal fit bracket.

Oh yeah, I know the belt setup is not standard for the EAF but I appreciate you flagging it! I'm going to be connecting the EAF directly to the focuser in place of one of the adjustment knobs using the connectors provided.

Thanks for the quick reply.

Don't worry about checking the lengths if you have to take things apart. I'm sure I'll be able to figure it out when it turns up. 😄

I am a bit weary about having to permanently modify the bracket just to fit the EAF if I'm honest as once it's done I can't really return it if I'm not happy! I prefer things to fit right out of the box, haha. I wouldn't have minded if I could buy a separate bracket designed for the BDS.

On 19/05/2022 at 11:35, Adreneline said:

I use an EAF on all three of my OTAs (RedCat, 6"RC and Samyang 135mm) - they are perfect for my needs allowing fine focus control and repeatability.

I used to own an ED80 and used it with a SW dc motor focus unit, initially with the stock focuser. The problem was the drawer tube kept slipping so I could not go back to a focus position with any degree of repeatability. In the end I swapped the stock focus unit for a Baader Diamond SteelTrack (BDS) and never looked back. There are times I wish I'd never sold the ED80 - with hindsight it was a great scope.

Good luck.

P.S. The EAF comes with an 'L' shaped bracket and a variety of couplers and will definitely fit on a BDS but it does leave the EAF sticking way out at the side of the OTA which made it really difficult to balance when used on my CEM25 mount.

 

 

I have the BDS+EAF on my 6" RC but chose not to use the direct shaft coupler - I prefer a piggy-back belt drive arrangement.

 

The BDS focus unit has a HTD compatible belt pulley built in! Very handy

HTH

Sorry for bumping this but I've just ordered a ZWO EAF to be fitted on a BDS like in the first picture and I have a couple of questions. Am I right in thinking that the slot on the mounting bracket is too small for M6 screws and will need will need to be widened in some way? Also, can you remember how long the screws were that you used to fit the EAF to the focuser? Thanks!

Wow, prices have really increased since I bought my Evolution 9.25 five years ago. It now costs nearly £1,100 more! Obviously it's not FLO's fault but I was surprised at how much prices have gone up.

Wow! That is stunning.

5 hours ago, geeklee said:

Great start @Philter An offset of 1 does seem unusually low but it's possible the application might have registered that as a default value rather than the actual one.  I primarily use the ASCOM driver for my ASI533 and clicking "properties" for this in Apt (or any application) brings the ASCOM dialogue up and there's some built in defaults for unity gain (gain), highest dynamic range (gain 0) and lowest read noise (high gain).  This keeps things simple if you want one of those defaults as it sets the offset for you, although at a conservative level. 

Thanks @geeklee and @Clarkey

I'm using the native ZWO drive in APT and I had the "Manage gain" option ticked in the CCD settings tab. I think this means that I need to explicitly state the gain in the plan settings which I set at 100 (unity gain as far as I'm aware). I'd left the offset field blank in both the CCD settings and plan settings but I think should have set at around 50 as Clarkey says.

I guess there's not much I can do about it now but at least I'll know for next time whenever that is, ha ha.

Very nice. I can see the dark detail the extra data has brought out. It's a lovely image.

Ah, trees. I ran into that problem the other night. I look forward to the result.

4 hours ago, Budgie1 said:

I've just noticed that I missed off one detail from the original post that may explain the good data:

I do live in a Bortle 2 area, so no LP to contend with and the only filter on the camera is a UV/IR cut.

Bortle 2! I'm jealous, ha ha.

It's still a great capture and I'd love to see what would get with more time.

One thing I completely forgot to mention in my original post but wanted to ask about is offset. I set the gain manually in APT but forgot to put an offset in my plan details. The FITS header shows an offset of 1 in my captures but I've read I should use a value of about 50.

From what I can see using an offset that's too low can cause clipping. Will I have lost some detail by not setting the offset properly?

Wow. I'd say that's a great image in general but for 10.5 minutes it's amazing! It puts my efforts to shame  

Thank you. Whatever my next target is I know I need to get a lot more data.

I'm going to have to make a serious effort in learning to use layers and masks to get the most out of my images particularly when imaging objects like M42 where multiple exposure times might be needed for different areas. Time to start looking for some tutorials!

I bought an ASI533MC last year and I finally managed to use it for DSO imaging on Tuesday night. I've messed around with my DSLR before but I found it fiddly and what data I did get seemed very noisy and hard to process so I never really got far with it. 

This was also my first real attempt at guiding and I'm not sure if it's uncovered an issue with the mount (large DEC backlash).

• Sky-Watcher Evostar 80ED DS-Pro with 0.85x reducer/flattener
• ZWO ASI533MC at -15c
• IDAS D2 filter
• HEQ5 Pro

• 28 x 120s lights (56 mins) - I lost M42 behind trees so I couldn't get anymore data
• Darks, flats and dark flats used
• Captured with Astro Photography Tool
• Stacked and light pollution\gradient removal in Astro Pixel Processor
• Levels and curves in Photoshop (I don't know how to do much else!)
• PHD2 guiding
• Bortle 7

I know it's only a short integration time and I've probably stretched too much so there's still a lot of noise. I need to find out how I can reduce the hot pixels and the halos around bright stars  

It's very sporadic for me and sometimes I can go for long periods without setting up my scope.

I've been trying to get a proper start in imaging but it's just not possible to do anything in the brighter spring/summer months as I usually have to be finished by midnight. I know I'll never be able to put the time in to capture anything like the stunning pictures posted here but what I do get will be mine.

I actually love the early nights and I'm looking forward to September when I reckon I'll start to get some usable time with my new ASI533MC...weather permitting, of course.

I had a look at the flightradar24.com playback for around that time and it looks like a DHL 757 was passing over Marlbourough on it's way from East Midlands Airport to Madrid. Could it be that?

https://www.flightradar24.com/2020-05-12/02:00/12x/BCS8930/247c2851

Well, it's certainly a great result!

I've got the ASI533 on order but I'm not sure when it'll arrive. With the nights getting shorter it might not get much use on DSO's until later on in the year so I was thinking of trying some lunar imaging with my 9.25" SCT.  It should give me a wider FOV compared to my ASI224 even if I don't use the full resolution. I definitely want to try a mosaic after seeing your image! 😀

Wow, that's fantastic!

Did you use the full resolution of the ASI553 for capture?

They're great images! I particularly like the M3.

I've got the ASI553 on order from FLO and I'll be using it with an Evostar 80ED too.

Thanks, Steve. 

I thought it probably wasn't the increased price because it didn't look much different from when I had been looking at it over the past couple of months. 

Thanks for keeping us up to date.

Is the price on the site for the ASI533MC-PRO (£856) the new price or has the increase not been applied yet?

They changed most of the street lights around by me to LEDs at the end of 2018 and while they are white and seem brighter they don't appear to throw the light above the fitting. You could see straight away that the tops of houses were no longer directly lit up and of course most of the neighbours were complaining about it being too dark. There used to be a page on the council website with the areas and dates for the LED street lighting rollout but it seems to have been removed.

I haven't done enough imaging (certainly in the last year) to say what kind of impact they've had but I did buy an IDAS D2 to hopefully help with LED lights.