Chrb1985

Hi guys! Here is some update pictures and info from the latest progress in the ioptron hae43, Celestron C14 project. I have ordered a counter weight bar wich will arrive this week. I testet ut out with a threaded bar and one counter weight about 20-30cm on the from the Mount. This acctually worked like a charm. The motor can slew the Mount all directions at all speeds with no issue at all. I actually think the counter weight i used now was just 2.5 or 3kgs it is half the size of SW 5kgs. And the bar was VERY flexible, but no the less ut worked very nice. So cant wait to get the right bar in the mail. Too bad the season is nearly over. I also decided to open the tube up and clean the inside, primary mirror, secondary mirror and the corrector plate. This was a real hassle. First of all i could almost not get the corrector alu ring of. It was stuck on so hard i nearly broke the glass removing it, i can belive thats the original ring so Ill replace that with a dewheater ring as soon as i can afford it. After i got the ring of i then discovered that the previous owner has not only opened the Telescope but he obviously removed the primary mirror to it was still marks on the mirror, glass and tube. He had also used some type of glue or silicon when resembling it. So the cardboard or cork or that ever the spacing rings are made of was really sticky and of of placing, this is not a huge issue but i dont thi k ut is advices to use silicon or glue in that operation. I would at least not use it. The Telescope was really really dirty and i first thought it had som serrious scratches on the primary mirror, this turned out to be streams from previous cleaning. I Found a good amount of dust and something i guess came from a plant or tree or something, i also found spiderweb inside 😆. What i really did not like was thet on the Secondary mirror it was drawn a black ring with marker or paint. I guess this was used in some kind of collimation process.. i did not have isopropanol and i did not know what to use to get it off so i just left it there. I can clean it of when installing the dewheater ring. I started 15.00 and was done 20.00. so it took some time. I am very pleased with the result. Im sad i did not take more pictures bedre i cleaned it. I might also add that i used big medical cotton/compress balls with regular water a first, just dabbed the surfaces, then i used a liquid i bought at teleskop-express.de wich i mixed a good splash of in about 0.5L water( i dont know what it is but it came highly recommended. Its a small white bottle with no lable) after these steps i cleaned it as good and dry as i could before taking out a new microfiber cloath. I then used this intill ig ot all strekaks and dust off. I also at some points used as it blower bulge in the prosess but i was really carefully with this as i have had bad results with those before. Please give me som pointers on what i could have done different and tell me if you think it looks good or not.

Really?? Man i feel so stupid. I knew that it was possible to put weight shaft on other models. 🤦 Well okay, that really made my day! Ill get right on it and order it tonight. thank you buddy!

As some of you know i have purchased a Celestron C14 and it currently weighs in at 23.3kgs with all my equipment on it. I have tested it on the ioptron HAE 43, i balanced it 95% accurately and its snowing fine all over on 8/9 slew speeds. At 9/9 the fastest setting it struggles or stops when it is horizontal and over 90° west. If that made any sense. So i. Guessing it works ok as is now for normal use/guiding. Do anyone here know how much over the 20kg limit i can go with this mount? Thanks in advance guys!

Hehe forgot to attach the pictures..

Thanks! And I will keep you posted. And i am going to order a zwo helical focuser. I reduces the whole weight with 1kg!! So thats desireble. My only concern is that the focusing knob for the main mirror was not exactly "smooth" i will need to try to zwo focus motor on there and see if it acctually works good enough before i switch to the helical focuser.

Heres a little update. Just roughly balanced the c14 on the Neq6pro with the all equipment ex the guide scope+cam, before mounting it back on the ioptron HAE43. Seems to work fine. It went all the ways at speed 8/9 on 9/9 it struggles/stops at the most critical points. So just normal use/guiding i cant see will be a problem for the HAE 43 🏆 I included some pictures and a short clip of the work beeing done. VID_20240116_130015.mp4

Hi Geof! So i received it today. It looks really really good. I put it on the ioptron Hae 43. It works. But it was so cold that i could not do any testing. Sad because the weather was cracking!! Anyway i will need to buy a usb 3 hub with 1m cable to reposition the Eagle, i will also buy zwo helical focuser. The Baader Diamond tracker is 1.2kg if im not remenbering wrong. The ZWO helical focus was about 150g or so. Than im dow to just camera, filteewheel and ZWO focuser mountet straight on the primary focuser. Og yeah and the finderscope with 174mm is about 350g. Im thinking i can get it at around 23kgs i really hope that if i balance the scope perfect i will work. It not than i got 1 C11, 1 hae 43 and 1 Neq6pro for sale 🤣😂

Hi again buddy. Just wanted to let you know that i got my hands on a c14:( i will receive it tomorrow:) Ill send you some pictures then i also made a post in equipment. There is some pictures there. So you think my Neq6pro or the hae 43 will handle it?

