PadrePeace

I’ve made something similar to AdamJ but without his bells and whistles. I have the same battery with spade connectors and I’ve made a terminal cover strap out of sticky backed Velcro which can be peeled on and off as required. The power box has a battery monitor and an output of volts and amps. It’s switched and the output is fused at 5 amps. The power output travels by a silicon lead up to a power splitter box mounted on top of the scope to power, camera, focuser, mount, and two dew heaters through an adjustable power output box when needed. All tidy and light weight ready for travel.

You say you leave all the gear intact when you store it in between imaging sessions. I assume, because you have not been that clear, that the optical path from scope lenses to camera is not broken down at all for storage? If this is not the case then I’d say either something has got inside the optical path and is disrupting it, but as you have offered no images this is pure guess work, or you have left out an adaptor and the back focus is now incorrect. I have the same scope and it has a well engineered focuser and rack pinion mechanism. It’s so simple that inless the gears have stripped stooping the focus set from moving it must be a BF error. Please elaborate with images and a clear indication of how you store the scope with or without the camera or we are all fishing in the dark on your behalf.

It’s the small stuff that usually catches us out. Hope that fixes it for you. Clear skies.

That’s fine. I just wanted to check that the PA wasn’t the issue.

Have you polar aligned any other mount successfully in the past or is this your first go with an EQ setup? I ask because there are a few things that can go wrong in the PA especially if you are doing it by eye through the polar scope. I’m just making sure the basics are good rather than assuming that the PA is as you say ‘good’. How, in detail, are you Polar Aligning the mount?

Would be interested in a review of the HEM15 if you can manage that?

I have the exact same rig but must have missed that one clear spell. Great image, especially impressed with how well you have controlled those big stars.

I’m with you AdamJ. Other than a moveable counterweight I cannot see the point. Personally I’d just drop a telescope leg a tad.

He’s what I get on the L Extreme though a ASKAR FMA180 on my ZWO294MC: hope this helps:

This is a truely amazing image and easily the best one I have seen of this target by some measure. It is especially impressive because of the skill you have shown getting this quality out of a sub £350 scope. I recall the work you did with your SW 130 PDS on the Heart nebula which was equally breathtaking. This just goes to show that you don’t need to spend a fortune to get top drawer images. Thanks for sharing AdamJ. Something to aspire toward ……

I don’t think you’d have clear skies either given the forecast. ☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️

If you can get out to the east of Lincoln there are Bortle 4 areas (the greener the better) but you’ll have to do a bit of Google Map searching for an exact spot within that class as shown in the attached. You’ll be looking at a 30mins drive or so. hope this helps….the LP app is free by the way and you can zoom right in to find a site.

I took this image of the Cygnus Wall in the N. America nebula complex using NB SHO filters. Pleased with the final product but was surprised how prominent the small red (SII) nebula was in the final stretch. So What? My question to you guys is what is this nebula called as I cannot find details and also why is it not as defined in the large majority of other shots I have viewed of this area? Indeed, it hardly exists in many renditions, or is swallowed in a big black void which seems odd as I didn’t work it’s data that hard. Taken through a 107/700 scope on an Atik 460EX; 600s exp bin 1x1. Integration: SHO each at 10hrs for 30hrs total. thanks for your comment and clear skies.

I have a 294MC which works a treat with the L-Extreme at 200 gain. Tried lots of things at 120g and it simply would not calibrate. All on a thread in this forum if you need detail.

That sensor is very sensitive in the IR as its sales pitch outlines. Use it without if you are doing planetary stuff with Saturn Jupiter etc as it will pick out the IR emissions in those objects well. Plenty of help for that aspect on the Tube and other forums if you want to have a go. It will change output colours as already mentioned here. Otherwise strap a filter on and forget it. A filter will sharpen stars if you use the sensor for guiding or deep sky objects as I have. see attached. clear skies….

Please could you post the whole field of view? You state the temp was +15C during capture so not obviously the atmospheric conditions. Never seen stars look like this from a guiding issue. You suggest that the scope is permanently set up on a mount and has just started having issues. If that assumption is true then it’s not likely an impact symptom or a temperature conditioning issue as it will always be ambient. Please confirm both assumptions. Just covering off some missing context of use. To my eyes: the larger stars to the left of frame show three extended bright arms in the corona. Hard to tell how smaller stars are impacted. Curiously, this pattern changes to bottom right of the example frame (assumed to be a single sub) similar to a ‘coma’ look (which should not be possible in a refractor) but which suggests focus is changing across the FOV. SO WHAT? Check if the optics are clear of obstructions internally and externally ie bugs spider web threads; has a baffle moved? Have you got an additional dew shield fitted that might now be impacting the light path? Were you imaging through branches of a tree or similar distant obstruction which may give you weird stars? Did this issue happen on all subs, ie over a prolonged session? What about with other filters in the optical path? I’m not an expert but offer some less technical questions to address before you try dismantling the scope!!! Things seldom just break if not abused so look for the less obvious possibilities. Hope this helps.

This article explains Coma which is what this looks like. https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/photographylife.com/what-is-coma/amp Is your scope new?

Back focus is different to the focus you achieve using a bahtinov. What AdamJ is seeing is the comet shaped stars flying outwards in each corner.

That’s bang on 55mm. But there is something going on in the corners. Is there UV/IR cut filter in your 11mm adapter? For any extra glass in the optical path you need to add 1/3 of its thickness to your BF.

Seems that red/blue star fringing you had in the first image has gone completely here. Have you done anything to achieve that or was it a conversion anomaly?

Why are you running such a high gain and offset? By doing so you are loosing a lot of dynamic range or am I missing something?

Have you tried shooting with the 300mm at F5 just to match the speed of your 200PDS?

Just returned from S Africa having taken my mobile rig to the southern hemisphere for the first time. Having given up 12kg of baggage allowance to get it there here is the stack of a 2 panel mosaic of the Large Magellanic Cloud, 3hrs of OSC and 1hr of L-extreme dual band per panel. Rig was as pictured below shooting with the ZWO294MC running 200 gain and 30 offset. OSC were 180 x 60s subs and Dual band was 10 x 360s subs per panel. The ⚡️wire fence beyond my rig was to keep the lions and hyenas out of the lodge area. 🦁🦁 Bortle 3 skies but with a surprising amount of LP coming up from the townships which was a shame. All subs shot between 2300-0500L. Polar Alignment was a piece of cake using the SharpCap tool, just need to select the southern hemisphere option in the PA tool tab.

🍔

Just spotted this on a CN thread: ZWO 533 uncooled https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/834426-playerone-saturn-533mc-–-first-impressions/