Shaun_Astro

Yes I've been reading it punches above it's price range non-astro wise. Here's my first image with it. Not sure whether the Askar 30mm f4.5 would have been a better shout, quite bad stars in the edges, although reviews did congratulate it on it's flat field, and f4-5 gets rid of vignetting completely (as do flats with flat darks).

I bought a used Sigma 105mm f2.8 lens, it's not amazing, but noticeably better than the Cannon 75-300mm @ f4. Once the moon is out the way at the weekend I hope to use it at around F3.5 and get some deeper pics.

This LED lighting is completely horrific. It has blue light that basically ruins the circadian rhythm of most animals, and it's broad spectrum so you can't block it. "Light pollution: Huge fall in stars that can be seen with naked eye" Light pollution: Huge fall in stars that can be seen with naked eye - BBC News

I did just buy this lens (used example) for my star adventurer. I did look up sigma 105mm on Astrobin, but I see they all use the 105mm f/1.8 ART, which is 3X the price! Still should yield better results than my Canon 75-300mm, but this is miles off the Rokinon/Samyang 135mm. Might see if I can return it and put the ££ towards that, a lot of the stars seem quite misshapen around the edges. Have you tried star tools and the star shrink? Great picture for the exposure time though, just a lot more field curvature than I had expected.

This is is stacked on the comet, 220x30s frames. How I envy those with RASA's and f2 lenses!

Well, stacking comets with a slow lens is difficult, the star trails pass through the faint tail and the final image has too much detail lost from the final stack because of them. I read to batch the comet stacks to remove the quantity of stars going through the tail, I'll try that. Also doesn't help the moon was so bright last night, and the closest approach is coinciding with the full moon. Here's what I have so far, my first comet image! Canon 75-300mm at 75mm f4.5.

Fair enough, it's not much more of an outlay. I was looking at the Altair 60EDF doublet, the Horizon 60 looks good also! Altair 60 EDF Doublet Refractor Telescope V3 (altairastro.com)

IMHO there is wayy too much CA evident, it looks like an achromat nearly, considering it's 62mm ED and F6.5 I would expect minimal CA, clearly something is amiss with your example. I have seen processed pics with little to no CA. Also seeing as the Samyang f2 delivers much better stars with being 2x faster (and cheaper than Evolux with flattener), I would return and perhaps get a Redcat. **Edit** I've just watched the French Review, and the stars seem similarly affected by CA. So perhaps this is what a single unedited frame gives, has put me off the Evolux somewhat.

I see, a powerbank with 12v would work great with that. I probably would have gotten the GTi, but it's all of out stock atm! Here a quick peek of marks and the Hyades last night. I tried using by Canon le'Crap 75-300mm zoom @ 75mm f4. Unfortunately the 75mm zoom, despite being f4 vs the f5.6 of my 18-55mm @55mm has horrific flaring and CA of ALL the stars at 75mm. I thought it was tracking error, but I'm not sure if it's lens flex or sensor alignment from the weight of the lens, or just bad flaring from poor optics. Also, with the DSLR body on the Dec Bracket, the lens makes the whole SA very hard to balance, depending on which side the lens is pointing at. I was considering a Sigma 85 f1.4, but that is 1.1kg! Without a lens bracket to mount and balance (of which I think there are none for that lens) it would be a nightmare to balance. Does anyone have any suggestions for balancing heavy lenses without a lens mounting bracket?

The Gti is nice, and it's massively useful it's goto and DEC guiding, but I bought this as a <100mm FL star stacker to take camping and to dark sky sites. It can weigh 4kg with the camera. The Gti is another beast, stainless steel tripod, 3x heavier in total, requires laptop, guide scope, guide camera, big battery bank etc. Not something I can hike up a hill with at night!

The 2i is just the pro minus the wedge and dec bar? So you'd need to get the wedge at a minimum also. The Dec bar does help, but you kind of need a ball head otherwise one always has a portrait view.

There are some amazing pics here! I've had a couple of chances to use my SA, taking out and polar aligning it with the camera on is a breeze compared to the HEQ5 (which is still in post-move storage). Orion with my Canon 1300D and 18-55 @f5.6. Second, Mars, Auriga and Taurus using someone's Sony A73 and Zeiss 50mm @f2.2! Unfortunately the focus went out on the second due to the dew strip, so we lost 1/2 the subs. It would have made an awesome pic, the Zeiss is out of this world!

I bought a nano mount and AR90, on sale separately, ex demo or return last year. The AR 90, despite needing some alignment turned out to be fantastic, it really puts up sharp views will little colour despite it being out of collimation slightly. The nano mount is to be avoided at all costs, it literally is maddening... The fact they pair the AR 90/900 and 102/600 with this mount is difficult to comprehend. The altitude is on a bearing, which is tightened not by the flimsy screw in "control" handle, which is pointless, but a difficult to get to nut on the inside of the dovetail. The telescope has to be balanced precisely, and the difference in weight of eyepieces causes alt rotation, as does very gently touching the eyepiece with one's eye. It seems to be constantly in motion on the alt axis and requiring constant rebalancing. Trying to look at the moon at 90x with the AR90 requires holding onto the diagonal to steady the wobbles that never seem to settle down. As for a smaller telescope: the Celestron Travelscope 70 is still borderline because of the mount's sensitivity to balance. I have a StarDiscovery mount which manually like an AZ 4, it's very steady and weighs about the same funnily enough. With that I can easily use the AR90 at 180x mag. I just needed to rant; I pulled it out of storage for another try and got annoyed. I can't see anyone else giving a review on it and suggest those tempted to purchase it to get something better to avoid buying twice.

It's kind of like rare wildlife watching, if you could see the animals all the time, where would the appeal be?

Definitely the skyliner for planets I'd say also. I would recommend the bresser 150/1200 dob, its £80 more and you get better altitude bearings and tube rings (for later changes in mounting) but the finder is pretty naff and it doesn't include the better hexafoc focuser. If "sparing no expense" is your agenda you might consider the Orion Optics VX6-L. That and the dob mounting comes to a whopping £576, which is actually reasonable considering its made in the UK.