Mr niall

+1 Thinkpad. They’re everywhere and really cheap.

I’m still on a ten year old one for work (T430) and it runs some fairly hefty GiS software ok.

1 hour ago, Richard_B said:

Thanks for the reply. I have seen some imaging done with just a basic guidescope and it was OK. If it will work in principle I may give it a go. Plus I could useit as a better findertscope for my main telescope 🙂

Sure. I know some people tried imaging with the ED50 but really struggled. If you used a heavy crop it may be ok. But everyone has different tolerances  when they look through the eyepiece I guess. I use a 9x50 with a filter for spotting sunspots so that’s kind of visual only I guess.

Generally the biggest problem is that they aren't very well corrected at the edges due to the short focal length so you get a lot of fuzziness and coma from at least 50% out. I toyed with this a few times too but in the end decided that a pair of binoculars worked out better all round in most circumstances

It’s entirely subjective really.

For me, Jupiter is at its best around 80x, closely followed by about 30x. 
Although I’ve had some brill views at 200x, I just like 80x cos you can normally see sharp edges, clearly defined bands, but it’s still small enough to look “far away” and small in space, and has a couple of moons etc. 
but then I normally use smaller scopes.

For Saturn - looks incredible about 100x for me, for similar reasons.

For Mars though, high as physically possible, get a real buzz from making out polar ice caps and dark bands.

Some people like zoom eyepieces, some people do not.

Advantages;

Convenience - and that’s for a few reasons; not having to change eyepieces in the dark, convenience of having a range of focal lengths, less to carry about etc.

Disadvantages -

field of view at longer focal lengths; they are generally limited by a narrower field of view at the longer end of the focal length so you see less of the sky.

Size and weight - they can be a bit big and bulky.

Changing focal lengths can be a bit fiddly in the dark, sometimes it needs two hands.

Generally (and only generally) fixed single eyepieces offer a slightly better view all else being equal.

…

As with all eyepieces, there is a massive difference in quality between eyepieces. At the upper end of the scale Baader Hyperion zoom is nearly universally liked but is quite expensive.

Generally there are two choices 8-24mm and 7-21.5mm. I think there are some good cheaper ones but each one is different

A little embarrassing to ask this perhaps but anyone who knows me in here should expect nothing less…

I’ve never really owned a big scope believe it or not. Well - I did have a 12” flex tube for a while but that was too big, and I didn’t have the problem I’m describing below.

I did a swap with a Stu last week and now I’ve got a SkyTee and a Skywatcher Explorer 200 as my scope. I am really happy with it, but realised almost immediately that there is no way I’m taking this whole setup outside in one go.

I can comfortably (ish) heft the OTA around but it is quite big and unwieldy and putting it in the SkyTee and taking it off in the dark is causing me a reasonable amount of irrational anxiety! I’m fine taking it off (more or less). It’s just that moment when you put it on, and tighten everything up, and just sort of pray everything is seated correctly that gets me…

And the moment when you swing the OTA round and you’re just waiting for the OTA to slide straight out of the clamp and on to the patio. It’s causing some emotional turmoil… 

Anyone else get that or is it just me?!

It’s dead easy - but only once you know how to do it!

At the risk of being patronising (sorry) it’s probably worth familiarising yourself with how an equatorial mount works (if you don’t know already) and that should explain the context for why everything looks the way it does. It’s worth noting that equatorial mounts don’t move up/down/left/right like alt/az mounts.

the guide below is a good one;

https://www.spaceoddities.eu/2018/08/astrophotography-what-is-an-equatorial-mount-and-how-does-it-work/
 

so…

from the photos your mount looks set up correctly.

The only thing you need to do when you take outside is to align it to Polaris (assuming you are in the northern hemisphere). You do this each time you take it out. Ideally you try not to move the tripod once it is aligned.

l’ve included a photo of what it should look like when it’s is aligned. You don’t have a polar scope built into that mount so it’s a tiny bit trickier but you get the idea. So the black sticker at the base of your mount relates to your latitude. I live in the West Midlands and my latitude is 52 degrees. That means that when I align the pointer at the bottom with the 52, and I point my mount north I’ll more or less be pointing it Polaris. If you point your scope along the same plane and check through the eyepiece, hopefully you should be able to see Polaris.

if you can’t - physically move the mount, or adjust the latitude bracket at the bottom (up or down) until it is. Now you are “polar aligned” and ready to go.

Thus might sound like a pain but in reality it only takes a moment, and if you aren’t moving around the country too much you only need to adjust the latitude bit once. Then in the future you can just take it outside, orient it north, and you are good to go.

