R26 oldtimer

1 hour ago, philhilo said:

Alas money isn’t going to buy me the dark skies

No they won't, but a modified dslr or a osc cooled camera with narrowband filters  or dual narrowband, gets you really close. Olly's suggestion makes even more sense, but with the Heq5 and 1000 mm focal length it might be a struggle with the small fov of a reasonably priced mono camera.

I used to have an ST102 as my grab n go, which I sold when gold ED80 came up on the classifieds at a good price. Never regretted it and the fact that it was used but with great optics, made me feel easier on carrying it everywhere without the fear of scratching it.

I think there is a good priced ED80 on the sale section.

...because finally, I'm guiding!!!

Crappy subs due to crappy framing and crappy focusing plus some fiddling to get APT talking to phd2 and my azeq5 through my diy wifi adapter but.... 30min subs (yeahh 30mins as 1800sec) show less trail than my best 90sec subs ever did!!!!

I consider that as moving up to stage 2 of AP. Next thing is dithering (dither or die?), and to modify my dslr to take full advantage of the newly aquired optolong L-enhance.

That's very nice. We don't get many eeva reports on planets. Why didn't you use the telescope with it's native focal length?

I love my lodestar x2c + SLL for eeva. This is my M27 with a 6" F/5 newtonian.

You can get it second hand well within your budget or you could strech it a bit and get an Atik Infinity.

I had a bresser 127L, which I sold to finance a SW 120Ed. In all honesty I found the R&P hexafoc (single speed) much better than the sw dual speed crayford even though it's a good specimen. Especially with 2" diagonal and heavy eyepieces.

If you just want to invest in a nice accessory for your scope go for a sw 72ed to use as a finder.🤟

I see that there are some great actions for PS out there but they come at a price. Have you come across any free and good actions, that you can recommend?

Now, let's see what's the hype about this little item all about....

A small step for my imaging equipment, a giant leap for my photos (hopefully).

I would consider as a serious telescope, any well-executed instrument that offers a very good image of what the instrument's aperture is capable of providing.

Take a look at this thread to check your connections and DB9 pinout

I see now... Didn't know that the handset connects with DB9 for Eq6. So from FLO I see that you have to use the supplied cable to connect to the sw WiFi adapter, which you did.

So it appears that some cable connection that should be straight, is crossed or the opposite. ( Some photos of these cables on the net appear to have crossed connections at the RJ45 plugs). Since the module powers up and blinks upon connection means that power supply is ok, so maybe exchange Rx with Tx cable?

On 03/03/2019 at 08:17, Tonyjl said:

Has someone gotten the Synscan Android or Windows app to work with the shutter release feature? It does not seem to work with HEQ5

It works great with my azeq5, only thing is that it utilizes only one of the two snap ports that azeq5 has.

I haven't used my hancontroller since I made it. Next thing to do is control it with APT via ascom synscan mobile driver.

RS232 VS TTL

https://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/215

Let me check on that....

I think that the DB9 connection is neither 3.3 or 5 v TTL, instead it is the -18/+18 v.

You should use it (and plug it) instead of the hand controller.

I've been thinking of getting a used dslr of MPB to modify. Most likely candidates are 450d-500d-550d, although I could get a cheaper 350d and use my unmodified 600d to focus via live view, then swap cameras at the t-ring to fine tune focusing via short subs.

So which one of the Canons is the easiest to self mod using Lifepixel tutorials?

Very nice. Good to see you're posting again.

I had placed a wanted ad for an Ha filter but now I am seriously thinking of getting an optolong L-enhance filter for my dslr. Getting Ha and OIII at the same time seems intriguing. But how do you process the data to produce an HOO image? How do you split channels, process and reassign them on PS? I can't find any tutorial on this, using PS, only APP.

Very nice!

1 hour ago, DaveS said:

Time for the big hammer I think.

... Ubuntu + Kstars??

Last weekend I was playing with my old D50. Although it's pretty old (ancient), I searched for it's specs online and was surprised by the fact that it has huge pixels, nice thing for astrophotography.

I followed this guide : https://www.lifepixel.com/tutorials/infrared-diy-tutorials/nikon-d50

and after 30 mins I had completed the mod.

As I didn't have a clear night since, I used an old piece of developed film as an IR pass filter and tried some IR photography. I am very excited with the outcome. Here are some of the results.

You can use both Synscan pro app and skysafari running simultaneously at the same android device (that means your android tablet if you have an apple phone).

The lost connection you mention, is triggered most of the times, because of the screen save mode (sleep). While skysafari has an option to prevent sleep mode, Synscan pro app doesn't. But you can change the screen sleep mode from your device's general settings.

You can install and use skysafari plus (although it's a paid app).

You first connect to the mount and then align (1-2-3 star alignment) using Synscan app pro, and then you can use skysafari to get to every target you want. It works very well with my DIY wifi adapter.

33 minutes ago, parallaxerr said:

given that I now have 2 Naglers on the way.

If that's the ad you're referring to...

...then you are in for a very nice surprise 😁

Single or segmented mirror?