AstroNebulee

Great image John. As astromuni says use the colour balance or levels in gimp, though I use photoshop to process its pretty much the same, just look at the histogram as you alter it to get the blue peak in line with the rest of them. I have booked the 10th June off work for the partial eclipse, so hoping I manage to capture the event, clear skies

Great capture there, really nice detail. What scope were you using? I was going to try this last night but went for the whale and hockey stick galaxies, 2 for the price of one in 1 frame, clear skies

Thanks for the replies, sorry I haven't replied before but had no notification. I have since contacted FLO and they have suggested the two parts needed to guide with my 9x50 fs, a adapter and the extension tube then I can fit my zwo asi120mc-s, thanks again 👍 clear skies

You controlled to core really well in processing, great job 👍

M104 The Sombrero galaxy taken from North Cornwall 30-4-21 using my sw 72ed ds pro az gti & Canon 600D. 120x27sec lights, no darks, 20 flat & bias frames. Processed in dss & ps4 (using part of a great processing workflow using masks I've been shown by a good friend) I stacked it with the dark frames and without and dark frames, the final stack with no darks looked better, after watching @AstroExploringvideo. The mount was playing up a bit last night so that's why the stars are slightly eggy and not up to usual 30 sec subs, will try to reduce purple halos in the next edit, but I'm happy with it

I second this, once you've seen any astro object with your own eyes the bug will bite. Looking at images online isn't the same thing, someone else did that and there's no better satisfaction than when you've seen this with your own eyes, your own equipment and own viewung/imaging spot. The cold nights in winter (and other nights when it's not cold) can be put up with when you see any dso, planet moon features, conjunctions etc. They will blow your mind and you'll bitten. Go get that setup. 😊👍Clear skies

Thank you for the information. So it's best to mount the polar scope to the wedge and not the mount then? I may try my planetary camera for PA at some point. Like I said just want to try a no fuss non electronic PA set up as portability is key for me in my situation. I understand the plate solving is best kept going and I only generally image one target in a session with my dslr. Clear skies and thank you again.

I don't expect there's very much old stock left atall now as most is out of stock at the moment.

This may seem like the daftest question. I'm going to try and fit a eq5 polar scope via rings onto a bracket. Most of the placement positions I've seen for the polar scope are mounted onto the actual mount. So when the mount moves in the RA axis the polar scope will also. So is it better to fit the polar scope to the wedge instead as this doesn't move with the scope, it stays fixed on polaris. I hope this makes sense and a complete silly question. Also another silly question or if using say sharpcap or any other laptop software to polar align or plate solve does the software have yo keep running throughout the whole imaging session or can it be turned off once polar aligned or plate solved. I'm just trying to find a minimal non electronic way of polar aligning this mount to save pulling all sorts of laptops and such along with it. Clear skies

Thank you, I understand it now. I have to move my set up in every night and take out at every session anyway as I live in a first floor flat and image from a communal area outside, so used to aligning my az gti and resetting alignment everytime anyway, just adding in a polar alignment now so not much difference really to me, once I get used to PA, thank you again for your reply. Clear skies

Hi Do you mean you have to realign and do polar alignment again when you switch to a new target. Sorry if this is a really silly question Clear skies

Plus 1, On my experience of only owning this zoom ep, I can't fault it for my set up of Skymax 127 and evostar 72ed, lovely to zoom in and out of a target to save changing ep constantly.

Thank you so much. I'm definitely giving this a go when I get my az gti into eq mode. It's such a versatile mount and with goto and portability, I don't think you can get better. Thank you again be good to hear how you get on with yours. Like you I'm hoping to eventually try to set up a guider using either my finderscope or mount a guidescope on the side of the mount. Anything is possible with this mount I think. Clear skies

Fantastic, thank you. Is that the polar align in the synscan pto app. I think polar aligner Pro have a good polar alignment part to their app. Hopefully my star adventurer will be here by middle of May so I can use the wedge and counterweight for eq mode. I know the star adventurer will do all this for me but the ease and quickness of goto are paramount to me. Its lazy I guess but my star adventurer will get me great Widefield images of conjunctions and milky way along with my dslr. Thanks again

Hi power lord Yes this was unguided and in normal az mode. Around 100x 30 sec lights I think and a set of dark, bias and flats. Your mak M51 is excellent, I wouldn't be able to get that with my Skymax 127 with the focal length to long. That's why I love my sw 72ed. I'm going to try and mod a polar scope on the az gti when I fit the wedge to try eq mode. But just in az mode you can get brilliant results. I didn't crop mine to much and can reliably get 30 sec subs, may even be able to squeeze a few more seconds out if it. As long as the bubble on my mount are perfect in the circle shouldn't be an issue. Clear skies.

Hi I've seen before an article on converting a finderscope into a guidescope I have a sw 9x50 raci one and how to connect it via an adapter to use my zwo asi120mc-s for guiding if this is possible. Any help will be greatly appreciated or is it simpler to see if there are any lightweight guidescopes for sale on the used market. Kind regards Lee

I sometimes use my skymax 127 on my az gti mount, but think the payload including a dslr is at the very top limit for it, I can add a long m12 bolt to even the weight distribution but think a Skymax 102 with dslr is the ideal mak load for the mount. But just my opinion. I regularly use my evostar 72ed ds pro on mine and perfect for it. I agree that it's a beautiful mount for goto and lightweight, I'll use a wedge and counterweight on it and try to polar align in EQ mode as I love using this mount for its goto abilities as I like the convenience of it for quickly finding the target I'd like to image UPDATE my skymax 127 and 6x30 fs with Canon 600D is 4.2kg without dslr it's 3.6kg. If changing the fs for a 9x50 it'll be 4.38kg or without dslr 3.9kg.

Fantastic effort that. You've made a great start there and always nice when deep sky pops out the frame at you no matter how it's taken. What mount and scope were you using, sorry you've probably said someone before. Fleets and bias don't take long to do only the darks but 20 is best for all I think and more lights. I'm only just beginning also but enjoying what can be squeezed out of a no eq mount 👍

It doesn't have anything to do with backlash as far as I understand, it's a synscan app issue you were saying about. Sorry if I don't understand your reply. Clear skies

Stacking and processing will help both when you do it at the weekend, be good to compare both images then. Your getting the hang of the dslr now 👍

Thank you Roy. That wind was sure playing havoc with imaging the Luna yesterday evening also. I did try my zwo asi120mc-s in the scope, it was quite buffeting at this set up and with a x2 Barlow jumping around more than the British trampoline squad. Do the dslr gave the best none shake imaging there was. Like you say shame as copernicus was looking great and I really wanted to image Hadley Rille and Frau Maro closer, next time. Clear skies

Thank you Nick. Yes it's the perfect fit for my dslr, I'm thinking of using it in video capture mode for the partial in June, I did think about using my 72ed with zwo asi120mc-s but it crops a lot out of the view and the Skymax 127 and dslr seem the best option for this event. Clear skies

My lunar image from last night here in North Cornwall, Skymax 127, Canon 600D, best stacked image of 25 subs, using Pipp, As3, registax and photoshop, it was a really windy imaging session

That's great Peter, glad to hear your new job is going well. You'll enjoy the regular hours now then. Good luck processing your images they'll look great and I hope your camera survived its fall 😬

Nice and sharp that, the moon is a great target to practice using your dslr. Did you take anymore subs if the moon, you could stack and process them 👍