MattGP

Ah knew there’d be an SA thread somewhere

Had mine for a couple of weeks and added a 72ed this week  No fantastic deepsky shots yet, so here’s the moon instead 😂 (well pleased with the detail)

Last pic I think for this thread now.....this is a crop and edit of a stacked image in GIMP (one of my first attempts at stacking) - no darks, flats or bias, just 14 lights.....polar align or sub duration was slightly out...despite all of that...am well happy with this (Evostar 72ed)

Tons of potential to improve for sure

Well, received my new Evostar 72ed today

First attempt with it just now with a single 60 sec sub. Need to get used to the fine tuning of the focus, but definitely clearer

Sorted, ball head does take the weight woop woop  

Ah sweet, expensive?

On 21/04/2020 at 12:07, TobyW said:

 

Let me know what you do

 

Toby

Well, ended up finding a 72ed in stock and only a smidge more than usual shops, also got a OVL flattener for half the cost of the SW one.

All arrived today so can see what it’s like now  Will post a pic once taken some  

Hi all

have another rookie noob question for you all.

So, I have a star Adventurer pro and had been using this with my dslr on a ball head mount so was easy to position camera etc once polar aligned.

As of today I now have an Evostar 72 added to the set up 🥳

But, have now lost the ball head joint and it’s manoeuvrability, so.....my question is.....once polar aligned, can I adjust the “degree/equatorial wedge”without messing up the polar align? (Hope that makes sense?)

i know I can spin the clutch wheel etc but work the ball head was obv easier to adjust the pitch

cheers

matt

Seems I’m being quite lucky with just  300mm telephoto lens then 🙏

18 hours ago, noah4x4 said:

It was with Atik Horizon (original) on Hyperstar on an 8" Evolution. With Hyperstar, you remove your secondary mirror. That changes the scope from f/10 to f/2. This means images form 25x faster. Removing the secondary mirror results in  the huge FOV seen here. However, you do sacrifice magnification. But with a camera such as the Horizon, high resolution and tiny pixels mean I might Zoom in from here to compensate.

I am not surprised Stardaze struggled. My image is blighted by poor seeing conditions and Bortle six skies. Shortly after the cloud was overwhelming. An advantage of the Hyperstar route is you can achieve much more in less time.  But it's an expensive bit of kit. The new Starizona Night Owl 0.4x reducer goes a long way towards offering a lesser budget alternative. 

I’m going to have to google every piece of kit you mentioned there 😂

35 minutes ago, TobyW said:

Hi,

 

The 72ed does look good and its fairly small and light and would work on the S.A well. That said, its currently £262 and then you need the flattener which is another £181. My big question was would I gain anything over and above spending the same amount on a lens?

 

Tricky isnt it.. Like your pics thou. I too, want to be able to get the images close as well...

 

Let me know what you do

 

Toby

Will do, the 72ed is out of stock everywhere until June at least  So at this the moment part of me is thinking of a bigger scope and separate motorised mount - the 130pds thread looks like some pretty cool images taken - it’s just the added expense, but then once to add the flattener not too much more..:decisions decisions 🤔

I’m in the same boat as you, have a Canon, 300mm lens and a Star Adventurer and also toyed with I needed a 72ed

Having used the 300mm for a few weeks now, i do defo want the 72ed. The 300mm is ok for wider shots and have got a couple of pics of the Orion Nebula and Just about got M51, but their just not close enough for me  

These are all 300mm full zoom single edited pics 

11 hours ago, noah4x4 said:

I don't know if this image will also help you find it. This is an extremely wide FOV of the Whirlpool Galaxy area at f/2 on Hyperstar.  I would normally zoom in to view it, but this view offers a panorama of the wider area. M51 is centre (n.b. use Zoom to enlarge). Sadly, seeing wasn't great, and my skies are Bortle 6. 

 

Matter of interest What lens was this with? 

