fifeskies

Not used these but I think they will work fine in the UK where we do not get significant deep frost to cause ground swell. Slight movement of the ROR shell will not bother the separated pier base as long as there is enough clearance. Would be cautious if there is any trees nearby (with big roots) or your soil is very rocky , as screwing ground anchors in is a lot less easy than the video shows, especially at that size of anchor. I have experience of anchoring marquees and mobile stage systems and have seen the struggles it can create at times even when using power tool drivers for the larger diameter anchors.

the smaller pixels on the 290 only really matter if you have a long focal length scope that you want to guide as Michael points out the 2 guidecameras have nearly the same field of view , the 290 just giving finer resolution which will matter for a long focal length scope you can check guidecam suitability here https://astronomy.tools/calculators/guidescope_suitability it shows the 120mm as a good match for the 130p

The black ring supplied attached to my 533 in the box can be easily removed, only took gentle force to unscrew it. I do have it on the camera all the time as I needed all 3 rings supplied to get the correct back-focus for my GT81 with reducer.

As long as the target is still centred (platesolving helps) DSS will rotate your post meridian flip images and stack them with the others taken pre flip.

I saved this from data posted by another member, shows the EQ6-R current draw. I have this mount and it is excellent , but mine is fixed on a pier (its a heavy beast) As mentioned above for a lighter option the HEQ5 will perform well with your current kit

I was actually on the hunt for the 24mm ES 82 when the Nagler came up for sale , reports on the Nagler were good so I decided to give it a try , glad I did as I really like it. Like John above , with my 10in dob I much prefer the 22mm power against the 30mm I had before (also in Bortle 4/5). , but that in part is perhaps down to it being much more suited to my older eyes (the 22 has a reduced exit pupil compared to the 30).

I really like the contrast in the Naglar views but it is 22mm and my ES was 30mm so you would expect the sky to look darker due to the magnification difference. I do have a fast scope I use it in and stars are very sharp over almost all the field as it is a well corrected eyepiece, but then so are the ES 82 series. The 22 Nagler should really be compared against the 24mm ES 82 degree but I never had one , opting for a good deal on the 2nd hand Nagler when I spotted it up for sale. I am sure if you ask 100 people there would be some saying the Nagler is better and some saying the (24mm) ES 82, a lot can depend on the eyes of the user. The 30mm ES 82 does give a fair bit more sky in your view, so there is that to consider if you want to look around a big area at once. I doubt you would be disappointed with either one, buy second hand and try them out , they both keep good resale value.

I used to have the ES 82 degree 30mm , very fine eyepiece. It is a large unit though. Appear 2nd hand around £200-220 fairly often. In your 8 inch it will give a 5mm exit pupil which is probably about as wide as it is worth going unless you have very young eyes that can accommodate beyond that. Only sold it as I do more astrophotography than visual these days :- that and the fact I used the money from it to help finance an 82 degree 22mm Nagler as my wide field eyepiece. The Nagler is a lot less unwieldy and gives superb performance.

The high current cables may seem like overkill but they do allow you to add other elements at a later stage without needing to upgrade the cable. With a splitter at the mount end you can add in a dew heater. OP does not mention what scope he is using , but a large dew heater (or 2 , another one on a finder/guider,) may require a couple of amps on its own. And if he gets tempted into astrophotography 😱 with a cooled camera , another 3 amps would be needed for that.

If you need to extend the low voltage car auxiliary side, High quality 5m one Lynx Astro Silicone Power Cable Extension | First Light Optics (out of stock at the moment) Amazon also do a good quality heavy duty 5 metre version Sucre Auxiliary 12-24V 15A Heavy Duty Power Motorcycle Car Cigarette Lighter Socket Plug Extension 5 Meter 16 ft (5 M Extension) : Amazon.co.uk: Electronics & Photo.

Any 12volt dc supply of 4 to 5 amps upward should be fine. It will also work from a portable power unit (12v battery). The mount will probably perform better with a 13.8v DC supply , this is a 12v battery voltage when fully charged. (can accept up to 15volts but normally safer to limit it to 13.8 v). The one below is quite convenient (it has a socket for the car auxiliary plug to fit into) You can keep the (mains) supply indoors and extend the 13.8v DC cable outside with an extension (rated at 5 amps). Nevada PS-08 6-8A Regulated Linear Power Supply | First Light Optics

I put mine in the rear of the reducer on my GT81 as advised by WO, reducer is threaded to accept it I don't think it matters a lot where it sits unless you get reflection problems, before or after should both work. Rear of flattener/reducer you need to add 1/3 of filter thickness to the backfocus. I will probably add a filter drawer (after the reducer) as it makes filter swapping much easier.

Does the scope work as expected when used with an eyepiece rather than the camera connected? I assume you have set the correct backfocus distance for the camera by using the correct number of spacers. (spacer set is supplied with the 533). without the spacers you may not have enough adjustment range in your focuser to be able to focus an image. (I need 55mm with my 533)

ZWO 533mc, courtesy of the FLO sale. Cant wait till it gets dark again this far North (Mid August).

