rnobleeddy

I had an Espirit 100 that had almost the same pattern of mold.  I bought it like that for a reduced price. UV light was applied a few times and it didn't get noticeably worse during the time I had it. 

I recently sold it, and the buyer was confident it could be cleaned with the right expertise. 

So all is not lost! At the very least, apply UV, see if it affects your images, and don't panic.

I'm late to this, but isn't it as simple as telling people what will work at each price point. 

The advice to get an HEQ5 is usually given when someone is interested in a Newtonian to get started. Having tried (against the advice) to use a 130PDS with an EQ5, I can safely say it's a good way to encourage people to move to a different hobby. The focus was immediately on why the DEC axis ruined all my subs, and I had to take it apart, and in a few months I gave in and bought a better mount.

On the other hand, the second hard AZ-GTI I got, with a wedge, is a great starting point for anything less than 250mm. It could perhaps go longer, but I'd be wary of making recommendations based on performance that is either a lottery (if bought new) or requires tuning. But if you're saving money, who's spending £500+ on an APO refractor and field flattener to go with a cheaper mount?

My take is that a DSLR + a decent lens + an AZ-GTI + wedge is one route, otherwise it's a Newt + a HEQ5. 

I always find astrobiscuit's advice reliable, and very engaging for anyone new to the hobby - https://www.astrobiscuit.com/.

I have an Altair 115 wave with the older 2.5" focuser. Altair still list a reducer for this scope but it's been out of stock forever, and I've not a reply from them (albeit, I only sent it last week). As these are matched to this OTA I don't rate my chances of finding one 2nd hand being sold separately to an OTA.

I'm also out of luck in terms of finding any info about other suitable reducers online, so thought I'd ask for advice here. 

Is there such a thing as a good general purpose reducer, or is it all about matching with the scope?

Does anyone have any recommendations for something around a 0.8x reducer for use with this OTA?

I'm not an expert, but I picked up a 2nd hand Wave 115 earlier this year, and it's currently producing tighter stars than a similarly sized apo with FPL-53 glass. Obviously there are a million factors, and I don't think I have the best example of an FPL-53 apo, but I'm very happy with the 115.

5 hours ago, Adam J said:

RGB are really quite close in this scope as demonstrated by others using OSC cameras (assume this is an OSC?), once you have used a L3 filter its virtually perfect correction between 420 and 680nm. 

So its nothing to do with the filter you are using. 

I would take a look though your subs. 

Adam

 

You're right - I didn't have time to re-stack them, but looking at a few individual subs doesn't show the same issue.  Thanks!

1 hour ago, Adam J said:

Looks more like a stacking issue to me, as if you have includrd some out of focus stars in the stack with some in focus subs too. 

Adam

I'll check the stack again, but I didn't touch the setup during this time, and I'd guess drift might look different? 

I did use a narrowband dual filter, so wondered if this is exacerbating the effect, if the focus is slightly out on the red side, that might explain the ring around the star?

Found https://grapeot.me/auto-focus-solution-for-sharpstar-fma180.html which I will probably print and try.

5 minutes ago, Realtimedoctor said:

Hey, 

As far as I'm aware, ASI Air pro/plus only supports ZWO ASI cameras. I do not think you can use any other camera with ASI Air either DSLR or any other dedicated astrophotography camera. 

It's probably the reason why, your ASI wouldn't recognise your DSLR. 

Hope this helps. 

Cheers, 

Nish

DSLRs are the only non-ZWO camera that the ASI Air does support. 

I'd probably start by trying the camera with some similar software on another computer - although the software is different, it'll confirm the camera + cable  + camera settings are correct.

Alternate take, based on experience for an EQ6. The belt mod:

- makes the mount quieter

- makes GOTOs more accurate

- improves tracking a little. Maybe an improvement of 0.1" on a given night. 

Has anyone worked out how to fit a focuser?

