david_taurus83

I have just got a C8 Edge. Haven't had the chance to set it up yet but it has Bob's Knobs fitted. They feel tight from previous owner and they prob do the job well enough but I will be changing mine to cap head bolts. I reckon you would get a better feeling of torque and more control from an allen key. Will be on a pier so hopefully should only need collimating the once.

I think it's a good idea. I don't know how many hours I have spent indoors/outdoors trying various tilt adapters trying to gey round stars in the corners. Would it not have been better to have 3 points of adjustment though? Must be difficult to get 4 to all contact relative to each other.

The 12v adaptors are ok if you are using them as intended ie one for the camera, one for the mount etc If you try to use one to power everything, it will supply plenty of amps no problem but you may run into trouble with voltage drop. Thin cables between devices are the culprits.

I would always suggest using 13.8v as with smaller thinner cables feeding peripherals, there will always be voltage drop. Especially if there is need to run a long cable from source to mount. My Nevada unit is set to about 14v output and with the mount a few metres away and everything running the voltage at the mount is just above 12v.

I got one of these about 6/7 years ago and still going strong. It has been running 24/7 in the shed for the last couple of years now as it keeps power to the pier and dew straps to prevent condensation under the Telegizmo cover and also feeds 12v to the wife's barrel pond pump by the back door. Great investment.

I did actually get round to doing a comparison of the AM5 guided by PHD2. As I suspected, the PHD results were more reasonable with an average guide rate of 0.8". The point of my thread was not to cast a shadow on the AM5 and its abilities, its a great mount and if I didn't have an AZEQ6 on my pier, I would have probably kept the AM5 as my main mount. I was trying to see if my long held suspicions about ASIAirs guiding graph figures were a bit on the generous side. Which they are! https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/415062-asiair-am5-guiding-results/

Same. Not been feeling up for much astro lately. I used to check Clear Outside multiple time everyday seeing if there was a chance of a few hours. Relentless cloud for months and a rubbish start to the year has dampened my urge to do anything lately.

Have a look at your flats as well as it appears to have left a ring around the image.

If possible, I would be looking at returning the QHY unit and swapping for something that can go on the course side. In my experience, the Esprit fine focus design is not up to the task of imaging. It is essentially a Crayford design and will eventually start slipping.

I had a DSD AF3 which uses a belt around the focus knob. The AF3 itself worked flawlessly, it is the Esprit fine focus mechanism that wasn't up to the task. The course knob does have a grub screw. You need to turn it to access it through no 1 hole I believe.

The Esprit focuser is rack and pinion but only on the course side. The fine focuser mechanism is a sort of Crayford type design. I had an auto focuser on this for a while but the fine focus started slipping. I had to change to an auto focuser to fit the course side. Not all auto focus units have the torque to move the course side though.

And CMOS. I don't bother with the task of taking multiple sets of darks for different exposure lengths. Just a set of Bias frames for a master bias and dithering takes care of hot pixels and walking noise. That is of course with the newer CMOS with no amp glow.

This was hard fought material to gather. Started back in October and gathered the last sessions worth a few weeks ago. Almost every night was mithered by unexpected clouds and the best nights weren't forecast clear at all! Still, managed a touch over 14 hours worth. It's a bit brighter than I would normally process but all that dust! Esprit 100 and ASI2600MC, no filter. 421 x 120s subs, 100 gain, 50 offset. Processed in Pixinsight.

Looking forward to seeing this on the market. In true Skywatcher style, it will no doubt be offered as a package on an EQ5!

About 5 or 6 watts if they are on full power. I leave the Pegasus power box to control them dependent on temperature and humidity. It's rarely at 80% power under the cover.

I've had my AZEQ6 outside now for 2 years under a TG cover. No rust at all apart from the usual surface corrosion on the counterweight bolts. The trick is to keep humidity at bay under the cover. I use a dew strap turned inside out (warm side facing out) and left running 24/7. No condensation forms on the mount or scopes this way. That's an old picture below but gives the the general idea.

Have you checked it with a multi meter to see if it is delivering 12v at the end of the individual cables powering all your gear? 12v is very susceptible to voltage drop the longer the length of cable used. That's why 13.8v is best to supply.

Yes but what are you using to power the Pegasus unit?

With regards to the camera, you say you struggled to connect it at first but eventually you used the cameras power adapter and it connected fine. Do you mean a 12v power supply that came with the camera? If so, it sounds like there is an issue with your power supply that you use to power everything else. What are you using?

I took a few hours of data on M45 the other side of the full moon last weekend or so. I compared to some subs I already have ready for the stack. I will be throwing away the ones I done last weekend! FYI I image without any filters on my 2600MC.

Another few rounds with the AM5 on the pier and guided via regular PHD2. Typical guiding rates of around 0.8"RMS throughout the sessions. I tried both Hysterisis and the PHD PPEC algorithms with not much difference between them both. It certainly never got down to the 0.4" levels usually reported the the ASIAir graphs. I think it's safe to say that my original suspicions of the Air figures are correct, at the very least the in app graph is wildly optimistic. This is not to say the AM5 is a bad mount, it's not, it's definitely up there with performance levels of a SW EQ6 class mount. More than adequate for most of us hobby folk though it prob is limited to focal lengths of less than 1000mm, which is in fact what ZWO recommend. I did also manage a couple of sessions with the AZEQ6 and ASIAir Mini. I have my Redcat on there at the moment and it does look a bit silly on the AZEQ6 so I will be swapping it back onto the pier next weekend weather permitting. The guiding logs show what I would consider decent guiding for a SW mount even with an OAG but considering I have a 30mm F4 mini guidescope on there so with a pixel scale of 6.45" per pixel I think the typical 0.6"RMS in the logs is also a bit suspect. What I find strange is the logs on the Air report that corrections aren't issued with every exposure whereas on regular PHD on the pier corrections are issued with every exposure so I wonder if this is a factor in the overall RMS score for the Air logs. Both setups are set to 0.1" min move BTW. The nail in the coffin for the Air graphs in my opinion though is this screenshot I took on Friday evening after I setup the AZEQ6. With 1s exposures as well. Yeah right!

Prob not the cause buy have you took the cover off the side of the mount and checked the belt? Looks very regular corrections. That said, the guiding part of the ASIAir is a bit suspect anyway. Usually reports better guiding than is typical for the class of mount. I have another thread on this.

Do you mean the focus knob turns 1 or 2mm in either direction before engaging? It's rack and pinion so I can't see how the drawtube moves unless something is very loose. The fine focus knob is a kind of Crayford style mechanism so that can slip but the course focus is direct engagement with the rack so that shouldn't slip at all.

I downloaded the APK from the ZWO website as it appears to be a larger file size than what's on the Google play store so I wonder what/why has the Play store version been trimmed smaller? I seen on the FB site that people had issues with the Play version that appeared to be resolved by installing the larger file from ZWO. If you do go that route then after installing, Play will still recognise it so untick the option to auto update.

Having owned both, I would have to say the 533 is probably the better camera in modern terms as can do both shorter or longer exposures. The Atik is a great camera still but does need longer exposures, 10 mins or so.