Deeko

I was just looking at buying one these flatteners today and came to conclusion like you that the TS 2.5" flattener you linked and the Sharpstar are identical. The Sharpstar comes with an adapter/extender to deal with the longer backfocus and costs nearly £60 less than the TS version. might bight the bullet as it will screw straight into my focusers with M68 and the bundled adapter deals with the M69 side down to M48.

I am looking for a flattener for my Tecnosky 115mm APO. On the same page as the telescope here it links to the recommended flattener that is currently out of stock here. The linked flattener looks a lot like (specs are the same) the TS Optics 2.5" flattener with M68 thread here which FLO also sell for £293. I know lots of these flatteners are just rebrands which made me search a bit further and came up with the Sharpstar 2.5" flattener that upon looking at specs it also appears identical to the previous flatteners I linked to except it comes with an extension adapter and is cheaper. Does anyone have experience with the Sharpstar flattener or have info that may backup my thinking around it being the same flattener as the others I linked to? ta! D.

You may not be far from the truth there, imagine there it will create a backlog that will last weeks 😕

Long story short, I currently have a belt-modded HEQ5 with 80mm TS Optics triplet, QHY268m and filter wheel etc. I bought a much heavier and bigger 115mm f7 refractor and it hits the tripod legs with no way to balance safely, I doubt the HEQ5 is up for guiding with the new scope and all my other kit which would have a payload of around 10-11kg. Have been thinking about a mount upgrade for some time but it looks like I will need to use a portable pier due to length of OTA, a permanent pier is not an option. After looking around, I am thinking I could buy an EQ6-R mount for use with the iOptron tri-pier and skywatcher adaptor: tri-pier: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/all-mounts-motors/ioptron-tri-pier-portable-pier-tripod.html adaptor: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/ioptron-mount-accessories/ioptron-tri-pier-adapters.html This would come in at roughly £2k with current prices. I *could* also consider the next class up with CEM70 with the same tri-pier but that would be closer to £3k, a significant amount more. All of the above is compounded by a lack of stock, any advice/considerations would be gratefully received! D.

Thanks for the info and image, did you need to mod the extension in anyway to make it secure?

I tried to put it on mu HEQ5 Pro and it sure is heavy! With the camera etc. on it hits the tripod legs, sliding it up the saddle makes it extremely unbalanced with no realistic way to fix it and imo unusable. I have been thinking about a new mount for some time and this will push it along. It looks clear to me though that if I went with the EQ6-R Pro I would still need the pier extension and reading around it does not seem like a reasonably engineered component. Are there decent tri-piers the EQ6-R Pro can be used with instead of a pier extension+tripod? The alternative appears to be the CEM70 with tri-pier but that is x2 the cost and would need some strong persuading for that.

I too am looking to upgrade my HEQ5 Pro to something that can handle my new 115mm refractor. I will need a tripod/tri-pier as do not have a permanent pier. Atm the moment the scope can go on the HEQ5 but it will very clearly hit the legs so took it off for now until I choose a mount. If I went with the EQ6-R Pro I would need the pier extension and not heard great things about the fit of that. The next step really appears to be the CEM70. I am not fussed about the iguider but would need the tri-pier to avoid the scope/camera hitting tripod legs. If this was a £1500 purchase I wouldn't be fretting so much, but its double that with the tri-pier for the CEM70 and I really need to ask myself do I need to spend that much and make do with the EQ6-R with pier extension. Sorry I am not contributing much here but we are at least looking at one common possibility!

Yes they are indeed, very happy Does your focuser assembly rotate and if so do you use it?

I know what you mean! I may need to buy an Eq6-R for this as total weight going on my HEQ5 pro will be about 9kg, so the clouds ma not be the only thing stopping me from using it given current stock levels!

It arrived today, bigger and heavier than I anticipated! The whole focussing assembly can rotate 360 degrees which I didn't factor in as a feature. You can see the large knob that locks/unlocks this feature in photo below. I already have a separate rotator that sits between the camera and reducer, I wonder if I can remove that and just rotate the whole focuser for framing instead - has anyone any experience using this for imaging?

Hi Rsarwar, the photo shows exactly that. In the photo the M54-M48 adaptor is bolted onto the camera first, then the T2-T2 adaptor (with the M42-M48 ring) to make it T2-M48, so the M48 side screws into the cameras M54-M48 adaptor and the other T2 end straight into the EFW. I admit it is quite confusing and tool me some time to figure it out until I had the camera and adaptors in my hand.

