jjosefsen

28 minutes ago, RolandKol said:

you have missed one part...

x) Shorten the Focuser's drawtube (1cm minimum)
 

And good luck and patience while placing the secondary back in the position!!!

the rest is piece of cake!

It's in the last line of my post, I wanted to see how far it protrudes into the tube first.. but obviously it would be nice to do it right now so I don't have to align secondary twice!

?

54 minutes ago, wimvb said:

So, what's the plan? Or is the 130PDS delivered as an IKEA set nowadays?

Haha good one. ?

Disassembly - Done

Flocking - Done

Install rca plug in tube for possible future heater - Todo

Paint secondary - Todo

Change collimation screws on secondary - Todo

Reassembly - Todo

Collimation - Todo

And then a real test to see how it works, how much I need to chop off the focuser tube, if any.

?

It has begun..!
?

Sorry for the [removed word] post, I'm just super excited!

4 hours ago, Susaron said:

One additional comment guys.

I asked for a quotation to TS to mood the metal tube to CF, and they answer me a couple of things. First that in order to achive similar strength the thickness should be around 7mm and therefore the rings won´t be the same, and second the cost, as according to them is not a standard tube, the cost of the equivalent CF tube would be around 700 Eur. 

Don´t you think is this madness?

Cheers.

Might as well get one of their delicious UNC/ONTC newts for that price..

21 minutes ago, Adam J said:

Did you decide which CC your going for in the end?

 

I am still haunted by by the ES HR CC as well.. It is a little shorter than some at around 85mm compared to the 100mm of the GPU.

If I didn't worry about the length of the GPU then that woul probably be my choice..

Basically it is one of these:

ES HR - More expensive, but better, especially if I am going to get a faster scope in the future, slightly longer.

TS Maxfield: Cheaper, shorter meaning less problems with the 130pds focuser, should still be a decent improvement over the Baader MPCC.

6 minutes ago, Adam J said:

Did you decide which CC your going for in the end?

 

Yeah 95% sure it is going to be the 3-element maxfield CC from TS Optics.

https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p3822_TS-Optics-2--3-element-MaxField-Newtonian-Coma-Corrector.html

30 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

It's definitely not shorter than the standard adaptor, I think the standard one is 10mm too, but I've made a pair of slightly shorter ones. It's not really practical to fit a compression ring to one much smaller than 10mm.

Yeah I thought as much.. Well I plan on ordering scope, collimation tools, thumbscrews for secondary and flocking material tonight. So hopefully this can be my little Xmas project. Then dewshield and CC after next payday. ?

I got an hour and a half last night on this thing, in very windy conditions.. But to hell with it! My first comet! ?

Do any of you know if this adapter (10mm) has a shorter optical length than the standard 2" adapter on the scope?

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adapters/flo-compression-ring-adapter-for-skywatcher-newtonians-m54.html

I have one of these for my frac, and can't say I find it much better than the usual thumbscrew version. But if it is shorter it could help with the draw tube problem..

5 minutes ago, Susaron said:

The secondary has a 48mm secondary axis. Anyway I have shared a season with refractor colleagues with a 100% humidity beside a river and whereas they had their dew strips at 100% power, mine one was absolutely dry with camping mat outside the tube and some flocking inside.

Ok that sounds encouraging. Maybe I will just go with a dew shield and not a heater.

I plan on flocking it straight away, so wanted to do the dew heater in the same gon if necessary.

Thanks for the feedback.

45 minutes ago, Adam J said:

I dont use a heater, I do use a dew shield. It has to be very high humidity 85% before I have problems and that is usually associated with poor transparency anyway.

I have only had it dew up once this year and I suspect that was because I needed to remove the dew shield to refocus with the mask.

I think that some of this is to do with using a obsy though and I do remember it being worse before I got the obsy.

I would see how you get on with a dew shield before you go to the trouble of adding a heater to the secondary. The most important mod is that you, cut the focuser tube (unless you get the ES corrector).

Adam

I often have very high relative humidity 90+.. with my frac and a dew band it's not an issue, but it worries me with the open design of a newt.

I must admit I was hoping I didn't have to cut the draw tube with the cc I'm looking at.

Can anyone tell me the diameter of the stalk the secondary mirror is mounted on?

Hi.

