Robindonne

Yes 3 weeks after buying a 120mc-s, i already know i have to find a place in my cabinet where it can stay very long without being touched. Its basically very useless

Lol. I recently asked about oag’s and almost all advices were directing to get a seperate guidescope. I didn’t want to believe its that hard to use an oag but i found out😬. I bought a 16 mm oag and the first thing i noticed was that i had only 1 mm inward focus left. A bit of luck otherwise it brought me in the same position as you. Not even using a coma corrector so probably the same problems will face as soon as i get a cc. i use an asi120 as guidecam, on an oag, on a quattro 8” without cc. So my only available guidestars are egg-shaped😬. why is it so hard to take advice from experienced people? But i learned in one night more than i would have learned when going directly to the best solution, a seperate guidescope. The other mistake i made was with the guide-settings. Epx time on 3 sec helped me a lot. Also the aggressiveness of correction was a bit to much. I still have to finetune a lot, but its also very very very much fun when spending a night alone, and finding out the practical side, instead of the (you think you know) theoretical side of getting your setup to work. oh and i forgot to mention that i probably didn’t get in focus, using a dslr also, with a standard eos t-mount. I bought a es mpcc for eos, a flattener for use with an dslr. The camera-adapter that came with that flattener is like 1,5 mm thick instead of the bulky 10 mm orso that a standard eos t-mount use.

Well, as an fresh starter also, i can only tell you that beginning with an accurate polar allignment is kind of important. To find out about that being important, you can try to turn the “alt azimuth knobs”(dont know if I translated it correctly). Already when you just touch the knob you can see your immediately off target. it is important to polaralign accurate for the track-path of the mount to be as good as you want. And i now for sure you need a polarscope to do that. When is use my newton or c8 i cant even see polaris through the mainscope when the mount is polaraligned. ps. Last week i read a post here that told me something new. After finishing the synscan 1/2/3 star alignment, the menu shows an extra option to check the polaralignment. Never used it before but it might help you when a polarscope is not available yet

Lol we dont hope for a second😕wave but for some its very very good😎

Yes and i heard about complaints,caused by the eq6rpro, from jealousy among heq5 pro users. At least one case in the netherlands

I have a question for those who use the asiair connected through eqmod cable. At this moment im struggling every night with the following procedures: level and align my mount, polaralign the mount, fill in the date and time in synscan, do a 3 star alignment and finish the procedures with some platesolving through asiair and sync that data with the mount. while i do understand the benefits of goto, i also understand that from all the 40k+ locations in the synscan-database, i only use 1 or 2 every night. I remember watching a youtube clip, reviewing the asiair, where the guy skipped all of the above steps. he basically put his mount in home position, did a semi-automated polaralignment through asiair using the main camera (almost like the polemaster procedure) did some platesolving here and there and synced the data (including date and time) with the mount and was good to go. only thing that holds me for trying this method is the lack of an eqmod-cable. But also the possibility of not being able to use skysafari anymore is what holding me from this method. When i come to the point of using the whole night for imaging 1 object then its no problem to not being able to use skysafari i think. But for now it seems like the goto-database in the asiair isnt as complete as synscan/skysafari. i just want to know if it is correct that skysafari wont work when the mount is aligned by asiair-platesolving, using a eqmod-cable and skipping the handcontroller, instead of the 3-star alignment with the synscan

I have no idea! I didn’t know about this. I quoted the poster before me.

Metoo. Almost only good things about eq6r. You mean the height difference in the clamping part?

Oke done. Its definitely on the edge. At least when i start from glas and end approx. Where the sensor sits inside the camera. if i have to extend, lets say 20 mm, to still keep some margin in the focuser, do i go for a small extension tube with filter-thread to connect it to the flattener, or a 2” extension with the tightning screws, or should i better search for a focal reducer? I want to add more length anyway. Or better just go for an combined ff/fr?

The fl is 418 mm. Do uou mean i just take a rule and measure the distance from the lens to the camera? I think im in short of length to have some margin but how do i get these extra mm’s the best?

hello and thx for helping in advance. Last week i asked about a problem with not getting in focus with a small zenithstar. The solutions mentioned were, or an 2” extension-tube or a ff/fr. Yesterday on our dutch marketplace website, an es mpcc came for sale. It was so cheap i had to buy it. On my way home I realized it is only a flattener and no reducer. So my needed extra focus length was probably still not solved, except for the small amount of mm’s this flattener will extend my focus length. I tried it at home and it indeed not solved my focusing problem i quess. i did managed to get in focus on some 100 meter away trees but i dont know if i will get in focus on the 100 ly away trees. The flattener has about 35 mm tube that might be pulled out a bit but i dont think it will do the thighting any good. What would be a good option for me now? Buy an m48/2” extension tube, an 2” extension, a seperate reducer that might fitt in the m48 thread or just forget about all this and look for an combined ff/fr? In case of a seperate reducer, the distance between a reducer and the flattener is all abacadabra for me so maybe not the best option. Thx.