Acctually it did. All of the advices i got was probably well ment. But more than a few guys said i connected negative to positive and i did tripple check that and the way i did it was right. But what humble must admit is that i tried to modify a usb to rs232to use as a EQMOD or EQDIR cable. And i did all the way i thought was right.. and i guess i got it wrong so i guess k learnt my lesson there. Because that resulted in burnt l2 i think it was.. but my modifications up to that point did work. I decided after this was that the way to go (as a few guys here did suggest) was to just replace the motherboard with a eq6 one. So i did that and no more EQMOD cables, just a usb a to b and the 12v cable that came with was scew on plug. So i guess i should have taken the advice before burning my circuit board. I guess we live and learn. After this i have soldered quite a few power cables so that they are right length and inside a few other minor tweaks with the soldering iron. The last kit i got was a game changer, different size tips, blads, different soldering material and i took an advice to use the right color for cable shrinknig tube sleeve. But enough in that. I will take your guys advices and dont do anything intill i try it. But i am going to paint it. But ill talk with professionals first and ask them if the can paint it without dissasemble it. As for now i dont have it in my hand but the guy i bought i from will deliver it tomorrow eavning. If i see that it is alot of dust inside i will remove the corrector plate and clean it. I did this on my c 11 and that was actually not as hard as they say. Meanwhile cleaning RGB filters nearly killed me. I bought some new astronomik filters i think they were lik 7-800€ with taxes and import fees. So when i got the. I was devastated too se the very sticky with some thing inside the sealed box. I had no choice but to clean them. A good amount of time and $ later i got the hang of it. I removed all i could from my barhrome than showered roof, walls and floor, then i got to it with the door closed, dressed only in my shorts and gloves it turned out 100% perfect so Ill guess thats the trick Ill use with the corrector plate and possible the mirrors on the c14 if it comes to that. I will let you guys know how it looks tomorrow night. Thanks a bunch for the advices and i will take them this time Here is some pictures of the old C11 on ioptron hae43 and homemade pier from scratch.

Hi! I just purchased this scope and it will be delivered tomorrow. Id like to ask you guys for alle the help info you can provide me with please. I will attach the pictures i got of it. My concerns are of course the mirrors and the corrector plate and im considering cutting 3hiles in the rear for vents with filters 12v and one in front, mabye som more holes to lighten the weight? And i plan dissasemble the whole thing and grease the threads and clean the inter thing inside with kirros and maby add some dark "tape" since i herad this is a smart thing to do whilst ut is already open. Please weigh in here. Whats smart, and whats not. I paln to use it on mye big steel pier (4legs with adjustment in each meg) and the Neq6pro upgraded with e6 motherboard etc or the ioptron Hae 43. I know both mount have weight limitations of 20kgs and ice estimater that my setup will weigh in at 24kgs. But from what i read, both mounts "can" manage the weight.

Well okay. I really aprec6your time buddy! You and alot of other guys in here are really friendly and helpfull:) so thanks again for your time! How is the weather in the uk these days?

