Laurieast

Superb! Raising the bar.

I do have Autostakkert 3, so must have known what I was doing at some stage lol. Thanks!

My Asi 224 MC arrived today, but it's been so long since I did any planetary imaging I can't remember if I should use RAW 8 or Raw 16, I seem to recal one or other causes difficulties when trying to process the images later, something to do with TIFF format? I want to try and use it tonight on Saturn using my Explorer 150p, so if anybody could give me some basic settings it would be great! Thanks!

ASI 224 MC arrived from @FLO at warp speed nine after they got stock. I already had an IR blocking filter which I understand I need for planets. Nice piece of kit, now I need to learn how to use it by dusk today, clear skies predicted! Heavier than I thought, 152g. Wide field lens and support unscrewed easily.

USB cable, and set up the software, I forget how you set it up, but there is just a connect button. Always take astronomy photo's in RAW format. I then stack all the images in Deep Sky Stacker, and process the final output image in photoshop.

I use the Canon version of this and like it a lot: https://www.otelescope.com/store/category/4-backyardnikon/ As a starting point for DSO's I would go for ISO 400 and 120 to 160 seconds and see what you get, an hour at least on most things.

Very nice!

Rule No. 2 for Newtonion Owners: Always have the open tube horizontal when doing anything. Exception being collimation of primary. Remember gravity and falling objects.

Forgot from the other day, Celestron AVX Polar Scope. Awaiting delivery of knee pads.

BST Starguider 5mm ED eyepiece, and an Astro Essentials Cheshire Collimating Eyepiece 😁

Chris, Would CarPlan de-ionised water be suitable do you think? Thinking that as it's cheap and in most supermarkets.

BST 5mm ED Starguider. But keep it quiet 🤫

Thanks for that. What's the reasoning about using so little soap? I would have thought several drops at least. That cloth must have introduced more particles of dust etc, I don't see the need for that.

My thinking exactly, I bought the mini as a guide camera, but have ended up using it just as much as a lunar camera! But you will find yourself trying the DSLR anyway. I found that a full frame of the Moon on a DSLR can be very dissapointing.

I don't know about the numbers, but I have a Canon EOS 500D, and the asi 120mm mini, and much prefer the results from the mini for Lunar imaging 🙂

Cloud moving south and east, going to arrive here soon (NE Derbyshire). Had been looking forward to clear skies all evening, according to the MET OFFICE! 😤 Update at 6p.m. , clouded out, heavy dark clouds.

Or you can use JupSat in windows DOS 😉

Have a look at the observation report by Nik271, "Excellent planetary seeing conditions!" refering to a dark spot. In Observing Planetary.

Get a good mount now, and your choice of OTA's in the future is much wider. I am probably old school, but I would go for something that can take a dovetail bar and support the scope properly, not a fan of one armed things with the scope hanging off it sideways.

Just for another comparison, an Explorer 150 on an EQ 3-2 is very wobbly when trying to focus it, but on a Celestron AVX it's like it's nailed to the target!

On 6 February 2018, BBC Weather changed supplier from the government Met Office to MeteoGroup, after being required to put its weather services out to tender. Wikipedia 🙂

I have been running mine with the battery down 10 meters of telephone wire for years, and if your worried about manual focus, you can still do that, with slightly more effort than normal if you just unplug the handset, if the handset is plugged in it is very hard to turn.

The straight through version is 18cm long, the right angle version is only 13cm. I just tried to unscrew my right angle version, and cannot budge it.

Had the Explorer 150p on the AVX indoors, and thought I would check the collimation. So rotated it to a vertical position for ease of access to the eyepiece. Went to pop in the collimation cap, and somehow did not notice that in the draw tube was a 2"/42mm adapter and not a 1.25" , so the cap left my fingertips and rolled along the draw tube, departed that and spun off in my view through the secondary down the tube toward the primary, it was just like watching astronauts spin things across a cabin, it hit the primary and bounced 😱 Something black was on the mirror but it fell off when I rotated the tube to get the cap out, so it must have just been dust or plastic from the cap, I can't see any marks on the mirror, but won't be doing that again!