Buzzard75

Hey, Steve! How'd the testing go with the iOptron 6" RC on the CEM40? I have the CEM40EC and the ASI183MM Pro myself and was looking at getting a 6" or 8" RC. I'm extremely interested in the results. Thanks!

You are correct, sir. As I said, I was thinking of BackyardEOS. I just remembered one of them didn't work offline for the demo, just couldn't remember which.

Believe the time unlimited 'free' (demo) version requires you to be connected to the internet. The paid version is able to be used offline. I could be thinking of BackyardEOS though. I know one of them I couldn't use out at the dark site due to no internet connection. It's so inexpensive though, it's worth the money to support the creator. After the initial purchase, I think a renewal is only $6USD per year. Pretty cheap to me.

Here's an image of the CEM40 saddle. The two locking blocks with the locking bolts are separate. Just having the dovetail held in place with one of them doesn't seem adequate. And the way my Redcat balances out, the end of the dovetail always falls short of one of those blocks. If it's towards the front of the scope, I miss the rear locking block. If the dovetail is mounted toward the rear of the Redcat, it misses the front block and will actually probably interfere with my filter wheel. The dovetail doesn't need to be too much longer, just a little bit. If they had made an adjustable notch in the middle of the bar rather than on either end, it would have been perfect. Hindsight and now a design change.

The mounting base is probably my biggest complaint with the Redcat. It doesn't quite work with my iOptron mount since the saddle clamps are of a split design. Regardless of which way I mount it, I can't balance the scope with camera and a filter wheel and have it sit in both clamps. The new base on the SpaceCat may be a result of that. I think I'm going to have to get a different mounting base. Cool design though.

I had been working on M31 Friday evening until it went behind a tree. See my previous post for that image. Since it was going to be out of view for a while, I decided to move on to something else. I had done a few nebula recently, so I wanted a different type of object. I knew I had good data on Andromeda so a galaxy wasn't on the top of my list. Besides that, I don't quite have the focal length or aperture with the Redcat to do justice to smaller galaxies. So that left me with clusters. Again, globs are pretty small with the Redcat, but doable. As the south had some haze and I had a clear view to the north, I searched around Cepheus to find some open clusters. When I saw NGC 6939 next to the Fireworks Galaxy, I knew this would be the one to work on. Both fit in the field of view nicely, so here is NGC 6939 and NGC 6946. If you look close enough, you may even see some smudges from some fainter +14.5-17 magnitude galaxies in the background. ZWO ASI183MM Pro, ZWO EFW and LRGB filters, William Optics Redcat 51, iOptron CEM40EC 13x180s each LRGB (unguided), flats, darks, dark flats Stacked and processed in PixInsight with final touchups in Photoshop Enjoy!

In my bedroom...

Thanks! Maybe this one is a bit more to your liking. I struggled with the color quite a bit. I tried playing with the curves in PixInsight, but couldn't get it quite right. When I put it in Photoshop to tweak a couple of things, I did try and play with levels, but it just lost a lot of detail. I'm honestly happy with both of these considering where I was a year ago with astrophotography. Cheers!

This is my second attempt at M31, but its my first ever attempt to image using mono and LRGB filters. I did narrowband a few weeks ago on NGC 7822, but hadn't yet done any broadband mono imaging. M31 just seemed like a fitting target for a first run. My first attempt at imaging M31 was about a year ago using a Canon 750d, an EF75-300mm lens and a iOptron Skyguider Pro. I've since upgraded. This time around I was using a ZWO ASI183MM Pro, a ZWO EFW and LRGB filters with a William Optics Redcat 51 all mounted on an iOptron CEM40EC. Completely different ballgame from last time. Almost an entirely new sport for that matter. The results are light years (pun intended) beyond what I had done previously. I'd have to look back at the exact numbers, but it's approximately 1.5 hours of integration with 180-second exposures each in LRGB. I don't remember the exact count for each filter, but it was around 6-8 exposures for each after throwing out a couple for trails and a tree that started getting in the way. Stacking (lights, darks, flats and dark flats) and processing was done in PixInsight with a little touchup in Photoshop at the end. I haven't quite figured out every nuance to PixInsight yet as it's also still new to me so there's still a couple things I do in Photoshop. Overall, I'm very happy with it and it's probably some of my best work so far. Enjoy!

Played with this one some more after watching a video @Star101 shared with me. Got those blues to pop. Might be a bit green for most people, but I like it this way.

That helped out soooo much. It was the color masks that I was missing. When I did the SHO palette everything was green. Everything! I couldn't figure out how people were getting these beautiful reds, golds and blues. I still have a bit of green in it, but I'm much happier with it. Thanks!

Can you give me an idea of what was your workflow steps were? I tried this same object and my Ha data just completely overpowered all the OIII and SII data I had even after using Linear Fit.

Very normal. By comparison, Jupiter is almost three times as large and currently Uranus is almost four times as far away from Earth as Jupiter. So really small and really far away means it will be very small in the eyepiece at just about any magnification. That being said, you should still be able to see some faint color in it and you should be able to resolve it into a disk rather than a point like a star.

Benefit of having a GoTo that you can move manually is that if you don't have power or you run out of power, you can still do some observing and you're not reliant on GoTo. Having one that you can't move manually means you're basically done for the night if you're out of power.