The reason you bother doing all this is because, in theory - your mount is now oriented with the movement of the stars, so when you use your slow motion knob it should track the stars as they move across the sky using just the RA knob (highlighted) But to engage the slow motion controls you have to engage them (I think) by gently tightening the control clutch knobs (blue cross).

And that’s it. Apologies probably not a great explanation but they’re not very intuitive. But once you start using it everything falls into place.

just remember to align to Polaris, then once you’ve done that, resist the urge to physically move the mount.

1 hour ago, DhamR said:

That's mad because I'm in a bortle 6 area and can see the sword with naked eye on most clear evenings. Certainly well enough that my red dot finder is all I need to get onto the brightest bit of orion's nebula first time.

Well… funnnily enough, I was out last night and…

Problem is that there is a large town due south of me and the horizon is quite high so I struggle. There’s about a dozen Messiers from around m16,17,18,23,24 etc that are either too low all year round our just completely drowned out in an orange murk.

16 minutes ago, UKDiver said:

Unfortunately the three brighter stars that make up the 'sword' are barely visible to the naked eye here. How I long for the bright stars of my youth.

Agreed! Its a real treat to get somewhere dark. I live in bottle 5/6 too and I can see the sword 1 or maybe 2 nights a year just about - and even then it’s marginal.

I’ve used the stock 10mm eyepiece in loads of scopes and never found it to be that bad personally. I mean - it’s not great, but it’s ok. Better eyepieces will probably show you a bit more but their main benefits imho are field of view and edge sharpness so that probably wouldn’t affect Jupiter a huge amount.

But others will disagree!

Planets always get fuzzier the more magnification you use, it’s always a balancing act between magnification and detail. This applies more to Jupiter than Saturn for some reason.

And it changes massively from night to night and hour to hour.I’ve had nights were there’s no point going above about 75x, other nights you can go up to 250x (with a 4 inch scope or better).

And sometimes Jupiter looks its absolute best at about 30-35x magnification which will  often show a nice banded globe and a couple of moons.

I’d hazard that what you experienced was fairly typical of normal conditions rather than being a fault of the eyepiece. 

A quick test is to look at the stars when you’re observing, the amount of twinkle is a good guide to atmospheric conditions. A really bright twinkling, busy looking star field means there’s a lot of turbulence in the air and it may reduce the quality of the view of the planets.

M42 is almost visible with the naked eye on a really good night. But I wouldn’t worry, it’ll just be the weather. There’s a huge range of weather that consititutes a “clear sky” and higher up haze will obliterate anything even vaguely faint. Also, If you were observing last week then I think the moon would have been in just about the worst place possible.

But you’ll easily be able to see it next time. Also watch for the trap of your objective getting misted up. It happens by stealth!

3 hours ago, Stu1smartcookie said:

Hi Jock , will certainly put it through its paces .. I'm not even sure of the payload capacity ... a bit of homework needed on my part 

I think it’s 4kg without counterweight or 6 with counterweight. The counterweight rod is quite hard to get though, I tried (and failed) a couple of times. It’s an unusual thread it’s a metric M12x1.5 I think. Normal M12s don’t quite fit.

I started getting into long exposure photography about 8 years ago through a Flickr group. Then I developed a healthy obsession with photographing the ISS and it sort of snowballed from there.

But - ironically perhaps - I’m almost purely into visual and just don’t enjoy astrophotography at all (except for a bit of planetary)!

Well, not sure if @Stu1smartcookie counts as a postman but a lovely sky tee and 200p arrived this morning!

13 minutes ago, cajen2 said:

Despite what @Tiny Clanger and others advise, while I'm waiting for my Barlow, I'd still like to get a decent-,quality zoom. Sorry, Heather, but perhaps the advantages outweigh the disadvatages in my case.🤔

Apparently, the Baader Hyperion range doesn't suit my scope, so I might go for an OVL Hyperflex or its clone, a Svbony. I'd probably choose the 7.2 - 21.5 one.

I used nothing but Hyperions when I had that scope, had no probs with them

5 minutes ago, Peter-uk said:

Hello Hollie,

 

It is a difficult decision to make to decide what to start the hobby with.  Your telescope 130 x 900 is quite a long focal length.  Which is good for planets and the moon but there is a limited number of planets you can view.  So I would look at the 130 PDS OTA as it is slightly shorter but can still give you great views of planets and star clusters etc.  You may want to read this thread Imaging with the 130pds to give you an idea of what the scope can do.  As for the stand try and pick up a second hand Skywatcher EQ3 to start with.  As the type of stand will become more important the deeper you get into the hobby.  Best bet to try and visit a club and see what members are using and how they work as to what will suit your needs best.  You can spend a lot of money on this hobby and getting it right in the beginning can save a lot.

