KP82

AZ mounts are not suitable for long exposure astrophotography because they cause field rotation. It has nothing to do with the vibration of the motor. If you're preparing to get into long exposure astrophotography, an EQ mount is a must. Some AZ mounts can be converted into EQ mode with the help of a wedge (e.g. AZ GTi), but I'm afraid that's not possible with your AZ Synscan.

It hurts to see the FS60 so close to the edge of the table. 😱

A 90-102mm short tube apo would be my choice. They are as easy to set up as the 3" but the amount of extra light they can gather is very noticeable unless you want airline portability. And for visual only a quality doublet would do.

Exactly the same here. I haven't used the other models in the morpheus range, but compared to my ES, Pentax and TV I find the 6.5mm very picky with the position of my eye. While the image quality is very good, it is certainly not as comfortable to view as many have said about the morpheus on the web.

The cheaper way is to pick up a ST80 and use it with your existing eyepieces.

Wow, that's a bit overboard especially if these Taks are still in production. Anyway it's his choice like you said. I certainly agree with you that these nice scopes should be used as often as possible. I'd definitely want to see the benefit of the large sum of cash I've paid for the premium scope.

Availability/Waiting time. People who have the budget for refractors of this price class usually will not worry about the additional import duties. The extremely long waiting time of the AP scopes make them more like collector items than tools for astronomy.

Does the mount slew to your targets correctly after you've manually centered the stars and sync'ed the mount during the 1/2/3 star alignment?

I agree with kev100 and would recommend you get a dedicated eyepiece for 5 - 6mm rather than barlowing the 12.5mm. Depending on what you like to observe, you may or may not need an eyepiece between the 12.5 and 30mm. Personally I'd get something around 18 - 24mm. Above 200x are usually for Mars opposition, Lunar close-ups and splitting doubles. Other than that 200x is usually the limit under UK skies.

If you're connecting your RPi to your laptop without using a router or switch, you will need a cross-over cable instead of a standard patch cable.

Callisto is right. They are only for EF lenses, but not EFS.

Unlike in short to medium focal length, our choices in 30mm+ are actually quite limited. If you do not like the performance of the Aero EDs (or their clones), then ES is probably the cheapest option left.

Unless this is an old eyepiece from ES that has been discontinued, I don't recall there is an ES68 32mm. Better ask the seller to clarify. The ES68 24mm is almost as good as TV Pan 24mm. This gives the maximum fov in the 1.25" format.

I do use dithering and have a master bias. But I've always taken darks and use DSS for stacking (learnt the whole stacking process online from various resources including astrobackyard). I didn't realise they are no longer needed. Wow. Learnt something new today. Thank you guys. 😄

With DSLR I can't really fully automate my imaging routine as I need to take darks at the end of each session while the temperature remains the same. I usually set it up and leave it snapping away while taking a nap in the bed during the first half of the night. I set an alarm to wake myself up around 4 in the morning to finish up the darks and then pack away everything before the early morning dew sets in (especially in late autumn). Weather could be a major factor. If the forecast indicates possible rain during the night, I'll just stay awake and maybe watch a movie in my study while the imaging runs on its own, then pack up everything when the clouds roll in. With regards to theft, I don't need to worry about that as my garden is fairly secured and I live in a generally speaking safe area.

The stellalyra 30mm is a modified Erfle design I believe. So yes they have poor edge performance. If you had f/5 or faster scope, you would probably see a major difference between it and a more expensive ep like the ES68. But at f/6 maybe not a lot.

I'd only use these dual/tri-band filters if I desparately want to take images of some emission nebulae with a 50%+ waxing or wanning moon in the sky. Generally speaking I don't like these filters and usually take a break when the moonlight is washing out everything. BTW I'm in Bortle 5.

To answer your questions: 1. Yes it's possible. But you must make sure your android tablet isn't in power saving mode (or any power saving optimisation) so it doesn't kill the app in the background after a short period of inactivity. 2. I've only tested in in Android 7 and 8 as I don't have one of the latest tablets that run 9 or 10. 3. Hard to say. I managed to keep the connection with the mount in the garden and myself at the other end of my living room with the french door closed (5m+) 4. For imaging you will need to switch the mount to wired mode (using a utility from ES website). The polar peep hole is useless here. You will need eletronically assisted polar alignment (sharpcap or kstars/ekos). The default configuration of the iEXOS100 can only take about 4kg of imaging payload, so 130PDS + comacorr + camera are too much for it. However if you upgrade the mount with the AZ adjuster + better saddle + medium or heavy duty tripod + counterweight extension, it will be able to take 7 - 8kg (about the same as SW EQ5). I personally use the mount in wired mode with my diy efinder (based on SW 9x50 finderscope + RPi + RPi HQ camera + astroberry + self written python scripts) for visual only. I used the explorestars app for a while. It was ok for well known objects, but the database lacks in double/multi stars which are what I often observe when using my refractors.

Altair Sabre, AYOdigi II, Giro Ercole, Losmandy AZ8 and Rowan AZ100, these are all the candidates I can think of (maybe Skytee2 would work also). I had a Sabre before and used it with an ES ED127 (127/975) briefly. The mount coped with the weight and length of the scope very well. What made me sell the Sabre was the lack of slow motion control. AZ100 is probably the best non-motorised heavy duty alt-az mount in the market at the moment with the potential to be upgraded with encoders, DSC and possibly tracking motors in the future. The Giro Ercole is similar to the Sabre. AYOdigi II again very similar but allows installation of encoders and DSC.

If you run that command in a shell within the GUI (e.g. through VNC) and then quit VNC, the process will continue to run. However as soon as you close your remote ssh session, whatever was opened in that session would be terminated immediately. Like BCN_Sean has suggested, use "screen" for that. Here are the quick commands for this to save you some time: To start a new shell in a "screen": screen -A -m -S name_of_the_screen_session To detach from the screen once you've started your imaging process: Ctrl + A, then D To re-attach to the screen session in the background: screen -r name_of_the_screen_session To terminate the current screen session while attached: exit or Ctrl + D

The general consensus is 70 - 75% for items in excellent condition. However asking prices have changed quite dramatically lately especially with regards to high demand items. For example I saw a 4-month old excellent condition EQ6-R Pro on UKABS last week. Since I've been looking to upgrade my HEQ5 to an EQ6, I made an offer of 70% of the new inflated price to the seller (he got his mount before the latest price increase). Even then he rejected my offer and eventually sold it at his asking price £1,250 (85%) to someone else.

I had a Megrez 90 before which came with a similar focuser to your 72. The larger grub screw closest to the WO swan logo can actually be un-screwed and replaced with a standard M5 bolt for attaching a finder base. The other two however are used to control the rotation of the focuser unit, so leave them alone. Most standard Synta finder shoes require 2x M4 or M5 bolts, but they can still work with just one. Alternatively grab yourself a Baader universal finder base instead.

There is an Altair Sabre in the Sales/Trade section. That's a solid mount for large refractors. It requires an EQ5 tripod. However keep in mind that the Sabre doesn't come with slow motion controls. If you require it, you will need the Skytee2 (or AZ100 if you've got the budget).

Agreed. KUO used to be the top in China. Their 102, 115 and 130 f/7 triplets are well regarded. Lately Sharpstar is catching up. Their 76, 90, 107 and the new 140 all seem to be quite decent both optically and mechanically. The only problematic one is the 61. There are quite a few threads on CN talking about CA issues with the 61EDPH II and Raptor 61 (a rebadged sharpstar).

PHD2 over WiFi on PMC8 is known to be unreliable and cause issues. You will need a serial to USB adapter and control the mount through wired ASCOM connection.