AstroRookie

Hello, after I wrecked my Celestron C8 (see Goodbye Celestron C8 ...), I bought a Orion 8 F/3.9. Because at the moment it is financially the only option, and it looks to me that this is for the time being the best value for money I can get. I also bought the Fairpoint collimeter set and the Baader 2" Coma Corrector MPCC Mark III. Delivery was a bit problematic, as according to the delivery company's tracking data, it was sent to the wrong address. When the box arrived, it looked like it suffered already a bit. First thing I did was reading all sorts of info on collimation, and I "collimated" for the first time a Newtonian (to be honest, I thought collimating a C8 was a pain, but this is nothing compared to what I'm experiencing now). Attached you'll find a test picture I took from M81 and M82. At first I thought the "comet" trails were due to poor collimation, and the following day I started the whole collimation procedure again. I suspect I have now made thing worse by going too far, and also, that these "comet" trails are not collimation errors but coma aberration. This is the setup: Canon eos 500D T-ring adapter (the one I used for my C8) Baader 2" coma corrector My questions: are the comet trails coma or a collimation problem (sorry if this is a stupid question) if it is a coma problem, can it be that I have to use a different T-ring adapter (like this: ultra short adapter) or ... and I'm just realizing this while typing, I "inverted" the coma corrector (I suspect it's this, and I know this is utterly stupid, but I'll post it any way, you never know if somebody may benefit from it) Kind regards, AstroRookie

@Louis D @Peter Drew I thought about that, but there are small pieces of glass in the OTA, so I'm afraid that pointing it to the sky might spread these pieces of glass over the primary mirror. A guy from a telescope shop, where I did an inquiry for a new scope, told me "it can only be used as an umbrella stand". I'll maybe put it on a second hand site for astro-equipment, and ask a "symbolic" 20€ for it, one never knows if somebody could use it for the spare parts. The initial idea was that I'd replace it within 2 years from now, after I gotten some experience with imaging. So now I was "forced" to buy a new one earlier and on a tighter budget (and the dedicated astro-camera will have to wait ...). So I ordered the Orion 8" f/3.9 Newtonian Astrograph Reflector. Of course I also needed to buy the coma corrector and laser collimator. But for under 1000€ I think that was the best I could get. I now I stop mourning about, it is what it is. Kind regards, AstroRookie

Hello Pixies, don't think so, insurance only covers glas damage of the building. If somebody else, well that is apart from my spouse, say a friend who was visiting us broke it, then her/his insurrance might cover it. But it's me who broke, and i have to bare the consequences. And I almost made up my mind, I'll replace it with a new newtonian. But thanks for the advice. AstroRookie

Hello, as I'm starting astrophotography on a budget I recently successfully astro-modded a second hand Canon 500D (did not have the chance to test it under the night sky tough, bad weather for several weeks now). Referring to my username, I considered this a major achievement. But I pushed my luck, and while trying to check out the backfocus with the DSLR-coolbox I'm making, by attaching it to the C8 OTA, I pushed the C8 from my desk. It fell straight on the front, it was even standing upright. Then I lifted it up ... the horror ... see attached picture. I looked how much it would cost to replace it, found this site: schmidt cassegrain corrector plate - 380€+transport Taking into account: a F/10 sct is not ideal for astrophotography (I bought a focal reducer tough, but still) This scope is 23 years old (optics were still ok ... till today) and spending 380€+transport, to fiddle for several nights to get things adjusted correctly, would be waste I think Focusing is not ideal either with this thing I was planning to buy a new scope in a year or two (considered, if I can make something out of this setup - SCT C8 with old DSLR - then I could upgrade to something "decent") Now my questions: Can I sell this OTA with the damaged corrector plate? I'm considering to buy a 8" F/4 Newtonian to replace it (a decent refractor is way too expensive for a "transition" scope), any advice? Kind regards, AstroRookie

Hello bayarealondoner, I'm using a second hand Celestron C8 (built in 1997, bought it around 2000), which was - together with the second hand Meade LXD75 mount - for years neglected under a cover in the garden shed. With this corona going around which forced me to work from home, came also a lot more free time, so I removed the dust and wanted to start astro-imaging with this setup in combination with a Canon 500D dslr (aka T1 Rebel in other parts of the world). Soon I realised (and also read in different posts on different forums) that this a not the ideal gear for astrophotography. As replacing the scope, mount and camera was (financially) not an option, I found out that the first most important thing for DSO photography is the mount, and I replaced the LXD75 - after having wrecked it by taking it apart to clean it (but I donated it to the youth department of a local astro-club) - by a skywatcher EQ6R-Pro mount. Next will be the scope - maybe in one year from now, and then the following year the camera. To me this seems the most logically path to replace old astro gear (unless money is not an issue 😉 ). Kind regards, AstroRookie