 

Regards Pete 

I wouldn’t describe f6.9 as long focal length. I mean, it’s just over half the focal length of a Mak. The 130pds is only f5. I’d pick an F7 system over an F5 system 100 times out of 100 if I were looking for an all-round scope.

54 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

It is IMX290 based camera - so 2.9µm pixel size.  Ideal F/ratio of 11.4 - very close to F/12 on that Maksutov.

@Mr niall

I would just check gain settings for that camera. Not sure what is regular range of gain values - but you want higher gain to lower read noise.

Attached settings also show that you used white balance and gamma settings? It is best if you leave all of those on default values - you'll fix color in post processing.

Maybe also uncheck sharpen option in AS!3.

 

Thanks Vlaiv - I didn’t knowingly use white balance or gamma, I will check those.

And yes - actually now I think about it I think I read someone else saying about the sharpen option.

many thanks again.

14 minutes ago, Owmuchonomy said:

Jupiter is a bit low in altitude in the UK at the moment and this will affect the ability to gain good images especially without an ADC.  What is the pixel size of your camera?

Hey - it’s a Svbony SV305pro - it’s a Sony IMX290 with 2.9um pixels.

I’m shooting at F12.5 which feels about right given the 5x rule.

have tried with a 2x Barlow but felt like a total waste of time!

Thanks for the comments all, reassuring it probably is at least partly seeing and not just total ineptitude!

Hi all

I posted a couple of weeks ago with some Jupiter issues. Vlaiv kindly gave me some pointers which did improve things but I feel like I have hit a wall a bit. I've been out about... 10 or 11 nights and have processed about two dozen runs but I dont seem to be seeing any improvement in my pictures; they are still grainy, a bit smushy, and lacking detail and contrast.

I'm not too sure what to do to improve things.

Equipment is;

Skymax 127 on AZGTi

No Barlow (so shot at f12.5)

Svbony SV305 Pro (settings attached).

10,000 frames 5ms, best 10% stacked

Focussing is.. tricky. I'm getting better views through the eyepiece than the camera to be honest. I'm using Jupiter's moons to focus. But everything is clean and smudge free. The scope is getting at least 45mins to cool down - usually longer.

I'm capturing using Sharpcap and then using AS3! for stacking and Registax for Wavelets. I've attached one from yesterday evening for reference. In reality this is probably slightly poorer than average but my computer only has about 30gb of storage so I cant really keep my previous runs (in fact I only have enough memory for about 20 mins of work before my poor PC packs in!)

One thing I did notice is that the "quality" graph looks a bit worrying in AS3. As I said above this is probably a bit worse than average but not miles off. I suppose when I watch youtube videos I'm seeing people with an image on the screen that looks alot like Jupiter whereas mine usually looks like a smushy ball!

Any help appreciated!

19_46_59.CameraSettings.txt 19_44_18_lapl5_ap78.as3 19_44_18_lapl5_ap78_conv.tif

22 minutes ago, Bridgehouse said:

This trend coincides with me returning to the hobby after many years away.

I am clearly some sort of Jonah and with this realisation I fully expect to be cast out by you all and told never to return. 

My sincerest apologies....

It might be my fault too I’ve just come back 

14 minutes ago, Stu said:

It has been rubbish hasn’t it? Torrential rain here yesterday and through the night. That said, tonight looks promising on CO, although looking at Sat24 there are still plenty of showers around. Could go either way! Transparency should be good if it’s clear, after all the rain.

That looks promising Stu!

It’s been weeks of clear blue skies then cloudy evenings here. I can’t remember the last good night I had. Today’s forecast is particularly depressing! 
is is the same for everyone else?

56 minutes ago, neil phillips said:

I think it depends on the data. Using AS3 For lunar ive experimented with the smallest boxes. Many thousands of points. At size 24 they can leave mosaic patterns. So often size 48 works better. Just push  place AP Grid.

For large planets size 100 works well. Again just click place AP Grid.  I dont bother placing all boxes manually.  As a start set min brightness to 30. its that which will determine how many APs will automatically be placed. But i often adjust that. sometimes lower sometimes higher. Watch the effect it has by adjusting min brightness. on the amount of APs placed

 

Thx Neil, I’ve never had data good enough to have any automatic points set though (which probably explains a few other issues too!)

All - sorry, it’s a bit late, but just to wrap this up - RVO sent me a new mount.

Worked great straight out of the box, even with just AA’s

Out of interest though, there is a definite difference in “tone” and reactivity when using A DC adaptor instead of batteries.

thx again for all of your help