david_taurus83

To check, put the cap on and connect camera to PC and run a series of looped exposures. Note the average ADU value in the histogram/statistics. Then shine a very bright torch on the camera where you think it may be leaking in light and check the ADU value. If it goes up, you have a leak. If it stays as it is, no leak.

If the cap is metal then it shouldn't leak. Or if its a plastic or rubber cap, put tin foil around it. No need to put the camera in a bag.

That price doesn't include VAT.

When WD40 and leverage fails I find an angle grinder works wonders 😊

Is that not WD40 in the US?

We've all got Allen keys knocking about our houses but most are probably metric. Good idea to get a set of imperial as well when dealing with Chinese made scopes.

Great camera for astro! Here's a few of mine from various scopes. North America Nebula taken with a Redcat (3 hours, Optolong L-Pro filter) Orion with a 70mm quad refractor (5 hours, IDAS D2 LPS filter) Wide field Heart and Soul with Samyang 135 (5 hours, Optolong L-Pro filter) Heart and Soul with 71mm refractor (4 or 5 hours, IDAS NB2 duoband filter) My 6D has only had the first IR filter removed. Still have the anti aliasing filter so some level of IR-UV protection is present. Even so, its great for nebulae.

I had the GT71 as a first refractor. Lovely scopes. The WO reducer will be best suited to it. If on CC then just order the lot and cry about it later!

The only thing else comparible price wise would be a WO GT81. In stock at FLO as well.

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/384433-new-stellamira-90mm-ed-triplet-refractor/

I hope you didn't buy it off somebody on here... The least the seller should be doing is taking it back and returning it for a warranty repair on your behalf. If he/she/non are unwilling to help at all then you don't have much to lose by trying to fix it yourself. At the moment the scope is worthless. I doubt it left the factory like that ( at least I would like to believe that) so likely the shipping process has thrown it out. It may be that something has come loose. Worth investigating yourself. This was my first image with my Redcat and full frame Canon 6D. They can perform well so don't give up on it yet.

You can also get block spacers that raise the rings further away from the dovetail. Can you not rotate the focuser so it's on top?

Picked this up today from a nice chap. Needs an upgraded focuser for imaging obviously and a bit of tlc but mirror nice and clean. Something to fettle with now and again. Will have a go at some 1m imaging in the darker months. I can no honestly say, hand on heart, my scope collection is complete and I'll not need to buy another one 😄

Your almost there with a full setup so I would put hand in pocket and fork out for a guide camera and small guide scope. It will make things so much easier from the get go. With a guide setup you can use Sharpcap for polar alignment which will be far more accurate than eyeballing through the mounts polar scope. Apart from Sharpcap which is £10 for a years licence, all software is free that you need to guide and image. With a DSLR I would recommend APT for starting out. Edit: Here's is what I would recommend.

Yes I'm inclined to think the same. I currently do 5 min LRGB and 10 min narrow subs on the Esprit and so far looks OK. I wouldn't mind 5 min narrowbands though and the lower read noise and better cooling. Hmm..🤔

Can't seem to find any info on that filter but the Astronomiks cut UV but not IR. Thr UHC-E tails off at the IR end but not much.

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

Not my imaging PC but my everyday laptop, it came with W10 and I upgraded to W11 when it was released. Works fine and I have none of the problems I had years ago after upgrading from 7 to 10. The only quirk W11 produces on mine is it won't open the File Explorer if I left click on the icon in the task bar after I start the laptop. Windows momentarily stalls and refreshes after about 5 seconds. I need to right click and select file explorer from the drop down menu and then it open. After I do this once the single left click works fine until I restart the laptop and have to repeat. A small irritation I can live with.

1 no. custom Birds Custard almost 2kg counterweight. I cast a nut into the bottom so it can screw up or down for fine tuning. As I suspected the bar is just a tad short so will pick up a length from B&Q and cut down to around 400mm or so. Apart from that I just need to set it up to work with Stellarmate and we're away 20220424_123521.mp4

I wouldn't use batteries on this mount as they'd die down pretty soon. Small 12v supply will be better.

What is the fault and how do you know it cannot be fixed? I'm sure ZWO have used a UK dealer to try and fix the oil leak on the 2600's so they may also be able to perform other repairs.

I've been busy concentrating on my main pier mounted setup that my little GTi has been a bit neglected. @geeklee I stripped it all down last weekend and loosened up the retaining ring that made it too stiff. Swings free as a bird now 👍 Also meshed the gears up and regreased while I was at it. I pulled the finger out today and finally made a homebrew counterweight. A few rough calculations, scope at 3kg and approx 150mm from fulcrum needs around 1.8kg counterweight at around 250mm from fulcrum. So a concrete cylinder of around 100mm diameter at 100mm deep is about bang on the money. I may need a slightly longer bar but will see what it's like tomorrow.

The EQ6 range of mounts from SW are very good for the money but from my experience, when I started out and had access to a dark site, it gets very mentally tiring when you lug it all out to a dark site, set everything up, get an hour of images until cloud or rain, strip it down back into the boot, and home with little to show. If back garden imaging isn't an option then I would really focus on portability and ease of use. ASI 2600MC, LP filter (or IR/UV) and a duo-band filter, AM5 mount (yet unproven I believe),an 80mm refractor of your choice and an ASI Air to control it all. Think that would be somewhere near the £5k mark. I really think if you go for a big mount and a big scope you will soon get fed up with it from a portability point of view, unless you are very dedicated and have the time to spend on it away from home until all hours of the morning, and utilise every clear night...

Nor will it probably include the states sales tax. Got stung with that at the tills when I visited some of New Yorks stores! I was interested in this but if its over £500 then it's too much. Think I'll stick with the AZGti and it's few shortcomings.

Well ita all gone Pete Tong with Green Swamp Server for me. Tried my mini guide scope a few nights ago and wasn't happy with it. At 120mm FL it's too coarse for my liking at over 6"/pp. I went back to an OAG but fitted my as yet unused Starlight Xpress OAG unit. Those of you who are familiar with these will know how solid they are as they are bolted directly to the filter wheel so no thumbscrews to tighten and the prism is nice and big. The issue I found out is the stalk is too long to work with 55mm reducer backpacking as you can't physically get your guide sensor close enough. The remedy? A hacksaw and 10mm shorter! I can now focus my ASI120MM mini at infinity. Happy days! So despite the full moon on Friday night I tried some problem solving. GSS works fine initially with very accurate pointing as usual. Pointed to a star near the equater before the meridian and started a new calibration in PHD. The first 3 attempts below are with GSS. For whatever reason it just wouldnt calibrate in North/South. Was taking over 20 steps to move North and sometimes wouldn't move at all. At this point I was convinced the mount had some mechanical issues and prob needed backlash or something adjusting out. Fair enough, it's been on the pier for over 6 months so maybe the temperature changes in that time have loosened something. As a sanity check first though, I switched back to EQMod to see if I can replicate the issue. Spot on first time. What's odd is that the North/South step in EQMod went in the opposite direction to GSS so I don't know what GSS thought it was doing? Yes, I had reverse Dec output after meridian tick in PHD which is required for GSS. Left the mount guiding in EQMod with PHD's own PPEC algorithm and it returned expected figures for an EQ6 type mount. Took about 15 minutes or so but after a couple of worm cycles it settles down. I'm a bit disappointed tbh. After working so well out of the box, so to speak, with stock settings, I don't understand why GSS has started to play up? It's almost like even though I had PEC turned off each night, it was still replaying it through the mount as guiding was very erratic. Don't know if I can trust it again unattended? Perhaps keep with EQMod...