michaelmorris

What length of time would you describe as "a good nights session"?

ad nauseum.

Hi Daz It certainly would make sense if you have permanent set up, less of an advantage if you have to set it up every night. The real advantage would come if you want to do imaging through both scopes simultaneously. The ADM dual mounting bars are VERY solid. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adm-losmandy-type-d-series/adm-losmandy-style-dual-mounting-bar.html

Polefinder is excellent and has a large range of polar scope reticle designs. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.techhead.polarfinder&hl=en_GB

The mega cheap Angeleyes finder bracket has arrived from China. First impressions are that it's a product in two halves. What I mean by that it that the shoe and riser are nice and solid. No problems there. The rings are also solid with nice plastic-tipped adjustment screws. The thing that lets it down is the joint between each ring and the riser. The rings are not flattened at this point, so you have to tighten the bolt between them very tightly to make it solid. I plan to file down a small flat spot on each ring to make this connection much more solid and straight. I'll probably take the opportunity to replace the connection bolts with stainless steel Allen bolts as well. In summary, these rings are remarkably solid considering the sub £12 price tag and a little tweak here and there should make for an adequate finder/guider bracket at a fraction of the price of any of the alternatives. 

No, not really.

If you're looking at long exposure imaging with an Schmitt Cassegrain telescope at prime focus, you are going to need a high quality, heavy duty mount. I suppose you may well be able to use an C8 or even a C9.25 on an EQ6, but for imaging, that is probably going to be your limit. It's not just a matter of carrying capacity, it's also a matter of the focal length of these large SCTs. Longer focal lengths require more accurate mounts. You also need to consider the usability of your system. If you've got to set up a large, heavy mount and a very large SCT tube every time you want to image, my guess is you will probably quite soon be put off by the sheer palaver of setting it all up. There is an old adage that hold very true - "The best telescope is the one that get used". IMHO, for most people, the EQ6 is at about the limit (weight-wise) of what constitutes as a portable mount.

Lovely shot.

Hi Roger. Just pop in anytime.

Thanks for the advice. I've decided to give SharpCap another chance, so I spludged out £10 on a 1 year licence and I'll give it another go.

The speed of sound is approx. 343 m/s. Average sized meteors are typically seen at an altitude of approx. 70 to 100 km, meaning any sound delay would be at least 70,000/343 = 204 seconds. For there to be even a 10 second delay between seeing an object in the sky and hearing it it would have to have an altitude of no more than 3430 metres (around 10,000 feet). There is a really interesting phenomena where the brain fills in information it expects to receive, even if it isn't real. We all do it all the time.

With low quality indistinct wobbly pictures and a somewhat vague description it is impossible to draw any sensible conclusion as to what your friend saw or thinks he/she saw.

Agreed. The William Optics finder guider bracket sold by FLO is my back up. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/finders/william-optics-finder-bracket.html

Another vote for the Sky and Telescope Pocket Sky Atlas. Cracking little atlas.

I thought I would give it a try. At under £12 it seems worth a punt.

Startech stuff is pretty good and from my experience mainly reliable. I have two 7 port Startech powered hubs, one USB 3 and the other USB 2. The USB 2 hub seems to be more reliable at providing power to things when the system is heavily loaded. With the USB 3 hub I can occasionally get things like the guide camera dropping out.

I'm having to put together a new finder/guider set up for my imaging rig. I've got a 9 x 50 finder and camera and will be getting the relevant adaptor for mounting the camera on the finder next month. The last thing I will need is some tube rings to mount it in. My previous set up used a very nice 2nd hand Televue mounting bracket, but at >£100 new this is way beyond my budget Ideas/recommendations please? Thanks

I'm booked on 352 on the Red field from the Wednesday through to the Sunday, but I might stay longer if the weather is good. I'll have a tent this year rather than the motorhome. I'm planning on bringing my ZWO 294MC Pro camera on my trusty 80ED for imaging on my new-to-me AZ EQ6 GT mount. I probably also bring my Astro-modified Canon 1100D to use on my iOptron Skytracker mount for some wide field targets.

What scope/camera combination are you using with SharpCap?

I've tried using SharpCap for polar alignment before using my Lodestar x2 and a 90 x 50 finder/guider. It did work sometimes, but if there was even thin high cloud it difficulty finding enough stars.

A recent house move has meant that I've had to give up my beloved observatory. For the foreseeable future I'm going to be back to setting my gear for imaging in the back garden from scratch every evening that is clear. To cut down on set up time I was looking at ways to make it quick and easy to get polar aligned. The new iOptron iPolar looks like a versatile, quick and accurate method of polar alignment, that's £90 cheaper than a QHY Polemaster. I will be using two mounts - a new-to-me AZEQ6 GT and an iOptron Skytracker portable mount. So here are my questions. How easy to use and accurate is the iPolar in use? Has anyone got experience of using one with the original Skytracker? Thanks.

PM sent

Thanks James Those look like the babies. Now what size will I need?

I've just bought a 2nd hand AZ EQ6 GT mount. The tripod was without a spreader plate or spreader plate retaining nut. As a protemps measure I've used the spreader and bolt from my HEQ5 Pro tripod. I now need to get replacement spreader and retaining nut to replace the ones taken from the HEQ5. I know that I can a replacement spreader from various retailers. But where would I get a retaining nut?

I've just bought a 2nd hand AZ EQ6 GT mount. One of shakedown items is to check the alignment of the polarscope. It seems very well aligned. When I set it on a distant tree branch and then rotate the RA axis though 180 degrees, the error is about the same as width between two of the three tracks of the central alignment circle (It's the new style polarscope reticle). I know from past experience with polarscope reticle alignment on my HEQ5Pro that even a very small movement of one of the grub screws can result in a large deflection of the reticle. I will be using the mountn for visual observing and guided DSO imaging, subs of up to 15-20 minutes for narrow band imaging. Given the small size of the existing reticle alignment error, do you think it is likely to worth the effort of trying to dial out that last bit of error?