Adam J

Well at least astronomy will provide you with a real scientific pursuit in your spare time.

This image is not complete yet, still got more data to capture. I guess I have never liked the more traditional Gold / Blue SHO style, not least because I dont understand why you would want to collect three channels and process it into an image containing only two main colours. Hence, this is what I have come up with. I like it but wondered what other people think of it. One of the things that has driven me in this direction is the lack of OIII in comparision to SII signal in this object hence it starts to look almost mono chromatic gold and very little blue in the traditional processing. Let me know yout thoughts. Adam

The 127mm will be better across the board with the only exceptions being portability and cool down time. I would say that DSO will be significantly brighter and planets will look much better too. Adam

Sorry but I would never buy a second hand scope when I could buy new for so little more, its worth paying the extra. As for saying he knows its worth 309 to 322....lol Edit: Just seen there is a second page to this thread and am very glad that you did not go for it. Adam

I would be willing to bet that within 24 months you are going to see a mono version of the IMX533 released by Sony also. It tends to be the pattern with the smaller sensors to release a mono version once they have sufficient stocks and have filled initial orders for the OSC version.

So they have announced a ASI294mm pro now, really think that puts a final nail in the coffin of this thread to be honest.

I really dislike that image, its not a worthy winner in my opinion. The effect is one thing but to be honest the underlying image of M31 is not that great either....10K for this....someone must have let an impresionist onto the judges panel lol.

Unless its a really sunny day i dont think that will be sufficient, fungus does have some tollerance to UV you know. Personally I really would just cook it good with a UVC bulb. Adam

The ideal is to use a solar continum filter. But you can use a green filter too if you are struggling with the diffraction rings being too dim. However, yes white light is not a good test for an apo as too much is overlapping to be able to make anything out. Adam

Nice, I dont think there are any pitfalls to star testing APO scopes so long as you understand that you can expect some under / over correction in red and blue, or perhapse you are thinking of another effect? Adam

A picture would help me to understand the issue.

The ASI1600mm is 17.7 x 13.4mm.

Didn't we already discuss this in the thread about lens fungus? I will say what I said in that thread, in my experience pure Isopropyl is far too volatile resulting in it evaporating before it is able to break down a range of contaminants that you might find on an optical surface. The Baader fluid is less volatile and I find that it gives you more time to work the surface and hence lift contaminants off the surface onto the cotton pad. Sure its more expensive but i see it as you are paying for a little research baader have performed to optimise the mix. Yes one ingredient will be pure water as it helps slow evaporation for example, but I don't feel cheated by that at all. I have better thing to do with my time than trying save a few pounds by mixing my own cleaning fluid. Adam

It is interesting isn't it. But for now the Evo FF is not proven, while as I have seen good correction from the Starizona one. I would be inclined to hold off myself. When I saw this I did initially think that I could have saved money and gone with this solution instead of my ASKAR FMA180 but on closer inspection this would not work with my ASI1600MM pro without serious vignetting. Also you cant fit a filter wheel into a 17.5mm backfocus so its dedicated OSC cameras only on that basis. Adam

What program are you using to calculate tilt?

Somehow I don't think they are going to lift it back off to remove them lol.

Yes and then have a liter of fluids laying about that's more conbustable than petrol. At least it's from a known brand and of known purity and includes a spray. I clean lots of optics and I have still only used half that 70ml after 5 years. Baader is not quite pure isopropyl either, if pure it's too volatile and drys far to fast before it break anything down.

On the subject of sharpness I have often looked at shots from very fast scope <f3 like RASA etc and thought that they are not so sharp as what I see from a refractor. Might just be my impression mind you with all the different possible combinations of camera etc it's had to be sure.

I do not recommend that you disassemble the lens cell of a ed doublet you will never get it back together again aligned correctly. You can remove the lens cell as a single unit depending on the scop to clean the rear surface though. Fungus between elements is the worse case though as some professional labs that realign optics will not even look at a scope with fungus on it for fear of contamination. I think that the cell on the Orion 100ed is the same as the SW 100ds pro so it will be threaded into the tube. Hence rotating the entire lens anti clockwise will allow you to remove it. That will let you clean the rear surface. Blow dust and debris off the front and rear surfaces first. Then I recommend you use baader cleaning fluid and pure cotton pads. Don't use too much. You don't want to get it between the elements. However, another option is to not clean it as it doesn't look all that bad and instead just expose it to a uvc bulb for a few hours to kill any fungus dead. After that just use it as is. From the pictures performance will most likely no be effected badly from this amount of material.

Yes I was just checking for exactly this I have used EQ mod for so long that I could not remember if it stored them or you have to put them in each time. Apparently it does store them so the coordinates should be in it from the last location it was used at. See above Grant, I am shocked SW did not think of this. Adam

Everyone, this is a prime example of why you need to mark your kit with a UV pen!

So did this have a happy ending?

Thats as much to do with it being 40 hours of data as it is anything else I think.

That seems like a bit of an over reaction. Guess they cant keep cancelling and moving it forever though.

They have always been made like that so, not really progress. It all depends on what you are trying to achieve.