Stuart1971

1 hour ago, MonsterMagnet said:

Thanks for all that information, I'll take a look at that kit and try and get my head around the diagram and cleaning process - I was going to take it off the EFW today and have a look.  It's a bit of a pain how the EFW has to be opened up as the camera is bolted to it.

The images should be full APS-C converted to JPEG so not sure what is going on there - I'll need to check the Asiair settings.

MM

Personally, if you have just bought this new of from someone, I would be sending it back, and not opening the camera up at all, it should not have been sold in this state at all…and if second hand, then you need to be having a word with the seller IMHO…

What is odd, is the perfect straight line where it stops, here

That’s deffo not dew or ice, but an issue on the sensor window, if it was on the sensor itself it woul be a lot more in focus and sharp…

My guess would also be some sort of film on the sensor window..

2 hours ago, FenderGreg said:

It’s really what I have seen mentioned online from someone. The cameras default is gain 4 offset 30 which is quite a bit lower than ‘unity’ gain but I don’t know what it really means in terms of function

You should try offset 50 that is recommended for that camera…and also unity gain is what you should use if not sure which is 10

On 11/02/2024 at 23:25, Adam J said:

Its actually hardly ever tilt causing bad corners from what i see, its just the go to explanation, its much more often a problem with collimation a problem would normally result in the OTA being returned or tweaked. I can just see it that in the future when you get a new refractor with collimation problems the manufacturer will just say why don't you just use BXT.... 

The above looks more like an optical issue than a tilt issue to me. I would be doing a star test not "fixing it" with BXT. 

If an out of focus star test in centre field shows non concentric rings...I think it will, then it needs colimating as something has shifted in transport. Not sure if the cells on these are user colimatable. So maybe ask the supplier if this turns out to be the case. 

As its showing on the short side of the sensor then its also possible to rotate the camera 90 degrees, if it stays the same its tilt, if gets mush worse its colimation. 

It has its place as you say, but even a budget refractor should come well colmiated even if the polish / correction is not top notch and while fixing minor issues is great you should not convince yourself to accept less than what you paid for. 

that is certainly not a collimation issue shown, as the OP said its mote likely a reducer spacing issue, the star shapes tell you that quite obviously, i owned a Tak FSQ85 that was  basically crap, and had to go as the collimation was awful and these were the star shapes i got in the corners…really bad astigmatism

It’s the only scope on the market that you have to use two flatteners with and even then it’s not great….

Welcome, and lovely images, hope you find the forum very useful, they are a good bunch of knowledgeable people here…👍🏻

What does it look like with an offset of 50…? As that is the recommended 

53 minutes ago, FenderGreg said:

Here is the histogram even after raising the offset

It’s because the scale on the graph is so small, I don’t use APT are there any numbers to go with the graph, mean or median numbers…?

Just make sure you have a very small gap between the histogram peak, and the left side, this means you are not clipping ant pixels, then all will be good, try different offset settings until you get this small gap, as for gain, look up the  camera online and see what the unity gain is, this is a good place to start…For your camera unity gain is 10, and maybe a good idea to read this too…

https://www.qhyccd.com/uploadfile/2018/1106/20181106030334403.pdf

Very poor on full frame, and even APC-S was not perfect, he did not really zoom in that tightly about 1:1 which is not really a zoom at all, should have been more like 3:1 for a good view of the corner stars,  and for a scope like this that advertises full frame coverage, you would expect perfection on APS-C at least…🤔

All fine here…👍🏻

3 minutes ago, 900SL said:

@Stuart1971 My only thinking was that the Sii signal seems much more extensive than Oiii in the Jelly, so doing an HSS and mapping Sii to green and blue would give a nice multicoloured image, unless of course the Sii is coincidental with the Ha,

I do see the Oiii highlights in the Jellyfish on astrobin though, so I get where you are coming from here

 

Yes, I think maybe either way will give you a very fine image, if the SII is stronger then yes, your idea will be good…I maybe was getting mixed up with another target, as I thought the OIII was strong in the Jellyfish…

I would go with OIII, especially on that target, SII is in the red same as the Ha, so go with the Blue OIII, then you will have a great HOO image when processed…👍🏻 

5 hours ago, Andy56 said:

Hi,

I'm using vintage lenses on a 600d and have had issues with condensation. I have two COOWOO heaters but they're are 45mm wide and the lens is 30mm long so I could get vignetting. It's a 28mm Pentax M SMC.

