rnobleeddy

The skywatcher upgrade kit is pretty easy to fit and you have a pretty tried and tested piece of kit - you can either hook it up to a PC with a cable from the handset, or probably most easily, ditch the handset and use EQMOD. The internet is full of posts about this combo, so whatever help you need, you'll almost certainly find.

I looked at astroeq when I had a non-GOTO EQ5, but I don't really have the kit or experience to knock one up myself, at least without months of frustration. There are some other 3rd party kits available too, but nothing that was at a price point or had sufficient extra functionality to make it worthwhile (at least, imho).

3 hours ago, Chefgage said:

I would suggest mounting your camera and scope first and then polar aligning. That way you minimise the chanceof the mount/tripod moving after polar aligning. As the post above mentions if you use the L bracket then this can be positioned so the polar scope can be looked through with the scope and camera attached.

Thanks - I'd forgotten this was possible. I was mounting a DSLR directly in the past, in which case I think you're forced to do it in 2-steps. 

Glad you reminded me - who know's how long it would have taken me to realise!

35 minutes ago, Chefgage said:

With regards guiding with the star adventurer I get at best about 2" RA. I know others get similar results. So not the best but from tests I have done this means I can go from 45 seconds using a 420mm length refractor non guiding to about 3 minutes guiding. But this is not always the case. For example the other night I was only achieving 60s before I got star trails so something was not right that night.

Thanks - with the focal reducer, the scope I have is something like 283mm. My main concern is how well I can polar align - it seems easy for the tripod to move between polar alignment and attaching the camera or OTA?

28 minutes ago, Gfamily said:

A friend was using a TS60 scope on his SA, but had to use a counterweight because he was using a dSLR.

 

To allow him to do guiding he attached the guidescope to the counterweight bar.

Thanks. I might be able to rig that up at the weekend, although I have a (maybe) chunkier 50mm guide scope - I'm guessing that's the zwo 30mm? 

I'd be interest to hear how well guiding the SA works? Although as I'd like to be able to swap the setup out to my main mount, I'll probably set up a guide scope regardless.

I have a star adventurer with the green L shape bracket. I want to attach a guide scope somewhere, presumably at the bottom, so I'm wondering if there's a bracket I can buy or if I'm better off making one? The guidescope is held by the ~60mm svbony guide rings at the moment. Obviously I could consider attaching it atop the refractor, but the way the refactor currently mounts to it's single ring makes this appear tricky.

Then, perhaps more speculatively,  to make the whole thing mountable on my EQ6 mount as well (for which it appears the OTA is always parallel to the dovetail that fixes to the mount) I think I need another bracket + a new doevtail, so something the bar in orange below. I think I can definitely make a bracket for this one myself - a sturdy piece of wood would probably do.

But before I get lost, wondering if anyone has any solutions? I'd prefer not to spend £100s for pretty colorful custom telescope solutions, so probably will end up with boring metal brackets that might be designed for something else. 

Also, worth checking I haven't lost the plot with the EQ6 - is there any reason why I need to OTA to be parallel to the mounting bar, or will it sort itself out regardless?

Mount lives in the garden under a cover year round (after being careful for a while, this is easily the way I get the best value from it, even if it doesn't last as long).

Telescope + guide scope + cameras + filter wheel + focuser etc all come on/off as 1 unit and live inside.

Power box with mains cable + PSUs is seperate and stored in the house when not in use.

Thanks all - not sure how I didn't see there was another route! 

The website is broken and the download URL at http://www.hitecastro.co.uk/index.php/support/category/hitec-dc-focus.html isn't working - link should be http://hitecastro.co.uk/OLD/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=51&Itemid=55

I've emailed them but not sure I'll get a reply before the next clear night (although the forecast doesn't look great!).

20 minutes ago, dannybgoode said:

The routine in KStars/EKOS is pretty much exactly the same as Sharpcap.  Take a frame, rotate mount, take another frame, move highlighted star to indicated point.  Job jobbed  

Then I shall give it a blast! 

