Jkulin

With the greatest respect to Rainer, he lives in a country where the dealer cannot offer proper customer service, any person would have sent it back at the first hint of a major problem, unfortunately Rainer chose not to and the issue has become quite heightened. I purchased my three iOptrons from Altair Astro and have had nothing but absolutely perfect service from Ian and iOptron as indeed many people that I know. If you have a good dealer which it would appear Rainer has not then it makes things so much easier. Indeed there have been a couple of issues and they have been sorted speedily and at no cost to me. I think with Rainer and iOptron it has become a war of Attrition, where the more that Rainer wants the less that iOptron can give and the battle is now war!

Hi Vlaiv, indeed I do understand, but what I am saying is that you cannot use any version of the iOptron 120 without guiding, it is essential, my mount even with an encoder on the RA cannot tracking a perfect sidereal rate without guiding, unlike an ASA or 10 Micron, I'm not sure about the Mesu.

Hi Alan, Of course, sometimes you want to use a different mask for one area and then another masks to work on another are etc. The work around for me is to create a black mask and then apply that to a range mask to block out specific areas by cloning from the black mask, but rather than make a mask up like that it would be nice if you could make a specific mask up for one area, then apply an exisitng different mask to a different area and so on and then apply the changes. Hope that explains things a little better.

Hope everything is working out OK Ray. ATB

Yep I believe you are right Ray, I have seen it quoted that you can get 30 min exposures unguided with it, I seriously doubt that they are looking at things closely enough. BTW did you upgrade the FW I sent you and if so, did you notice the improvement?

Hi Vlaiv, I have the 120EC with just the encoders on the RA and personally although it is producing some excellent results, I do not believe that it performs unguided. Don't get me wrong for the money it is hard to beat and with my Bortle 5 skies as long as I get round stars then I don't care, I always use an OAG and when I finally switch over to my Esprit 80 and 100 they will run with an OAG. I have found that using a guide scope combination gives false readings and will make your guiding look better than it actually is. For me I want to know precisely how bad or how good it is performing. I am far from the technical mind that you have, but results speak for themselves. I was capturing some really tricky targets with gusts of up to 28mph and the 120EC gave me reasonable results where I am sure that a guide scope would have failed and that was at 2007mm FL. Had I wanted to spend a few grand more and had a permanent observatory then the Mesu would have been my first choice, but because I put two covers over my scopes at the end of each session I always have to redo the polar alignment prior to commencing a session and I believe that to get the best out of the Mesu you should really drift align, something which I do not have time for with our skies. Now if I really had the money then a GM2000 would be my choice or if I could find one an ASA85 with the absolute encoders, however the Rainbow mounts look very interesting and over the next couple of years I will be watching them very closely.

Thanks Alan, Yep you hit that on the head, have you ever wished you could apply 3 or 4 masks at the same time so that you can work on a specific area? I have got the galaxy virtually as I want, but need to then concentrate on the other areas, I will get there but doubt that it will look as good as yours.

I think the biggest difference Ray is the lack of any halo's which I have only found that the Chroma and Astrodon LRGB are capable of. My imaging has come along in leaps and bounds since switching over. I look forward to your thoughts. All the best.

That's Lovely Alan, I have been doing the same image and have about 20 hours on it so far, there is so much going on in the image, I have processed it about 5 times so and I'm still not happy with the outcome. How did you find it to process?

I think Edwina Currie would have something to say about eggs all over the sky?🤣

Beautiful, I have that one marked to do 🙂 Was there any SII in it?

Thanks Adam

Hi Adam, I'm in discussions about a dome at the moment, can I ask how you managed to make a perfectly round frame? I'm tempted to make mine oversized and then have my bricky build a 3 high brickwork base on top with air bricks in to keep the air moving and then build rafters for the floor, my existing pier block is fine and would just need isolating.

Thanks Adam, you wouldn't believe how many times I reprocessed this in Pixinsight, and last night at 03:10 in the morning I said enough. The biggest issue I have always had was noise and I really failed at that miserably and this video on YouTube, explained it so easily, hope the link helps. I'm working on another cracker at the moment with around 15+ hours of data and hopefully will be able to put these new techniques to good use, I did try APP, but haven't really got to grips with that yet.

Thanks Bob, I like to capture things differently and this one deserved the time to do properly

I have seen very few images of this subject, most seem to be with M106, I did think about taking it in portrait mode, but I rather liked the way the stars danced across the screen. I have learnt some new techniques which have helped immensely and I am rather pleased how this has turned out. Again, taken with my GSO/Altair 10" RC Truss, iOptron 120EC, Moravian G2-8300, Pegasus UPB, Chroma 2" Filters, more details here: - https://www.astrobin.com/k4i9un/ Here's the capture details: - GSO/Altair 10" RC Truss Moravian G2-8300 Mk!! Chroma 2" Unmounted LRGB iOptron 120EC Lodestar x2 Gudie Camera QHY-M OAG with Custom adapters Dates:April 23, 2020 , April 24, 2020 Frames: Chroma Blue 2" unmounted: 21x390" -20C bin 1x1 Chroma Green 2" unmounted: 21x300" -20C bin 1x1 Chroma Luminance 2" unmounted: 24x300" -20C bin 1x1 Chroma Red 2" unmounted: 21x348" -20C bin 1x1 Integration: 8.1 hours Darks: ~30 Flats: ~25 Bias: ~100 Avg. Moon age: 0.81 days Avg. Moon phase: 0.97% Bortle Dark-Sky Scale: 5.00 Mean SQM: 19.51 Temperature: 8.37 Here's the bumf as usual, although there isn't a lot around: - NGC 4217 is an edge-on spiral galaxy which lies approximately 60 million light-years ( 18 million parsecs ) away in the constellation of Canes Venatici. It is a possible companion galaxy to M106 (also known as NGC 4258).

