stevie1980

23 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

The star discovery mount moves in tiny left right up down movements to track, that's fine for planets and the Moon as exposures with a planetary camera are in ms. For DSO field rotation does become an issue and is the limiting factor for longer exposures but if stick within the limitations and crop the edge off where field rotation mostly shows then imaging with a tracking altaz mount is not impossible, it depends on the aims and desires of the user and what and how much the expectations might be.

Gotcha..I used to have the 8" SW PDS with the heq5 if I remember and  couldn't do a decent polar align as couldnt see polaris from my observation point (on my tiny back garden).so now im using (going to be using i should say) the alt az for planetary and try eventually to do some quick astro/p with lots or short time exposures probably something like ie 200x10sec exposures..im not expecting an amazing image by any means, but just enough to make me want to by another eq mount and another 200pds and then travel to use it under darker skies and being able to see polaris to get a good p align... felt sick selling my 8" eq set up aswel but I got my hair off not being able to p align and it was only a matter of time before I stuck the OTA into somebody lol pardon the expression..  

Many thanks for taking the time to reply. 

Hi there and thanks for the reply.

Yes im aware of the prime focus issue and thats a bit of a pain.  I know the mirror can be moved forward slightly to get better advantage for prime focus/ for astro p. But I'm not touching the mirror so if I want to do a bit of astrophotography (which I will be doing sooner or later) then ill just buy a 102 refractor from SW or the 72 ed and put that on the discovery mount...thankyou very much for yr input.  Ive decided to get the SW P150i. I assume I can still get a good focus on planets using a barlow though? 

Hello guys n ladies

..  something has been bugging me recently regarding barlows.

I've seen quite a few people using 2 - x2 barlows stacked and dslr attached for planetary imaging.

Is there any reason why this is? 

Wouldn't a single x4 barlow just give same results..

I'm assuming either it gives better results than a x4 on its own, or the owner of 2 x2 barlows just don't want to spend extra £s/$s on a single x4 or don't want to buy a x4 because he has 2 x2s.... 

I'm assuming extra weight and stability would be more of an issue especially if using an alt az mount (which i have)

Cheers 

Steve.

Hi peeps. 

I'm  choosing a new scope and I have 2 in mind.

A nexstar 5se

Or 

The SW star discovery p150i goto.

Which one in yr own opinions would be better for planetary imaging.

The 150SW SD doesn't come with control as its wifi. Hmmmm 🤔😬

8 hours ago, Budgie1 said:

The latest version on the Sky-Watcher website is V 3.39.15 from 02/11/2020.

Ahh brilliant thankyou very much, just need a serial to usb adaptor now before I can make the update.

On 01/02/2021 at 12:02, AstroMuni said:

And before I forget, use as high a magnification as you can on the scope to align from indoors - start with low mag and go to highest. With the higher magnification your FOV will reduce so becomes harder to find the object

I did just that.started with a 40mm and ended it on a 10mm thankyiu for replies

Hi guys.

I recently purchased a mount and synscan control.

When switched on its saying version 3.37,I want to update it to the latest version via synscan firmware loader. I have the v 3 control. Can anyone tell me the latest version that I can put onto my v3 control.

Many thanks 

Steve

4 minutes ago, johninderby said:

If it’s not cold out I would open the window but not essential.

My window opens upwards and the bottom frame when opened would get in the way so ill have to keep it closed

Just now, AstroMuni said:

Here is a suggestion that might work. Remove just the OTA and take it upstairs, place on a firm surface and point through your window at some small object thats far away.

What an absolute belting idea. Would never have thought of that lol.silly me..cheers ,much appreciated 👍 

Hi you might of heard this before but how can I go about aligning my finder scope to the main scope without having to point it at a,stationary object a mile away, the reason I ask is because I have rather high fencing around my garden and have nothing to align to apart from a few house roof 50 ft away. With mt old scope I aligned with the moon but when it came to looking at distant stars it was way off. Any good tips please.

The scope is to heavy for carting around to the nearest field,plus being in lockdown I dont think the constabulary will like seeing me in a field.

Many thanks guys n ladies

Steve

5 hours ago, vlaiv said:

Let's be constructive.

Goto dobsonian - as is will indeed be very poor for DSO imaging. It will be very good for planetary / lunar imaging - if you add planetary camera and a barlow lens.