Hello TerryMcK, thanks for the info; I'll give it up as well. Concerning the behaviour on OS X, I have experienced the same, but not on a regular basis. So, guess I'll have to continue aligning with my Macbook. Windows is not an option. Kind regards, AstroRookie

Hello TerrYMcK, I just started with astroberry on a Raspberry Pi 4, and installed Polemaster. I ran into the same problem as you did, and your post was very helpful. Unfortunately I run into an other problem; it complained about the libz.so.1 library version (it wants libz.so.1.2.9; after havinfg installed it in /usr/local/lib and then changed the symbolic link in /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libz.so.1 to it, I now get a "Segmentation fault" Back tracing with gdb gives this: Core was generated by `./PoleMaster'. Program terminated with signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault. #0 0x00000000 in ?? () (gdb) bt #0 0x00000000 in ?? () #1 0xb2d8ebde in dlsym () from libdl.so.2 #2 0xb261ced0 in ?? () from /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libGLdispatch.so.0 Backtrace stopped: previous frame identical to this frame (corrupt stack?) Any idea what my options are? Thanks for your help, AstroRookie

Hello, On my old C8 SCT (1997) I use a 63% reducer attached to the OTA and my Canon 500D attached to the reducer. For my DSLR I need +- 105mm backfocus. This setup works ok. My question, if I would attach a Skywatcher Crayford sct focuser to the OTA, then attach the reducer to the focuser and then the DSLR, will that change the backfocus and will it no longer be possible to image with this setup? AstroRookie

Hello stash_old, thanks for the info; I only use indigo-server to connect skychart with to control the mount. The github issue even indicates that dslr's are not support. I have to say Peter Polakovic is very helpfull. Kind regards, AstroRookie

Hello endlessky, I have KStars/EKOS installed on my macbook and it is really very impressive and for a rookie a bit overwhelming, it has everything: planning, capturing, guiding and even plat solving. Cloudmakers Indogo-server is simple and fairly straightforward, but I'll try some "dry-runs" with KStars/EKOS. As for plate solving, I wonder if that is possible with a Canon 500D dslr, as it is not possible to have Live-view in combination with my slow F/10 sct (I have to be honest reduced to F/6.3 with a 63% ocal reducer). I admit, AstroRookie's first step in astrophotography is on a tight budget. Kind regards, AstroRookie

Hello stash_old, thanks for the advice; I'm using Indigo-server because I'm to stubborn to use windows (I only use operating systems based on unix), and I'm fully aware that there is more and better software available for astrophotography on windows. But I will have a look in a coming session to the alignment functionality in Indigo-server, if I experience the same, I'll post my question on the forum you kindly pointed out for me. AstroRookie

Hello endlesssky, thanks for the advice; concerning the hand controller, I have the impression that it's always quite far off; but as up to now I always used the hand-controller with eyepieces, it was for a rookie like me easier to get the star in the field of view; with a dslr attached to the main scope and a guide camera to the guide scope it's a completely different ball game, at least for AstroRookie

Hello, Mount: EQ6-R Pro, QHYCCD PoleMaster, software Couldmakers Indigo-server, skychart (on OS X). Applied procedure: Leveled the tripod Polar aligned with PoleMaster, so I suppose I can assume that it's decently polar aligned Star alignment using skychart, direct connection to EQ6-R (no Synscan handcontroller, AstroRookie's hubris 😉 ) First star synced: Arcturus Second star synced: Dubhe Slew back to Arcturus: nicely centered Third star Vega, which was close to the zenith: completely off Slew back to Dubhe and Arcuturus, every thing still hunky dory Question: what can cause this "error"; is it because I took 2 stars west of the meridian? Is it better to take stars in "opposite positions" of the meridian? Thanks for clarifying! AstroRookie

Hello, has anybody successfully used a "Baader Planetarium laser colli" to collimate a SCT (mine is a Celestron C8 SCT). I really would prefer to be able to collimate during the daytime rather then having to do a star-collimation during (precious) observation or photographing time. Thanks, AstroRookie

That's indeed what happened; I normally put the tripod on a marked position in our garden, but as I couldn't see Neowise from that spot, I moved to a stretch of land next to our garden. Thanks for clarifying that. All the rest however was the same, park position, polar alignment. As for colIimation, I tried this Kitchen table collimation, which has worked fine on previous occasions, but just would not work out today, fatigue ???