Hi Geof! So i have uploaded the files now and here is the link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Ulp8jzi7fVxnts2UzMvi_imHYZPAIqDG I watched the interview yesterday but i guess it was too late because not much stuck to my brain. Ill research ut today. I guess i will wait with the camera and do really good research before i jump to anything. Chris Go made som egood points but im not totally conices. But he did talk about a new sensor, i think it was Sony. I will watch it again and i will do some serious research. But if im not mistaking, at least a few of the ZWO camera uses the Sony imx sensor, is this the sensor he is beaging and praises so much about? If so, isnt that the sensor that is found in zwo 174mm? I have owned 2 of those cameras, and they are good but i really really like the 299mm. But all the talk of the magic sensor with so incredibly low noise is tempting i guess accruuslly he said that if the planet is above 50 degrees (or was it 70?) And with just average seeing it makes no difference from mono to color as long as you use as ADC. If this is right then mono for me is a total waste (Norway conditions are NEVER good) and this contradics what he said in a previous interview quit a few years back. Before i bought my first Mino setup i watched that particular interview and i made up my mind when Chris said: if you live in northern countrys like Europe etc. then mono is the way to go. Okay im ranting now, sorry. i will upload all of the R, G and B sequncese to that shared folder before the day is over so you can check them, i did not even try to process the rest, i just did the first R, G, and B.Rifht now those are uploaded. I also included a picture of the new pier setup. Made alle from scratch. Cut all the metal, welded it, drilled holes, threaded then myself, made the level adjustment bolts in each meg, all the work on the Eagle 4 (more RAM, 1TB SSD disk and im in the process of ordering a new i7 mother board for it because it is really to slow to process anything si finding focus is more or less impossible right now), i did all the cable work myself, cutting and soldering every thing to right length. What do you think? What my regrets are: wish i bought a round steel pipe instead of square and just welded on 3 legs instead of 4, it might just be my lack of knowledge, i dont know but it seems that when im levelig it up i need to MM precise to get it "sturdy". This might be due to alot of snow and ice and the fact that i but wooden board under the adjustment bolts but when it is all leveld up, it is not "rock Sollid" so i have to manualt push and "shake" it a bit while doing the final adjustments to make it "sit" sturdy. I did not imagine this could be a problem with a construction of this size and weight. And i never every have owned a tripod that has not been 100% rock Sollid sturdy.. i read that in this type of construction 3 legs is best beacuse the weight will be evenly distributed in alle legs, if one more is introduced, its a Risk of one leg not carrying the weight and not really touching the ground, caausing instability. Please shed some light and your thoughts, i really dont want to make another one. But i have not seen any other Liers with 4lwgs so many it is something to this.. Ok, i went of on a rant again. 😎 Have a nice day!

Thanks i will give this much consideration and i will give it one more try. Can you please give me som more pointers to? Maby you want to have a crack at the raw material? I can upload it? Its just 1set of RGB. 3 files. Off topic her but i tried to look at some cameras yesterday and i think the 224mc looks good, and the one you have also looks nice it has 2.9px right? And the 294mc also looks tempting. What is your thoughts one this 3 cameras?

I actually used topaz on both versions. Just more on the second one. I guess maby the first is best. I gave a pretty detailed description of what i did in the process. The big changes from v1 to v2 is image resize in photoshop just typed in: 70. And i did one more sharpening with nik collection and one more denoise with topaz. I also du auto contrast, auto tone and auto color again and i also think i did dust and scratches at: 1. (The lowest possible setting) So alpo is against topaz? But ChrisGo uses topaz? Also the seeing was the best i have ever seen since i started in 2019. But sadly mid first RGB capture it started to go bad, and it went bad quick.. so thats a real bummer.. maby Ill give the process another go later today. Maby just try to resize v1? Any other tips and tricks for me? Its much appreciated!

Wow okay. Thanks buddy. Im ordering a color camera to night! If im not mistaking you use C14 right? So i guess the camera you got will work for my C11 too right? Or so you got some recommendations for me? Im a sucker for zwo...i have owned zwo asi 120mc, 174mm and im currently the owner of a 290mm and a 174mm mini. Also one more thing.. did you do RRR-GGG-BBB how long did you capture pr filter? How is that possible? I thought it HAD to be 30-60sec R, G then B. And so start over.. can WinJupos derotated the way you mentioned? Please explain it its no too much of a hassle.. And while in at it, please check out mye lates Jupiter photo. I poster ut yesterday and a update today.

A little update here. And thanks again to geoflewis for the good advice on Registax processing.

Nice photos buddy! But i got a question for geoflewis. Is mono to much of a hassle? Why is this? I gave up color and felt i got much better results with mono. Please elaborate.

First Jupiter of 2024 and first light for the new Ioptron HAE 43 mount and the new Astronmik LRGB filters. Its been a real struggle to get the pier done and the Mount installed properly but now i feel the tracking is ok and it works ok. Im not super impressed with the Mount. It does not slew on the two highest speeds, this might be due to the cold weather one day we had -35 celcius up here. Anyway, im ranting. Here is the image capture info from Firecapture, Autostakkert 4, Registax 6 and Photoshop. Firecapture: Planet Jupiter settings 10-100ms Histogram at about 80% Exposure 8.000ms 45sec each filter Autostakkert: Drizzle 1.5x Stacking frames: 29% best frames Normalization: 70% AP: I think i used about 90 alignment points Brightnes size AP: 30 Registax: I use Christopher Go's settings as a starting point. I dont use gaussian. I use the default setting and i only use slider 2 and 3. I deactivate the rest. Intensity (the first option thats above the slides): 1 Slider 2: 20 Slider 3: 70 Photoshop I use the combine channels option first, autocolor, Despeckle, Nic collection for sharpening, Topaz DeNoise for denoising, adjust levels for hue, dark/brightness, and then auto tone, auto contrast and auto color again. The weather and seeing was the best i have every seen but after a few failed tries at RGB sequences i managed to get one sequence and i keept going but about mid sequence the seeing went from 8-9 to about 4-5 i would say. I have never been so devastated in my life. So alle the RGB sequences was not even worth prosessing. Just the first one. So i got one picture but if i hade been 1hour earlier i would have gotten 5 sequences to derotate.. im litteraly heart broken over this.. but as you all know, thats the life of an amature astronomer in a nutshell. Hope you guys like it and please critique it.