Hi Carole, When I had my 383 it did happen a couple of times and was down to ice. I removed the desiccant and left the cap off and left it in the airing cupboard for a couple of days and that fixed it. My mate has it as well and he put the camera in with a bag of rice to absorb the moisture, he has been plagued with that problem. HTH

Dave, not sure what make filters you have, I use Chroma and when I first got them I spent a couple of nights checking and rechecking the focus on the LRGB and NB and they were all par-focal, apart from the green which was 20 units out over 11000 movements, enough to say I ignored the difference. I always focus using my Lum, and I never had an issue with focus. @RayD posted this video over a year ago of how to set up focusing with SGP and it has proved invaluable for me and once setup you will never look back: -

Thank-you

Although we have had high winds/gusts of up to 28mph I'm managing during this lock down to capture loads of images, this one I finished last night whilst capturing another object. Indeed there will be many others who could achieve better, but I'm reasonably happy with it I originally captured a couple of hours red, but wasn't happy with the influence of the moon, so I waited until this latest period, we still had some winds, but the mount handled it reasonably well. So it has taken me a few hours processing and hasn't turned out too bad, I usually find galaxies are harder for me to get right than narrowband, but I have enjoyed the processing. More details here: - https://www.astrobin.com/84dfva/ Essentially: - Imaging telescope or lens:: -GSO 10" f/8 RC Truss Imaging camera: - Moravian G2-8300 Mark II Software: - Adobe Photoshop 2020 , Main Sequence Software Sequence Generator Pro , PixInsight Core version 1.8 Filters: - Chroma Ha 3nm , Chroma Green 2" unmounted , Chroma Blue 2" unmounted , Chroma Red 2" unmounted Dates:April 20, 2020 , April 21, 2020 Chroma Blue 2" unmounted: 8x780" -20C bin 1x1 Chroma Green 2" unmounted: 10x600" -20C bin 1x1 Chroma Ha 3nm: 5x1200" -20C bin 1x1 Chroma Luminance 2" unmounted: 11x600" -20C bin 1x1 Chroma Red 2" unmounted: 8x696" -20C bin 1x1 Integration: 8.4 hours Here's the bumf as usual: - NGC 4631 (also known as the Whale Galaxy or Caldwell 32) is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici. This galaxy's slightly distorted wedge shape gives it the appearance of a herring or a whale, hence its nickname. Because this nearby galaxy is seen edge-on from Earth, professional astronomers observe this galaxy to better understand the gas and stars located outside the plane of the galaxy. NGC 4631 contains a central starburst, which is a region of intense star formation. The strong star formation is evident in the emission from ionized hydrogen and interstellar dust heated by the stars formed in the starburst. The most massive stars that form in star formation regions only burn hydrogen gas through fusion for a short period of time, after which they explode as supernovae. So many supernovae have exploded in the center of NGC 4631 that they are blowing gas out of the plane of the galaxy. This superwind can be seen in X-rays and in spectral line emission. The gas from this superwind has produced a giant, diffuse corona of hot, X-ray emitting gas around the whole galaxy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_4631

You'll need to contact him at http://656imaging.co.uk I have seen some of his new designs and they are amazing.

Some lovely detail there Brian, I do think you may have clipped the background a little as it is a little dark. I did the same when I did it, if you can create a mask and then protect the galaxy, I'm sure you will have really top class image.

Can I ask, has anyone cleaned their mirror whilst in situ, on a warm breezy day with my truss it would be very easy to do and then let the air dry it out, as an RC it would make enormous sense to leave it in, the only thing electrical would be the fans and if done with the OTA on its side or even slightly pointing down, it would make good sense?

These were my best from 2019, all taken with my 10" GSO/Altair Truss F7.9, Moravian G2-8300Mk II, I'm sure I could process far better than then, but at the time I was really quite pleased. NGC7635 The Bubble Nebula 8 Hours Integration Melotte 15, 8 Hours Integration IC410 - The Tadpole Nebula 11.0 Hours Integration. IC1396 - The Elephant Trunk Nebula 10.7 Hours Intergration Messier 51 10.1 Hours Intergration

Yep, I paused the imaging and re-run it, it helped a little but not as much as I would have hoped. I'm running at between 6 & 9 sec duration so I am not chasing the seeing, as it is moving away from the Zenith it is getting better, far from what I usually get get but better. As I mentioned it is normally really good, but I always seem to have a problem when it starts to reach the zenith. I have a permanent pier and my PA is excellent, it just bugs me when I know the mount can really produce some very good results.