spillage

what size are you looking for?

Are you running this through a usb/usb3 hub. I found mine did this but was definitely better when running it off its own dedicated usb lead to usb2 port.

I have a couple of local astronomy members nearby who purchased the eq8 and asked me for assistance in setting it all up. I was very surprised how good the mount performed in the time I had to tinker with it. I am sure you will be more than happy with it and I will continue to keep my eyes open in case one comes up on the s/h market.  Unless a mesu for silly money lands on my lap.

cheers,

Will be interesting to see how much it improves tracking. I generally get 0.7" on average but have seen it as low as 0.4" (on rare occasions). If it can improve on this then it would still be a cheaper solution then having to upgrade to a better mount. Still if you need a second opinion I'm just up the road ?

Not sure if anyone else has seen this but rowan astronomy has release a zero back lash neq6 worm mount.

http://www.rowanastronomy.com/productsa5.htm

Not too bad for the price and looks very well engineered.

No heard of any testing on these..If @RowanAstronomy need any field testers then I would be more than happy to help out  

Can you not use a bicycle chain/lock to wrap around the mount and attach to the pier. I guess I am making the assumption that nobody is going to arrive at your property armed with the correct spanner to remove the mount (security bolts could be used).

Many moons ago I used to just use a 1ton dumpy bag over my pier and mount with a bungee cord to hold it in place. Once on it does have the shape of a rotary washing line.

Bird table?

43 minutes ago, Adam J said:

I dont get it

Sorry that was my poor editing. I own a couple of zwo cameras and SX filter wheels. One camera had to go back to China for over a month and the filter wheel got damaged (by me) and was resolved in under a week.  I think the story of zwo and the 1600 is well documented and they did a good job of getting a new product on the shelves first although I think they are now on version 3. I guess SX feel there is room and profit in the market for them and their followers.

18 minutes ago, Adam J said:

Yes, but if you don't have the extra to spend the choice that leaves you is this: Am I going to get a dedicated camera or not bother getting one at all because SX have better customer service?

But as there are other cheaper options out there you do have a choice. I have purchased chinese gear and whilst it is good value for money if it goes wrong then you are looking at a long time without that bit of kit if it needs to go back to the manufacturer. As already mentioned Atik which seem to be cheaper than SX but a bit more then ZWO do have a good following and also provide good after sales service but as I have never used them I cannot comment personally.. I think you pay your money and take your chances. Nothing in this hobby is normally cheap and most or at least myself have had to save to buy the kit we want. Again all I can say is that SX in my experience have fallen over themselves to help and resolve any issue very quickly. 

I would like to say in my experience that the extra cost of the SX kit is well worth it when things go wrong. The customer service they provide is some of the best I have come across. 

This is what I used on my neq6.

Have look here.

I would just get a 10mm t2 extension and a pack of delrin as these should have three 1.0mm spacers allowing you to gain the extra 2mm with more left for fine tuning your cc.

I sure this is the set I brought along with some delrin spacers.

13 hours ago, JamesF said:

I think you're being quite unfair really.  There's no way it covers more than a quarter of Somerset 

Well I am about the same distance from Taunton (East) as you and I can see it from my back garden.  

I started out with modded dslr (550d) the was under £200 and already modded. This to me was a cheaper way into astrophotography, it helped me learn the basics and decide if this hobby was for me. After a few months I made my mind up and went for the asi1600 mono then sold the canon for near enough the original purchase price. Yes I could of just gone straight in for the asi but at nearly £2k (including filters, wheel) that would have been a leap of faith. I think if you only spend £600 on brand new ccd then the chip size will be very small. Of course it depends on what you want to photograph but if it was me I would buy a cheap pre-modded dslr and keep on saving for a larger sensor.

I can only manage bortle 4. Although being so low I do suffer from dew and mist from the moors.

Zenith sky brightness information

21 hours ago, LukeSkywatcher said:

It's the nicest Whisky I've ever had. 

Have you tried Aldi's own whiskey. Speyside, islay and thier black label are all really good and award winners.

I would suggest going larger rather than smaller. If I could redo mine I would actually use svp, my current pipework is just way to small to take any more cable.

On 21/11/2018 at 21:43, tooth_dr said:

Meteor camera - first piece of puzzle

Smaller than a kiwi.

Thought it was a coconut. ?

I would just like to commend Terry on excellent service. I damaged the pcb board on my old filter wheel and contacted SX hoping to be able to purchase one. Terry got back to me very quickly offering to get me a price. I emailed him a few days later to see if he had managed to price one up for me and was offered a free board because of his delay in responding.

Now that is great customer service well above and beyond what I was expecting.

I will definitely be looking towards Starlight Xpress kit when mine needs replacing.

I am with Noah on this one. Having a display mount side really helps allot. I was lucky as my garden shed it only about 5m away so I managed to run vga and usb cat5 extensions to run the mouse, keyboard and monitor from there. Just having a headless unit to start out with can be a real pain.

The only thing I would add is that if you can do without wifi then don't bother. It will just cause you extra issues along the way.

I have always found my focuser on the 130 solid and hang off my 1600 and sx filter wheel from it in that orientation.

If possible run cat5 from you existing router in the house down to your kit. You can buy a length of cable from ebay ready to go with connections cheaply or make your own. Just grab an old wifi router, turn off dns (some setting will also need to be made for wifi) and plug your network lead into this. You will then have spare connection ports near you mount and a strong wifi signal.

I just house a cheap £50 desktop and router next to my mount in a waterproof wooden box. I can then run this via team viewer from any location.