barkingsteve

I got some data from Thursday and tried processing a couple, yes conditions were pretty bad. Looks like you had better luck than me  

Have you thought about filters ? a good tri band filter for colour cameras will help bring out the details in nebulae. Regarding cameras, if i did not have my 294mc pro my eaa camera of choice today would be the 533 as it has good sensitivity along with good pixel size for the 130pds and no amp glow and would give you a decent fov.

Both your primary and secondary look off to me. Firstly concentrate on centering the secondary before tackling the primary. a laser collimator will not help with the secondary, i use a camera live view and mire de collimation over the top to help centre the secondary.

You know what, i think i did  thanks for pointing out.

Not the best conditions tonight but i had to try out my new toy, the sharpstar 61edph II triplet. First image is with the 178m and 642ir pass filter best 25% of 2.5k, second is with the 385c and neodymium filter best 20% of 2.5k.

You will pick up finer detail with the mono camera as you are not splitting the pixels into 3 channels to produce colour. that would be the main benefit i think.

C925 first image is a 3 panel mosaic with the 294mc pro with ir cut, best 20% of 1,500. Mono images with the 178mm and a 642 ir pass filter, best 15%-20% of 2k.

Quick snap of Mars tonight with the c925 and 385c camera. Best 15% of 5k

Hi Kaelig,

Thank you. It is hard as it depends on your local light pollution and the type of light pollution you have. I have pretty bad light pollution which is why i use a tri band filter for nebulae to get the most detail, The neodymium will give you a more natural colour than the p2 but the p2 will be better if you have some local light pollution in my opinion. I cannot comment on the Lumicon UHC as i have never owned one

I would suggest when you have clear skies to test each filter on the same targets ( as well as no filter ) pick a Galaxy and a nebula then compare and see which one you prefer. Galaxies are broadband so using a filter will cut out some of the light and you will lose a little detail but if your local light pollution is overpowering the 'no filter' approach it may be beneficial to use a filter. I live in a bortle 8-9 area and i find using a p2 filter on Galaxies beneficial to me. Hope this helps a little, good luck  

I would suggest getting the biggest chip camera you can afford. Even with the focal reducer the field of view is still quite small. I use a 294mc pro with my 925 and i find the fov fine for most small/medium dso's like M16 but to fit larger nebulae like M42 you will need hyperstar or a small refractor mounted on your cpc. The new 533 looks a good eea camera with decent size pixels and no amp glow. It also works very well with the 0.4x night owl being a 16mm square chip and you can use roi feature for planetary to obtain higher frame rates for lucky imaging.

Here are 2 images below showing the 174, 178 and 294 with the 0.63 reducer and a 533 with the 0.4 night owl with M16 and M42

Here is the link for the fov tool so you can have a play and help you make a decision

https://astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view

Here is a link to some of my images with the 294 and 925 on the evo mount ( alt/az ) with the .63 reducer in bortle 8-9 skies ( your fov would be slightly bigger )

It also may be worth keeping an eye out in the 'for sale' section for a decent bargain on a camera.

Good luck.

8 minutes ago, alacant said:

i'm not sure what camera the OP is using, but I never got the Baader to cover aps-c

Hi Alacant / Stub, I was trying to help the OP and advised he ask for help here from the other post:

Brendan is using a Canon EOS1000D with an unstated cc. He says he has only had this problem since changing mount but i think he must of 'knocked' something while changing mount. It looks like a combination of problems and i advised him to do a star test and go from there, here is the star test with shows poor collimation and focuser intrusion, along with coma/tilt and/or poor tracking could this cause the issue shown ?

I am sure he appreciates the help  

At least you have a starting point now 👍

I think the best thing you can do first is a star test, both in and out focus and see what that reveals then work from there. 

I have blown up a random star from each section and to me it still looks like focus tube intrusion with coma or tilt, you can see the hard edges cut off on the right side of the stars. with coma and /or tilt the intrusion will move up or down but still be mostly on the right. I am no expert btw but this is what it looks like to me. There could be other things going on here as well though.

I still suggest you ask in the previous thread i linked, they are imagers, while i am more of an EAA guy  

I would suggest asking here:

You may have more luck, plenty of experts with the 130 pds there.

3 hours ago, BrendanC said:

How could that cause these issues though? I never had them in the previous 18 months of using an AZ mount, with the same OTA, focuser and camera.

Here is an image of an out of focus 130 pds with the focuser tube intruding, which can cause mis-shapen and elongated stars. You can see why i thought this might be the cause, the tube travels in further than this and with coma, tilt you could get very streaky stars, but if you haven.t change the optical setup in any way then it is obviously not the cause.

I could be wrong but it looks like your focus tube could be impeding inside the ota, it is a known problem with this telescope. Some people cut an inch or so off the bottom of the focus tube to solve this problem, there are threads about it somewhere. I just move the focuser almost all the way out then get close to focus before i lock the camera down.

130pds on the evo mount with the 294mc pro, Baader mpcc and AA tri-band, All images are 30 x 15 seconds captured in sharpcap pro with master dark and flat. at -10c. Saved as viewed and resized to 1920 with some light level adjusting in photoshop.

Andromeda

Bubble

Cocoon  - close to zenith, field rotation hit this hard  

Crescent

Double Cluster

Eastern Veil

Heart

Iris

Dumbbell

Pinwheel

Soul

I use a 130 pds on my evo mount but with a 294 camera, it is a great scope for the price. While it may suite your needs with a 0.5 reducer you will get coma at the edges and you will be close to maximum weight. As you stated in your first post, one size doesn't fit all and you will have to make a compromise somewhere, good luck  

The only other scope i would suggest is something like a skyhawk or starblast ( if you can find one ) 

https://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/skywatcher-skyhawk-1145p-parabolic-reflector-telescope.html

it will give you a slightly  smaller fov with the 224 than the 72 but you will have more aperture and with the money saved you can always get the 178, which will give you a slightly bigger fov. 

Hi Bill,

Thank you, yes i use the Baader MPCC mk III 

A break in the clouds so i quickly sprung into action. 130 pds on evo mount, 294mc pro with AA tri-band filter. Sharpcap pro with master dark/flat, saved as viewed but resized to 1920 from 4k,. All images are 15 second frames in Bortle 8-9 skies.

M27 - 20 frames

NGC 7635 - 15 frames

M16 - 25 frames

M17 - 30 frames

Clouds stopped play again.

Have a look at this guide, you may need a cheshire, laser or collimation cap ( pick your poison ) 

http://www.astro-baby.com/astrobaby/help/collimation-guide-newtonian-reflector/

If you get an out of focus image of a bight star ( make sure it is dead centre ) the rings of the star should be concentric. It should look something like this

if the star is not dead centre the centre black hole will move and look out of collimation, so make sure the star is centered. There are plenty of videos on youtube that can explain it better than me  

If you cannot be asked to make one, they sell them at FLO. I got the 130p for my 130 pds ( the same size as yours )  they come with 2 long plastic bolts that allow you to hang it off the end of the telescope while focusing.

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/bahtinov-focus-masks/starsharp-bahtinov-focus-masks.html

Good start    Do you have a bahtinov mask ?  your focus looks a tad out.