david_taurus83

I think this is the first image I've took with my Canon 6D in well over a year. It might not compete with the excellent new Sony IMX sensors but there's life in the old girl yet! There's a little bit of a gradient going on in the background that DBE cant remove but alas, LP and a colour camera. I'm still pleased with how its come out.

150 x 180s at ISO1600

Optolong L-Pro clip filter

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 🙂

5 hours ago, Swoop1 said:

Just realised- mine is visible from space!

 

😉

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

??? Already?

5 hours ago, raadoo said:

No damage yet, though I have gone hulk on it, trying to pry the filter off.

So, yeah, filter won’t unthread; it’s definitely bound on there.

I’m looking to replace the 1.25” adapter so I can use other filters.

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?

38 minutes ago, Alijah12 said:

I am just using a Dslr and lens

 

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. 

On 10/10/2022 at 17:08, R26 oldtimer said:

Forgive me, I don't want to sound pertinacious but, you could take 10x1min subs in R, use filter offsets, take another 10x1min subs in G, filter offsets again and 10x1min in B.

This way you will only refocus 6 times (using filter offsets) per hour, instead of 60 and have a full set of RGB every half an hour.

The reason for being so persistent is because I recently moved from a guidescope to an oag. Had a decent 70mm guidescope and an imx290 cam with small pixels. Although phd2 calculates centroid on subpixel scale it's not as accurate as calculating it on a bigger pixel scale. Flexure creeped from almost everything (finder shoe - finder rings - plastic tipped finder screws), but my phd2 graph looked very good. Moving to oag and after fettling for hours to make it work (you 've got one so you know all about it), my phd2 graph turned a little worst, but my star shapes got a lot better.

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.

34 minutes ago, Arto said:

Hello Graham!

Do you still have the original MKS4000 boards for sale? 

arto

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?

Just now, Cakedestroyer said:

Ok. I did have a good 500 or so shots but I messed up my bias frames so I need to try this again another night. 
I am just using a static tripod but if I do this a bit more I am looking forward to getting a star tracker/mount.

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?

9 hours ago, newbie alert said:

I see, even thou you're not doing a full blown autofocus run it still sounds like it needs a settle time, one for the filter to change and 2 for the autofocuser to move it's offset distance..  are you doing a full loop of filters?  

Nina is flexible enough to do say 10 exposures of red, 10x blue etc, or run a auto focus on temp change( if you have temperature reading)  or if you're using the sequencer it can check to HFR in the background after every sub and if it changes do a autofocus

Seems abit OTT to just use the offsets every sub to maximise capture but lose out on focus as the temp drops off, or am I reading that bit wrong

Anyway, don't think there's much to gain from using a oag on a esprit 100, but if it works then great..if you do go for the finder as a guider the biggest hurdle would be the adapter but I'd think you would have the same situation as the filterwheel is still going to change and the focuser move unless you add a few secs delay between subs

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.

7 minutes ago, R26 oldtimer said:

I think that the main reason for sequential filter capture is to get even gradient across filters. But since your subs are so short, you could go for 10xsubs (10min total) before changing filter.

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.

18 minutes ago, newbie alert said:

What size esprit is it David? 

What program are you running for capture?  If you dither then you can set a settle down time before it stars it's capture again, sure it shouldn't be starting a exposure and still running a focus run at the same time?

Not sure that you would be able to use a 1.25 in the finder, seems thinner than that on my 80

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!