Richard Wesson

Hi Kelly, Depends what camera you are using. If a dslr using prime focus i.e. camera directly attached to focuser there will not be sufficient back focus. Most people myself included would opt for the 130pds which is optimised for astrophotography. You may still be able to use other methods such as eyepiece projection successfully however.

I noticed this too. Looks purchase from player one directly still a more cost effective option even if VAT and duty taken into account. Starfield seem to have shot themselves in the foot here.

The camera is on at $399 on the Player one website which equates to around £345. Even with 22.5% that would only bring it to around £422.

Have been looking at both the ASI 585 and the player one equivelant. The ASI does not seem to be in stiock at present. I have seen that the Player One can be ordered direct at $399.00. However, if I go to the UK distributor Starfield optics the price is now showing as £550.00, thesame as the formerly more expensive IMX533 based model. I wonder if there are any disadvantages of ordering from player one directly other than I suppose issues with service etc?

Also consider APT (Astrophotography Tool). Similar to NINA in that it can set up a sequence, plate solve, plays with PhD and CdC nicely.

You appear to be reacting as if you have been personally attacked and are becoming overly aggressive and rude. This forum is not the place - the rest of the discussion, including Adam has been quite civilised.

Same gain as lights as they are to correct for noise on the light frames. This will partially be a function of gain.

Cost largely.

I am following this with interest. I am currently using an asto modified EOS 100D and am thinking of moving to a dedicated astro camera. I would rather not go down the cooled camera route so these newer sensors with their zero amp glow seem ideal. I am torn between the IMX 585 sensor and the 533, although the latter seems to be limited in availability. What are the pros and cons of the IMX 585? Obviously, field of view will be smaller than an Aps or the 533 so will have to mosaic larger targets.

I think the problem may be that Chrome books don't run on Windows OS instead running a Linux based Chrome OS.

It is not always necessary to cut it no. It depends on the indvidual - left uncut, there is the possibility of 'pacman' stars i.e. those with the appearance of parts being cut out. Being an inverterate tinkerer, I chopped the end of mine off, but you need to be aware that you will need to add a stop to prevent the tube coming out altogether... The other thing to bear in mind is that for visual, you may not be able to achieve focus as you have limited the extent the tube can move out. This could be solved with an extensin I guess though. With regard to coma correctors, I only have experience of the baader one. It seems okay so far, but maybe my observations skills are not as good as some more exacting members..

Have PM'd you.

PM sent

Thank you for the reply. I did consider this, but I understand that the chamfering at the mirror edge can also cause artifacts, hence looking at the baffle route.

With the lighter nights now with us, I am looking at ways of making improvements to my 130PDS. One of the things I want to do is fit a primary mirror baffle like above. It was suggested in a follow on post to ''Just send the .sti file of the 3d design I made to your local shop to get it printed'. I contacted one local to me (Bristol) but they replied that for a one off a minimum charge of £40.00 plus VAT applied i.e. £48.00! This seems very expensive for waht is in effect a plastic ring.. does anybody know of any cheaper alternatives or can anybody print one for me at a a more modest cost?

What dewshield is that?

I run a home built myfocuserpro2 unit going to stellarmate on a raspberry pi. I connect this along with pretty much everything else to a powered USB hub and it works fine. In fact, this is preferable as device that draw power, get this from the power supply to the hub. It also means the hub is mounted on the telescope with the Rpi attached to the tripod. The only other connection to the Rpi is the USB cable from the mount.

With stellarmate, the Pi will save images to the appropriate subfolder on the SD card in the 'pictures' folder e.g. flats, lights, darks etc. I then then create folders on the flash drive which you can do in the file exporer in the Rpi when I copy over. Whilst I understand you want to have the images go directly to the flash drive, I am not sure what the advantage would be and creates another layer of potential error.

I normally just use a flash drive to transfer images from stellarmate on the Pi. I insert the drive then just copy the images across. I didn't have to do anything for it to be mounted - it was recognised and can then just insert into a windows machine.

Not really interested in motor control - more control of dew heater power via software. I believe it has been implemented in indi, but need to find a way to interface. I guess an arduino solution may work, but would need circuit for this.

That is what I currently use, but wondered if there was a way to implement dew heater control with software as in the pegassus powerbox?

I would like to create something like this. I have sepearte dew heater ontroller, power distirbution box, and USB 3 hub. However, I would like to combine the 3 elements into one box. Combining the 3 elements probably not that difficult, but I was wondering how I could implement this with soft con trol for the dew heater outputs? Anybody any thoughts?

Here we go: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01GC8XH0S/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Yes - that is where i got mine. I can post a link later to the model if you like?

Darren, Be aware that some some USB wfi antennas will not work with the PI 4 including the one from the Pi Hut. I went through a couple that did not. I have one from Brostrend that i finally bought after advice on here which works.