emyliano2000

It looks like Friday and Saturday night I will have 2 clear night in a row and I can't decide on which target to choose, M27 or M57. I am pretty fond of these 2 targets as they are the first ever DSOs I have ever seen with my telescope. I had a 4 months break from AP (only started AP last December) and having a few upgrades done to my equipment I'm very curious of how things will work. My view is quite restricted so I will only have around 3 hours of exposure time for each night for any of the targets, starting at around 10:30pm, until they roll behind the trees. The mount is freshly hypertuned and I'm looking forward to see how it performs. I live on the edge of a red zone, reason why I will be using a lp filter. I will be guiding with my lacerta mgen and PA with a polemaster. I need to remember to check the collimation on the OTA as I found the center spot on the primary wasn't really centered so I had to make a new one. Will be using APT to capture the frames. Bahtinov mask and autofocuser to get the focus spot on. Hypertuned EQ6, SW200p with a dslr(eos 700d), mpcc mark III and idas lps-d1 clip filter, oag and lacerta mgen. I would like to go for the same target on both nights to capture as much data as possible. I don't know what exposure to go for (was thinking of 600sec) and ISO 400 to keep the noise down. I will be taking flats, dark flats and bias frames. No darks as I will be dithering 12px between each frame. I would like to start shooting when the target has passed the meridian so I don't waste any time on recentering the target when doing a meridian flip and finding and callibrating on a new guide star (not that experienced) even though I'm using astrotortilla to plate solve. I'm still learning the east heavy off ballancing the mount. From what I read I have to make the mount a bit heavy on the rising side or the side that is on the east of the meridian in RA and a bit heavy on the camera side in DEC. Please, please correct me if I'm wrong. Could you please advise me on what target to choose and maybe what exposure and ISO. And if I forgot something could you please tell me what it is. I'm so very excited to go back in to AP and especially on one of these 2 targets as I am pretty sure I will miss something. Thanks Emil

I always look forward to see another great capture by alacant.

PM sent. Emil

Is there a bahtinov mask for a lens?

I wish it would be that easy. The time I have is quite limited, work and 2 girls who are all over me when I'm at home. I'm not looking for anything fancy. I just wanna take a few shots in my back garden, stack them and see what comes out of it.

Hi. Can I ask how did you come up with the 108mm hole? Is there some formulae that tell you this? Emil

Hi guys. Like the title says I'm planning to do some imaging of the night sky with the kit lens. The camera is astromodified and hopefully I will catch some of the milky way. Because I live in a red-orange area I will be using the IDAS LP clip in filter that I purchaced last month. In order to use it with the kit lens I had to cut the part that would've hit the filter. The lens is 18-55mm EFS and from what I read on some topics here the best way to do it is at f3.5, set the lens focus to manual and focus to infinity. Maybe I'm being silly to ask this question but how do I focus to infinity? I'm thinking of using APT to capture the photos. Any thoughts on that? I'm planning to attach the camera on top of the telescope onto a vixen dovetail bar that I'm not using at the moment and use one of the bolts that came with the tube rings. Is that a good idea? I also wanna try to align the camera with the OTA with the bolts at the ends of the bar. Here's a photo of it. Regarding the camera settings, I was thinking of using the same settings that I use when I'm shooting at prime focus. Would that be ok or will I need to change anything? For the exposure time I was thinking of 1min. My polar alignment will be spot on with the polemaster and the mount had been hypertuned so I think it can easily do 1 min unguided. I wanna try with ISO 400 at first and if that's not enough go up to 800. Is that a good idea? Thanks. Emil

So I ended up buying the fufmpcc adapter. It was on sale for only £15 at teleskop-austria. When I get it I will see if it works and what kinde of adapter I need to make it work. Fingers crossed. Emil

