rnobleeddy

It's a bit expensive to try everything, so I haven't, but startools gets my vote. Everything it does, it seems to do well. It's probably not got as much going on as some of the other options but after a year I'm still learning. The addition of GPU processing has made a massive difference, and I like that's accessible to a newbie for as long as they need - 45 days sounds like loads but it took me far longer than that to go from first sub to first decent image (you may say I'm still trying!).

I found mine took a little adjustment to stop it slipping, but once I got it right, it's been fine. I use a focus motor that can move to absolute positions and I don't think there's been any appreciable slip in 6 months, based on the focus positions. I think it's common to drill a 3rd hole to ensure a tight grip on the camera, but otherwise I don't think there's much play. It's entirely possible I wouldn't notice though!

For me this isn't based on any issue with EKOS or the Pi - just that because I work in the house (once aligned) I'd need to take a laptop outside anyway. For what I use it for - I cannot praise the Pi4 + EKOS highly enough. It's superb free software, and IMHO, preferable and easier to use than the Windows/ASCOM route.

I tried to use my 130PDS to image the recent eclipse, but the cloud said no. However, in case anyone wonders about this, this was with cheap solar film on the front.

I must admit that I sneak out with a Windows laptop + sharpcap for PA and then use a Pi4+Ekos for imaging. Only because I've got the Sharpcap routine down to a couple of minutes and it works. I find the VNC over wireless a little choppy, but I will have a go next time!

Yeah, I finally got a video about 20 minutes after it'd gone!

Yeah, leaning to giving up (near Notts). The met office app had the skies clearing at 10am, then 11am, then noon and now 1pm. Not to worry - I'll just have to make sure I make it to the next one!

The met office forecast still has clearer skies as the morning goes on. I was able to see the sun for a brief moment but not long enough to align either, although it's now that I wish I had made a filter for my finder scope - it was easy enough to find the sun on my test run, when there was not a cloud in the sky!

The forecast here is promising that I'll catch the last hour or so. Right now I don't even know where the sun is!

Awesome, thanks @vlaiv - that's exactly what I was looking for. As I guessed, the barlowed F-ratio vs diffraction limited field size was just a misunderstanding on my part. Doing some comparisons will be relatively easy because I can do a full frame (of the 4/3 camera I have) in far fewer panels than the diffraction limited version.

Realize I'm dragging up the distant past, so feel free to ignore! I'm considering some choices on scope/camera and came back to this thread - still working with Newtonians but one day I'll get a decent quality longer focal length refractor. I don't think my 60mm F6 APO refractor will be much use for lunar work I'm trying to work out how big a camera it's worth using for lunar imaging with a Newtonian and have two questions: - why does the the x2 barlow double the size of the diffraction limited field rather than quadruple it? Assuming a 2x barlow moves from F5 to 10, based on the links you quote and for example here it appears that the diffraction limited field scales with F squared? I imagine I've just made a very dumb mistake in my logic here! - Less info is available on whether I need to stop exactly at the edge of the diffraction limited field? Everything is a compromise (e.g. less panels in a mosaic) and so I was trying to find an estimate of how quickly being outside of the diffraction limited becomes the limiting factor in the quality of the resulting image.

I had a practice on Saturday just incase it's not cloudy! 1. You should see some small sunspots (I assume they're long lived) and you may make out some granulation (I had to sharpen in Registax to see it) but to see the detail you're probably referring to requires dedicated equipment with a very narrow band pass 2. A filter may help improve seeing (e.g. red is less impacted by seeing) but afaik you can't simply use a glass filter to see the fine details in the sun. 3. I think people tend to use planetary techniques for the sun (record a video, stack the best frames) but it probably depends what you want to achieve. I can't get the full disc with a similar zwo camera so will use my 4/3ths CMOS for the eclipse as a compromise. My EQ6 tracked the sun very well on Saturday, so perhaps giving the eq5 a go would help

I try not to worry about the weather - it's much easier to be optimistic when you know it's not that **you're** going to miss out, but most people will. I've taken the morning off work and assuming it's not going to rain I'll probably setup and cross my fingers. If the forecast is terrible I should be able to cancel the holiday.

I think market forces still operate to some degree - when I've seen something listed here (or on ABS) at a bargainous price its usually snapped up very quickly. Generally 2/3 seems like a sensible starting price, although I'm much happier to buy a 10 year old OTA or mount for 2/3 of the new price than a 10 year old camera! Generally I don't think there's any shame in wanting to maximize how much you sell your gear for, so I'd always err on the side of asking for a little more and being willing to reduce the price if needed.

Sorry, I meant wasn't there a picture of the damaged lid on the original listing? I guess not? Is your PayPal statement made based on experience? I'm not sure how PayPal are supposed to know what is expected on a private sale when it's a matter of disagreeing about condition? I'm not trying to argue, just trying to work out how best to keep protected when buying/selling stuff (and its obvious that the answer changes depending if you're the buyer or the seller) - this stuff was a minefield when I was selling on eBay many years ago! As always it's probably best just to ask the seller if you can send it back. Other than arguing about who covers postage, most people are honest!

