Mark 2020

Thanks, i didnt know that about nina..although ive not i.aged for about a year now 

Thanks fella, its the fine tuning that takes the time, especially when clear nights are premium 

Hi guys

I have an altair lightwave 0.8 reducer, i believe its 55 mm backfocus to sensor. Asi 294mm pro camera. 6.5mm from front of camera to sensor. Do you measure from the back edge of the reducer or from the actual glass in the reducer which is around 5mm in from the back edge of reducer? To get the 55mm total...thanks in advance.

Hi guys

Bought a new eq6r-pro,  connected to nina, chose my mount, set home position and park position, can control the mount manually using nina telescope control. Problem is when i use the sequencer,  i set it to open a roof, does but doesnt sense the magnet telling it its open. It unparks my mount but wont slew to the unpark position, then it jumps onto a manually input slew ra and dec position which it wont move to, then it jumps to park scope...doesnt park it back to my safe park position, then closes the roof while my scope is still up. Any ideas?, i cant slew to a target in sequencer so would have to do it manually,  ive updated nina to 156 nightly, updated eqmod, updated my handcontroller to latest update and the motor control firmware. They are just not talking.

Ive tried the link, its not working, anyone know where it is with a new link?

Thankyou stepe

On 22/10/2020 at 21:44, Cosmic Geoff said:

I have had a look at my more modern C8 SE.  The dovetail bar screw holes may not line up in the way you think - mine has two screws at one end of the bar, (spaced around the cast rim) and one at the other.   Looking from the back, the focus knob is at the bottom and the dovetail bar on the left.

At the other end, it does look as though the front casting could be unscrewed and put back at 120 deg rotation.

Opinions differ on the effect of rotating the secondary mirror or correcting plate, suggesting also that it may or may not matter depending on how old the SCT is.  The collimation though is something you can check with a star test.

Hi Geoff 

I just realised aswell the secondary mirror housing turns freely on the plate, the numbers on the corrector plate are nowhere near the 3 oclock position like ive read, also this seems to be glued together not screwed together so as to trap the glass. And.... i did a star test last night and collimation is out alot but the collimation screws are tight down and im not able to pull in the concentric circles anymore. How or where can i start to get this all sorted. I found mars last night but was just a fireball on the one side. And pleides all stars were badly hazed and stretched the one side. Physically cannot get the seconday mirror to move any more the right way. 🤦‍♂️

Hi guys

Help please. Last night I purchased an old celestron c8 sct, 2000mm fl, f10 on a fork mount. The mount has no power cable so is pretty useless, but i brought it to defork the ota for planetary imaging and hopefully some small faint dso's. It was a reasonable price. Ive got a heq5 pro mount that i will be mounting it onto. The guy said it needs collimation. I know i need to mount it on a vixen dovetail but the bolt holes dont line up anywhere. Its as if someone has rotated the corrector plate housing around 120 degrees. Would it make a huge difference if i removed the housing screws and put it back so that the bolts line up, keeping the mirror and plate in the same spot on the housing bracket,  or would i have to try put everything back separately in different positions and collimate everything from scratch. The picture at the minute doesn't quite get crisp so whatever has been done needs rectifying. Can this even be done by us regular folk? Any thoughts or ideas, instructions? I feel the plate could do with a clean and the primary mirror itself. I just want it as optimum as possible. And can a hyperstar be fitted to these older versions? Im literally starting from scratch with an sct setup. Also what type of camera would suit a scope with this focal length for faint dso's, i have a gp290c for the planetary side of imaging. Sorry for the bombardment of questions. 

I started last night to fella.. heq5..skywatcher 72ed. I got as far as inputting my long and lat... didnt align but literally did a guide tour to check it works.. only picked it up yesterday. Im finding this all really fascinating  and fun to learn