PadrePeace

6 hours ago, great_bear said:

It’s a completely different issue.

Second-hand is good for items that are no longer available or stocked (such as the Baader Microguider Eyepiece) and the quality of second-hand goods is highly-variable. There is negotiation to be had (although I will concede that people purchasing sets of ZAO-II eyepieces for the sole purpose of taking them off the market and re-selling at crazy prices is dishonourable)

But there are many things you don’t want to buy second-hand. If I know an eyepiece will be a keeper, then I’ll buy new. I can (and have) bought Tele Vue eyepieces to investigate what they are like (such as the Plossls which I found I disliked) but once I’ve made my mind up (as I did with Delos) I want guaranteed units straight from the factory. 

It’s a different thing completely.

I hear your argument great bear and agree about the care one must take buying second hand but you missed my point.
Those businesses setting the retail prices for us have a long chain of supply to deal with so have much less control over how much they can retail stuff for. If it’s too high it won’t sell and selling, not stocking, is the core function of their model else they loose to competition and go bust. Private sellers have no such chain constraining their price but often still ask too much.  Just take a look at Astro Buy Sell on any given day and the amount of stuff unsold tells its own story, at least to me.  Like I said it’s a market place in which businesses and individuals look to profit. 

 

Surprised no one has mentioned current second hand prices which are entirely in the hands of enthusiasts, ie the many here complaining about businesses making profit. To me the ones making a stash of cash are those in the second hand market selling items at significantly more than they themselves paid. I have a mount I paid £800 for second hand at a fair 60% of new at the time. not many ads are placed at that percentage nowadays. Now I see secondhand gear going for more than when originally purchased so whose fleecing who?

No need to come back at me as the answer is, as always, it’s a market place so get over it. 

So What?

Don’t attack the businesses unless your conscious is clear on what you’d be asking for your second hand gear if selling today. You are simply selling one bit of kit, they have a business to run which is to our benefit. No businesses = no hobby. Just saying….

Ian

To answer your question above, I don’t set any delay between subs. The only delay will be the time it takes for one sub to download to NINA and the next sub exposure starting. It’s less than a handful of seconds hence my comment about the temperature remaining steady across a session save for any ambient variations as the night progresses. 
 

I just hit start and let it run.

22 hours ago, bomberbaz said:

This is my effort from uncooled although ti was from the starting point of my learning curve. The OP may remember it from the AZ Gti thread.

NGC7380 (Wizard) - ZWO 224mc - 200 x 10sec and 10 x 30sec starting at an ambient of 18C dropping to about 11C, working camera at average 18C, it cooled as the night went on. It's quite red I know. 

Only a rough effort. However I think 30 seconds is a good starting exposure length for this camera, gain trial and error. 

Going forward I shall reserve this camera for colder nights and smaller targets. I will also make use of a USB smartphone cooler going forward, the one I have lowers the temp of camera by around 6 -10 degree C, depending on ambient. The warmer it is, the more it cools. (I forgot it on the night I grabbed the data from the attached).

Anyway, the 224MC (uncooled) still has a place in my bag.

Which phone cooler are you using?

I’m with AdamJ on this one. An artificial star test is the best way. It can be done  indoors any evening and repeated at will to confirm any mods. Waiting for stars in the Uk is going to take a lot of your time.  Really is worth breaking up your rig and letting AdamJ cast his eye. 

56 minutes ago, Elp said:

I've seen your work, you've achieved some excellent results.

Thanks for the compliment but my reason for flagging them is it covers off short exposures for uncooled cameras, although I’m not sure the camera would have got much warmer with longer exposure as the gaps between images at 30s exp was virtually nothing so not a lot of cooling going on!

As for amp glow a good master dark frame will always fix that although one clearly needs to invest time in shooting and stacking long exp darks which not everyone wants to do. 

Uncooled 224MC Pinwheel. Check it out: 

And uncooled Needle Galaxy:

Which area of the Rho is this?

Disregard….I’ve worked it out. Great shot by the way Olly.

Should have been uncooled in the first place. Market research? Who did they ask?