Been there, done that ... the first night I used the EQ6-R I entered 2020-07-04 , and it was the 7th of april 2020. I don't think there isn't any stupidity in this hobby I have not done, hence my user name 😉

That is exactly what I have been experiencing; the first star is way out. Last night, I messed up completely and I don't know how; when I could not find and center Arcturus, I parked the scope and even that was way out. Such a lovely night, where I could even see the Milky way in my Bortle class 5 location. So I started all over, and centered Arcturus only to find out that my collimation was ruined. Not being able to collimate in time before the dew set in (as I had taken off the dewshield to reach Bob's knobs). If I would have not been able to enjoy Neowise with binoculars, I think I would have dumped every thing in the ditch at the back of our garden!

Hello, Since a couple of months I'm a EQ6-R Pro user. So far I've been using the synscan handcontroller to do the star alignment. I would like the use software like stellarium, kstars or cartes du ciel thru the direct connection with mount, so no longer using the synscan handcontroller. I've tried but when I search an object and make the software slew to it, it's way off. I'm quite confident with my polar alignment as I'm using the QHYCCD PolarScope (and furthermore I've read on this forum that polar alignment and star alignment are not the same). Can somebody please explain how to do star alignment with software like stellarium, kstars or cartes du ciel - I suppose there's is some general procedure that applies to software like the three I mention? Many thanks, AstroRookie

Hello Ouroboros, I tried with KStars as well but at that point I was confused if still needed Indigo server as indi server, for what I think to understand now is that KStars comes with it's own indi server. Maybe one day I'll give it another try. AstroRookie

Hello, I don't want to use MS Windows at home (I do have to use it at work and that's more then enough); so we only run OS X and Linux at home. I recently became the happy owner of a Sky-Watcher EQ6R-Pro and wanted to start astrophotography with my Canon 500D. For the capturing I evaluated AstroDSLR and Nebulosity4 and decided to stick with Nebulosity4 as one can handle the capturing and processing all in one package. Then I decided to control the mount directly (not via the handcontroller) with the MacBook; as ascom and eqmod are not available on OS X, I installed Indigo Server I was going to use Stellarium to control the mount, as it's support INDI The whole idea was such a pain, and I could not make this setup work, to such a point that I gave in and actually installed Windows 10 on my laptop (with BootCamp). I installed ASCOM platform, EQMOD and stellarium and I could configure it so that I could find an object in stellarium and make the mount slew to it with a direct connection. But I had such remorse over the idea that I was running windows on my MacBook that I decided to go over the initial plan once more and I finally made it work; here is how I made it work: Connect the Mac(Book) directly to EQ6R (not via the handcontroler) Look for the correct port that indigo has to use: in a terminal window execute: ls -l /dev/cu.usbserial* - copy the name that looks like: /dev/cu.usbserial-141120 (the number may differ as I'm using a usb hub - do not take /dev/cu.usbserial) Start Indigo server and in "Preferences" > "Indigo Drivers", check "Synscan Mount (2.0.0.15)" Set the correct baud rate: 115200 (I sticked to the default 9600 and that does not work - I had found this via the youtube AstroForum channel where the guy explains how to do this setup on windows using ascom and eqmod) At that point, Indigo server connected to the mount, Stellarium connected to the mount (though Stellarium says it connects to a telescope ...) but no way I could make Stellarium slew to any object I gave it. The mount did not move! That's where my 2 hours experience with ASCOM, EQMOD and Stellarium on windows helped me: the mount needed to be unparked: in the Indigo server gui, collapse the entry "Mount", select "Park" and on the left click "Mount Unparked" Now go to Stellarium, configure the telescope, connect it, search an object and slew to it Still todo: incorporate PHD2 and my ZWO guide camera in this setup I hope this might be helpful to anyone! (And now I'm going to recover 90GB by removing windows 😉 ) AstroRookie

This adapter did it! AstroRookie

Hello, I recently purchased a sky-watcher focuser for my Celestron C8 (1997) sct together with a focal reducer. The focuser threads on the sct and so does the focal reducer. But how do I use both of them together. What I've found so far is, that one must first attach the focuser to the OTA and then the focal reducer to the focuser . But I can't see how I can attach the focal reducer to the focuser. What kind of adapter would I need? Thanks, AstroRookie

Hello Whytey, fyi, I installed AstroDMX on a raspberry pi3, but I needed first to upgrade to raspbian "buster" and then it detects the SV305, but didn't do any capturing with it. AstroRookie

Thanks, I'll give it a try next time; will probably not be this week tough

Thanks, for the info. I'll try to "translate" these Sharpcap settings to AstroDmx next time.