Was there a picture of the lid? Assuming the focuser is working fine (based on previous comments) then I'd guess the question comes down to how dirty the lens is. That's not super easy to tell from a photograph and it's pretty subjective - it'd be easy enough to argue that it is working fine, as I don't think anyone expects the dust to matter? Mainly posting as I'm curious to know about the PayPal situation - I'm guessing they won't accept the listing as official in the same way as they would an eBay auction - but It sounds like it's a slam dunk that they'll allow you to send it back?

Alternatively, these cameras (with high IR sensitivity) can be pretty effective with a IR pass filter, effectively becoming mono IR cameras above 800nm. That works well for lunar imaging because those wavelengths suffer less from seeing, and so in theory, you can get sharper images.

Do you have any suggestions? I can see that the stack is clearly better than single images, and the wavelet sharpened image is clearly better than the stack. so I guess that the obvious things are to ditch the drizzle, go B&W and perhaps tweak the sharpening in Registax?

Aha, makes sense - I've used a 550 and it seemed to work ok. Does magic lantern help at all? Edit - as far as I understand, https://magiclantern.fm/ enables a 1:1 crop mode for many canon cameras, and that is what I was referring to as the passible video mode. It's been a while since I did this, as so my memory is probably faulty 😰

Thanks - I'll try out some other options. There's a clear improvement moving from the raw stack to the autostakkert conv image to the wavelet sharpened image, but I'm far from sure I know what I'm doing in Registax, and based on the vast array of advice out there, it seems even more of an art form than other processing techniques! 1.5x drizzle was an accident - not sure why it was checked, but rather than do them all again, I checked and there wasn't a significant difference on a few. Good advice on converting to mono - I'll see what that does.

As other have said, this is more for planetary/lunar - however, some of the recent Canons (and presumably other brands) have decent video options, so whilst perhaps not as good as a dedicated planetary cam, are passable.

You can easily find 2nd hand modded DSLRs for <£200 if you have some patience. Depending on your scope, the large sensor size is also a massive advantage. I personally found that with dithering + long enough integration times, the results were good. I upgraded from a DSLR to a cooled mono camera + FW and whilst the results are improved, the biggest advantage (IMHO) is reduced integration time and the flexibility to shoot either LRGB or narrowband. I personally prefer the Hubble palette style color images, which are very hard to create with DSLR even if you use the dual band filters.

I've decided to have a go at lunar imaging but trying to get the most out of my kit before I work out what else might help. I've previously focused on full disc images so this is my first attempt at getting closer. The images don't quite meet expectations, although expectations tend to be based on the best of what I see on the internet, and so are probably entirely unrealistic for a 1st effort. Main reason for posting is that I don't know what I need to work on - so just wanted to post my workflow and see if anything jumped out? These images were taken with a 250PDS Newt + 2.25x barlow + ASI120MC-S. I also have a mono CMOS camera with the same pixel size/larger chip. I chose to go with this combination as it seemed like the simplest way to get started - largest aperture of the newts I have +a color camera. The camera chip size is also relatively close to the diffraction limited field for the scope/barlow, although I haven't got as far as working out how much I ought to worry about this. Working everything out for this setup I get: I posted previously and got some good info on f-ratio vs pixel size, diffraction limited fov, etc. I realize this isn't exactly correct, but I don't believe it's a million miles away (and it's also what I have!). Process was: - focus on the moon using the surface focusing methods in Sharpcap - this clearly worked, but seeing made it impossible to be exact - took 3000 frames in 8-bit mode, which took around a minute. Exposure time around 3ms. Gain at 50. - moved around the moon at random trying to find interesting features - stacked top 200 in autostakkert using mainly default settings - some of these are 1.5x drizzle which is probably over the top, but based on comparison, doesn't appear to make a great deal of difference. Also tried stacking 100 (similar), 300 (similar), 1000 (worse) frames - had a go at wavelet sharpening in Registax6 - at least some of these are overdone, but it's hard! I've attached 3 images I picked out of maybe 15 videos of different areas. To my eye these are both over processed in registax and still not as sharp as I'd hoped for. My next steps will be: - try again as is, because - the moon was maybe at 50 degrees in the sky, around 90% illuminated, so I'll probably look for a 50% illuminated moon higher in the sky - there was some cloud at the end of the session so I'm not sure if this/seeing may have made for a bad night. I don't know how to measure seeing, but obviously comparing results from a few nights would be useful - I'll probably move to the mono camera + a red or Ha filter to try to work around seeing a little more (and for mosaics - sneak a little more ROI to require less frames) All thoughts/suggestions gratefully received!

I don't think many people recommend darks for DSLRS anymore - rather, just dither as much as you can each frame and use a bias. I haven't compared side by side, but the evidence/consensus is pretty solid - it's impossible to match the temperature. Once you factor in the hassle/time used to take darks, I can't see any possible advantage. Good to know the 6D is low noise though - considering picking one up!

I got a Cheshire collimator for £25 and it seems to do the job! I do have a background level of dread that I'm doing it wrong but I'm happy enough with the images I take. It appears from my experience that keeping a reasonably well collimated scope collimated by moving the primary is pretty straightforward - I'd expect it's much harder when you need to move the secondary mirror.