david_taurus83

Are we talking about the collimation screws here? I wouldn't be messing with those! I had the same with my WO GT71. I wonder if its anything to do with WO trying to squeeze every millimetre out of the objective width. In contrast, I've had 3 Altiar scopes and they all quote 1mm less than their WO counterparts ( Altair 102mm -WO 103mm, Altair 70mm - WO 71mm, etc) and I've not noticed the issue with the Altair brand. Here is an example of a bright star in M45. This was only ever evident in bright stars and it didn't ever bother me btw. Was still a quality scope.

I was all set last night for some opportune imaging. Setup at 6pm waiting for the promised clear spell from 8 to 12. Got rained on instead. 11pm came and it looked like I could grab an hour between the clouds. Nope, got rained on again.

Nights like those are the worst. They tempt you to setup in anticipation and literally spit on you. I have 2 weeks off for Christmas. It would make a nice present to have 3 or 4 decent nights 🙄

They are advertised on FLO the last few days. Apart from WiFi I can't see any other substantial difference to the CEM25 apart from the price hike.

That tracking looks rough. Something not right there. I had one for a while and used it successfully for imaging in EQ mode. They have their limitations but mine certainly wasn't like that. I did open mine up as the azimuth axis had a rough spot which felt too stiff when turned by hand. I added grease where I felt it needed it to both axis and it was fine afterwards. Hope yours is an easy fix!

I think I've got maybe another hour here before a bank of cloud moves in from the west by the looks on Sat24. At least its nice to be doing something. Also trying out the new multi star guiding on PHD. Its currently chugging away at 0.30RMS on my little CEM25!

Altair 80mm bahtinov mask works a treat.

Currently running Oiii on the Atik/Altair 80 combo and wide field of the same target with the Samy/6D at f3.5.

Also running 2 instances of NINA for image capture.

The final parts came today. An Optolong L Pro clip in for my 6D and a mini dovetail. Its a perfect fit for the William Optics scope handles.

I drilled and tapped a couple of M6 holes in the foot of the collar.

For added security a put an extra thumbscrew into the handle so there's no mishaps with it sliding out of there as its fairly heavy.

Ready!

I added a few thin strips of foam to the B mask I was using for the Altair 80EDR so hoping I can use this for focusing the lens.

Its a guaranteed cloud free night tonight folks!! No problems here! Who's with me? Maybe some mass positive vibes will keep cloud at bay for an evening!

My latest plan is coming to fruition. The filter has been on my radar for months but been out of stock everywhere! I originally wanted a D2 clip filter for my 6D but they have been discontinued. The bandpass on the Lpro looks similar to the D1 so next best thing available I suppose. Managed to finally bag it thanks to 365. The mini dovetail is from ebay. Its a perfect fit for the William Optics scope handles.

If interested, search for SVBONY finder scope bracket.

Nice honest review Ruzeen. Pointing out the niggles unlike other "reviewers". Looks like a nice mount still.

1 hour ago, ultranova said:

Nice catch on these, i see you have what looks like a piece of thin plastic

to take up the 1mm slack on the diameter of the lens, good idea

I have just purchased two of the rings and some self adhesive felt off Amazon.

Thanks for sharing the info 

Paul

I just used some blue electricians tape and added a few layers until I was happy that it was a good fit. Used a razor blade to trim the edge off to free up the aperture ring. Just waiting on my mini dovetail now so can mount it to the scope handle.

The D2 only comes in 2" at the moment so can't use with a DSLR and lens unless you use a stop down ring at the front.

I have no experience but are these really worth the money? Take the 5nm for example. Are they really worth the huge hike in comparison to the 6nm Astronomiks?

I forgot to add. Its only really suitable if your focuser is 2" for the whole length of the nosepiece. All my refractors have had a 2.5" drawtube and only the 2" adapter on the end was 2" with a compression ring so the front part of the nosepiece was in the 2.5" section! Wasn't ideal so ended up selling it.

What about the Hotech SCA? They do a flattener but also a nosepiece?

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adapters/hotech-2-sca-t-adapter.html

Got this cheap tripod collar today. Surprised there isn't a proper one made for this lens. Anyway, this one is 71mm so slightly too big but nothing a few wraps of tape around the lens can't fix! A bit of careful cutting away of excess tape also leaves the aperture ring free to rotate unlike the Redcat collar. I'm planning to fix a mini dovetail bar to the foot of this so I can mount it into the William Optics slide handle on my scope.

These are on Amazon for anyone interested.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07DVKZBXG/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_fabc_NAa0FbMCARMM2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

On 05/12/2020 at 20:46, nephilim said:

Its arrived & it's a lovely piece of glass 

 

Snap!

I'm looking to mount this on top of my scope with my 6D and snap wide field shots while gathering narrowband with my Atik. Best of both worlds!

How are you controlling it? Do you have correct home coords (lat long) configured?

9 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

I actually managed to tune out backlash on mine, but on my version, gears are made out of metal, same as in this video:

Btw, here is whole youtube video on how to tune out backlash in this mount: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgEzeXrhhEg

Good to know that this mount will guide at 1.5" RMS - I guess that is about as good as can be expected from it.

No, not those! The actual gearbox that's connected to the motors output shaft. Theres 3 nylon reduction gears in there with about 3 AU of space between them!

Mine worked well at 350mm (Starwave 70EDQR) but with my 6D the pixel scale was around 3.9" and guiding was pretty good at around 1.5" RMS. The dec on mine had a lot of backlash so dithering isn't recommended as it couldn't recover on time before the next exposure started so I lost subs that way. I stripped mine down when I got it (second hand) as it had a tight spot on the RA axis that you could feel if you turned it in your hand. Added grease where needed and it was sound after. There's no way to tune out the backlash on the Dec side as the gearbox has 3 small nylon gears with an horrendous amount of play between them. But that's me being picky on a cheap little goto mount thats not at all designed for AP!

Yep, flexure somewhere. You might think everything is bolted down solid but its tricky to pin point it. I switched to an OAG and it cured it.

If you've got a big enough FOV and you can still frame your target then I'd leave it as it provides a natural dither. But if you have a small sensor and take long subs it can be quite annoying.

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/364129-whats-causing-this-drift/

Footage of the collapse.

https://youtu.be/b3AASKr_iHc

Bortle 4 is quite dark. Why do you use a filter at all?

If you click on the Image tab on the right you can navigate to other images saved on the hard drive and load those also. Handy if you get into platesolving.

The preview screen just displays the last image taken. It sounds like all the images in the test were over exposed. What were you aiming at for the test plan?

Worth a read here

https://www.peterzelinka.com/blog/2019/8/light-pollution-filters-for-astrophotography