I saw his original reaction video he did in California several months ago. I think we all get a kick out of the reactions from people looking at the moon or the planets for the first time. I've probably said it before, but we had one lady start crying. I saw this video yesterday for the first time though. I just happened to catch the black and green of the eyepiece and realized it was a TV. I stopped it on that particular frame and that's when I saw the Apollo 11 marking. I have no idea how he managed to get one other than him working for TV or Nagler giving him one. Nagler is supposedly notorious for handing out new equipment and letting people try it out at star parties.

Hopefully you folks in foreign lands can see this video. Take a look at the eyepiece being used at 3:16 in the video. https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/newsbusiness/meet-the-astronomer-bringing-wonders-of-the-moon-to-complete-strangers/vi-AAFKpuW?ocid=sf&fbclid=IwAR1_tDvRmoewSTykFim-T9lG60QDZktz6FRKTMLXOLiRA36hMOc0NzAzN8w

I get what you're saying. I would argue if you showed a kid a galaxy or faint nebula through the eyepiece though, they would probably be bored with that too. And honestly, unless they were really interested in astronomy, they probably AREN'T going to bother looking it up either way. I have an 8-year-old and have done numerous events with kids and it's always the same. The big exceptions are the moon, planets and clusters. These e'scopes are really no different than any other EEVA setup and there are a lot of people who are interested in them. The benefit of EEVA and these e'scopes is being able to show people what's out there at that moment. The untrained eye isn't going to be able to see detail in faint nebula or pick out structure in galaxies, or even know what to look for if they can even see the fuzzy blobs. That's where these e'scopes come in. Being able to see that detail in those faint objects and showing people what's up there is going to start getting the same reaction that we get out of people when we show them the moon or the planets through the eyepiece for the first time.

Point. I don't have experience with SLT or SE mounts. Wasn't aware they couldn't be moved manually and required power. I would then wonder if that's true of the majority of these types of mounts that just have the one connection on the side of the scope rather than using a dual fork such as the Meade ETX's. I am particularly familiar with EQ's, dobs and fork style mounts and have never seen one of those that couldn't be declutched and moved.

Yes. GoTo is not required to operate a mechanically driven telescope. You can operate it in a manual mode simply by disengaging the clutch locks and moving it to whatever area you want to view.

You need to get the object in the eyepiece of the telescope first and then adjust the finderscope until it is in view. The process would be the same when using a Rigel Quick Finder or a Telrad. It's recommended you find an object in the distance to start and align the finderscope to the telescope. You can then fine tune the alignment with an object like a star or planet.

I take your point. I guess I could have stated that better. The differences are significant in terms of design, but not necessarily performance. I was personally all set on getting an EQ6-R until the CEM40 released. I saw the weight savings as significantly beneficial, but there was the slight loss in payload capacity. Had the GEM45 been out, I may have also considered it. It seems like it will also be a lighter weight mount than the traditional EQ mounts. It seems to have taken a lot of the design cues from the CEM models. The DEC plate seems to be further away from the RA axis than on the iEQ45 and those nice quarter turn gear switches. Much more similar to the CEM design.

I understand what you're saying now about removing the saddle. I misunderstood originally and thought you were talking about removing the DEC head and removing the stops. I'm still not convinced just removing it is going to accomplish what you're hoping it will. It appears the stop is just a set of two screws, one protruding up through the mount head and the other secured to the bottom of the saddle. I haven't checked to see if it is actually in the saddle or if there's something else under there. My guess is the saddle. Rotating it 90 degrees one way or the other is just going to move those two stops closer in one direction or the other. I think you're going to have to find a different solution.

While CEM and GEM generally accomplish the same end result, they obviously do so in significantly different ways and at slightly different price points. The CEM's are typically lighter with a similar carrying capacity to their GEM counterparts, whereas the GEM's are heavier and slightly lower cost. You could argue that something heavier will also be somewhat sturdier and less susceptible to vibration and wind. You could also argue that the weight savings of a CEM makes them more portable and that having the weight centered over the tripod makes them more stable. Then there's also the familiarity people have for GEM's as that is what is commonly used, but the CEM's have a 'newness and uniqueness' to them. So while they do compete with each other, they both have their pro's and con's. iOptron is just diversifying their product line and marketing to both sides of the house. Right now they kind of have the market cornered on CEM's though.

It wouldn't be, but it shouldn't be any worse than it is at night right now, right? The more important question is, how much of the sun are we blotting out? Completely blocking it out so no light reaches Earth, such that the entire surface is experiencing a total solar eclipse rather than a small strip as is typical? Or, are we talking partial blockage where we still receive some percentage of direct sunlight? Or, is it just going to be filtered using a giant ERF?

I wonder if it would be as easy as defining a new zero position. That tells the mount that your RA is straight up and down and your DEC is pointed toward the pole. It should (SHOULD) still know how far it can go in either direction before it hits the stops regardless of where that zero position is and move accordingly when moving to a target. I would try that before you tear it apart and try to adjust where the physical stops are. I would also recommend contacting iOptron before you attempt anything though. The only other option may be to find a side by side saddle that has holes drilled in the crossbar dovetail that you can then mount to another dovetail.