Al_N

UPS delivered this RisingCam. It's the colour APSC sensor. I was planning on using this with a Rokinon 135mm for this rainy season. I'd really like to use both a camera angle adjuster (CAA) and a filter drawer with this rig, unfortunately There is only 27mm of back focus available, and my pieces use 30mm. If anyone has a lead on a CAA that only consumes 10mm of back focus, I'd love to hear about it. The one I have is 13.5mm thick. As far as filter drawers go, the narrowest I've found uses 16.5mm of back focus. Normally I'd just rotate the lens in the rings, but I'm using an EAF with a belt for focusing and that makes it quite inconvenient to rotate camera and lens as a unit. CS Al

I was tired of shooting SHO, but it was a full moon. So I brought out a 682nm IR pass filter to see if there was anything interesting to see in the core of NGC 7129. There was, but faint. So I kept shooting. I see on an older version of Stellarium that this object has an average surface brightness of 21.64 mag/arc sec^2 After tossing a lot of data due to forest fire smoke, NINA autofocus configuration booboos...I ended up with 42.5 hrs of data, but not enough usable R channel data was gathered before the rainy season closed in here on Vancouver Island. This somewhat rosy hued "rosebud" has a 50/50 mix of Ha and IR for a red channel. Luminance was equal weights Ha, L, and IR. I think it was a bit ambitious of a target for a Sharpstar 94edph at 417mm. This really needs something closer to 1000mm focal length to do it justice. Sorry to make you pixel peep to see the interesting stuff in the center. I may have misused noise exterminator to compensate for the need to pixel peep, lol. I know there is better detail in the data, but I need to work on something else for a while before taking another crack at it. Any comments or suggestions for improvement are welcome. Clear skies Al

Logan's Astrophotography, from New Zealand has great content. Logan produces outstanding images, tells a bit of a story about the capture, often offers some interesting processing tips in either PS or PI. All delivered with a bit of quirky humour mixed in sporadically.

The C6 Hyperstar will be on the mount a lot this winter, not that I'm expecting many clear nights with another la nina projected to last through another winter. In fact, that's why it will be mounted. I want to finish an image on that one clear night that happens every 6 weeks or so. Here's a version of the Dark Shark I'm still trying to coax some detail out of: 1617 x 30" C6 Hyperstar, QHY183C CS Al

After a few tries over two nights, including complete resets, I thought I'd gotten close on collimation with my new C6 Hyperstar v4 last night, and started taking some images. It may not be quite perfect, but I'm real happy with the detail I'm seeing, and the speed of acquisition. The main downside seems to be massive quantities of data generated. I think I'm either going to start buying massive hard drives or start live stacking 5-10 minutes at a time and saving just the stacks for another round of stacking with APP. Time to start saving up for a camera with a larger well depth than the QHY183 sensor so I can double or triple sub length. Anyway, here is the first image off this scope/hyperstar. Clear skies Al

What I wanted was a RASA 11, CEM120, and an ASI2600MC. What I got to do was hire contractors to replace the roof. I still want those things, but I had enough left over for a HyperStar for my C6. That should satisfy my 'need for speed' for a few years. Al

Received the V4 hyperstar for my C6 yesterday, along with the Starizona filter drawer. Planning to start some EAA/EEA, but I'm sure some regular imaging will sneak in there. Supposedly, this is corrected out to a 28mm imaging circle, For now, though, I'll be using either a QHY183C or a ASI485C - the smaller sensors 'should' be easier to get collimated Al

I used a QHY183m and Optolong 7nm filters from a Bortle 5-6 site. About 6 hrs per filter for 18.75 total integration. Al

I finally have something to contribute to this thread SH2-170 and SH2-171. I really like this lens.

I don't know what qc processes are in place in whatever factory in China turns these out. I do know that there are many unhappy CEM26 and GEM28 owners around the internet. Plus a few winners of the equipment lottery who are really quite happy with properly assembled mounts from the factory. Sorry, the .6mm refers to excessive side-play in the DEC worm shaft. I needed to tighten the float adjuster by about 1/4 turn to eliminate side play in the DEC worm. RA worm shaft had been adjusted fairly well at the factory, so I just tweaked it. Unfortunately, you have to remove the entire worm and carrier assembly to get to the float adjuster. I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that, in my haste for a fix, I used loctite to secure the bearing, rather than waiting to get shim material to deal with the overbore. That bearing is not coming out again without the application of some heat.

My dealer tried to act as a go-between for iOptron and myself. Didn't accomplish much. Dealer just passed the buck to iOptron and wouldn't even discuss return. So I bought my next scope and mount (Sharpstar 94EDPH and HEQ5 Pro) from a competitor. Then I told him that he lost those sales. There are four fairly price competitive on-line shops in Canada. I've ruled out purchasing anything else from two of them due to crappy customer service. Al

Owner of a GEM28 here. My experience with this iOptron mount mirrors that of @Mars1960. fundamentally, the issue is an apparent lack of quality control at the factory/assembly line. Issues encountered included: 1. Dec axis improperly bolted to the RA axis; 2. Housing for lower RA bearing was machined oversize - the bearing literally rattled around the pocket. 3. DEC worm carrier had excessive (~.6mm) end clearance - allowing the DEC axis to randomly flop +/- 6-7 arc sec in the lightest of breezes, or as a result of weight shifting during tracking. 4. iOptron customer support fell off the face or the earth after two contacts, without any useful support being rendered. I couldn't find a decent manual for the mount, so trying to diagnose and fix the issues was really slow - this was my first equatorial mount. After fully disassembling and reassembling the mount with a bit of care, the DEC flop is gone, and a first test showed .4" RMS guiding error in DEC. Total RMS error was 0.8", which is much better than the 1.5-2.5" prior to these efforts. Al

Upon further investigation, it seems that INDI can connect to the SE without performing a two star alignment. Guess I'll have to figure out how to get ASTAP plate solving up and running, or I'm still going to have to go through a two star alignment. I let the mount power up before connecting it to the Raspberry Pi. If you connect to the Rpi (ASIAIR) first, the handset displays an initialization error that only clears when the handset is fully powered down. Anyway, here are some shots of my INDI driver settings (this is from CCDCiel capture software) On some of the pictures, I've moved the INDI window so that you can see that both camera and mount are connected. Mount firmware info: The remaining tabs I have not used.

Dave, If it will help, I can try to post screen shots of my INDI driver settings. Al

I've had to complete a two star alignment before attempting to connect to the NexStar handset that controls the SE. This was with both Windows/ASCOM and Astroberry/INDI. I use the same INDI driver that you show in your attachment. Hope you get connected. edit: this is with a wedge, operating in "Eq North" mode. Al