parallaxerr

Well Well, I waited so long for this before giving up and buying the Sabre. £145 for the head is tempting, especially if it'll fit my CG5 tripod.....

Correct. I was not impressed with the optics and found my ED80 was giving stronger views of the planets, although, admittedly, perhaps I didn't give it enough of a chance. I also questioned the build quality with some dodgy looking rubber seal around the objective & poor English text on the objective ring. Also, I found the Hex focus very stiff. Nothing majorly wrong in the grand scheme of things but I didn't feel the product was worth what I paid for it (and I got it cheaper than it retails now).

Thanks, I'm considering a 200P to go an the AYO with the ST120, it looks quite a lot larger than I'd imagined

Ooh Knighty is that a 200P and if so is that an ST120 to the left of it? Been trying to work out the difference in scale of these two today!

Congratulations on the purchase. There has been a lot of threads on manual Alt/Az mounts recently and between myself, @John (who I think purchased your Ercole) @Alan White, @DRT, @dobbie, @nightfisher and I dare say a few more I have forgotten, we came to the conclusion that other than the skytee, there is no other slo-mo man alt/az unless you spend a whole lot more, which you have done I for one will be interested in how the AZ8 performs. I considered one for all of a few seconds before financial reality kicked in and went for an AYOII. Looking at the specs, it would appear you'll have to try hard to find a scope that it can't cope with! Manual Alt/Az fever strikes again!!!

Cracking image Ian, it really shows off the red response of your Fuji. I tried the same with my Nikon and the HH is barely visible. As Nigel said, the stars are very well controlled and I actually like the second image, I'm finding I prefer the more subtle, less saturated colours.

Time seems to be a major factor for many, myself included and I do like how quick the alt/az setup is. For me, the wedge was the cheapest option that may have the potential to improve my images. I started looking at cameras and OTAs, but the cost is prohibitive right now (side note - don't buy a Land Rover that is due a £1400 service!). I'm hoping my wedge experiment doesn't add too much complexity, reading the manual suggests it "should" be a relatively easy affair with the All Star Polar Alignment. We'll see on the next clear night!

I've been looking at your setup recently Ken, you have a really nice scope and camera and you're already tied to a laptop. Do you see yourself going EQ in time, or do you feel the ease of Alt/Az setup outweighs the potential gains going EQ, regardless of funds becoming available?

Hi Derek, I just googled this. Very interesting indeed, there is mention of de-rotating alt/az setups earlier in the thread but I haven't seen mention of this mount before.

I'll reserve comment until I have had chance to try it, which will be a long time if the weather doesn't change soon!

Looks good Ken. Why is it that the cloudier weather makes us spend more on the hobby...which we can't do because of the clouds!?!? I'm afraid I have been naughty today and fraternised with the enemy......I just bought a wedge I'll get my coat now.

Which LP filter are you using Nige?

Another one of my theories turned on it's head! A little more reading and I agree Ian, oversampled if anything. So, given that I'm just over 2", which I understand is about as good as we can expect in the UK, am I right in saying the seeing has spread my stars out over a few pixels and there's room for improvement based on conditions?

Binned 50% in ST

This is how the smallest stars look up close...

And there in lies the rub, rotation! Are you saying, for an eq mounted rig, with less than ideal resolution, you can lengthen exposure to allow photons to spill over to adjacent pixels? Funnily enough, a while ago I compared my camera to yours Ian as I remember you saying you had good red response. Mine is poor in comparison, by about 50% as I recall but I'll be sticking with it as I like the camera. I have read posts along the same lines of yours stating that modding isn't necessary, but they've all been using circa 300s subs on eq's which helps. All I know is that my attempt at the HH was poor. It was however at low alt and in polluted skies, which doesn't help. Might be one to save for a dark site session.

Makes sense Ken, the other images I'm looking at are EQ mounted with 5min subs so perhaps that's where the gains are. I'm having no joy finding a Nikon astro-modding service in the UK so started looking at ready modded Canons but their pixel sizes are much larger than the Nikon so with my short scope I'd be massively undersampling. The only way to compensate is to go up in FL as far as I can see. Looks like I'll be missing out on Ha until I can afford a new mount, scope & camera.

What's your pixel resolution? Just wondering what resolution your setups are providing? Mine's at 2.04"/pixel and after looking at some other images of M33, in comparison to my recent attempt, I'm wondering if I'm undersampling and if barlowing x1.5 to bring it down to 1.3"/pixel would help release a little more detail? Problem is by doing this, I'd be upping the FL to 582mm and FR to 8.8 so not sure if there's any gains to be made? Edit: I guess this would take my coma corrector that's optimised for f-ratios f3.5 to f6 out of play.

That's not the SW version. The one 365 Astronomy stock has been around for some time, touted as AZ5 and has mediocre reviews as discussed above. The first post has a picture of the SW version.

Bit of a thread revival, sorry guys! Has anyone heard any more about the AZ5? I recently bought a new SkyWatcher scope from @FLO and the enclosed flyer had a picture of the AZ5 on it, so hopefully it's still in the pipeline. I want an AZ for my ST120, would hate to buy an AZ4 then have this released!

Just looking in the exact same region for tonights target, specifically the Flaming Star. But like you say, camera sensitivity may be an issue. Horsehead is still a tad late at night for me!

I think I agree Ian. I am definitely a black background junkie! What an amazing swathe of stars! I'd like to have a pop at the veil but not sure my camera has the required red response.

Well here it is, my final image of M33 for now. 6hrs 15mins of exposure taken over 3 nights, 28-30/11/2016 from Caerleon, S. Wales. All three sessions were between approximately 18:30-21:30 and 60°-70° alt, so medium light pollution. Usual setup - William Optics Zenithstar 66SD, Celestron Nexstar SE, Nikon D3200. 750x30s subs, 50 flat & 50 dark flat, no darks. Stacked in DSS and processed in Start Tools with final colour tweaks made in Gimp. I see a different colours between 3 monitors and 2 mobile devices, so who knows which one is right!? I'm glad I added the final session as it's helped distinguish star colours in the spiral arms, after 4hrs they all still looked blue but now I see reds too and the core has a slightly warmer colour. All in all, very happy with the result from a very modest imaging setup!