I've only had this out for one night and whilst I thought I'd managed to achieve focus manually using the old DSLR live view + zoom, the result suggests otherwise. Although I appear to have achieved consistency, as I managed to same result on two targets!

Life's too short to worry about manually focusing, but I guess it'd be  custom bracket  + belt?

I love this target. Only makes it above my trees for a short time of the year and a short period of each night during that time. Fortunately it seems to hold up pretty well in narrowband HOO even with the moon nearby, and I look forward to processing my subs tomorrow.

5 hours ago, Adam J said:

Sure you have tilt but I honestly do  i see a little coma in the centre of the field and that should not be the case as the result of tilt alone. 

Best thing to do is a star test to examine the optical alignment of the scope. Centre a bright star in the FOV and then de-focus it until you have about 5 rings visible. Do this either side of focus blow it up and post the result and i will be able to say for sure if there is a problem. 

I use one of these at about 10metres to do this without having to wait for good seeing / clear skys. 

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/other-collimation-tools/hubble-optics-5-star-artificial-star.html

Adam

Does this work for setting back focus for flattener/reducers etc?  I can't think of any reason why not.

Doing some research of my own, the guidance on how to prepare images is pretty consistent:

https://astrovirusblog.wordpress.com/printing-astrophotography/

https://astronomytechnologytoday.com/2019/07/08/how-to-print-astroimages/

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/788173-where-and-how-to-print-astrophotography-pictures/

So just looking for any recommendations for online, UK based companies to use that have provided good results. Otherwise I'll just pick at random!

I've bought almost everything second hand, and not had any real issues.

9 hours ago, Hedtjarn said:

Sorry for digging this old thread up. 

Just about to lay my hands on the skyguider pro where I will mount my canon gear. 

As I undestand the L-enhance can be found as a dslr clip-in filter. But what about the L-extreme? Only seems to find it as a regular 1.25" or 2" filter. You guys who use it with your dslr, are you using canon ef-lenses or other optics? If you are using ef-lenses, how and where do you stick the filter? :S 

 

I had the same question a few weeks ago. I came up with two options:

- the t-thread Canon adapters often have a thread on the inside (M48 or M50-something for the two I have) that you can screw a filter in to (often via an adapter)

- I also 3D printed some 1.25" to EOS clip adapters that allow a 1.25" filter to be inserted as a clip-in filter. YMMV, but with the lens I used, vignetting is minimal. The bad news is the cheap 3D printing I used wasn't accurate enough to print the thread for the 1.25" filter, but blu-tac is a wonderful thing.

Just wondering if anyone has any experience of getting astro photos printed online and delivered?

Any websites that you've used before would be great, but also recommendations as to what works in terms of paper, dpi etc, and if there are any processing tips that result in better printed photos?

27 minutes ago, The Lazy Astronomer said:

Yes, it will work fine over usb2. Be aware though, that the usb2 b type connectors are different to usb3 b type connectors, so you may need to use a usb3 cable - although usb2 type b cables do fit in a usb3 type b connection, I'm not sure they actually work properly and I've never been inclined to try. 

Edit: I've actually now read your post properly and realised you already know the connectors are different, haha!

The USB2 cables work fine in the ZWO cameras I have. I have not checked, but it seems like the USB3 connector they used is designed to accept both cables.

Assuming I choose to buy something (there's always an urge!) just wondering if people have opinions on the relative uplift from some new filters vs a new camera?

I currently use a QHY163M (equivalent to ASI1600) with the standard 36mm Baader narrowband filters, listed as 6.5nm bandpass.

Filter wise, upgrade options include the Baader ultra narrowband or Antlia (Astrodon may still be too much £!).

Camera wise, I'd guess I'd be looking at a 2600MM (or QHY equivalent).

I know these kind of decisions are impossible to do scientifically, but I'd love to know if there's a consensus on what would lead to the biggest uplift?

Happy with mine. Very versatile and with  an wedge, I think it's clearly ahead of the similarly priced star adventurer.

