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Hi All, I'm hoping to install a permanent pier for my Avalon Linear Mount shortly. However I've not been able to find a pre-fabricated pier that explicitly references compatibility with the Avalon Linear. I think the hole pattern for the Avalon Linear mounting plate may be compatible with Skywatcher EQ8 tripods (it has 6 elongated M8 holes around a 129mm diameter circle) but I'm not totally sure. If this is the case then I can just choose a pier that's compatible with the EQ8 (e.g. Altair Skyshed 8 with EQ8 compatible adapter plate). Does anyone have any experience of using a permanent pier with the Avalon Linear that may be able to comment? Cheers

I'll put my name in the 110GTX lottery too, but not sure what I'd do if it came up t.b.h. I currently have a FSQ-106EDX4 which, looking at the specs, has pretty much the same field of view as the 110GTX with a full frame sensor. That said, I struggle to get a completely flat field from the FSQ-106 when using it with my Canon RA (which I admit could be user error somewhere along the way), so the prospect of an Astro-Physics F5 refractor that can achieve it is quite mouth watering. Exciting times 🙂

At the age of 6 or 7 I caught a view of the moon through one of my friends 60mm refractor, and I was hooked. My parents bought me a 60mm refractor of my own that Christmas. It came on a flimsy table-top alt-az tripod. Looking back now it makes me laugh how 'low-budget' it really was, but I had a lot of fun with it and it fired a life-long interest in all things Astro. It wasn't until, as a young man in the early 1990s, that I got my first 'proper' scope. I spent pretty much all of my savings at the time on a Vixen FL102S refractor, which I have to this day. It still takes pride of place amongst what appears to be an ever expanding collection of scopes and Astro-gadgets 🙂

A C11 may be a little too much, but I may just be overly cautious. I certainly I wouldn’t try it without a sturdy tripod and the RST-135 counterweight.

The mount is connected to the ASIAIR via USB cable and I connect to the ASIAIR via WiFi using my iPad. However the ASIAIR is connected to my home network using a TP-Link mini router to assist with the range issues the ASIAIR suffers from.

So I said I’d report back when I’d tried the new multi-star guiding on the RST-135. Well it’s currently chugging away in the back garden during my first break in the clouds for weeks and I have to say I’m pretty stunned by the results. I’d never had better than 1.2” with this mount, with an average of around 1.3”. This is the first time out with the new software on the ASIAIR Pro and it’s now averaging around 0.6 or better! Amazing😃👍

The guiding has been nothing to write home about, so far, t.b.h. The ASIAIR Pro has been reporting around 1.3" RMS average. Although the images I've been getting seem to be fine, so I haven't worried about it too much. That said, the new multi-star guiding in PHD2 (also implemented in the beta firmware for ASIAIR Pro) is supposed to transform the RST-135's guiding capabilities and bring it well under 1". I have the ASIAIR beta firmware installed but it's been cloudy since I installed it, so I haven't been able to confirm it yet. I'll report back the next time I get chance to do some imaging.

I've just swapped out my RT90C tripod for an Avalon T-Pod 90. The RT90C was fine for my Tak FSQ-85, but I'm planning on moving that on for an FSQ-106 soon and was a little uncomfortable that the rig would be top heavy. The T-Pod 90 is a bit heavier but I can still pick the whole rig up quite easily to move it outside. It does feel a lot more stable now though.

Hi All, Can anyone recommend a Reducer/Flattener for my Vixen FL102S refractor? Will any Reducer for an F9 refractor work or does it need to be matched to the scope? The Vixen is old so there’s no matching Reducer available now. I have considered the Skywatcher 0.85x Reducer/Flattener for the Evostar ED100 as that’s also an F9 with pretty much the same specs, but I’m not sure if it’ll only work with the Vixen. Any suggestions welcome. Thanks

The stuff of dreams. A truly wonderful image 👍

Thanks, I’ll message him again during the week. I’m hoping it won’t be too long before the scope arrives. Sorry to be the one to beat you to it.

Thanks Dave. Yes it is from Rupert. He’s been very helpful so far so I will be speaking to him.

Hi All, I’m excited to have just put down a deposit on a new TEC 140FL scope. Just wondering if anyone has any recommendations for a motor focuser for it? Top contenders seem to be: 1. Pegasus Astro FocusCube 2. 2. Primaluce Lab Sesto Senso 2 3. Optec ThirdLynx QuickSync FTX40 To be honest I don’t know much about number 3, but it looks interesting. However number 1 looks favourite at the moment. Any suggestions welcome. Cheers

I’m on my second 150 version. The first was faulty; horizontal dark bands running across the face of it. Prompt service from Pegasus, they replaced it without hesitation although didn’t offer to refund the postage back to Greece. The second one is fine. It’s handy having both software control and local control available via a switch . However it is quite dim even at full brightness. Using an L-Pro filter with my ASI2600MC Pro I have to take 2 - 3 second exposures to hit a reasonable ADU level. Still, not too much of an issue. I think with narrow band filters the exposure times will be a lot higher. In general, do I like it? Yes. Is it worth the extra cost above a cheap light box tracing panel from Amazon? No.

