dobblob

I too have bought from that NYC company and cannot recommend them highly enough. My first purchase was a "new" camera tripod which was obviously used but since I lived in NYC at the time I took it back via the subway and was immediately given a new item with much apology. All my further purchases from them of astro equipment have been trouble free. Packaged well, very fast (sometimes next day!) free delivery and the cherry on the cake is that I love their speedy, honest and informative website. They don't sell rubbish and prices are fair, even fairer than some dedicated astro retailers. I was looking for a job at the time and they had a position on offer as a sales assistant in the store. I regret that I didn't get it....

I began my astronomical life with a Planisphere and it remains my "goto" when all else fails. If I need a quick reference to what's going on up there and not wait for my computer to boot up especially after several months of weather induced inactivity and I forget what the sky should look like , it's ready at hand! It should be included in a "disaster kit" for when a Carrington event hits and we all loose power. The Planisphere needs no power or batteries. Talking of widespread and enduring power failures, I am proof against that too. As long as I maintain a good charge in my batteries I can image all night long for several nights. My rig is computer free. Of course then comes the problem of processing. My old slide rule really won't do the job....

Good comparison Fedele. I was at this very moment considering going to IR pass and deciding if it was worth it. It seems to be. Just for clarification: Were equal numbers of frames stacked with same best % in each case? Same fps and exposure? How much time between the two captures? I just worry that the seeing may have improved for the IR pass before I spend $$$ !

Even in a Bortle 3 sky this is normal. I was horrified on seeing the result of my modded Canon XS for the first time. I almost gave up but processing cleared it up nicely.

The Rebel T 3i is considered amongst the better DSLRs. Modding is not necessary but certainly does help with heavy Ha nebulae. I imagine they can be found for 150-200 euros. It's a great starter camera for DSOs.

Well the pound has recovered nicely thank you. Today at 1.38, higher than it was before C 19 struck. I hope we can now see decreasing prices because of this or is my naivety showing?

I am a laptop free and neck strain free imager. As follows my setup: 1) AVX mount. Alignment using the 4 star method followed by the mount align ( Set ALT and AZ) routines. Works every time. No straining to look through a polar scope. Just perform a decent initial mount align using an inclinometer and knowing true north. Powered from a 12v battery. 2) DSLR with intervalometer. Images retrieved from camera indoors at end of session or from SD card. Also fitted with a dummy battery with 12 vdc battery supply for all night hassle free shooting. My scope is 600 mm and I have never seen any focus shift so no worries about auto focusers. 3) Stand alone guider. I use a Celestron NexGuide that connects directly to the mount ST 4 port. 6 vdc supply via a golf cart battery (or was it a motorbike?)The NexGuide is now obsolete and has been replaced by the SynGuider http://skywatcher.com/product/synguider/. It looks the same and is probably a clone. I love my NexGuide. Easy to use and has never failed me. If it ever does die I will certainly jump for the SynGuider. Easy peasy alignment. All batteries contained in a handy totable box. No cables running outside to scope. It's the sort of setup I leave to do it's own thing for hours unattended and acheive +- 1 arc sec guiding. Not a laptop in sight!!!! No cricked neck!!! One slight function that I do miss is dithering which is not possible (automatically) but I do manage it, crudely, manually. I believe that other stand alone guiders do offer dithering e.g. Lacerta Mgen 2 but that much more expensive. Happy imaging 🙂

Looks like coma /spherical aberration inherent to the lens. No surprise really, most long camera lenses will show some aberration but this does look quite extreme. Is this a cropped image off center ? I ask because the comas point to a "center" somewhat left and upper in the frame. Not sure there is a solution unless if the lens is new it can be proved to be defective and can be returned under warranty. Unlikely. Maybe other users of this lens can chime in on it's quality. One could try stopping the lens down to say f 8 to see if the aberration reduces. There aren't many camera lenses truly suitable for astrophotography. I think the SamYang 135 mm (not sure of model #) is said to be pretty good. I certainly see similar effects and chromatic aberration with my Canon EF 75-300 mm zoom which is definitely known to be poor but not as bad as yours.

Ensure the limit on your credit card is north of $3000.

Not the same camera but I modded a used Canon XS. I removed both filters (confession-I broke both !) I also lost the screen view. I had to reseat all the ribbons TWICE before normal service was resumed even though they all appeared to be seated fully and correctly. I also had the black "tube" come away and it would not sit back in it's housing correctly. Not sure but I suspect the tube is a fiber carrying light to a sensor related to auto exposure setting. If so it serves no function for astro purposes as only bulb exp. is used in MAN.

It's been a while ago and I made no photos of the operation but I can at least attempt a verbal description....... My R and P focuser had a similar slop. The tolerances were just too forgiving. As I racked in and out I could see out of focus stars , then in focus stars, then out of focus shift across the FOV. This was a problem as I was replacing the EP with a camera at different focus points. Very annoying having found and centered the guide star in the EP and find it shifting at a different camera focus point. Very crudely I made up some two part epoxy weld and packed the inside of the focus assembly to provide a long collar around the focus tube and of course avoiding the rack and pinion parts. I greased the tube first to ensure it would slide in the epoxy collar and not adhere to it. When hardened I had perfect surface contact and no slop over a couple of inches of travel. I have to admit that I was probably lucky that the focus tube was set parallel to the optical axis. I was careful to let it cure with the draw tube at the central point of travel.

