pete_l

You can't improve resolution by taking longer exposures (nor by taking more exposures of the same duration)

There is a sufficient spread of opinions on the internet that you can find good and bad reports of practically anything. Some are even based on reality and experience. Although it is often impossible to tell which ones those are. And since old opinions regularly get recycled by people who don't have any first-hand knowledge, even looking at the date of a post doesn't tell you much. All I can suggest is to heed the views of people who say they have actually owned an item - paid for with their own money - for a considerable length of time in the near past (the last 6 months for example) and to ignore all the rest. Ultimately it is up to you to decide which ones to believe.

Planners look at where people walk in a park and then build the paths on those routes. I would suggest a similar strategy here. Don't start with a permanent position, try out a few with a moveable set up and then see which one you like best. It might be that other factors, such as shelter from wind, become significant.

Best answer! I believe people get too tied up in sky darkness data, simply because it is one of the few attributes that can be easily quantified. A case of valuing what you measure rather than measuring what you value. Transparency, steadiness and cloud are just as important (though I'd say cloud-free beats all the others for obvious reasons). Even Mauna Kea only manages a visual darkness of 21.5 during sunspot maxima. That doesn't seem to stop them!

Stack Overflow suggests this error is caused by a lack of disk space

If it was me, I'd fix the collimation and focus before doing anything else. Then I'd put the scope under the stars and see what the images look like. After that, if there appeared to be a problem I'd start to use tools like CCD inspector.

Yes. The question is whether a unit bought second hand is able to show how much of that 10,000 hours has been used up. The equivalent of a mileometer or generator's "running hours" meter if you like.

Is there any way of knowing how many hours of their limited "life" these s/h devices will have remaining?

Great job. The "trick" when you want two identically cut pieces is to stack and clamp (or screw) two sheets of wood together and to cut them as if they were one piece of twice the thickness.

OK I guess what we all want (well, I do 😁 ) is a side-by-side, like-for-like comparison with the Baaders you also mention on your website. To make it more "interesting" to have the images anonymised so people won't be drawn by the name of the filter used. The images don't have to be of anything interesting, just the same target, same equipment, same exposure, same observing conditions. Any chance?

As Starlight point out, when you do bin a colour image internally in their camera, you lose the colour data. The presumption is that binning an OSC image should preserve the colour information

I don't think it works like that 😀 People understand (or quickly learn) that the a reconfiguration on that scale involves a lot of work. So they would tend to make the change-over once a season or once every few months depending on how many observing sessions they have. Unless they have another OTA permanently set up. But an SCT provides far more options. Apart from the native focal length, it is quick and easy to bolt on a reducer. So an F/10 SCT can easily become F/7 or F/6.3. And using a Night Owl can be brought down to F/4 (though that limits a user to OSC due to shortened distance behind the reducer). And while the mount was an abhorrence from day #1, my Celestron U2K is still optically and mechanically sound - it will be 20 years old in November.

Have you looked at Reichelt's offerings?

Unfortunately until you have experience of all of those you won't have the ability to make that decision.

Clear skies are more important than non-light polluted skies. With LP you can still do something but with clouds there are no options. Having said that, a mid-20's SQM is pretty good so I'd reckon that you have a site that is eminently suitable for all types of imaging, not just narrow band.

I was in Morocco earlier in the year. One of the street vendors had "Rolexes". Next time I'll ask if they can get me an Esprit 150 for €25

I don't know much about Li-ion battery packs. But it seems to me that the charge controller needs to have access to each individual cell to ensure that each one is being charged correctly. You will therefore have to modify those plastic battery holders to conform to this.

This is quite normal. All you have to do is d/l Windows from Microsoft onto another computer (a windows one). The download a tool called rufus onto the same PC. That software is used to convert the Windows version you downloaded (which is intended to be burned onto a DVD) into something that will boot from a USB drive. Once you have created your bootable USB drive, insert that into one of the USB ports in your barebones machine. If that claims it can't find it or won't boot then you will have to fiddle about in the BIOS until it can "see" the USB drive. But once it can find the drive, it should boot up Windows and install it as a trial version. After that, install the drivers. Windows will then complain about being unlicensed. But you have a period of grace to obtain a licence for it - some weeks.

The repetition rate of deviations often provides insight into their origin. Do you have the option of producing longer exposures - say 20 minutes? But not with a 90° offset from the pole, but just a few degrees. That way the position of a star won't move it out of frame during the exposure. The goal would be to see whether these deviations occur at regular times (and therefore are associated with the drive) or are random and therefore have an external source.

Is it not possible to paint the 3D printed object? Use an exterior grade paint and maybe a primer and the UV properties of the plastic wouldn't be an issue.

Two hours and nineteen minutes Can anybody post the 5 minute vesion?

Yes, that could be an issue. I live in southern Spain and we haven't had any significant rainfall since April. However, what we do get (like this afternoon) is a few spats of dust-laden rain. Not enough to water the plants but enough for the car to need washing. If you are planning on having the dome exposed to the elements 24*7, I reckon that you would need a means of removing this sort of deposit from your dome from time to time. Here's a photo of my car's rear window. It was clean at the weekend, honest!

Two things I'd check for wold be something sticking or a cable dragging.

A KAF8300 camera is just as good today as it was 10 years ago - they haven't got any worse. So there is still just as much "point" to buying one as there was years ago, The question is really whether the same amount of money would buy something better? An ASI1600 might be one option, but it is only one of many possibilities. And remember: people tend to suggest equipment they have bought, rather than admit there could be something better. On a practical note, look at the weight of the camera. I have found that the focusser on my ED80 will carry a DSLR, but the weight of a cooled CMOS camera is too much and the focusser slips.

There is a green circle that goes all the way round the image (or my eyes are playing up ) It intersects with the "blob" you have highlighted. I reckon the circle is a reflection, although the blobb looks like a grease smudge or some such. The question is: where? Generally the larger these things look, the further away from the sensor they are.