david_taurus83

You can never be too careful with checking clamps and hand screws etc. I was attempting a dual rig a few years ago but on the cheap so didn't have one of those fancy adjustable clamps that allow for XY axis adjustment. I was using thin plastic shims between the scope dovetail and mount clamp. Had a sudden cold feeling rush up my back as I heard a horrible metallic sliding noise as I was walking up the garden from the mount. The scope I was adjusting had slid all the way down the clamp and only caught at the very end due to a protruding bolt head under the dovetail. Never again! Sorry to hear of your misfortune and hope your insurance gets settles quickly so you can get another!

According to Google slug slime is over 90% water so it can't be that bad. I doubt it's as bad as Xenomorph blood!

I have to admit, they have twisted my arm a little with this. I have a Redcat on an AZGTI with my 6D that doesn't get used as much as it should. With the luxury of having my main setup on a permanent pier I have gotten lazy with regards to setting up from scratch the Redcat. That paired with an old laptop that struggles to manage it all puts me off the effort in. Despite me being a critic of the early ASIAir, it seems to have come a long way with regards to features. I've ordered one from ZWO. Hopefully have it by Christmas 2023 🙂

I'd blank out the street name on that picture as it's an open forum.

??? Already?

Have you tried the rubber sole technique? Place the filter/adapter between a pair of shoes/trainers/sneakers with soft soles, press together and twist?

Have you actually damaged it or you can't get the filter off so looking for a replacement?

What lens? Kit lens? Prime lens? The quality varies a lot! I had a couple of expensive Canon lenses that were great for what they were intended, terrestrial photography, but hopeless for astrophotography if you judged their performance by star shape.

I didn't get to use my Samyang much when I had it but got a couple of nice shots. M45 was only 50 minutes of 60s subs I believe from a pretty bad light polluted bortle 6. Was taken on an iOptron star tracker mount. Heart and Soul, again from same location but on a bigger mount with guiding. Heres the difference between 2 or 3 hours worth of 5 minute subs and 5 hours worth. At a bortle 3 location, you should be able to get more detail and dark dusty stuff. All taken with an Optolong L pro clip filter in my 6D, ISO1600.

The only way to determine sensor tilt is on a purpose jig with only the camera on there. If your judging tilt by shape of stars on an image, them you would need to rule out collimation, focuser, flattener spacing etc.

A completely valid point and makes perfect sense, however it still doesn't remove the spikes from guiding without a long settle time and it would mildly bug me that it's not an even capture! I realise I'm trying to fix a problem that isn't there but I do want to put my 6D on there soon so a guidescope is needed anyway. To answer my original question, yes, the Esprit finder can be converted to a guidescope. You need the M51 to C adapter from FLO, the ZWO M42(T2) to C adapter and a helical focuser. I happened to have most of these bits in my astro parts box so only needed to purchase the M51 adapter. The spacer between the guidescope and focuser is optional also. I prefer to have the camera inserted almost fully into the focuser body as opposed to sticking half out.

I can't see how you can machine that out and still use it after. What's the ID of the tube? TS do various adapters to fit different OTA's. I'd be inclined like others to chop the tube and find or create an adapter to suit that. My concern with this approach though would be how much dust is going to end up on the lens from cutting..

What focuser are you trying to fit? 2" not big enough?

Your not using PEC correction in GSS are you? When I tried it it was great for a while but then my mount started doing strange things. Would randomly start drifting off in the wrong direction despite input from PHD. When I switched PEC off it behaved normally so I haven't used it since. Still use GSS though and it's behaved each time with PEC left alone.

This thread is 6 years old and he hasn't logged in since May. If you send him a PM he may get an email notification though.

Is that a dovetail flange for the focuser?

If you have access to an engineering shop for machine work could you not come up with an adapter to fit the flange left on the scope and with the thread for the focuser of choice?

How did you mess up your bias frames?

It's noisy because the background noise (bias signal) is dominant due to such a short exposure. The only way to overcome this is to expose for longer or shoot many many more subs, which will then require some time on your PC for processing and stacking. Orion is a bright target so you really don't need to go higher than ISO800. Are you shooting from just a tripod with no tracking?

I already have NINA set to focus if temp changes by 2° and star HFR increases by 5%. Also a refocus every 30 mins anyway using the L filter which usually only takes less than 2 mins. So far it has worked very well and even if I only gather an hour or 2 of subs, I have a full even set of data across all filters. I do prefer the OAG but I would prefer nice smooth guiding even more. The idea of changing back to guidescope is it will become fully independent of any movement by the focuser which is causing the issues you can see above. I should have the adapter from FLO tomorrow so will find out if the Esprit finder is OK to use.

Perhaps for others, but for me I'm trying to gather a full data set each session. Also, if I done something like that, it's 6 autofocus routines and hour, so say 12 mins per hour, or 1 full hour of autofocusing per 5 hour session! It all adds up!

Here's a better example of what I'm taking about. Those spikes are my filter changes and subsequent focuser movement at minute intervals. So clearly this method of using filter offsets is problematic for an OAG unless your willing to compromise with long settle times. I digress though, this thread was started to see if anyone used the Esprit 9x50. Hopefully I will be able to demonstrate that with use of the adapter.

It's the Esprit 100 and using NINA. I'm not focusing. It's using a predefined autofocus step size (offset) for each filter. For example, I shoot a 60s Lum sub. The filyerwheel then changes to Red and the focuser moves 25 steps to account for the different focus position. During all this, PHD is guiding away merrily with the OAG but the focus movement is picked up as either a sudden star movement and/or the star profile changes size due to either moving in or out! I could add a 10s settle time after any focuser movement so it settles before imaging again but these 10s add up with each filter change and autofocus would take much longer as well. It goes against the idea of using the filter offsets to gather as much data as possible in a session! Anyway, I've looked at the Esprit finder and it's essentially a slightly shorter 9x50 than the normal one you get with a 200p for example so I've ordered one of those C adapters that let's you add a guide camera to the end. I'm hoping it's short enough where I can install a helical focuser and still get focus. If its 180mm focal length, it should work.

Hi Adam, I haven't seen (or missed?) you post on here for a while so good to see you back with a nice image!

That's pretty good for just 3 hours with the Atik!