This is technique called lucky imaging and you'll need to do a bit of research on how it is properly done (how to record movie/sequence of subs, how to pre process them and how to stack them and sharpen results after).

All of that if you are interested in planetary - and why not? Getting yourself a planetary camera is generally a good step - as it can be used as guide camera later on if and when you decide to move onto DSO imaging.

For your budget of £350, you can't do much really.

First option would be to purchase star tracker or AzGTI mount. AzGTI mount will need modifications to be placed into EQ mode - which means firmware upgrade and some accessories - like wedge and counter weight shaft + counterweight. It is a bit of DIY.

Star Adventurer on the other hand is pretty much self contained package, but it is star tracker and it is meant to hold camera + lens and only smallest of the imaging scope.

In either case - there mounts are more suited for camera + lens or very small scope than anything serious.

If you want proper mount - well that is sort of over your budget. If you purchase second hand you might be able to get something decent - and maybe even new but it won't have goto. You should be able to fit EQ5 mount + tracking motor into £350.

And that is it.

Use any of the two with camera+lens to get you started in AP.

Hi there.

I have a dslr which is currently being modded and I aslo have an opticstar px35c (never used) the asi kept on crashing my laptop. I've used registax before a few times.not sure about autostakkart and the other ones. I'm hopefully getting my tax back soon (fingers crossed) it's a decent amount so I might just throw caution to the wind and buy a ed80 or 120 and a good solid eq mount. I might be single after this .. I'd be sorry to see her go.. 😉

Thankyou for reply and helping me out.

4 hours ago, michael.h.f.wilkinson said:

Planetary imaging would indeed be an option. An 8" scope will show lots of detail, especially when the planets are higher in the sky. Tracking doesn't have to be spot on, and there are modest-price cameras out there that really perform nicely. Yoiu will need aa Barlow or tele-centric lens to extend match the focal ratio of the scope to the pixel size of the camera. My former ASI224MC (since replaced by the ASI183MC) worked really nicely at F/16-F/20.

Yes I used to own a asi but it kept freezing my laptop.im only using a usb 2.0 laptop at the mo.and I panic bought a opticstar px35c which I imagine is not up there with the ZWO.i havnt tried it yet as Jupiter isnt showing it presence until gone 3am and I'm usually inspecting my eyelids at that time. My profile pic has a pic of jupiter done with  asi120mc a few year back with the classic 6" SW dob push to.many many headaches trying to get just a 10sec vid of J. but i pulled it off.by no means a fantastic pic but the GRS is clearly there. You know I've NEVER seen Saturn yet visually through EP or imaging grrrr.

I  have quite a few barlows (not the cheap ones) but not overly expensive from £60 to £140. I have a range of x2s x2.5 and 2x 3s.. never amounted to much when I used a dslr for J always looked very grainy.

6 minutes ago, Cozzy said:

Stevie,

who ever said that statement is talking Rubbish, IMHO!🤨, myself and many others use the 200P for imaging, granted most are on  EQ mounts.

just do a search in the imaging section on here '200P imaging' will bring many, many images and from this you can also see the equipment used.

Use what you have to learn the basics and hopefully improve and get the best out of what you have before considering moving on. IMHO!

 

HTH's

Tim

That came from the shop owner/worker that I bought it from.he said planetary and Luna will be ok but AP forget it as it wont track as good as it would on a eq mount. Ilk stick with what I got for now.do the best with the tools I have n wait n look for a ed to pop up n a decent solid mount to go with it.

29 minutes ago, Timebandit said:

 

 

Hello . The SW ED 80 gets really good result's on the AP side of things. And second hand should be within your budget. But obviously the mount needs to be up to the task when it comes to AP so this would be extra. If your just getting into AP then you should get the book " Every Photon Counts"

 

 

 

I'll take a look. 

Thankyou

35 minutes ago, michael.h.f.wilkinson said:

My first take on Bode's galaxy used rather more data (3 hours), a more powerful mount (Vixen GP-DX), and a smaller scope (still a 6" F/5, which is already quite a beast). Modding won't help much on galaxies, as a rule, unless they have many H-II (star forming) regions.

 

You can get really nice results with a modded DSLR and small scope, like the 80 mm, but it does take a lot of time. M42 in a modded EOS 5550D looks like this, after 7h 10 minutes total exposure time. This was done over several nights with a simple, unguided EQ3-2 mount. I just stacked loads of 60s exposures, and it came out rather nicely

They look amazing. Would my f12 flextube be ok for AP if I close the scope down thus shortening the F length. Or am I still being barmy?