The way I can find it through my lens now (just by knowing vacinity) is to put Alkaid in the bottom left of frame, then move up and to the right slightly- then the star maps in this thread helped me  

Well, managed a better pic tonight, can actually make out the Whirlpool 🥳

My attempt at the same pic (I think), nowhere near as cool as yours 

27 minutes ago, Nicola Hannah Butterfield said:

300mm is a good size for the wider nebula clusters ect, like the Rosette Nebula or M45 ect, this taken on my Canon 6D would have been better on the 40D maybe, with a ef70-210 3.5-4.5 and a 1.4x converter making it just short of 300mm making it in effect a f/6.7. I mounted the set up direct on the scope, but it isn't ideal, need to get a ball and socket head for it, but most are a bigger thread. This wasn't a good image as Venus created a lot of flare, that I had to try and correct, it is because it isn't a great lens, but it 25 years old or so.

Nice pic

What is the 1.4 converter?

5 minutes ago, johninderby said:

Did you see this posted by FLO a day ago? Hopefully things will get back to normal soon. 🙏🏼

I’d been told June  

Hi all

Just after a little help/advice really, following on from a previous thread I bought a Star Adventurer to use my canon 500d with as have 18mm-300mm lenses, this has worked well, but always planned on getting a 72ed to add to this so that I could capture more DSOs.

with the time come to buy here, have found that the 72ed is pretty much out of stock everywhere (and don’t want to pay prices where is in stock).

So my interim question, is there anything else that I could buy for around the same money that would be just as good? In theory if you included the cost of a flattener into the equation, could I get a half decent imaging scope and motorised mount for under £500?

many thanks

Matt

11 hours ago, Nicola Hannah Butterfield said:

I got M31 last Aug with a Tamron 24-70 f/2.8 with a kenko 1.4x converter, thing was i didn't know about stacking then (well I did just didn't think about it) so stacked a few of those, the images wasn't great but managed to make out M32 & M110 , just like you I am just as happy to record faint smudges, like a galaxy 1,000 million l.y. away I was awestruck when I discovered that using  astrometry.com, that one really did blow my mind that simple 8" newt and a dslr could capture such a faint object. to be fair i wouldn't have know had I not run it through astrometry., did one today from last nights session 500 million light years, though not as obvious as it didn't show on astrometry, discovered it by chance as I was looking at charts, I think that's what makes it worth the effort.

Oh yes I’m finding astrometry.net to be super useful now, a great way to learn what’s in my pics and amazing the amount of objects in my pics that are also galaxies  

11 hours ago, happy-kat said:

Matt what mount are you using please?

Am using a recommendation from a previous thread on here....:Star Adventurer Pro...although was slightly lazy when taking these pics as didn’t polar align 100% properly.....

1 hour ago, Nicola Hannah Butterfield said:

Interval timer, you could try 1 or 2's exposures, try 30 see where that takes you.

Tbh looks like the 72ed is out of stock everywhere until at least June. So may well have to experiment with stacking more after all  

Cheers for the super fast replies

Funnily enough was just reading an old thread on here pretty much saying the same thing 😉

72ed it is - unless there’s something better for the money (which I don’t think there is)

Morning all

So I have a Canon 500d which am currently using with a Star Adventurer, with the plan always being to buy a better scope to go with it in time.

My plan and budget was for an Evostar 72ed, but was just looking at the Skywatcher Star travel range and that the 80t is a third of the price. Now am going to guess it’s 3 times not as good as the evostar, but could anyone confirm why?

many thanks

matt

41 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

I control the 1100d using my android phone using dslr controller and once I'm happy with the settings I used the time lapse function and leave it running in the back garden. Or you could probably use an intravolometer, I bought one for about £10 to take all the photos.

Ah that’s pretty neat, I have the 500d, so only way for me to live view stars like this particularly well is by using a laptop. 

Tbh tho, my plan was always to add a 72ed to this set up, so may look into stacking more when have a more powerful set up  

6 minutes ago, Wiu-Wiu said:

it is in this picture at the middle right side, those 2 fluffy patches.

Hi there, yeah couple of users above helped me work out where it was and how to find it  

This was photo was me finding it last night