There are a plenty of reports of QC issues, although if you're buying new, there should be no issue with returns. If you buy 2nd hand, be prepared to follow (relatively easy) tuning guides.

In terms of performance mine guides between 1" and 2" RMS, although I hope to improve this by further tuning of the DEC axis.  I consider this more than good enough for a portable mount given the focal lengths I'm using. 

And then when I need it, it's a portable alt-az mount.

17 hours ago, Geordie mc said:

No it won’t but it’ll make me feel better and hopefully it may make a few other people think twice before jumping on the ZWO gravy train. There are other options. Please consider them. Support your own country’s manufacturing if you can or at least a company with UK/European/North American customer support that listens. Starlight Express have always been brilliant for me in this regard.

Out of curiosity, are there any more local options that produce comparable modern CMOS cameras, within say 130% of the price of ZWO? 

I always find these kinds of thread (here, or anywhere on the internet) interesting, because it's always easy to find a group of people who have bad experiences, but no way of knowing how large the population is, or how many people are happy.

To add my experience - I've had no issue with a few ZWO cameras, outside of the USB2 120MM not working on linux without the firmware upgrade. Their focus motor is also solid, and probably the best value/most compact of the focusing options available. 

My filter wheel is QHY - I had an issue with that, but they helpfully resolved it via a firmware update.

I don't use the ASIAIR but I do use a Pi + astroberry and it's clear the poor WiFi signal is inherent to the Pi. I have had moderate success using either a separate USB WiFi adapter at the Pi end, or a WiFi range extender in the window pointing towards my garden. I do think ZWO ought to have been clear about the limitations - using WiFi in the garden is fraught with issues - there are no walls for signals to reflect off, your're attaching it to a big lump of metal, and the modem/router is often a long way away.

I just got one of these and whilst I got good guiding on the target I was capturing, the DEC backlash was pretty disastrous. 

There are some guides on how to tune this, but if your focal length in PHD2 is correct, I'd just continue with RA dithering only.

10 minutes ago, AstroNebulee said:

I did take mine apart and gave it a good regreasing and used cuiv the lazy geeks guide on the backlash, but can't remember now if I fixed the worm gear or not. I'd definitely upgrade the firmware though and use a eqdir cable to do it. 

Do you know if there's a change-log anywhere? I'm not averse to updating the firmware, but the number of devices that had died during a firmware upgrade in my lifetime is >0, so I'd probably like to ensure there's some benefit!

21 hours ago, Adam J said:

It will greatly reduce the blue bloat thats for sure but it may also kill your blue channel in the process making something like M45 or other reflection nebula more difficult than they need to be. Its also not cutting the near IR so well as the L3. My opinion is that you should wait for an L3.

Adam

Advice taken!

I've managed to get my first subs with this OTA tonight. All looking good overall.  With the default backspacing for a DSLR, I definitely need a little extra spacing so will get some rings. Also to invest in a better canon t-ring adapter, as I'd guess there's a little tilt too. But a good start.

40 minutes ago, AstroNebulee said:

Hi, great news to hear you had a great night with your az gti, what set up do you have? 

I guide in both RA and dec with my sw 72ed AzGti Canon 600D eq mode asiair pro. Though I use the watered-down version of PhD2 in my asiair pro. 

Also what firmware version are you using? 

I'm using an askar fma-180 tonight, but probably also 125mm Samyang in future. With a standard Pi4 + astroberry. Firmware appears to be 3.24. 

The DEC guiding is definitely mechanical though - just too much backlash. I found a few guides to tune it so I will try those out, so looks like it's possible to tune out the backlash sufficiently to be able to guide in both directions in DEC.

First night with mine, testing a mobile/battery powered setup. 

I've had great success guiding tonight - but had to set it guide DEC in one direction only.  Is that what everyone else does - or is there a possibility of tuning DEC to the point where bi-directional guiding is feasible?