I've had a hunt around the net and can't find any narrow ones, ie about 25 to 30mm, Ideally something about 10-15mm wide would be ideal so it can go round the focus ring and run off a USB power pack.

Do they exist?

Cheers

Andy

Edit: typos and bad grammer.

I have an old Orion dew zapper 12v one which is 20mm wide, but it’s pretty long as it was for an 8” SCT

if of any interest DM me…👍🏻

16 minutes ago, DeepSkyMan said:

Guys, in the end I’ve gone with an all risks policy with  Sansvar, the broker is Access Insurance, in the end the policy cost me £483.
 

Kind Regards

Paul

 

😮😮😮

2 hours ago, gorann said:

1370 includes 20 % UK VAT.

Sorry my mistake, still £200 more than they are here…👍🏻

1 minute ago, gorann said:

For us non-UK Europeans we get the same "low" price here, where is where I bought my last IMX571C:

https://www.astroshop.eu/astronomical-cameras/omegon-camera-vetec-571-c-color/p,67320

Wow that is a lot more for us, £1370 plus 20% VAT, and the same camera here is £1170 all in…

I think it’s great too that @FLO offer a smaller postage charge for Royal Mail for smaller items, most dealers have a fixed courier charge of around £7 for all items, this puts me off using them if the item I am buying is just £12 in the case of some spacers I wanted, and were out of stock at FLO…
I asked them if they could send Royal Mail and it could be sent as a letter, but they would not entertain the idea….☹️

Our post had been a nightmare recently, with some items taking forever to get delivered, and some days when the postie does not even come…but in the last few months I have had a few items from @FLO and each time they turned up the next day regardless, somethings when I didn’t even order till the afternoon the day before,  so I can’t complain, they can keep my credit card and other bills…as long as my Astro kit gets here…😂😂

26 minutes ago, tomato said:

I’m afraid the UK Touptek prices aren’t in  the same league as the same camera from China.

Paying the Customs fees is straightforward, the hassle comes if or when you have to return the camera for repair or service.

Agreed, some people would much prefer to only have to send back to a UK dealer though, but certainly if you are happy to pay the fees and send it back to china if there is an issue, then yes buy from china, not sure what the price difference would be from china with fees, or from UK dealer fees and VAT all in…maybe not that much…🤔🤔

7 minutes ago, Skipper Billy said:

Cant do any harm and may help a little??

 

That looks superb…nicely done…👍🏻

5 minutes ago, Skipper Billy said:

True but I think i read somewhere (Vlaiv?) that Blue light and Oiii are more easily scattered than all the other wavelengths???

Cant do any harm so black insulation tape and sharp scissors required 🙂 

What do you get on images with no filter or just a plain glass filter ??

1 hour ago, Skipper Billy said:

I have carefully inspected the entire optical train with a really bright torch looking for anything that is reflective.

The only thing I can see that is reflective are the screws that hold the camera together - see attached. (The inside of the scope is beautifully baffled and darker than a coal hole!)

Is it possible that light is passing through the filter hitting the screw heads and bouncing off the back of the filter into the camera causing the halos???

I am toying with the idea of making a mask to cover the screw heads from stiff black card and sandwiching it between the filter wheel and the camera.

 

If it was that, it would show on all filters and not just one of them…but still a good idea to cover, or swap them out one  at a time for Black headed ones..

For those that did not know, there is a UK supplier of all the Touptek Astro cameras, theses are tried and tested cameras, and have been supplying to the scientific market for a long time, and are used in many of the big retailers models, ie, Altair Astro, Omegon and explorer scientific all use Touptek hardware based cameras and rebrand…

I personally did not know about a UK dealer of them until yesterday…

This maybe of some use to some of you, obviously the prices are not as cheap as buying from china, but are cheaper than the bigger well known brands..

https://www.microscopecameras.co.uk/astronomy-cameras

Can I ask too, is it possible to set the zero position on this rotator, by this I mean if I wanted the rotator to be in a certain orientation when at zero, this could be set…?