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Hi all, I also use a V4 with the filter drawer on a EdgeHD 8 with a 2600 and a 1600, both mm. Did any of you guys managed to find a solution?

20 hours ago, newbie alert said:

Hey Charles,

Very useful response, thank you very much. You are absolutely right multi star is my main concern with the OAG. If I could only be able to get the right back focus with my Celestron OAG so I could try it but it is not possible.

With the celestron OAG you may need to get a m48 to sct adapter, as I did with mine

And regarding the camera yes it needs to be fairly sensitive , I'm using a qhy 290 with a sct

Hey, thanks for the info.

I am very interested in some detail (and pictures if possible) about the adapter on the telescope side. The configuration I've tried is as follows: 20mm - 2 part M62 to M48 adapter included with the flattener + 4.5mm flat female M48 OAG adapter + 29mm OAG body + 4.5mm flat female M42 OAG adapter = 58mm + 17.5mm 2600mm = 75.5mm and I'm still left with needing a M42 male to male adapter to connect the camera to the last bit of the OAG, that will add at least another 2mm so 77.5mm, the back focus of the 120 flattener is 75mm.

On the camera - I use a 290mm mini I believe this is the ZWO equivalent to yours.

1 hour ago, cfinn said:

I use an EvoGuide 50ED with ASI 120MM Mini riding on top and it works great. To attach it I have a 15” universal dovetail and use a pair of Losmandy female to Vixen female clamps. I’m including a photo below so you can see what this looks like. It’s very rigid, which you want to minimise differential flexure, but comes with the disadvantage of adding more weight. Note that I also have a Pegasus Pocket Powerbox Advance attached using a pair of additional clamps. All of this together with the imaging camera, filter wheel etc gives a total weight of nearly 17kg, necessitating the use of the counterweight extension shaft on my EQ6R. This gives a bigger moment of inertia and amplifies the guiding RMS in RA slightly, though I am still sub-arcsecond with careful balancing. To counter this, I have a couple of additional counterweights on order to negate the need for the shaft extension and achieve balance closer to the mount. Just something to be aware of. An OAG will definitely save on weight but may be harder to use (accounts vary) and gives a narrower FOV, which means fewer guide stars and less opportunity to use recent advancements in guiding (multi star).

Charles

Hey Charles,

Very useful response, thank you very much. You are absolutely right multi star is my main concern with the OAG. If I could only be able to get the right back focus with my Celestron OAG so I could try it but it is not possible.

As a side note, I use 3 counterweights with my EdgeHD, positioned further up, I found this to work a lot better and give better results than 2 weights with the extension attached.

Bogdan

I recently purchased an Esprit 120 and looking for some guiding setup recommendations.

Do you use and OAG or a guide scope on top? If you use a OAG - which one and please share back focus setup, including filters.

Do you use a guide scope - which one and what did you use the attach it on top on the Esprit?

Please share detailed pics of you set-up if possible.

Many thanks.

2 hours ago, Lee_P said:

Sure!

AF EXP: 2s for no filter / light pollution filter. 5s if I'm using the L-eXtreme.
Step Size: 30
Autorun settings: every 1H, before Autorun start, after Auto Meridian flipped.

For the more general settings...
Fine (Slow) Step: 10
Coarse (Fine) Step: 30
Max Step Limit: 60000
Backlash: 0

 

Is that all the info you're after?

Perfect, thank you very much.

Great review, thanks for sharing the info and the sample file. Can I please ask what settings did you go for in the Asiair Pro autofocus, I really struggle to find the best combo.

Many thanks

3 hours ago, Allinthehead said:

These are raw stacks, no processing. If your budget can stretch to the Asi 2600mc go for that, well worth the extra few quid. Better cooling, better colour, reduced reflections around brighter stars, higher qe and 16 bit.

Wow I wasn’t expecting that answer, the Orion file looks so clean, so much cleaner than what I get out of the 1600 with more integration time.

Hey Richard, thanks for the data, looks stunning and it's very generous of you to offer the files.

I'm considering the Asi 071 or the 2600 for a second rig next to my 1600mm Pro. Can I please ask if there was anything done to the files, i.e: noise reductions or are these raw stacks? Thanks a lot.

7 hours ago, Icosahedron said:

Sounds like stepper motor resonance during acceleration and deceleration to me. Apart from ensuring that the supply power is adequate there isn't an easy solution if it is the case.

I am sure the power supply is more than enough for the mount, question is if this resonance sound is a reason to worry or not, at the end of the day the mount is still within the cool down period.

35 minutes ago, KevS said:

Are you controlling the stop/start or is the mount doing that by itself?

K

I am, using the hand controller to illustrate the weird sound at stop/start of slewing.

Any EQ6R Pro users out there that can let me know if I should be worried about the grinding noises my mount has at start and end of slewing? Mount is only a couple of weeks old, it's been like this from when I got it, the sound doesn't change even when loaded. For power I use a Nevada PS-08 6-8A Regulated Linear Power Supply(13.8V).

Many thanks.

Just a quick update and to express my gratitude to everyone that contributed with comments.

I’ve done another test today, this time at -15 degrees and left the camera in the garage(a lot cooler than any room in the house) connected to a AsiAir pro so I can keep an eye on the temperature. Overall very successful the temperature stayed super steady throughout the 3.5 hours of shooting darks.

I'm using mine with a iPad mini first gen - I believe it's got 512mb of RAM and it works ok but nothing spectacular - sky safari is rather slow and I've not tried the live stacking function.

1 hour ago, Astrosharkey said:

I have the same chip and never go below -10 degrees and find it very stable there once settled (I don't think you can massive gains below -10 but I may be wrong)

Thanks for this, I've not had a chance to do my own tests, I started from a value that was popular with other users.

22 minutes ago, ngwillym said:

That fluctuation may have been caused by the cam having to work flat out to maintain the temp - what ambient were you working at, bearing in mind at best it can get to 35-40 below ambient?

Regards
Neil

I think you are spot on, I wasn't aware of the 35-40 margin, I don't know the exact ambient temperature but I think it was close to 23-24. The temperature is supposed to drop a little in the next couple of days, I will try again then. Can you please share some tips on how to build a dark library outside imaging sessions?

Just wondering if this is normal or not, I recently purchased a asi 1600mm pro and while I didn’t have a chance to use it for proper imaging I though I could just build my darks and bias library. I’ve started with -20 degrees setting and noticed a temperature fluctuation of -2.5 degrees in a 2.5 session while taking darks. Can someone also let me know if I can use these files that have been shot at 17.5 degrees to combine with future lights at -20?

Many thanks

Any Celestron EdgeHD 8 owners that can share some plate solving experience? I’ve done a test run on mine and the ASIAIR Pro continually fails to plate solve. I’m not using a reducer and for guiding I use the Celestron OAG and the asi 290 Mini. I’ve tried everything, it just looks that the fov of the edge(0.5) is way too close to the 0.2 limit of the ASIAIR pro. I was just wondering if Sharpcap or SGP are worth looking into.