Thank you. I made another crack at it yesterday after noting your advices and here is the result. Im keeping it short, just have a few min before a meeting.

Okay so i gathered all the stacked data i found right now and compressed it to .zip formate and shared a folder on my google account. I will try to add it right here altso, but if its slow or not working just use the link. The link to shared folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1fxOshmSR8pARpBGxPEBiVF25-XMcHiUq Everyone is welcome to have a go! Feel free to upload the results to the drive folder or post them here. Thanks so much again for the help! Stacked Unprocessed Jupiter C11 tif files - div dates.zip Stacked Unprocessed Jupiter C11 tif files - few more i forgot in the other collection.rar

Yes that would be greatly appreciated! Should i just post them here? Or i can share a folder on my Google drive maby? I guess there is some compression going on in this forum. Ill also include some screenshots of my autostakkert 4 settings. Ok? This is just what i was hoping for. Thanks a bunch buddy:) I will get to it right after work today.

Vi! Thanks for the feedback. I really cant rember. That was first light i thi k for the ZWO 290mm. And it was just a few minutes before the clouds came. So it was in a very hurry. I dont pay much attention to that one. Just included it. As far as it goes for the rest. I also think it is largely due to bad seeing. I did get 2 more pictures ready yesterday. I think they came out pretty good. I will include them here. I also feel that the ones i already postet is overprocessed. I will restack and derotated and then go lighter on the processing. But right now im kinda exhausted from all the work. But please check out my last two pictures and tell me your thoughts The first is another version of the above image. This time i only used 4 sets of RGB when derotating and i think i went a little lighter on the sharpening. I also used a different method of combining RGB in photoshop. So when i hit autocolor the color was straight away much better than before. the second image is just 1set of RGB and i think that came out pretty nice!

Are there really no feedback? I used to get so many good advice here a few years back. It would be greatly appreciated.

Its been a rough season. Spent a lot, actually too much on my astronomy hobby this year. Perfect weather alle spring and the first month of summer. Early June it basicly rained or was totally clouded all the way too november.. i got one RGB set before the clouds rolled in, this was mid september. But my filter wheel did not work so all 3 was shot through red filter. After that i got one ok night, but not really a good result. But this month i got 2 good nights with ok results. The scope is Celsestron C11, mount is Neq6pro controlled with EQMOD. Finder scope is Artsky 60mm with ZWO Asi 174mm mini camera. On the C11 i got Baader Diamond Startracker crayfordfocuser with the ZWO EAF mountet, ZWO Asi 290mm camera, modified Baader VIP Barlow and ZWO filter wheel with ZWO LRGB filters. Celsestron C11 devheater ring. Everything is controlled with the Primaluchelab Eagle 4 computer. The color images are all mono RGB captured at around 150-200fps 70-90 % on histogram in firecapture, SER captured are all 45seconds and cropped with ROI to get higher frame rate. The black and white is just red filter. The best 27% after stacking in autostakkert 4 were used and sharpend in Registax 6. RGB combined in Photoshop and derotated in WinJupos. After derotated the images were applied basic sharpening and denoising in Photoshop with despeckle, Nikcollection and dust and scratches. Its only the last two that are derotated. The one with the moon is 3 sets of RGB derotated. The other one is 5 sets of RGB derotated. The pictures are taken from Rendalen, Norway mid country. About 250km north of the capital Oslo. Hope you guys like it and can give me some feedback and tips to get EVERYTHING better. Im not very satisfied, even though its among the best ones i have captured. I kinda think they are about over processes and look a little to caroonish. Clear skies!

Wow that's a dream image! And to hear it is from a color camera is insane. Congratulations!