AstroNebulee

Hi I used to have this camera before upgrading to a zwo asi120mc-s. I used mine on a skywatcher explorer 150p and a skymax 127 and had no issues, I used mine with sharpcap, the air quality maybe causing the blurry images, I never had pin sharp with my setup but when capturing videos in ser format and then stacking and processing in ps do you get truly sharp images. Saying that the images I had were quite sharp. Are you using a barlow lens with the camera?

Welcome to SGL, clear skies

A lot of the photos of planets and nebula have had some editing done to them with stacking and processing software, so may not necessarily look the same. Your scope being 10 inches should see amazing views. I took a image of orion nebula unprocessed with my planetary camera on my 6inch skywatcher explorer, you should be able to see plenty of Dso's with your scope and cracking views of planets. Clear skies

My first scope was a celestron cometron 76mm, then went to a astromaster 130eq, then to a skywatcher explorer 150p eq3-2 and bought a skymax 127 to compliment it best of both worlds then, sold my cometron and astromaster to help towards funding the latter purchases, no one scope will rule them all unless you have bottomless pockets and can afford them. Clear skies

Hopefully that Stargazing live will be brought back this year please, please please, after the BBC decided to axe it

I managed to take a quick snap with my smartphone of M45 pleiades on the 20th August this year, it's not the best but my first view of the season, its a beautiful sight I must agree

Brilliant Stu, it makes it all so much worth it for nights like that and good report, clear skies

Great report pixies and a good sketch aswell all the info is on there and gives you a good record for next time, it must of been an awesome sight to see Mars after a month of no clear skies, I'm like you still new at all this astronomy but enjoy every moment I can get on the scope, clear skies

As is my last post a x2 barlow is definitely a good purchase to make but kit a cheap auction site one, a 5mm would be good with good stable air quality viewing depending where the planets are for you, the lower down on the horizon the worse they will look as a lot of turbulent air to get through, the higher up the thinner the atmosphere

You won't reach any focus with the 5mm until night sky viewing as it's such a high power eyepiece and for longer distances, you could get a good quality x2 barlow lens then your 25mm would become a 12.5mm eyepiece and good for planets, I think a 8mm or 10mm eyepiece may be good but quite close to the 25mm that is x2 barlow, someone with better knowledge will come along soon but definitely worth investing in a x2 barlow and not a cheap one on auction sites

With regards to your collimation, the screws shouldn't really reach their limit, do you mean the primary mirror or secondary mirror screws, there should be a good deal of travel one way and the other. Like pixies said it looks like there's a 1.25 and 2 inch eyepiece holder in, did you try the smaller 1.25unch one only with the 32mm eyepiece, that should be good then really, thus is what my skywatcher one looks like without an eyepiece and look very similar as celestron and sky are made by the same factory

What are you trying to focus it on? doh should read it better, i see your trying on the moon, if you get the moon in the view of your scope then look into the finder scope if the moon inst centred in the finder scope then alter it to get in centre or better in the daytime point the scope at a far away chimney or aerial and ten look in the finder scope if not centred then adjust using the thumbscrews on finder-scope until the image is in the centre. That'll cure your alignment issues, but as Pixies said a photo o f your focuser eyepiece set up will help

I managed to get M42 on my skywatcher exploere 150p with zwo asi120mc-s last night, i didnt know about darks or lights but getting some knowledge of it now, i have an eq3-2 mount and tracking motor for RA and got this image i took it as a ser file but later saw i had to do it in tiff single file captures but heres my image and settings text. This is an old thread i know, so this is a usb 3 version of the camera. 04_49_24.CameraSettings.txt

Hi Swoop Yes i think that will be my next purchase, i just want to learn the basics of dso imaging with my scope and zwo asi120mc-s and not get to involved in it as my mount isnt good enough for that type of imaging. I just like to take images that I can show to family and friends to say 'hey look what i viewed last night and have a kind of record of it' I'm never going to become or get pin sharp beautify images on like the majority of fantastic astrophotographers on here , they produce truly amazing photos. Im just amazed at M42 I viewed and captured. I see if i just moved the scope down a fraction i could of got M43 in aswell instead of a faint glow of it at the bottom, thats for next time.

Had a go at processing the images a bit, so much to learn on deep sky photography, but will learn it just want to use my scope with my zwo asi120mc-s and take it from there at first, there must be a way, maybe just have to take individual capture as snapshots as i have with some, but the lights, darks, flats are confusing so more research needed. I did manage this and this is marginally better than the original.

Thanks Peter, I was just winging it last night, i have taken some raw 8, raw 16, mono and rgb snapshots in sharpcap will these work

Does anyone know how i stack my tiff file frames and ser files in dss they are just tiff or ser files, i dont know whether they should be light, dark, flat, bias, ive tried to stack in registax 6 but just hangs after 45% and then says not responding.

Hi Dippy Thank you for showing me what that image can look like and your kind comments, like I say this is only one single image frame and bound to be some good improvements once stacked in deep sky stacker and edited. I'm chuffed to pieces with it and never thought I'd see the Orion nebula ever, clear skies

This is my first image of the M42 Orion Nebula, taken on my skywatcher explorer 150p eq3-2 with zwo asi120mc-s and sharpcap in North Cornwall UK this morning around 4am. Its only a single frame image, that needs cleaning up a bit but was so excited I wanted to post it now. I've taken lots of captures videos in ser from rgb24, raw 8, raw 16 and mono as didn't really know what I was doing as never imaged a dso before (I've seen a few through the scope but waited till I had this camera), I'm blown away just by this single image, can't wait to stack and process all my other captures. I tried playing about with exposure and gain in sharpcap, but like I say didn't really know what to do, just did what I thought looked pleasing to my eye. Time for a nap now begore the processing begins with deep sky stacker, clear skies

Update... I've calibrated my laser collimator and then used it on my scope and shows the secondary was off by a bit so alters that so the dot in the centre ring then adjusted primary so dot disappeared into the hole, so will try with that for tonight

I've just put my 150p back on my eq3-2 mount after a month and am checking my collimation, I've been through astrobaby website to check I've followed the steps. The second photo is with my collimation cap in and the first with my long barrel Cheshire, the Cheshire crosshairs seem to be off from the vanes but the centre dot ftom Cheshire and primary centre spot are lined up, I can see all 3 clips with collimation cap on and the centre sppot on cap is in line with the primary centre mark, all the spider vanes are the same distance on each other, sorry for a much repeated post but wanted a second third and even fourth opinion. Sorry for the bright image and poor seeing of the spider vanes on the second photo but you can just see the vanes, the last two photos are with a sheet of white paper behind the secondary and the other a piece of blue paper blocking off the primary, I know there should be a slight offset as it's an f5 newtonian, it hasn't been knocked or banged since putting away, kind regards

Thank you, I'll give it a go and see if there's a difference but see what you mean 👍

Thank you Kat, very kind of you. Its definitely better than my first attempt. I haven't seen the registax link you shared and have read that and some interesting points that I haven't tried before like using 8bit bmp files, (is that like raw8, not sure) I generally capture in ser with the new camera I can capture in more types of output files now.

That's ok niall no problems, I've not heard of the cardboard with a hole cut out of it before, how does that work when stuck on the window, sorry if I sound stupid, it sounds intriguing

Hi Mick It's a great camera, I managed to image Mars on Friday night/Saturday morning, with the best captures I've had yet, also took some captures of the moon around Sinus Iridum my favourite part of the moon last night and yet to process them so hopefully something good. Will try to get some captures of the Sun this morning with my solar filters in place of course. Hopefully your having clear skies now 😁