I'm considering getting one of these bad boys (130pds) and modifying it over Christmas.

I'm looking at dewheater solutions, and wondering if a glued secondary mirror heater would be preferable to a dewshield.

Can any of you tell me the diameter of the secondary mirror stalk/mounting?

I was considering mounting an rca plug in the top of the ota for a more permanent solution instead of having a cable dangle lose up there.

7 hours ago, Tiny Small said:

They're about the same price as the standard baader ones (£250 for three 1.25 inch filters Vs £270 for the baaders) and the o3 and S2 have a narrower range than the baader filters. 

Yeah you are right actually, my bad.. But is the Halo more significant in one particular band i wonder?

6 hours ago, Tiny Small said:

Thanks. I'm using Altair Astro filters. 7Nm Ha, 6.5 Nm OIII and SII.

Aaah.. I think those are on the "budget'y side" and could very well be the source of those halo's, actually they might be the same as gen. 1 ZWO filters.. (Not sure though..)

My guess is it would be particularly bad in the OIII master??

I just purchased a set og Baader LRGB filters + Ha + OIII and i researched it quite extensively, and alot of the cheaper filters have problems with halo's particularly in the OIII filters.

Lovely details in that image. Can I ask what filters you were using, make and band width?

I'm sorry to jump on the Necro wagon here.. But holy s**t!!

This is really something.. My hat is off to you! Even my non astro wife was very impressed with this, so that is saying a lot..!

2 minutes ago, alacant said:

<scary>

You did report the issues and send logs to the developers...? Most issues are fixed for next day's build, or you can download and build the fix yourself from git. Or at least they'll give you code to test so that you can help them with a stable fix. Just pull the latest source and build the parts you need or use the daily updates. This is what indi really looks like:

And if you want indi to work as you expect on your setup, this is what you do I do.

</scary>

If this post hasn't scared the few windows users still with us, than I really don't know how to scare them off for good. All that download-and-build-the-fix-yourself linux nonsense!

 

It doesn't really scare me no, I am a software developer, albeit on a Windows platform..

Lots of people already reported the same problems, and it was determined to be due to bad drivers. I will probably have another go at it later, when time permits. Kstars/Ekos looked really good..

1 hour ago, stash_old said:

Had the same on previous attempts but latest version (1.7.4) runs my Canon 100d no problem(nearly 100%) - check your cable the RPI to Canon is very fragile when used with a "run of the mill" cable - I changed to a Lindy Chromo and the problems went away and speed improved. ?

Good to know! I was planning on going back and trying again at some point, must have something to do during bad weather. ?

At one point I was really hooked on having a pi run my rig. But I tried Indi and kstars on my laptop, and had so much trouble with it.. feature wise it looks great! But I had so much trouble with both Canon DSLR hanging and QHY camera hanging all the time.. ?

Got the EQ6 yesterday.. What a monster! ?

Hi @AstroKane,

Of course..!

It worked perfectly fine to be honest, there is no flex in mounting it this way, and everything is very securely fixed.

19 hours ago, Nigel G said:

Its a great thread, visual proof that the EQ3 is worthy of excellent images. And hopefully will continue to guide other EQ3 users.

There will be others along. I have sold my EQ3 now so can't post new images, spent the money on a 200PDS  

So a few of my favourite EQ3 images for the thread too. 

Nige.

 

? Impressive!

RIP this thread! NEQ6 Pro Synscan incomming

1 minute ago, Snooze said:

Is saving time the only benefit of the pro version or is the tracking smoother and better too?

I have my eyes set on the eqm-35 but there are not many(if any) reviews of it at the moment. But to be honest I'd rather save +200€ and get the eq3 pro(or non pro) and use a small APO to image if I can  . There are images in this thread that are way better than those taken on more expensive mounts.

I don't know actually. But I think it has stronger motors, so one could argue it would be better.

Just now, Snooze said:

Very nice images! I just learned that you can auto-guide with the dual axis motors. So for those of you who use the dual axis motors, how well do they perform? Is the EQ3 Pro goto worth the +130€?

Yes absolutely! I have the non goto version, and even though it is fun to find objects without goto it cuts too much into my imaging time. This is especially true when imaging over multiple nights.

If possible save up some more and get a heq5 or maybe the eqm-35 instead.