Martthebass

Regarding WO, I had a GT81 anniversary edition and it was a Crayford focusser. As far as I know all of the latest models are a good quality R&P; the unit on my GT71 is smooth and has no problems.

Thanks for the suggestions, the Astro Accent is now on the list, just wondering how that would compare with something like a Celestron C6? I’d love a dob but I think swimbo would kill me if I took up the conservatory with one, plus my star hopping is pretty dire after years of goto.

After about a year I've finally got the small wide field AP rig set up based around a WO GT71. I gathered along the way that there was no such thing as the 'do it all set up' so I decided that in order to enjoy both AP and Visual I'd likely be looking at 2 scopes...I also found that I didn't want to be constantly reconfiguring the GT71 from AP to Visual and back. In the past, before my hiatus, I'd had both a 120mm refractor on a GEM and an 8" LX200 SCT. I hated the refractor, mainly because of the mount which I found a pain for visual (plus, as it was at the start of the low cost Chinese imports race, it had more CA and astigmatism than I was happy with); I liked the SCT but didn't like lugging it about. In order to have some flexibility I opted for the AZEQ5 mount so that I could have it as EQ for AP and set to AZ for visual so I'm now looking at a visual scope that would be happy on this set up. So far I've been looking at ED doublets in the 100mm range and 6" Mak/SCTs. I'm looking at keeping the budget at <£650 as I want to spend more time on AP otherwise I'll never get to the level of even demoralising incompetence. Does anyone have any advice so I can avoid a costly mistake?

Have a word with Adam or Ian at RVO, they’ll be able to assist I’m sure. Quite local to you (assuming you’re Scunny or thereabouts).

Many thanks for the replies. Now that night has finished until August here in the depths of Yorkshire I'll have some time to try and get to grips with some of the advice.

Watching this with interest; I’m using a Lynx Asro cable for eqmod from my ASIair pro into an AZEQ5 but was sad to find it wouldn’t allow control from SkySafari

Welcome to the forum Niko, just a little south of you in Ravenfield, Rotherham.

Much appreciated, many thanks.

I’m somewhat tail heavy on my new imaging rig. I gather that’s not unusual with the WO short F ratio refractors. Could someone give me a heads up on the best way to relieve this; my current thoughts were along the lines of a longer dovetail bar, moving it forwards and perhaps turning it over to stop the focusser fouling? TIA.

Unfortunately I am a Mac User, PC at work, Mac at home. This hasn't been a problem until I decided on this foray into astro-imaging. I'm using a ASIair pro for the capture side which is great but I'm falling back on my MBP (which I'd upgraded with a SSD) for the stacking and processing side. Sadly I seem to have fallen at the first hurdle as I didn't realise that DSS wasn't on OSX and I'm really clueless about boot partitions/emulators and the like to get PC stuff running on the MBP. So....can someone recommend me something similar (and simple) that will do the same job? I watched a tutorial on Nebulosity which seemed somewhat complicated but it might have just not been a good tutorial.....TIA

Slightly over £1k but another recommendation for WO. Unfortunately this time the colours don’t match. GT71 on an AZ-EQ5 with ZWO mini guide and ASI120 mini. 0.8x reducer fitted.

In part it comes down to what you want to use the telescope for. The AZ GOTO is great if you're looking to do mainly visual observing, the GOTO will be an added benefit in helping to locate objects fairly quickly which will assist in stopping the kids getting bored. If you are looking at the possibility of doing astro-photography/imaging then you really need an EQ mount to do justice (though you can take quick snaps on the AZ of bright objects like planets with eyepiece projection using a camera phone etc) to the 127 Mak.

Thanks for this, also interested as they look good like a good bang for the buck.

If I can trouble you guys just a little more.....managed to get both iPads working with the software app, recognising the main and guide cams ok but how do I connect the mount? I think I’ve got one of the newer synscan handsets and don’t seem to have the required connectors. would it be better to bite the bullet and try EQMOD or sort using the handset.

Thanks Jamie, much appreciated.

I was lucky enough to receive my ASIair pro from RVO at the weekend; now that it's out of quarantine I was about to get it all sorted with my set up. Now I'm a complete newbie to AP so I was hoping for a reasonable set up guide, as one doesn't come in the box I checked online and found reference to a user manual on the ZWO site but I don't seem to be able to find one. Anyone got a link? Thanks.

Not had first light with this yet, still awaiting goodies from the Far East...... The lockdown may increase the speed of deployment though.

Waiting patiently for mine, don’t expect till end Feb, early March though.

I recall some years ago spending many nights trying to see M33 with my (now departed) 8" SCT in my suburban skies. Not a chance, I concluded I was looking straight through it. I was lucky enough to use the same scope under Bortle 2/3 in a very rural location in Devon and was amazed at the brightness and level of detail I could see in the same target.

Thanks AG, does that mean I need a different dovetail?

Well I’ve worked out that the holes in the tube rings are M6.....however the threaded holes 🕳 in the dovetail are smaller than M6. Oh well think again.

Sorry for the daft post as I should know this but, what bolt sizes do I need to fix together my tube rings and skywatcher/vixen dovetail? The rings came with my WO 81GT - but no info on the fixing sizes. Many thanks in advance.

If you are only rarely going to do any visual obs then I'm inclined to agree with you that there's no point in going for the AZ-EQ variant - for a start why spend the extra cash? I didn't see/hear any comments that using the mount in the EQ mode was an issue or that it performed less well than the HEQ5 but I would be interested to see info on that if it's available. I looked at a couple of the set up vids on Youtube and the set of the AZ-EQ looked quite straight forward though I may be proved wrong and develop a case of Tourettes on the first couple of uses. Initially I was discounting doing any visual stuff but decided to keep my options open - plus I know how much I hate doing visual obs with an EQ mount (especially without encoders). Cheers, Mart

Well the AZ-EQ5 mount is incoming next week so no doubt a few days of broken nails, gnashing of teeth and pulling out of hair to follow.....