AstroNebulee

Hi Tippon What I did for my astromaster 130eq marmite fine focuser lid is drill a hole dead centre of the lid, then unscrew the bolt holding the focus wheel on the telescope, then placed the lid over the focus wheel and put a slightly longer bolt through the hole and attached to the focus wheel, this makes the focusing much more fine tuned, I hope this is easy to understand, I'm not good at explaining things haha, clear skies

Yes that was the thing about the heritage that put me off, that different style focuser and whether an adapter would work, good luck be interested to hear your results, clear skies

Remember when using any planetary webcam it'll be similar to using a high power ep, think this is like a 6mm ep but will give you a good dip your toes in the water to planetary imaging at an affordable price

It is a great way of getting into imaging and many smartphones now have a pro mode built in where you can change various settings as on a dslr, depending which phone you have, like you I've had some great images from my smartphone, clear skies friend

I agree, the butterfly feeling when you finally get a good view of Jupiter, Saturn, moon craters or dso's, makes up for the disappointing and frustrating times. There's so much joy to be had and you don't have to spend hundreds to get that satisfaction, if I don't get a chance to get the scope on a night I regularly use my 7x50 old binoculars and can see so many things, meteors, satellites, learn the constellations and where to look. I've only been seriously into this great hobby since April 2020 and the satisfaction I've had on the few nights it's been clear (and I live in North Cornwall and we have well ropey weather off the Atlantic only being 3 miles in from the coast where I am) have far outweighed anything else. I showed my partner Jupiter and its 4 moons through my scope last week and she was blown away, so don't give up as many have said and you are seeing much more than many many others will ever see in their lifetime in the night sky

I'm really hankering after the zwo asi120mc, just got to persuade my wallet to use the money 😕, the svbony sv105 is, very capable but the asi has faster frame rate and more colourspace options

Hi I had this webcam and wasn't greatly impressed but that's my experience, yours maybe better, I went to a svbony sv105 (£40) which gave me better images with my skymax 127 maksutov, but I'm hankering for a zwo asi120mc, pricey at £150 region but will be worth it when I csn afford it, but you can get some great photos and videos with your smartphone to stack and process. I use my celestron nexyz phone adapter (£45) at times though pricey again it saves a lot of faffing about with holding your phone to the ep and better than some budget adapters. The attached images are with my svbony 105 and skymax 127, all stacked and processed.(they are slightly yellow as taken on the full moon last week whilst the moon was yellowy) I'm using a skywatcher eq3-2 mount and tripod with manual tracking with slow motion ra dial and video captures of 1000 frames ,we all like spending someone else's money 😉

I used to have an astromaster 130eq, the mount isn't the best for steady imaging, you could try adding a weight hanging from the centre of the tripod to help with stability and a marmite or peanut butter lid will make a good fine focuser to cut down some vibration when focusing, I used a marmite lid with a bolt and just bolted it on the focus wheel, I recently upgraded to a skywatcher 150p and skymax 127 with a eq3-2 mount and much steadier

Hi Michael So you think the cannon 1100D would be a good purchase over the asi as it can do planetary and dso images, the cannon is a bit cheaper as seen a few for sale online. I do have access to a nikon d100, could that suffice instead of the asi or cannon?

Hi Michael Thank you, I was hopeful that the asi would be better than the svbony because of the ability to do more with the colour space. It'll be mainly planetary, lunar and double star imaging but with the odd dso, so could the 1100 do the planets and lunar well, as I know it'll do dso's great

Hi I have a svbony sv105 webcam, I'm looking at the zwo asi120mc, the specs look much the same, but my sv105 the only colour space is mjpg, the zwo will do raw 8, rgb24, mono and raw 16, this seems better quality than just mjpg colour space, am I correct. Or thinking is a cannon 1100d a good choice for dslr instead of these webcams. Kind regards

Thus is Jupiter and Saturn captured with my skymax 127 using a svbony webcam, 1000 frame ser in sharpcap, then autostackket3, registax and ps, best I've had yet, not as good as most here but steadily improving against my previous attempts. They appear yellow as low down on horizon and full moon that night, will try altering colour levels slightly in ps moro to get more white.

Fantastic photos and description, there are great shots especially as Jupiter and Saturn are low down as you say, I can't wait to get going on Mars later in the year when at its highest, I use a combination of sharpcap to capture in ser with my svbony 105 webcam, then use autostackket3, registax and ps. Thinking of either getting a zwo webcam or a dslr or equivalent, but will use my smartphone on Pro mode for now

Great shots, what equipment were you using and did you stack the images they look great for a first light, I have the skywatcher 150p and skymax 127, clear skies

Hi Holly Yes I'm well impressed with the skymax 127 so far though only had a fleeting view of the moon and Jupiter last night as the clouds cleared for 10 minutes, I was blow away how sharp it looks and only a low power 20mm ep to try it out, and look forward to higher power ep views, the skymax 150 was just that bit to expensive for me so went with the 127 and well happy with it

Looking good, that'll give you some fun, clear skies

Looks a beauty, can't go wrong with skywatcher in my opinion

Comes with a free cat aswell 😂

You should be able to use pipp software https://sites.google.com/site/astropipp/to convert the video files to tiff, ser or avi output I think and then stack in autostackket3 software https://www.autostakkert.com/

Hi sunshine Yes I can't wait to use it in earnest and enjoy the planets and moon, its been in my wishlist for a while and has great reviews

Hi and welcome from North Cornwall, clear skies

It's worth shopping around and searching all astro and optical retailers for your scope, emailing and ringing to check stock, you never know someone may have 1 left in stock, but generally at the moment, especially skywatcher are out of stock and the synta factory that makes skywatcher are on reduced staff and trying their best to meet demand as the lockdown has seen a huge spike in telescope sales, I managed to find my skymax 127 after many phone calls and emails as skywatcher weren't going to replenish UK stock until mid to late August according to Optical Vision Ltd (most UK retailers supplier), hopefully you'll find your new scope soon and glad you've joined this amazing wealth of knowledge and help here in SGL. Clear skies

That's a great set of ep

Greetings from North Cornwall here, you'll find every one on here so helpful, knowledgeable and kind, helped me many a time and only got into this hobby seriously in April, clear skies

Yes can't wait to use it, she sure us sweet, chuffing clouded over here, curse of the new scope, typical as clear as a bell last two nights, but skies will clear again in the future.