david_taurus83

Its good, but Olly and Tom's is better. This one has panels with varying degrees of noise if you pixel peep. I think binning it would improve it. Great dedication though. Almost an obsession, but aren't we all familiar?! 🙂

Its not unusual for filters to rattle around in their cell. You don't want the retaining ring too tight. Ive had some 2" light pollution filters come loose after a while.

Yes you need some signal in the background so its not just noise. You'll be amazed by the difference a modded camera makes.

You should try without a filter first. Your sky will be very dark so you will need to image for longer than those of use in urban areas to get a clean background sky. You'll also pick up far more nebulosity than I ever could from where I am. You could use a duo-band filter like the Lenhance to isolate Ha and Oiii regions but you'd need to expose for even longer again.

Sweet! It works! My wheel was on v1034 or something. Upgraded to 1049AR and all is well!

1 minute ago, emyliano2000 said:

Do you have a link please. 

https://www.sxccd.com/drivers-downloads

3 minutes ago, Thommy said:

Are you using the "AR" version of the firmware?

/Thommy

Not sure but I was literally just looking on the SX website. There was a firmware update issued in May this year and it refers to rebooting the FW after Windows shuts down or if there's a glitch. I will give this a whirl shortly.

How did you clean them Adam? I would have definitely broke something!

Thanks all. At least its not just mine and appears to be a common bug. Not a big issue really as I still setup each session. I can imagine how frustrating this might be if someone had an automated setup in an observatory etc. I'll try one of my other laptops and see if its the same.

It's odd as it obviously powers the wheel at startup as it runs through the calibration procedure but it just won't connect. It will only let me connect if the cable is plugged in after the PC is on.

^^^This. Or dim the panel if it has that function. Aim for around 1s exposures.

As above, when i start my mini PC with all USB devices connected, I cant connect the filterwheel. The wheel spins and calibrates the carousel as normal but I cant connect. The fix is to remove the USB cable and then reconnect. All is fine then. When I power up the PC with the FW disconnected and then connect the cable, it connects no problem. Any ideas? I don't have this quirk with any other device.

What exposure were the flats?

Yep, only ZWO products will work on the ASIAir and some DSLR as well.

Where did you get the filter?! I thought those Baader 3.5s were like hens teeth!

Nice image BTW. I do like mono Ha as well

In that case I'd say more subs. Lots of subs. Do you have much LP? This target is a no go for me at Bortle 6. Tried a few times and its just too faint to bring out the dusty stuff without messing it up. Tried mono with an ASI1600 and also with a 6D.

The 163 image looks too grainy. Looks like a DSLR image when it's too warm. You sure the cooler was running? What does the FITS header say for the individual subs?

2 hours ago, kirkster501 said:

As it happens, it is a ASI 120M mini guider that I am using here in the context of this thread, it that is what you mean.

Try it at a low gain. It will still pick up stars but the brighter ones and will auto select them.

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/352498-phd-choosing-poor-stars-asi120-mini/

Tbf, every supplier could throw in a test 'certificate' saying its the best scope in the world regardless of if it was genuinely tested at all. The only way to know if its good is to try it out.

Have you tried the scope yet? If there's no issues with it, what's the problem?

Its your choice to return for a refund if your not happy but its a bit premature if you've not actually tested it. There's a long waiting list for these scopes so if you return they'll have no problem moving it on!

If using a ZWO 120mm at high gain i found PHD will auto select the faintest of stars to guide on. This nearly always produces a wobbly star on nights of poor seeing. The biggest improvement was to go to low gain of 10/20 and PHD will then always pick a bright star without saturating and have a SNR of 200/300. I started a thread on this a while back.

6 hours ago, ebdons said:

Yes swapped most of mine for lindy and they are very reliable, but there are others, and some have gold plated connectors and I don't know if that makes much difference?

Ha ha! Does everyone remember the gold plated SCART leads that were supposedly all singing, all dancing, bells and whistles, back in the day?! I even seen a 2m length in PC world once for 50 quid! I always use cheap cables and rarely have issues. Ive had to swap a genuine Xbox supplied HDMI cable for a cheap one as the first failed. A cable is a cable, as long as the wires aren't damaged and the plugs make good contact with the sockets, they should be fine.

1 hour ago, Nikolas74 said:

Thank you Dave , I will pair it with an Esprit100ED and with WO RedCat51.....it will be undersampled with the RedCat51 but wide...

I was checking the Astronomy Tools website to see what kind of filter size I can go with and the minimum recommendation was for 30.8mm if I am not mistaken.....Does that mean that a 1.25" filter will not cause vignetting.. ?

Why do you want to use filters?

Ive only used it once as had it barely a week!

I had the 102EDR for a while and used that with my modded 6D. Same glass, doublet design. Really nice scope for imaging. I only had a standard 1.0 flattener so not perfect correction to corners with stars but not bad either. Below is M106 and M13 taken with the 6D and 102EDR. It corrects colours quite well. I didn't notice much CA. I should imagine the 80 EDR f7 will perform as well but at a shorter focal length.

Its the same focuser thats on the 102EDR. Very good, very smooth. William Optics use similar if not the same on their scopes. 1.5kg should be fine. You will want a good reducer/flattener to correct for full frame though.