The Pleiades always impresses. My wife (who has no idea about astronomy and has still not figured out how many scopes I own thank god ) will often join me under the stars and always asks to be shown M 45 even in the Summer! No interest in the Moon , planets or M 42 or M 31. It's always M 45 that wows her. Perhaps it's because it's in HER star sign Taurus. Better than no interest at all I suppose.

Just a little word of caution when using Stellarium----it's depictions of some of the galaxies and nebulae are rather generous. You can crank the settings under "DSOs" to reveal all sorts of objects that even with long exposure images will not equal what is shown let alone visual telescopic views. It was educational for me to attempt to image the Monkey Head neb on the basis of what Stellarium displayed. After a few hours of exposure it was barely visible. I tend to stay with Messier. Hey, if he could see it in the 1740's with an early 4" refractor then that is a good reference for me.

My AVX works well mounting a Canon T 3i with a 70-300 mm ES Canon telephoto even at 300 mm. Since you already have it this combo is all you should need. As for attaching , it's been a while ago but I remember drilling a clearance hole in the dovetail shoe for a 1/4 " x 20 thumb screw bolt to screw into the camera base. Great thing about using the AVX is just using a simple two or four star align with polar align to follow if that. No balancing needed. The tracking for me is fine. Only slight difficulty is getting a bright enough alignment star to show in live view or else just sight along the dovetail shoe. Depends on your camera. With a field of about 12 deg at 100 mm it's not critical. Following shot is a stack of 30 sec exposures at 100 mm . I didn't try too hard either with shooting or post proc.

Also try Rent-A-Bat.com .....

I like and use StarTools also. I am a budget AP'er and a little lazy. If I can't figure out how to get a decent image within a few hours of experimenting the shine wears off. Shelling out for PI at a cost of more than my scope makes no sense when ST gets me there at the cost of a cheap eyepiece and without days of study. I tried a trial version of APP but the basic stacking process took 12 hours before I quit (at 32%) ,unfinished. To be fair I may have made some error in the parameter selections but there was nothing to tell me about it. Even when I stacked far fewer frames to arrive at the processing steps faster it didn't do a better job of stretching etc. So DSS and ST is the way to go for me.

Darthvader,Yes those items you link to are exactly what you need. A little more expensive than ones I ordered some years ago but you will thank yourself.

Darthvader, I am surprised that no one ( OK tomato has hinted) has yet mentioned dummy battery packs for your Canon. For most (if not all) Canons there are dummy packs that replace the battery that can be powered via a Canon DC adapter from mains 220 vac ( needlessly expensive!) or much cheaper generic brands powered from a 12 vdc battery. They may need a converter to get from 12 vdc to whatever the camera dummy pack needs, often 7-8 vdc. The combo can be found on Amazon and will probably run 20-30 GBP. Really worth it to be able to operate all night for several nights without changing battery after battery , touching your camera and spoiling your alignment. It was a major downside for me to have to swap batteries every 1 1/2 hours, if that. Just a big worry not to have .

I consider giving up as regularly as I consider giving up smoking. A typical recent night was forecast ( three different forecasts agreed) as clear with great seeing, transparency, no dew and warm from dusk til dawn. I checked the satellite images which showed no cloud within a few hundred miles. Perfect! I set up before sunset. This involves MANY carries of my imaging gear down (and later up ) a flight of winding stairs. An hour later and in a muck sweat I was done and firing off my first 2 minute DSO frame. I looked to the west and saw not a hint of cloud down to the horizon. Yay! I returned just minutes later to the rig with a beer and there was wall to wall cloud! First and only frame ruined. I stuck it out. I consulted the forecasts which had now changed their tune to cloud all night. Well poop! I persevered for an hour but solid cloud, no clearing from the west. Quitting time. Schlepped it all back up stairs and went for a final puff on the back stairs. Now clear from horizon to horizon. My wife heard words never uttered in her presence before..... And yet here I am again looking forward, undaunted, to the next clear night......

No meteor, Draconid or not. Looks like someone playing around with a green laser pointer. Color perfect for a GLP and beam divergence very clear.

I have been using the AVX for the last 5 years . I began imaging with a 1200 mm CR 6 but found the mount/scope combo was too sensitive to wind and overloaded at nearly 30 lbs. I stepped back to a SW 80 ED at 600 mm. Results were excellent and remain so with auto guiding. The mount had some issues after purchase but Celestron provided great service. I couldn't be happier with it. I know some will come back and rip this mount to pieces and indeed like any other mount there are good and bad out there even among high end mounts costing 5 X as much. I hear newer models seem more reliable now. I wouldn't hesitate to buy another.

Images of terrestrial targets on the horizon in any scope are rarely a good test. The thermal disturbance will ruin the view on the best of days. The moon is now well positioned and this will probably be the best object to judge your telescope on.

I loaded mine up with 30 lbs of imaging gear plus the two 12 lb counterweights and succeeded with well guided images at 1200 mm. (150 mm f 8 OG) I did no damage but the whole operation just "felt risky". It was very sensitive to wind and I had to keep a continual eye on tripod and other clashes. I didn't keep the configuration for long.I was soon nervous enough to make it all a lot easier by getting a SW 80 mm ED f7.5. So yes it works at 30 lb but I wouldn't like to say how long for.....

The EF lens should fit on the XT no problem. Be aware that the field of view (image width) at 300 mm on the sensor will be about 4 degrees wide while the moon is only 1/2 degree wide. The moon will look a little lost in the image. Zooming the image will reveal that the lens is not really great at that extreme 300 mm and the image will not be crisp. I have used this lens on the moon with a 3 Ti canon and not been impressed with the result.

Hi Tony from another upstate New Yorker. Welcome !