8 hours ago, dannybgoode said:

No point buying Sharpcap if using Astroberry. A) it won't work and b) KStats/EKOS has a very similar PA routine built into it

Sorry, I actually forgot to mention that, I leave my mount setup, so i bring a Windows laptop out periodically to realign with sharpcap. 

I'd be interested if there's a guide to PA with kstars as I didn't find it as easy when I did it last time, but I'm probably doing it wrong!

Sharpcap is literally about 3 minutes in total to correct my mount when it's moved a little, and maybe 5 mins in total when I've taken it down and need to redo alignment from scratch.

Sorry if I missed it, but would be worth posting how you did PA?  https://www.sharpcap.co.uk/ is the best £10 you can spend if you want easy, accurate PA.

But that doesn't explain your issue - even awful PA should keep the object in view for a while!

I've used Indi/EKOS extensively and my guess it that the mount has tracking turned off. This is in the screenshot above, or on the mount tab in the other set of windows you get (where you plate solve or set up imaging). If that's definitely turned on then it'd be worth running a few tests with it on and off to see if any tracking is occurring at all by seeing if tracking makes the object stay for longer.

I might be missing something, but I don't understand the comments about syncing with polaris. This won't help a lot,  but I can't see why it would hinder you other than costing time. AFAIK the alignment model you build with successive solves is just used for future slews. For tracking without a guide scope, my understanding is that you're solely reliant on the mount which will be a combination of the mounts quality and your PA. I'm certainly there's no need to slew across the sky in EKOS/Indi like the 3-star alignment you'd use with a handset- just plate solve to what you want, and then repeat when you want to move to a new target.

2 hours ago, happy-kat said:

Do you have lenses that cover a full frame or would something like an 80d suit

I'd have a go with the camera and lens you already have and see how it goes.

Thanks. Current lens are a couple of cheap primes (an older 28mm and a nifty 50) which are probably full frame as I'd guess they predate APS-C, and a couple of cheaper recent zoom lens that are probably APS-C only.  Trouble is from what I've managed so far, these are pretty bad for astro work, and definitely suffer badly from chromatic aberration and astigmatism. So I think in either case for astro imaging I'd need new lens.

I also have a 60mm APO refractor which is around 280mm with the reducer, but won't cover full frame either. So I'm not interested in longer primes for astro as I'd rather use this.

Outside of astro I'm an enthusiastic but very much amateur photographer so don't really have any need for anything fancy! 

I guess this quickly boils down to what I prefer, but I'd be interested if you have an opinion on either of

- does modding make much a difference to widefield? 

- if the 80D and 6D were roughly the same price, I'd guess the 80D is a reasonable step up in everything except sensor size?

Whilst I realize it may be slightly optimistic, I'm working out what gear I need to take with me when we get to go places again later this year.

Widefield with something like the samyang 14mm lens + a DSLR seems like a decent option for a minimal travel setup, with a windup tracker and an intervalometer making it laptop free.

Question is around the best DSLR for widefield? I've got a modded 550D that I used for DSOs but after getting a mono camera + a filterwheel it hasn't had much use. Does having a modded camera matter much for widefield shots of the milky way? Or would I better off selling it and putting the money towards a 2nd hand full frame camera like the 6D, which could also take over general DSLR duties?

I've never used ASTAP (but will give it a go!) but as others stated, DSS alone has a lot of options, so you'd need to make sure you're comparing apples with apples.

+1 for the D2. We have both types of streetlights nearby, so it seemed ideal. 

I'm Bortle 5 and it definitely improved contrast for me, although I did find it a little harder to recover a reasonable color balance when using this filter.

These are all modded Canon DSLRs with assorted filters.

Pleiades

M33

M31

The veil x 2

I've been a long time watcher of this thread so thought I'd add a few images I've taken with the 130PDS. I realize these aren't the pinnacle of what the scope can do, as I'm often battling clouds, the moon, work in the morning or my lack of processing ability, but I've been very happy with the scope for the 9 months that I've owned it. 

These are all taken with a QHY163M and assorted filters. I'll post my previous DSLR photo's next.