Atmospheric dispersion from its low altitude is contributing to this. While the mirror in a refractor wont cause chromatic aberration, the lens elements in the eyepiece can produce this.

well done on the images you have already captured. The moon is bright so a single shot is often good enough. With Jupiter and Saturn , it is common to actually record video then use a program to extract the best (sharpest) frames from the video then combine them together to produce a far clearer image than any single shot could produce. This combining is called image stacking. There are several programmes , many free good ones, who can do this for you. uTube has a good selection of how to guides and recommendations to help you to get familiar with this. For the faint Deep Space Objects (DSO) you will need to capture a number of long single frames (typically from 30 sec to 240 sec at ISO 800 for DSLR) but this requires a tracking mount , but I note you have a Dobsonian (non tracking). some of he brighter DSO , Orion Nebula , M31 Andromeda , Pleiades etc , can be recorded with shorter exposures (eg 10 sec at ISO 1600) and once again all these short frames (which will not show much on their own) once stacked and "stretched" will reveal some nice results. Not tracking will usually be fine for such short exposures DeepSkyStacker (DSS) free and easy to use , will do all the combining for you , then use a free manipulation programme like GIMP (a free programme like photoshop) to get the best from the result. Again uTube has guides this one is good.

I would always expect the single eyepiece to give the better view rather than the longer eyepiece with the 4x to obtain the same magnification. The short single is designed for that focal length after all. The extra weight on the tube with the 4x will probably affect the mount too , and ends up longer so more wobbly. I have a powermate , just the 2x, visually I often just prefer a short focal length eyepiece on its own as well. They do make their mark when it comes to imaging however, which is how I tend to use mine.

you can get the drivers from the ftdi website Drivers - FTDI (ftdichip.com)

If you are using the FTDI cable you should download the FTDI drivers Even though it should be in NINA I found adding the download made it all work when I recently decided to try out NINA Download then reboot and it all began to work I use Stellarium with Nina and it integrates well , you need to choose the planetarium app in setup , and have it on the laptop of course. I had been using APT on another laptop.

With a 4x powermate you are pushing the limits of seeing with that scope and eyepieces. Even with the 17.5mm , powermate gives an effective 4.4mm eyepiece This is around x100 for a 470mm scope which with the planets so low down is a high magnification in the conditions The others give about 2.25mm equivalent so about x200 And 1.1mm or near x 450 Just too high magnification in low wobbly air so will look smudged/out of focus. In cold clear air with the planets high ( in a few winters time) you may be fine at x250. Powermate x4 is more commonly used for video capture of the planets where best frame stacking can generate a good final image.

stacking software will usually cope with a small rotation between frames , but you get a stack a bit like a fanned out pile of cards , this means you need to crop out the fanned effect at the edges of the frame. Not usually a problem as long as what you want is in the middle. shorter exposures will stack better than long ones with a big rotation.

I found this image of an older 102 , this does seem to show the extended adapter as being the correct one for this scope unless they changed the design when they went to the new black and white style. This wont help any I know , but it may point to the problem being elsewhere in the scope, but I personally cant see how a focus issue can be anything other than something to do with the back-focus distance. Kyrol, with the eyepiece just direct into this adapter , nothing else in the system , can you get to focus by racking the focuser a long way out. If you can , then measure how much of the silver tube is showing, this will tell us how much light path is available to be used by a diagonal or prism. Ideally it should be around 110mm as a 2 inch star diagonal will need 100mm (a prism needs about 85mm) , the extra being needed to let you move through both sides of focus.

well spotted Olly, I think that is indeed a 45 degree prism Kyrol, the piece at the right hand side looks like it does have a 1 1/4 adapter that should be removable but that is needed for the 1 1/4 eyepieces The LHS piece is the one that looks a bit unusual to me , tho I have never used this scope, as I mentioned before replacing this with the low profile style drop in adapter for the 2in focuser to 1 1/4 diagonal may work , but you should have got a working kit as supplied. ie another like the one at the RHS eyepiece end to connect the silver tube part directly into your telescope. It might make sense if the LHS piece unscrewed into 2 parts but if it doesn't then it's a bit of a mystery to me.

as Carole says, it may just be that you have an extra extension piece on the diagonal and that the 2 to 1 1/4 adapter is actually a short one , not shouldered as I was suggesting. Only looks shouldered as an extension piece is in the adapter first before the diagonal is added.

Looking again, the diagonal seems to have a 2 inch end and a 1 1/4 inch end. (Hard to be sure if that's the case as it might just be the angle the photo is taken at) If is is 2 in one end , I think you need to reverse the diagonal and put the 2in end directly into the focuser. Then you use the eyepiece in the end with the little screwlock. This should then work fine. The shouldered adapter is I think just for straight through viewing when used horizontal as a terrestrial scope when the diagonal is not used.