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Adam J

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Everything posted by Adam J

  1. Adam J
    Erm it would have to be vastly better to make it worth 1200 more...in the end its the same chip I strongly suspect that its not that much better if at all. If i was going to pay that kinda money i would not be getting a KAF8300 i would be looking at the newer KAF16200 based cameras.
  2. Adam J
    M101, 50 x 5mins ISO800, Over Two Nights, 130PDS, HEQ5pro, Orion + QHY5L II Mini Guider, Astronomik CLS Filter. Having trouble with color balance, let me know what you think guys I may add some longer exposures next to bring out the fainter trails of the spiral arms more and then combine them with this image.
  3. Adam J
    Thanks, not sure if that is good or bad then, what color is it normally lol. Edit: Probably the CLS Filter clipping the green out.
  4. Adam J
    My first full year of astro imaging. Not much compared to some of the crazy good images above, but not to bad considering I am using a very old DSLR.
  5. Adam J
    No it was the adapter, this was a while back and its all great now with a better quality adapter. I only just thought to mention it on here because something in another thread prompted me.
  6. Adam J
    I recently posted in another thread about a problem that I encountered with collimation of the 130PDS. I thought that it would be best to share here too as it may not just be me. When I first purchased my 130PDS it came with a 1.25" to 2" converter. I also purchased a 1.25" laser collimator. On first collimation following my purchase I placed the laser collimator into the 2" to 1.25" adaptor I noted that the laser was a long way off hitting the primary mirror centre spot. I adjusted the secondary to move the laser into the centre spot. I then rotated the laser collimator within the 2" to 1.25" adapter to see if the spot remained stationary and hence reassure myself that the laser itself was collimated. The spot did not move. I then adjusted the primary as normal. However, despite taking grate care with this procedure I found my results to be inconsistent, some sessions I would have apparently good collimation and in others collimation would appear very poor. As a newbie astronomer at the time it was only some months later that I worked out that if I rotated the entire assembly (collimator + 2" to 1.25" adapter) within the focusing tube then the laser spot moved in a 1 inch diameter circle as observed on the primary! My eventual conclusion was that the two sides of the Skywatcher 1.25" to 2" adapter supplied with the 130PDS are not parallel and by a long way. Like I have said I have no way of knowing it this is a general issue or if this is just a problem with my adapter but be warned!
  7. Adam J
    Cant help with a comparison but may people including myself use the MPCC MKIII with great results even on APS-C sized sensors and the KAF8300 is sub APS-C so you will be good. Worked great on my 1000D, having some teething problems with my 550D but am sure ill get it working well with some tweaking. The F4 will most likely work well too...its just that the optimal spacing changes with F-number.
  8. Adam J
    Nice one, my only worry would be how do you fit a dew shield?
  9. Adam J
    My new DIY dew shield, the classical camping mat design.
  10. Adam J
    It looks like you have poor focus to me, its possible that the focus shifted after removing the mask, maybe combined with something else, maybe mirror pinch. I have not seen anyone report an issue with triangular stars with the 130PDS before.
  11. Adam J
    What edition was it?
  12. Adam J
    I could see this being an issue with older hand ground mirrors, not so sure I would expect the mirror to have been ground off centre with modern automated equipment. I'll have a read about Cheshire colimators, my issue it is currently that the laser spot moves as I rotate the collimator on my current bargain basement model.
  13. Adam J
    Very nice, so will you be using both scopes at the same time to get place detailed objects within a wider field? I am starting to wonder if my centre spot is actually central....its just such a pain to remove the primary. How far out was it? Either way I need to get shot of my terrible laser collimator as the laser is not parallel to the focuser before I do anything else. Anyone got a suggestion for a quality collimator....preferably still costing less than the scope?