Soul nebula 

Bodes + Cigar

Rosette 

Pacman

I don't have that PSU but I use a 10A/12V PSU In a similar box without issue. I'd echo that I'd consider using an RCD a must, but otherwise, this should be fine.

1 hour ago, Jonny_H said:

Thanks. Are you using your Baader on a 150PDS also?

I've got the 130PDS and 250PDS. It's been great on the 130PDS, haven't really got any good data from the 250PDS but I've not heard any reports that performance varies with aperture size.

No issues with the baader here. There's a review or a bunch of the coma correctors if you search Google (although I can't find it now ) but I haven't seen anyone particularly take offense to the baader once you factor in the price.

10 hours ago, KP82 said:

It will be good if you could disclose the brand and model of your 60mm refractor.

AFAIK almost every refractor intended as an astrograph with a built-in reducer or petzval lens configuration already produces a flat field. There is no need of an additional flattener.

Generally speaking it will always be a good idea to get the dedicated flattener/reducer if there is one for the scope you have. It will make it a lot easier to get the correct backspacing. Otherwise go for a good general purpose FR/FF like the APM Riccardi, Hotech SCA and TS Optics 2"/3" 0.79x (I've got one of these).

The OTA is https://www.astroshop.eu/telescopes/ts-optics-apochromatic-refractor-ap-60-360-photoline-fpl53-red-ota/p,56055  - realize it's not going to be the best small OTA out there, but I didn't want to spend too much given how much use it'll get.

I'm getting one of https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/language/en/info/p5965_TS-Optics-REFRACTOR-0-79x-2--ED-Reducer-Corrector-fuer-APO-und-ED.html with it.

So I guess I was thinking of getting something like https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/language/en/info/p10090_TS-Optics-REFRAKTOR-1-0x-Flattener-fuer-ED---APO-mit-60-65-mm-Oeffnung.html as well, although in retrospect., I'll probably live with using the 0.79x flattener and just cropping the image. Reading the details for the 1.0x flattener, it appears to be pretty specific to small refractors, so wouldn't be helpful for much else.

I'd be using either an APS-C or 4/3" sized sensor.

Thanks!

Have been a Newtonian user but in the expectation that I may be able to travel somewhere this year, I bought a 2nd hand 60mm refractor that should double as a widefield scope for use at home, and be portable enough (and just about wide enough) to use with a star adventurer. 

I then realized I know nothing about reducers/field flatteners. Are there good generic reducers or is it best to pair the OTA/reducer from the same brand? I've seen a few scopes that have matched reducers and so I guess these relate specifically to those optics, but is it the case that they'll work poorly on other OTAs, or just not as well?

Main reason for asking is I might get a 1x flattener to go with the 0.79x reducer the scope already has, but would like to know if I'm tied into a specific brand, or if I decide to get a bigger refractory later, if I'll be able to reuse.

Not really much to add other than respect for anyone who carries an EQ6 inside in the dark! 

The dual band filter splits Ha to the R channel and spreads O across G and B. So you can't create SHO images because you don't have S data, but you can create images with H and O.

I tended to separate R,G,B then combine G and B, but I'd didn't use PS.

The problem is that, for whatever reason, it seems hard to collect a lot of O data with there filters. The veil look stunning and is strongly dual colour, but almost everything else was just a shade of red. This came up before, and another user had better success with longer integration times in darker skies, so I'd start by splitting the data, then stretching the O data to see what you've got!

1 hour ago, Neko said:

I see, well, if is specifically on DSLR then I don't know.. would depends also if it is modified or not. But to what point would it be that different ?  The fact is that it cuts out more "unnecessary " light, so it contrasts more those specific bands. 
as I understand anyway... I can't tell either. I have L-pro, and a friend of mine has the L-enhance , I had a chance to process some of his files to see what comes out.  but then again he uses a asi294Mc , not DSLR. 
Did you check Astrobin for examples on DLSR + L-extreme? 

will have a look too ^^ 

 

The problem with comparisons on the internet is there's too much variability. It'd need to be a side by side comparison, and I doubt many people buy both just to do that!