david_taurus83

Do any of these screw off? The ad for that scope states direct SLR attachment so there must be a way.

Measure from the glass at the front of the scope to the sensor mark on the camera body.

Also, if you remove that middle section can you screw the t ring onto the end of the drawtube?

1 minute ago, ThomasF1234 said:

Oh I see! yeah I do have a T-Ring

Should go straight onto the end of the drawtube or attach onto the thread of the adapter on the drawtube. Then you need to measure from the lens to the camera sensor mark and you are looking for 1000mm. Heres where you might find you need a spacer if theres not enough travel on the focuser to come into focus.

Sounds like your trying to attach your camera to an eyepiece or barlow and take an image through the diagonal. That's not the best way to image through the telescope. You should be able to connect the camera directly to the end of the drawtube and take an image that way. Like this:

Do you have one of these?

What adapter are you waiting for? T ring?

A rough idea of where the focal plane sits is to measure from where the lens element is to the sensor position of the camera. Should be 1000mm on your scope and will give you an idea if you need any spacers as well.

I use one of these.

Agree with Dave and Ken. I use a DSD focuser and the belt drives the fine focus knob.

Hi James,

Any chance you can stretch and convert to jpegs and post directly to the forum?

Word of caution if using that Black 2.0-3.0 etc, it's good but prone to flaking off if scratched. Might be ok on a non contact surface like the inside of a tube etc. I used it on a focuser and found it came off too easily when inserting or removing a nosepiece. Had to clean the mirror eventually!

Should be just in the Plug In folder, not the Generator one?

1 hour ago, Knight of Clear Skies said:

Interesting. A shame this doesn't seem to be available as a clip-in filter.

I agree. Fine if your using a scope as can use a normal 2" filter cell either in the nosepiece or in the reducer etc. but not much choice if you want to use your camera lenses. Astronomik do a comprehensive set of clip filters. The UHC filter looks fairly close to a duoband. Maybe a bit broader bandwidth and no IR cut off at the top but worth a look?

Your guiding is good. Dont concentrate too much on what the graph looks like. You will have good nights and bad  nights. Look at the stars in the subs.

My first mount an EQ5 Pro was very noisy at full slew. The next mount, an AZEQ6 was much quieter, it made a gentle whine when slewing, nothing to worry about even if the neighbours had the windows open at night. The iOptron CEM25P I have now though is whisper quiet. You would barely hear it if you were a few metres away.

I ask because I done about 12 hours worth of Ha on this last year with an ASI1600 on a 71mm triplet and I think your CCD version blows the socks off the ASI! When I get a mono camera again it will definitely be a CCD. Even new those Atik 383s are a good price.

What mono camera are you using on the ED80 Adam?

Get it modified but instead of then buying an Ha filter, you could always buy one of the new duoband filters that are popular with OSC cameras. See below images. The Veil in Ha was shot with an Astronomik 12nm Ha clip in filter in my old 600D. Naturally the image comes out all red when stacked so I split the channels and isolated just the red channel to present a mono image. My processing wasnt great then (it still isnt) and it was shot in warm weather so it's very noisy. Perhaps I pushed the camera too much as I was doing 10 minute subs at ISO800 and got about 10 hours worth.

The Heart and Soul image is more recent and shot with my modded 6D with an IDAS NB1 filter which is a duoband filter where it passes both Ha and Oiii(+Hb) at the same time so instead of throwing away both green and blue channels you can process the image as is, kind of like an Ha/Oiii bicolour. Of course it's not as good as mono but you can get an image like this in a shorter time. I believe this was around 6 hours worth of 5 minute subs. Again, processing was a bit, meh..

The bottom image is simply RGB, shot with the modded 6D and an IDAS D2 light pollution filter. I think it was about 5 hours worth of 60s subs at ISO1600.

I have to point out though that the 6D is less noisy and has bigger pixels, so more sensitive than the 600D, but below is an idea of what each different filter can do with a modded camera.

3 minutes ago, geordie85 said:

I'd say probably. I still need to use one with my qhy183c and 200p

Theres the answer then! Just need spacers for the ZWO to make it work. Should have come with the camera.

Do you mean coma correcter? The 183 sensor is a lot smaller than the 600D so I'd try without first as you might get decent star shapes anyway.

I think it's the interference of the different colour wavelengths that differ. Not an expert though!

3 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

Very detailed image. The 6D seems to excellent despite your concerns.  It is a little pink as Mark as pointed out. 

Thanks Adam! Maybe its just me as I do have a dose of red/green colourblind!

7 minutes ago, MarkAR said:

Nice sharp stars and a lovely image. It is showing quite a magenta tone on my screen.

If you're having trouble with that try inverting the image then do SCNR (green) lowered to 40% to 80%, then re-invert.

One thing I like about PI is that it is so versatile.

Thanks! Stars to the right are a bit off as I'm sure the camera has some sensor tilt. In my flatfield quad its the same, sharp stars on the left but slightly out of focus on the right. Must try and dial it out with the in built tilt adapter on the quad over the bright summer nights. Regarding the colour cast, I cant see it on this monitor but it does look different on my phone or a tablet etc. I tend to go by the numbers?

Only 3 hours on this one but it was nice to start and complete an image in one session. Ain't done that for ages! I'm starting to think I need to start exposing for longer with the Canon as the red channel in this was incredibly noisy, like worse than the blue channel! Still managed to get something decent out of the data. Only 60s subs as I didn't want to blow out the Propeller.

Canon 6D 180 x 60s subs at ISO1600, IDAS D2 LPS filter

Starwave 102 ED-R at 714mm with StellaMira 1.0 flattener

iOptron CEM25P

Processed in Pixinsight with a few small Carboni tweaks at the end in Photoshop

They ain't super quality, the case is glorified disposable baking tray type aluminium tbh. They are ok though. They protect everything from knocks and bumps which is what you want really. The old setup with the guidescope attached was a tight fit. Whatever size you need, you also want some foam around that as well between kit and case.

Here is my old setup I was sizing up before cutting the foam.

Both my scopes snug in their cases. The small scope is still attached to the mini PC, dew controller etc. Just disconnected the cables for storage. I also bought a couple of blocks of pre cut pluck foam for this.

The Starwave 102 is stored in the solid foam block that comes with these as standard. I just cut it out with a bread knife, nice and snug.