  14. Adam J
    It gives bloated stars because of chromatic aberration in a refractor, OP lists a 150PDS which is a reflector and so chromatic aberration is not a problem UV and IR will still be brought to focus. Also unless he has removed both the filters from his astro-mod 500D then the front filter (also the sensor cleaning element) already acts as a UV IR cut filter, its not quite as harsh as a Baader replacement filter but it will work perfectly well with a 150PDS even if he is using a coma corrector. Having modified my own cameras I can 100% grantee you that an additional UV/IR cut filter is totally redundant in a reflector / coma corrector combination. The only exception to this is if both the filters where removed from the 500D as opposed to just the rear filter, this is called a full spectrum modification, in this case chromatic aberration would result due to the lens elements in the coma corrector as IR would be passed and detected way out to 950nm rather than just 720nm with the front filter intact. However, the OP states that his 500D is merely an IR mod in his signature.
  15. Adam J
    I am very confused, what makes you think that you need a UV / IR filter for use with a IR modified 500D perticually when used with a reflector? You only really need a UV/IR at all on a DSLR if you have had a full spectrum mod done on the camera, but even at that point unless you are also using a coma corrector on the 150PDS you still dont need a IR/IR filter....
  16. Adam J
    Yep it definitely worth remembering that a EOS clip filter is just a 1.25 inch filter in a different mount that allows it to be held very very close to the sensor. A fact that I find deeply annoying given that the Clip filters cost so much more than the 1.25 inch equivalents for no real reason. Problem with the approach you linked though is what do you do if you are using a coma corrector? Also a slight warning, some filters (normally narrow band filters) are actually directional. So threading them on in the way shown in your link may have unknown consequences to their performance.
  17. Adam J
    Yeah but they want more than the combined cost of my narrow band filters for the filter Wheel......
  18. Adam J
    I was in this position I bought 2 inch filters with the intent to use them with my DSLR now and a Larger format CCD in the future...though I may also be tempted by a pro cooled full frame CMOS camera if and when they come to the market. But I went with 2 inch filters because I run my DSLR in a cool box and the t-ring is within the box, as such its not possible to change a clip in filter without removing the camera from the box. I don't like doing that as it lets moist air into the camera and means that you have to re-start the cooling process every time you change the filter. A 2 inch filter just screws onto my coma corrector and it gives me more options in the future. I currently own a 2" CLS, a 8.5nm OIII and a 7nm H-a filter; all work very nicely with my 550D. To be honest when I get a CCD i may not even buy a SII, only a few targets respond to it strangely and a am not a fan of the Hubble pallet anyhow. The only issue I see with using 2" filters later on is that you can only get 5 filter wheels. Unless someone knows of a larger one available that I have not seen. It means you cant fit your LRGB and narrow band filters into a single wheel.
  19. Adam J
    Yes you can use a free program called iris to manipulate the raw files and save them as FITS prior to stacking.
  20. Adam J
    Looking good, but i think that there is much much more to be teased out of that data, it could probably stand another couple of stretches on curves as a minimum? Your background is very black, if you look at some other pictures of M42 the entire area is full of dust and hydrogen. Assuming that this is a DSLR then did you remove the blue and green channels prior to stacking? When you use a h-a filter on a OSC camera only the red channel has data the other two only introduce noise to the image.
  21. Adam J
    In my opinion you get better results with a DSLR with the 130PDS just because of the faster optics.
  22. Adam J
    If this is your first ever image that is really very very good going.
  23. Adam J
    Looks really nice, but perhaps a touch purple? I think that means you need to add a tiny little bit of green to the balance...or is it reduce blue.
  24. Adam J
    This is a reprocess of my first ever Narrow Band image, a bi color or the eastern veil taken with a cooled Canon 1000D. 8 x 20 min Ha ISO 800 8 x 20 min OIII ISO 800 Its very highly cropped for various reasons so not too great if you zoom in. Its no CCD image but I was quite pleased with it at the time and I think that I got more out of it now that my processing skills have improved.
  25. Adam J
    And now with some OIII 8 x 900s ISO 1600 OIII - Blue 16 x 600s ISO 800 Ha - Red Did not bother with any calibration frames. Posted in imaging section too but I like to share with my fellow 130PDS users
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