Hi All, So I was able to get out for a very very brief imaging session last night, 21 minutes on IC443 (7 x 3 minutes - with L-Pro filter). Here is the result without the field flattener in the imaging train. This is a quick stack and stretch in Astro Pixel Processor. I'm not worried about the image of the DSO itself, that's just lack of data. But thought I'd report back now that I have removed the flattener. Basically the Inverse Lighthouse Beam effect remains. It's not easy to see as there aren't many bright stars on the edge of the field, but the top right has a few. Also, the stars in all four corners do seem to be affected by the lack of the flattener. I was advised that this would be the case when I asked the dealer for advice on attaching the ASI2600 to the scope. Apparently this is due to the smaller pixel size, even though it's an APS-C format. In any case I also attach a screen-shot of a stretched flat (from my iPad) as it was being taken by my ASIAIR Pro, just in case this is relevant for the Inverse Lighthouse Beam beam effect. I've just measured the actual drop-off of a linear Master Flat and the ADU fall-off is 20% from centre to the corners. Cheers

I can get a blue cast when I use the Optolong L Pro filter on my Canon 800D. But once I do a colour balance in post processing it just disappears. I’m still learning Pixinsight so can’t comment on that. But with Affinity Photo (and I guess Photoshop) it’s just a matter of aligning the colour channels using the Histogram.

That's a wonderful image and encouraging for me to see what the scope is capable of. If I can get to this level I'll be very happy indeed. I'll try a session without the flattener to see what difference it makes. Thanks

Hi Olly, The new adapter that allows me to remove the flattener from the chain turned up today, so the flattener is now out of the equation. I’m looking forward to trying another imaging session next time we get clear skies 👍 Yep, the effect I’m seeing is the ‘inverse lighthouse beams’. I got the name ‘butterfly stars’ from reading a post on CN that used the name to describe it. I haven’t measured the vignette, but will try the method you suggest, good tip; thanks. I have seen the stretched image of the flats as they were being taken by my ASIAIR Pro and they were a bit of a surprise; the corners were completely black compared to the bright central region. But yes, the flats did their job in post processing. In terms of what I feel is wrong with this effect, I guess it’s just personal taste and my perhaps naive expectation. Having paid £3k+ for a premium refractor, I wasn’t expecting to see such obvious artefacts around bright stars. However, the more reviews I read the more I’m realising that this may just be a Tak trademark, perhaps in the same way that diffraction spikes are for reflectors. Next time I’ll do more reading up in advance. In any case I’ll try some more imaging to see if I can improve on my first attempt. 😊 Thanks everyone for the comments and suggestions.

I exchanged a few emails with the dealer about it when I bought the scope and I thought it was 55mm. But in any case I’ll give 56mm a go as well. Though my next stop is to try without the flattener. I guess trying these things out is half the fun 🙂.

The advice I received was 55mm. I’ve had a look elsewhere and some references mention 56mm. I can’t find 72.2mm anywhere though. Maybe that’s with the extender or reducer.

I will definitely give it a go. I've just ordered the correct adapter so that I can remove the flattener from the image train. I was advised that, given the small pixel size of the sensor on the ASI2600MC Pro, using the flattener was highly recommended, even though it's only APS-C rather than Full Frame. I've had the back spacing set to 55mm.

That’s interesting, thanks. That ties in with other posts I’ve seen elsewhere. So does this mean that the size of the image circle that isn’t subject to this effect is less than the size of the capture area of an APS-C sensor and a camera with a smaller sensor wouldn’t pick it up? Or is that over simplifying it?

Definitely radial. I’ve actually done some more digging around and there are a few threads on CN about ‘butterfly stars’ on the FSQ-85. There seems to be two competing theories. Firstly that this an artefact caused by the Petzval design. The second one is that it’s caused by severe vignetting. On the first theory I’m not so sure as I’ve not seen any images taken with an FSQ-106 that have this issue. But then again the image circle of the 106 is so large that maybe it’s not picked up by the vast majority of cameras as they only capture images from the centre of the field. On the second theory, this seems plausible as I’ve seen references to exactly the same effect with a Rokinon 135mm lens with a heavy vignette. That said, I’m starting to think it might be a combination of design exacerbated by vignette, which is itself caused by the field flattener. Either way I’m not sure there’s a way round it with my imaging train setup apart from good post processing. Happy to hear other opinions and suggestions though👍 Thanks

Agreed, and yes everything is tightened down in the imaging train.

Hi All, Although I bought my first serious telescope for visual observing back in 1992, I'm still relatively new to Astrophotography. In the last 12 months I've played with a few small refractors to get the hang of things, including a WO ZS73 and a Redcat 51. I've used both of these with a modified Canon 800D and more recently a ZWO ASI2600MC Pro. Having found my feet somewhat in this fascinating branch of Astro I decided to take the plunge a buy a Takahashi FSQ-85EDX, a dream scope. First light was only brief break in the clouds, giving me an hour on the Horsehead nebula. However after a quick process in Astropixel Processor I managed to draw out a reasonable image for my first attempt with this gear (new ASIAIR pro and EAF too). I'm not totally unhappy with it, but have been surprised to see some strange artefacts to the stars around the outer third of the image (particularly noticeable on the bright star at the bottom left). At first I thought I'd done something wrong with the processing, but after reading a number of posts on the forums it seems that 'butterfly' stars are the result of vignetting. So I stretched one of my Flats and sure enough there appears to be significant vignetting. To be honest I've not seen vignetting this severe before on either of my other small refractors. The imaging train for the attached image was FSQ-85EDX > 1.01 Flattener > M54 to M42 Adapter > M42 Spacers > ZWO Filter draw with Optilong LPro filter > ASI2600MC Pro. Although I haven't tried to image with my Canon 800D (also APSC) on the Tak, I have checked the vignetting with this camera and it appears to be around the same level, so I'm guessing I'd see the same artefacts around bright stars. I’ve also swapped the M42 adapters for M48 into the filter draw with the 2600MC Pro but the vignette looks unchanged. Just wondering, does anyone else with an FSQ-85 see this kind of butterfly stars artefact with an APSC camera? If so, can it be prevented or maybe processed out in Post? Thanks