1 minute ago, michael.h.f.wilkinson said:

The Skymax is mainly suitable for planetary and lunar work. The ST102s are decent wide-field visual scopes, but not that useful in imaging, due to chromatic aberration. For long exposure DSO imaging an EQ mount is really way better than an alt-az mount. I have obtained some good results with a simple EQ3-2 mount and short refractor (APM 80mm F/6 with 0.8x reducer), but thse would be over budget. You could use a fast telephoto on an EQ mount as well to start off with. I have used a Canon 200mm F/2.8 and  got decent results with that

Very nice... and maybe I'll just have to open my wallet a little more. I tried getting bodes the other day but with my SW flex 200 goto didnt get anything but a few stars.then again I was doing 10sec exps using my samsung s9 lol.still waiting for my camera to come bk from the mod shop... I jumped straight in at the deep end thinking this scope I have would be brill at AP how wrong was I? 

1 minute ago, Carbon Brush said:

The first advice for getting into astrophotography is don't rush.
Look around. Read about it. Ask questions. See what others are doing, and what kit they are using.
Think about what sort of photography you want to do?
hat about the computer and software for processing images?

Second advice. It is more about the mount than the scope.

HTH, David.

 

Yes I know the mount on a small budget isnt going to be any good even if I added more weight to it to hold it steady. I'll take yr advice onboard thankyou.

Hey guys.

I'm wondering what sort of scope I can buy for AP I only have a budget of £350 because I've just bought a  200p flexitube goto for £800 and I've been told its rubbish for AP grrrrr.

Any recommendations as to a budget scope for AP and must be able to hold a DSLR without any drop or going south on me

List of a few scopes that I've looked at.

102 skymax

102  sky travel refractor az 

102 sky travel as GTI. 

All goto.

Please help as I want to purchase today

Many thanks 

Steve

3 minutes ago, TerryMcK said:

Dunno. Possibly. I have an Iphone 11 and only use it for occasional low light night time shots, which it excels at, but not held it up to an eyepiece.

Yeah I had my adapter on scope last night with the s9 pushed up to a 25MM SP (standard that came with the scope) 

1 minute ago, TerryMcK said:

Oh +1 on Astromiser by the way. I had my 400D done by him and it works really well. Just have the IR cut filter removed not the whole lot as you might not be able to focus at all if you do the full spectrum mod.

Yes I originally sent cheapastrophotography a email and no reply after three days.so another kind fella on here gave me the link to astonomiser and he received my cam yesterday.

2 minutes ago, TerryMcK said:

Orion probably November and Andromeda a little earlier in the year (Aug/Sept). It's too low in the sky for me at the moment (May) when dark and so the longer days have put the kibosh on Andromeda.

Have a look for Bode's Galaxy instead. That is circumpolar and you can see it quite clearly.

Brill thankyou, as soon as I get my camera back I'll have a look. Hopefully get it back by friday..

Will I be able to see it with my s9?  I've heard of some fair to good results coming from a mobile phone and 30 x20 sec exps.?

My god I love this hobby.theres nothing that comes close imo

Hi 

Yes he said that I will retain focus to I and also has the option to have a baadar filter fitted I'm assuming thsts to retain daytime photography. I've just had the filter removal was quite cheap compared to other sites I've looked on. Also bought a LP FILTER aswel to hopefully cut some of the street lighting out.

Roughly when will I be able to see andromeda and orion nebula again? Or any DSO,S that will show me that the dslr is working?

Thankyou

9 minutes ago, JOC said:

Because its not precisely true imaging qulity tracking it will, in the finish, drift, but I reckon you can easily keep things reasonably on target for a good 20 mins or so, before needing to re-centre.  Hope you have fun with it.

I'm loving it. Just want to do some DSO when I get my 450d back from being modded.but I'm told theres nothing to see here at the mo regarding nebulas or galaxy that I can do a few exps with. I'm still very much new to astronomy. Cheers.

Steve

3 hours ago, JOC said:

There is a place for it in the handset, and yes, I generally enter what the synscan init 2.0 says, so yes, I would be inclined to enter 150m.

Well just set it up about 2 hours ago.nothing much to look at apart from the moon. Got a couple of shots.nothing amazing by any means but its tracking.was just slightly out.had to centre it.thanks for your help.amazing bunch of people.