Hello, unfortunately I didn't get a chance to go out, not sure when that will be next. There are a few photos below on how I connected the camera to the ZWO EFW with 55mm back focus. For connecting the 268m to the EFW I used the T2-T2 male adapter that came with the EFW and bought a ZWO M48-M42 ring adaptor (https://www.firstlightoptics.com/zwo-accessories/zwo-m48-to-m42-adapter-ring.html) to screw onto it. This gives one side of the T2-T2 adaptor an m48 thread that I could screw directly onto the camera plate with the other side screwing onto the EFW. Before screwing the T2 adaptor with M48 ring onto the camera plate: After screwing in the T2 adaptor with M48 ring, which can then screw into the EFW: For the Telescope side you will need to source adaptors that work for your setup and the reducer/flattener. For my setup I used a T2 extension and rotator to make up the remaining back focus, the EFW takes up 20mm: HTH

Bought the scope from Rupert at Astrograph. He said his supplier will bench test it and so will he when it arrives with him before sending on to me. I paid a total of £1200 for it, shipped in from EU via Rupert. Arrives with me on Monday. Now I may just need to upgrade my HEQ5 Pro, but the scope seems to be only 1.3kg heavier than my current 80mm, but understand it will be longer so different load distribution there and also more surface area for wind etc. Though there is a chance it might be ok on the HEQ5 Pro for now and worth a try. I have read that the EQ6-R is a decent mount but guiding capabilities not much better than the HEQ5, though it can take a larger payload. My HEQ5 Pro has a belt mod, guiding is just ok. If I want something better at guiding that an EQ6-R then am I looking at a CEM45 or CEM70,. I see the CEM45 is in same class as EQ6-R but CEM70 a step up, but is it worth nearly double the price of an EQ6-R when you factor in the tri-pier?

Hey, I have posted up some images in this thread: However, they were all done under a full moon so not a great test yet! I had some vignetting but I think this may have been caused by the full moonlight and possibly over compensated flats. I need to wait on a clear night with no moon to do some more testing.

Managed 5 hours of SHO data on the Rosette. Nebula, again no glitches when collecting the data with APT (always worries me with a new camera!). That will prob be it now until next year under UK skies. Still need to experiment with flats/dark flats, its possible the flats are over compensating with the vignetting. I may invest in a decent flats field panel, anyone use a smaller sized one of these for as refractor? https://www.365astronomy.com/lacerta-flatfield-box-flatfield-panel-for-8-200mm-newtonian-telescopes-mark-ii.html

Yes, I could save time by reducing the exposure time by adjusting the panel brightness per filter, but for convenience I use same brightness setting/tshirt layers for all LRGB filters, same for the SHO filters.

I aimed for an ADU of 30k using the flats-aid tool built into APT. The exposure values the tool gave me are below and were used with a light panel (varying brightness and layers of t-shirt): LRGB L=7.5s, R=20s, G=16.5s, and B=22.75s SHO S=16.25s, H=12.5s, and OIII=8.25s

What ADU value are folks using for their flats? I am also getting some vignetting in lights/flats but I have only used the camera under a full moon so far, which may have something to do with it.

There a are a few tips I have picked up along the way, first one is here for applying selective colour in Photoshop: http://bf-astro.com/hubblep.htm. The other is here is you use Pixinsight (for reducing green and bringing out the cyan/gold): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6GHqYyyHg8&ab_channel=Chuck'sAstrophotography I am a big fan of quick wins/fixes, barely have any time for astro so what time I do have needs to be spent wisely and not wading through massive tutorials

Hard to believe, but two clear nights in a row in UK, of course with an obligatory full moon 😕 I managed another 4 hours, this time on the soul nebula. Always struggle with processing this target. Safe to say, aside from some minor glitches (setting up, before starting an image plan) the camera seems to be able to do a full image run in APT without any issues. probably be next year again before we get another clear night in the UK, will buy whatever new camera is available at the time for the occasion

First light with Heart Nebula, 4 hours of SHO with 80mm TS scope and flattener. The full moon did not help at all but at least I got to image something and check guiding etc. (camera is seriously heavy!). I need to adjust the back focus, currently at 55mm. Though setup is getting stripped down again to fit a 115mm apo sometime next week. Happy with the results so far and look forward to trying more targets without the moon. Some images attached. Roughly processed image in Photoshop and stacked and stretched Ha image.

No, not had this with APT. I did get a full run last night of 4 hours with no issues though. imaged heart nebula under the full moon. There are minor bugs in APT like if I disconnect camera to go into settings the cooling values are not recognised and need to close the cooling window. Also histogram in APT does not play well at all with the camera images, keeps changing and never gets it right unless I manually set it. I am getting 50mb fits images from camera, I am not 100% sure if the heart nebula images are binned 1x1 as when I opened the ascom settings today is was set at 2x2. Can anyone confirm the sizes of their images from the camera in both bin modes?

Only just getting first light with the 268m tonight! I am having some issues with getting all white images intermittently using APT with latest beta drivers. It can happen at any exposure length. Not sure if it's a driver or APT issue. I may consider switching to NINA if it carries on as the dev of NINA seems very reactive with QHY drivers.

Thanks for all the info folks. Great video link Vlaiv! The scope is 1.5kg heavier than my current TS 80mm. I suspect I will be pushing nearly 9kg total on my HEQ5. Likely need to start looking at a mount upgrade too, any suggestions?

I have the 80mm triplet too and happy with it, just wondering how much of a difference the glass will actually make for the 115mm, esp to my eyeballs.