david_taurus83

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

9 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

Maybe image with single filter for longer than one exposure?

That was how I 'traditionally' done it but fed up of gathering half the data needed each season due to weather! It's not even an issue to be honest, but I'm just wondering if the Esprit 9x50 has been used as a guidescope as I've got one in the box doing nothing.

Has anyone used their Esprit series finder scope for guiding? If so, how did you fair? Secure enough in the shoe? Adapters needed to fit the guide camera? Reason I ask is I'm considering this as opposed to my OAG. I have started using filter offsets to capture data one filter after another without refocusing each time. So every filter change invokes a small movement with the focuser and my OAG is picking this up and I get a little spike in PHD with this. So far it hasn't caused a major issue but its a slight annoyance all the same. Those spikes you see are about one minute apart every filter change and focuser movement.

I would also argue for an OAG on an SCT..

In the meantime however, I would also say it needs to 'bed' in a little as it's new. My AZEQ6 seemed to perform a bit better after some use. With everything off the mount, turn it on and slew it all the way round and the same in reverse in both axis to get a good spread of grease on both sides of the gear teeth. 

The EQ6R and AZEQ6 both have optical encoders on the RA axis so that's how it probably knows where to start the PEC corrections but I couldn't say how accurate it is. I use GSS and was happy with PPEC correction at first but I've found it to be too unreliable and the mount can behave strangely with it on. Now I just use PHD's algorithm which kicks in after a couple of revolutions of the axis each time you start it.

Yes guiding all the way. I had an iOptron CEM25 and though it was a good mount and could perform very well, I did have to open it up to adjust belts, grub screws etc. To me, this is an acceptable compromise for a mount that cost me £700 new but I would really question the QC you get on one of these considering the premium you pay for the EC versions. Esprit 100, while not a long focal length, it's a heavy scope and I need 2 counterweights on my pier mounted AZEQ6 to balance it so I would question the CEM40EC's ability to manage that as well without guiding. As mentioned above, get a small 32mm guide scope and an ASI120 mini and give guiding a go with your current mount. If guiding isn't for you there's always someone who will snap up the camera and guide scope.

6 hours ago, Stuart1971 said:

Yeah, and I wonder what mark up they will add, just look at the price of there second hand kit….😮

Not bad?!

ENS Optical will be the official UK dealer with stock inbound..

36 minutes ago, peter shah said:

The second is a much better rendition, Lovey colour balance and star colour

Thank you Peter! I'm quite pleased with how it's came out with less than 2 hours per channel.

OK, seeing it now on my phone screen and it does look a bit green..Let's roll it back a little.

Time to put my almost ruinous filters to work! Tried a different approach to capturing this. Normally I would dedicate an entire evening to capturing only one filter at a time. Unfortunately, as we all well know, this can mean getting a decent amount of data on one or a couple of channels, and then months of cloud to which the target can be gone behind a tree or ridgeline by the time you get back out there. I used one of the plug ins in NINA to calculate my filter offsets and its actually pretty good. I captured this by using the Lum filter to focus and used the focuser offsets to adjust for each filter change, allowing me to capture subs in LRGB order without focusing in between. I know the concept is well known but i was a bit dubious but thankfully it works a treat. Captured last Saturday night and a couple of hours clear sky last night. Processed in Pixinsight, no narrowband, no star reduction/removal, no SCNR green removal. Just as it is.

110 x 60s each LRGB Astrodon filters

Esprit 100

ASI533MM

Some nice data there, better than any M31 I've tried. What equipment did you use? The stars look ever so slightly out of focus. Just though.

Excellent, as usual!

Don't accept a decent RMS value in PHD as everything is going good. All it takes is one big 2 or 3 arc second spike in either axis to ruin a sub. Check your peak to peak values as well.

Have you had a look at Patriot Astro? I used this tutorial before fine tuning things on my Esprit. He uses a Pegasus focus cube so step sizes may not be the same as your EAF but he has it paired to an 8" SCT so may be of help to you.

Can you post up some examples of your V Curves from last night? I don't have an SCT but I did spend a few hours the other night fine tuning my focus settings for new filters. Did you watch the image previews as they happened?

Took mine off the WO wedge last night and reverted back to AZ mode for a peek at Saturn with my Heritage 150. Tracking looked a bit notchy and jumpy through the eyepiece. Just a bit more than what I would consider acceptable. Any ideas to reduce this? When I stripped it I locked down the worm so it's not on the spring tension. Perhaps go back to spring?

The handset will work but you need to purchase a separate cable as it has the smaller plug.

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/sky-watcher-mount-accessories/lynx-astro-premium-handset-cables-for-sky-watcher-az-goto-az-gti-mounts.html

My wallet is on life support now.

8 hours ago, billhinge said:

 

I was hoping to test starnetv2 against StarXterminator but starnetv2 seems to have disappeared from the internet!  - at least for mac users, the various download sites don't seem to work (yes I read the CN threads)

Anyway I wanted to try against a standard ref so found the above, this is the equivalent StarXterminator and NoiseXterminator with the same source

To me StarXterminator seems slightly better? (I'm thinking of buying, especially as starnetv2 doesn't play nice with Apple M1 whereas StarXterminator has neural engine support on the mac)

 

 

Has StarXterminator sorted out the over-softening of the star areas? When I trialled it, it was very good and very quick but it over softened the area of where the stars were and it didn't look right over a noisy background. I've stuck with Starnet2. I have bought the excellent NoiseXterminator though.

1 hour ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

Can't find one.  Nothing on the knob. There are ones on the fine adjustment knob

Pretty sure the grub screw on the right doesn't do anything so whip it out and then you'll have access to the 2 grub screws holding the coarse knob on.

It definitely looks like they forgot to take the bahtinov mask off before launch. We're all guilty!

On 28/08/2022 at 22:57, Clarkey said:

I thought I would drop this on the forum as an encouragement to anyone thinking about servicing their Skywatcher mount.

Over there summer I stripped down an rebuilt my HEQ5 and AZ-EQ6 too. I replaced all the bearings in the HEQ5 but kept the original bearings in the other mount. Other than a good degrease and re-grease I did nothing more, other than careful setting of the worm gears.

Now the important bit - the difference in performance is STAGGERING! Both mounts were ok before, but the improvement in guiding and tracking  has been phenomenal. Last night the total RMS for the AZ-EQ6 was 0.11. Previously it was never less than 0.3. The HEQ5 is not quite so good, but still twice as good as before. The backlash is also much better.

All I can say is that if you are considering a mount strip down, DO IT!

Is that pixels or arc seconds. That's into £££££ territory hardware if arc seconds..

To be fair, it's not much different than a group of investors putting down cash and waiting a fews years for that return...Though I appreciate the question of using the actual consumers as the investors. I can't say I'd have been bold enough to put down the money on an idea though. At least they are being shipped out now and the early results look promising. 

Before I sold it, I was using a 90° angle USB cable on my 460. Its less prone to jiggling about and sits much closer to the body of the camera therefore much more secure. Also used an elbow for the power cable.

https://amzn.eu/d/b1tK270