Well if it does the job good enough,(cant tell because as a starter without one second of guiding in my life)it might be worth the try. Im still struggling with the ways to go for guiding. And if you are, like me, on the hunt for a new mount, then its worth considering. Its just that i had set my mind on a eq6r. Maybe because it is used by a lot of us vampiers. Feels like a dive into the unknown with the ioptron cem70. Is it compatible with skysafari, stellarmate and asiair etc?

As the text is right then Saturday its showing its skin in Holland. http://te-les-koop.nl Robtics.nl whats with the internal guiding? No guiders needed anymore when using this mount? Like that meade overexpensive mount?

What an ugly peace of material

Its not a well explained text but in short: the most important thing to start with is to make sure the mount is in exact home position and the polarscope is thight in the mount. Then loosen the biggest black ring on the polarscope, with a white mark on it, and rotate the ring so its facing exactly up. Thighten the ring again and take out the polarscope for the crosshair aligning.

I had the same questions. I finally ended up aligning my crosshairs with the home position of the mount. I know its not important but for me it makes more sense to spend 5 minutes in the work to calibrate the crosshair with the home position. In the end it saves so much time, no rotating the ra axis everytime i have to polaralign.(the dec unfortunately must be rotated every time) The crosshairs aligning is very easy to do btw.

That or some russian tsar was what i thought. But when i use a reducer im good to go? That makes it easy to search for the solution. Of course a big thx for the info and sorry for the copyright thing.

Ok thx very much

Hmm ok. I asked a related question some days ago here. And the answers were mixed about the oag assembly switching from one to another scope. But would you still say its overkill if i can use it on multiple scopes?

I stole a picture from another thread with the same scope. The person has indeed a small extension for it. So if the reducer just shorten the needed length by a couple of mm’s an extender is the option to go. But based on planning to use an oag, is it an idea to look for a thick oag and solve both problems with one device?

I have a problem with a small refractor. When my camera is mounted and the focustube is at max outward, i still need more length. So i quess thats where the extension tubes come in. But what happens if i go for a focal reducer? Does it bring me in focus faster? I mean shorter? So instead of an extension tube for the needed length, go for a focal reducer? If anyone can keep me off of buying a reducer then im happy to hear. Thx edit. Its a 71 mm zenithstar. And because im still in doubt to get an oag, will the thickness of the oag help me get in focus?

I have a short(ened) question. Does anybody know if its possible to guide with a mainscope (c8) and image with the piggybacking apo? And vice versa?

I guess with a good pair of uv-raybans it is possible

Its fairly easy to twist the glass with the print. And maybe at the same time align it with the homeposition. make sure the mount is in absolute home position, counterweight bar facing down. The polarscope has an focusing/eyepieces, a short shaft with 3 hex screws, two black rings with a flat screw and then the metal scaleplate. The last black ring has a white mark on it. Make sure the polarscope is fitted tight in the mount. Loosening the flat screw of the whitemark ring lets you twist the ring (for the referencepoint later on), and face the white mark perfectly up, and tighten the flat screw again. now remove the whole polarscope from the mount and, with the eyepiece facing up, remove the eyepiece completely. You can now see a round flat glass, in metal ring, inside the polarscope-tube with the print on it. Just slightly loosening the 3 hex screws, on the polarscope shaft, is enough for getting this printed glass in metal ring out of the tube. Remember the 3 hex screws are for a correct centered polarscope, so loosen every screw the same amount to stay a bit accurate later on when calibrating again. If the print is correct then just align “0” on the clock-print with the previous reference point (white mark on black ring). If the print is twisted then take out the whole glass and twist it. when you put everything in place, the polarscope needs to be calibrated again with the 3 hex screws. Point the center of the crosshair at polaris and check if it stays centered when rotating on the ra axis.

Can’t help you because im on a search as well. And have no experience with them, sorry. But when you get infected with the astro-virus, one of the symptoms is automation. So im going for a focuser that can be used in an automated setup. And best of both worlds is to find one that can be manual focused, manually electric focused and also have a connection-option with a computer for autofocusing