2 hours ago, Swoop1 said:

Very nice job @PadrePeace

One thought I have just had- would forgoing the Gorilla Glue during reassembly and relying on the grub screws still produce a secure enough fit but allow stripping down even further into a smaller bag?

I really doubt the grub screws will hold the legs on their own. Also, continued loosening and tightening will wear the threads so I’d stick with the glue. That’s very likely why Skywatched has.

3 hours ago, NGC 1502 said:

Just read with interest 👍

Looks like you have a nice work shop, former garage?   The floor looks remarkably clean, is it always as pristine as that?  Mine sure isn’t, usually a dog’s dinner after several jobs without a proper tidy….!!

Ed.

This is a working car garage for our two cars. Had the floors painted to seal the cement dust in but I appreciate the compliment all the same. 

I had been looking for a light but super sturdy tripod for my mobile flyaway rig.  I had unfortunately missed the opportunity to get one of iOptron’s 1.5” ‘field’ tripods which weigh-in at only 3.8kg before they were discontinued and replaced with the Literock range which, if you can get one on its own,  are way too expensive and heavier with it.  
 

So I decided to set about cutting my existing 3/8” Skywatcher 1.75” tripod down to see how that might suit. The following covers how I did this with images to show the key parts of the process. Hope this is useful to someone out there.

First things first, I wanted to get the end result in my 25kg sized suitcase and because I use Sharpcap to polar align I didn’t need to worry too much about final mount height. 
I planned to take 18” off of each top tube leaving a min height of 20” and a legs extended max height of 32”. In the first image (end result) this is as low as this rig can possible get as the retracted tubes are pushed hard up into the top tubes if that makes sense. 
 

Start by removing each leg from the tripod cast aluminium head by removing the three bolts. Once the legs are free mark up each leg at the TOP with a marker pen at the cut point you have personally chosen. I removed a total of 18 inches from the TOP of each leg (over two separate mod events) which includes the 2 inches that is inside of the top hinge casting. This saved me 1.8kg. 
WARNING: extend the inner leg and lock it before cutting each leg at the required point. If you don’t do this you will risk cutting through the bottom leg extension also. 
 

Mount each leg securely in a vice or workmate and use a circular disc cutter to cut through each leg following the marker pen line to ensure a nice square cut. Wear goggles and beware sparks coming upwards from the cut!!!! Just saying.
Remove the four grub screws in the top hinge casting. I found my stainless legs were originally glued into the casting so you’ll have to heat an oven to 200C and soak the three top end pieces for 5 mins in order to soften that glue. Once soaked handle each leg in turn with oven gloves to guard against serious burns. Mount each leg in turn on your vice and put a long shank screwdriver through the casting bolt hole and rotate the casting back and forth of off the stainless leg stump. Discard the stumps. Interestingly, I found that the legs comprise of an inner mild steel tube dressed with a thin stainless steel outer. BEWARE: the screw driver shaft will also be seriously hot once used so please do guard against burns at all stages.  I personally would not use a bare flame to heat these bits as I think that would risk damaging the white paint on the alloy castings or the alloy casting itself. Oven baking to 200C both accurately controls the max temp applied and does not impact the paint or indeed the ‘N’ leg sticker at all. 
 

ONCE COOL…. Lightly clean up the hinge casting inner faces with a small dremel tool or grind stone wheel and Emory paper. This is soft alloy so don’t overdo it. It has to be a snug fit. Disc grind a shallow chamfer on to the top of each shortened stainless steel leg to remove any burrs left over from cutting and to help it to slide into the hinge casting.

I put three very light smears, no more, of gorilla glue inside the casting and lightly misted the top of each stainless tube with water to help it slide in and to activate the glue once it’s all pushed nicely together. Refit the four grub screws in each casting and tighten lightly but securely. Too tight and you’ll strip the threads. These along with the expanding gorilla glue will be enough to fix each leg joint. 
Finally remount the three legs onto the tripod head and torque up the joints to taste. 

My tripod ended up at 4.7kg incl the spreader brace and 3/8 bar. 
 

Last point, making theses modifications will kill your warrantee….🥱

Clear skies to you. 

