Grierson

Piece of cake with two provisos! The existing focuser is held in the tube (an Evostar 80ED in my case) by three cross headed screws. They were VERY difficult to remove. Ensure that you have a good quality driver of the right size. A good bit of heat from a hairdryer helped in my case. Another minor point was that the heads of the three screws supplied to fit the new focuser to the tube were barely much larger than the holes in the tube. Ron at Moonlight does not provide any with larger heads so I added a washer to each screw. As I say a very minor point.

That is lucky, well done! I'll have to wait to see what happens. I'm not too keen on paying over £10 a month for CC but if it comes to it well ..........................

Thanks for the response however I would like to stick with PS if it retains some functionality after Adobe switch me off. I have a number of plugins and ProDigital's Astronomy Actions which will only work with PS and I would be loathe to lose them. I'm hoping someone will come along and confirm or otherwise that the software will still work even if in a limited fashion. - John

My yearly contract (for PS CC and Lightroom), which I have had since PS went rental, is up at the end of this month. Given that they have put up the monthly subscription I have cancelled it. It's difficult to see what that means to my usage of PS going forward. I wonder if anyone has also cancelled and found out what that actually means for working with images and managing the files. (I have no files saved to the 'cloud'). Thanks - John

Have you considered the software that you intend to use? I used BackyardEOS with my 600D when I started out. If not and depending on the targets you may need to use one of these. https://www.amazon.co.uk/QUMOX-intervalometer-remote-shutter-Camera/dp/B00C1C0WQC

Yes thanks. Having been brought up on FP4/HP3 and Tri X I can still appreciate mono! You have all convinced me to give it a go. Next to identify a suitable filter. - John

Thanks both. I will do just that! - John

Having built up my kit over the last 18 months or so with only very average to poor results I have nevertheless been giving some thought to narrow band prompted by the Mono or Colour thread below. At this time I only have a five port filter wheel and, on pain of death or at best divorce, I want to avoid spending a king's ransom so the thought was to buy an Ha filter for the ZWO wheel. That said I have currently no idea what, if anything, can be achieved by using a single filter. So, with apologies for the naivety of the foregoing, could anyone comment or point me to some good reading on the subject. Many thanks - John

Drop a line to Ron at Moonlite. He's pretty swift at responding.

Well another broken driver and a lot of heat I've finally got the screws out although I've managed to leave the shank of one of them still in the focuser when the head parted company. Looks as if I will still have to resort to drilling it out if and when I use the focuser again. I couldn't find 'P-B Blaster' Dave although my local Halfords suggested WD-40. At Gus' suggestion I had tried that last night with no luck. I was half expecting the focuser to be a tight fit to the 'scope tube but in fact it came away without difficulty. Again many thanks for all the helpful comments. - John

Many thanks everyone for taking the trouble to respond. I actually shattered the end of my ph2 100mm driver as the wife held the 'scope and I tried turning the screw. I did manage to get one screw out before that happened but now I'll have to get down to B&Q to get another driver. The screw head took some of the metallic paint off my lovely telescope in the process. I will have another go at the other two screws tomorrow taking on board your suggestions. I'm not at the drilling stage yet Billy but thanks for the offer - John

Good evening gentlemen and ladies. I wonder if anyone has replaced the focuser on SW 80ED DS Pro? I am currently faced with the task but the three Philips? headed screws securing the telescope tube to the focuser body are proving impossible to shift. I am currently at the stage of deciding to drill them out! but for obvious reasons I am reluctant to do so. Has anyone come against the same or similar issue and managed to resolve it? Any thoughts no matter how daft would be appreciated. - John

On the iPlayer currently there is a program entitled Seven Ages of Starlight. Although made in 2012 it is still worth an hour of your time if, like me, you are a relative newcomer to astronomy. The program covers such things as Red Giants, White Dwarfs, Super Nova etc. - John

Agreed with Jessun and Graem. Here's my example on my SW ED80. Note there are spacers between reducer and filter to achieve back focus.