If somebody is interested, I can sell them together for £120. Emil

Thanks

Hi guys, I'm trying to make an all screwed connection of my imaging train. At the moment I have DSLR -> OAG for EOS -> MPCC mark III which is held inside the focuser by a compression ring adapter (3 screws). The MPCC is screwed to the OAG in M48 mode, I can't use the T2 adapter that came with the MPCC because the OAG has a M48 female thread. I found on the market an adapter that would replace the compression ring adapter and could make an allscrewed connection when using a MPCC, T ring and DSLR. The M56 thread is actually M54, they got it wrong in the photo. This adapter is alowing you to attach the MPCC to the T ring in T2 mode but I can do that because my OAG has a M48 female thread and even if I could use The T2 adapter of the MPCC it would hit the prism of the OAG. The end of the M48 thread of the MPCC is flush with the adapter and I'm wondering if I can extend in any way the M48 thread of he MPCC with some kind of adapter. So what I'm looking for is an adapter similar to the T2 one in the photo above but instead of T2 it would have a M48 thread and in this way extend the M48 thread of the MPCC so I can screw it into my OAG when using the FUFMPCC adapter. Do you guys know what size thread is the one pointed with the red arrow? Would this king of adapter allow me to have an all screw connection? Baader MPCC + M48 adapter (extension) screwd into the FUFMPCC -> FUFMPCC screwed into the focuser draw tube ->OAG for EOS screwed to the adapter (extension) of the MPCC M48 thread and EOS clipped to the OAG for EOS. The other thing is the M48 thread of this adapter (extension) has to be 2.8mm max :). I think my chances of finding something like this are quite low but even if I would find a longer one, I could grind it to the desired size. If not, I'm thinking of emailing John at Jtech and asking if he can make such an adapter (extension) but only if it would work. Emil

Thanks, I didn't think of that. About the focuser squaring, I thought about looking for a tutorial or something of how to do it. Don't know how yet. Emil

Hi guys, After watching a youtube video posted by astronomyshed I decided to modify my webcam to use it as a collimation tool. Now the thing is that I don't know if what I've done is right or not. Does the sensor have to be alligned in any way with the 1.25" tube to get a perfect reading? I had a try ant this is what came out of it. Do you think that my collimation can be incorrect if the sensor is not alligned with the tube? Emil

I'm glad you found the time to answer on the forum too. Like I said many times before I am quite unexperienced and my knoledge in what is good or bad is quite limited and this is the reason why I ask for help and advice whenever I think there's a problem. It doesn't necessarily mean there is problem but it is exactly what I've done in this case, I thought that something is wrong and I asked for advice. Since I bought my telescope, about 1 year ago, the SGL members have been like teachers to me in most of the things I have learnt so far and every time I was looking for an answer to a question on Google, I was being pointed towards SGL and most of the times I found my answers here. Being the member of this forum is allowing me to learn a lot of things and increase my knowledge and until I will be able to contribute to the forum with advice and help I will only have to ask for it. Of course, there are people that don't know what you do and that you run a reputable business and some people might think that you are just a regular person tuning mounts and they critisize accordingly. It is better that you recalled my mount as I would've been afraid not to break something by overtightening the grub screws anyway. On the eq5 that I sold to buy the eq6 I tightened the polarscope grub screws until I cracked the reticle inside it. I'm pretty sure that you do a great job because I never heard a bad thing about your work but I thought there was an issue with my mount and looked for an answer. I found a few topics about the backlash not being a problem but I thought the backlash on mine was a bit too much. I emailed you the video and posted it here too just to hear opinions from both sides. I think that a lot of people would have a confidence issue when spending a considerable sum to get their mount to be tuned, mount for which they probably spent an amount that wasn't a very easy spend. I don't want you to get me wrong and think that I'm trying to say that your prices aren't fair because I'm not. To get a low end mount to perform as good as the really expensive ones at a fraction of the price is really great but for a lot of people seeing is believing. I started thinking that maybe I didn't leave the mount with you long enough, maybe I pushed you to send it back to me too early and that's why this happened to the mount. I understand now that my mount has been completely rebuilt and it takes time to settle, that I have to use it too see the improvements. I'm not blaming you or myself for this. They happen and it's good they can be rectified. The 2 years warranty that you give is indeed a great thing that you don't see very often and it proves that you know what you're doing and that you take pride in it. I belive that every criticism is a step for an improvement and should be taken accordingly. I will let you know of the results once I start imaging with it. Clear skies. Emil

I might be getting a little paranoid but please have a look at the videos and tell me if I'm right about the stiffness in the DEC axis and the little one in RA. Ian posted some videos of his mount at the begining of the topic and he was saying the DEC on his mount is the same as the RA, swinging nicely with no stiffness. Emil