5 hours ago, edarter said:

Just come across this thread while researching whether the 294MC Pro is the camera for me. I had long got it on my shopping list but recently saw all the negative comments surfacing about using it with a dual or tri band filter.... something I would be interested in medium term as it seems the only clear nights in the south UK are full moon 😒
So am I right to assume from this that there should be no issue with the 294 and dual or tri band filters if the gain is upped to 200 in order to get on the linear part of its response? (for subs and calibration files)

Thanks
Ed 

That’s my experience as catalogued in this thread. Others are finding the same. 
 

Anyone else had success using 200 gain with a Dual NB filter wish to chime in to add to our findings?

5 minutes ago, vineyard said:

$488 (plus shipping etc I guess) direct from them: https://www.ioptron.com/product-p/shaz.htm - delivery to US should be straightfwd, getting it back from there...

Many thanks.

On 30/05/2022 at 19:51, vineyard said:

Agreed @Doversole, the US bundles & pricing are v interesting - also v good to see that they're offering an AZ bundle only (ie, without either the wedge or the iPolar).  Hopefully same will apply here - @FLO any idea of UK pricing & timetables that you can share?

I’m struggling to find any US outlets offering just the mount as you stated. Where did you find this offer? What was the price point?

Dithering won’t solve this appearing in a dark though. If it’s in the dark then it will be calibrated into the lights surely even if the lights are dithered.
So dither and don’t use darks is what AdamJ is saying I think.

2 hours ago, david_taurus83 said:

Wondering if this would be much of an upgrade from my Atik 460? 🤔

Short exposures to counter British weather, no darks required, built in USB hub. I’d say so. I have a 460EX so may consider this at some stage. 

For what it’s worth, I shot this target a while ago now only because it was there, not because I wanted too particularly. I find star clusters pretty uninspiring as a visual experience so won’t be doing any more. Before anyone jumps on me, my point is we all like different stuff, use different kit and drive different cars. How someone decides to represent any target is down to them. As Olly said, all of us amplify in so many ways what is really there. If we were limited by a science first approach and not our innate creativity then Picasso would have been out of a job and of course many thought he should have stuck with fixing bicycles,  Just saying.

Love the science in the thread though so hats of to those smarter fellows who understand that stuff and for bringing it out here. 

Wishing you all clear skies and a bit more darkness.

Ipolar is a good PA system and I use it on my Skyguider Pro with iPolar but it does add dead weight and costs a bucket more (+£150) over the SGP without it. I’m guessing this new iOptron EQ mount will have a similar % price differential as that which we currently see between the SW Star Adventurer and the SGP ie. more expensive.

That said, my experience is the SGP consistently tracks significantly better than my AZ GTI, it’s tracking accuracy is simply superior on paper and in use, it is much quieter when slewing and the batteries last at least twice as long. My experience is you get what you pay for mechanically.

It’s never going to be cheaper than the SW SAGTI and my estimate is that it will contest with the EQM35 Pro price point so in the £620+ space even with its lower weight capacity. It has to be significantly more that an SGP with iPolar (£580) so move up from there. I would be tempted if they dropped iPolar to an option as it only has one use vs a guide scope with third party PA software. 
 

Of course we will have to see but, as many predicted, nothing is getting any cheaper after the big price rises of two years ago and ‘mobility’ seems to be ‘trending’ so read into that what you will. 
 

Final thought, it’s hard to believe my then new HEQ5 was 33% cheaper back in the day and that same spec product has not changed one bit other than cosmetically.  

10 hours ago, AstroNebulee said:

Could be the death of the az gti 😔

I doubt that at half the likely price of the SA GTI. The AZGTI is a great mount for imaging with short focal length scopes and is 1 kg lighter in your back pack. The real threat is to the EQM25 at nearly £700 though that can carry slightly more gear. 

Just posted by Alyn Wallace. 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CZuK9LegZs8/?utm_medium=copy_link

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cb8s-O4v4y5/?utm_medium=copy_link

Saw this on Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CcAEarxr69N/?utm_medium=copy_link

I doubt it as it has the same running gear as the EQM-35 Pro SynScan from what I can tell from the limited specs available.