Priesters

Added some bits and bobs to my AZGTi/EvoGuide set up and can now more easily frame and swap filters - all seems pretty sturdy which surprised me tbh. Whole set up currently working well with EQMOD, SharpCap, CDC and PHD2 so haven’t had to dig in to the Astro wallet for an ASI Air (yet). Loving being able to leave it set up and left in a corner so I can just grab and go (albeit then spend half an hour polar aligning/focussing etc 🙄). Overall really happy I took the plunge on the AZGTi. EQ6 doesn’t know what it’s done wrong. 😂

That fella must be a gizillionaire - was watching one vid and he brought out a “spare” ZWO 1600! Just had a pop up say he’s Moon watching live now if you fancy tuning in 😂

I just counted and I have subscribed to 45 YT Astro channels. I think that makes me fully influenced 😂 In my defence I do thinks it’s a reflection of the extraordinary amount of cloud cover that seems to permanently reside over East Lancashire. My two penneth would be Astrobloke for really technical mechanical stuff if you want to know about the innards of your Mount. Astrofarsography has done some pretty useful equipment reviews and Martins Astrophotography was very helpful when I started out - fairly sure he used to be a teacher as he explains stuff very clearly.

@bomberbaz Sorry Steve, I’m afraid that’s about the only piece of Astro kit that I haven’t bought.

Looking forward to seeing your final version. When I get a bit more time in my life I’ll definitely have to learn the post processing bit. My version looks like a child’s crayon drawing compared to your lovely water colour 😂😂😂

That's a lovely image and inspired me to have a go at "post processing". The inverted commas are because I only have GIMP and have no clue what I'm doing. Quite pleased with the result though when I compare to my first unprocessed image. Just curious about the blue-ish bottom left quadrant which I can't see in your image. Is that something that is actually there that you've removed through processing or something not there that I've introduced through my fumbling around in GIMP?

Guiding was a disaster in the end with some big excursions in RA that I don't think I can attribute to the mild breeze. Got 30 mins of data though then decided discretion was the greater part of valour when 3 cars turned up after 1am and quietly parked up together at the opposite end of the car park. Shan't be using that location again any time soon methinks. Unprocessed pic below.

Well spotted. At the car park just above the Atom if you know it. Really appreciated the van driver taking a pee about 6 feet away from my rig. Also had a few carloads of youths but all gone by midnight so on my lonesome now thankfully. Little bit breezy so guiding a bit off but I have some subs coming in that look ok. Very weirdly had problems connecting SharpCap and CDC until I used my phones hotspot to get Wi-Fi. The Mount isn’t connected via Wi-Fi - everything’s wired so a bit baffled by that one. Appreciate most people are using ASI Air so not e expecting an answer but feel free to offer one if you know 😀

Nice location but a few ‘characters’ around this car park at the moment so maybe my last post 😂. Hoping for a clear night and a shot at NGC 6974 🤞

Guiding was ok last night, but what about this backlash 😱. Is that normal for an AZ GTi?

And finally, first light for the portable kit 😅. No APODS at risk here but very happy I can pick the whole rig up in one go and pop it in to the garage after the session.

Spent a couple of years doing visual and really enjoyed it but got to the point where I realised my eyesight was the limiting factor - didn’t matter how good my eyepieces / diagonals were, I couldn’t improve on the experience so sold them, remortgaged, and moved solely to imaging. Am still a long way off feeling like a proper imager as don’t really have the time to post process. Definitely miss visual though and still have a small 90mm mak on a table top dob for the occasional peek at the moon.

Rolled in pretty quickly didn’t they 😂. I’m in Colne. That’s Pendle Hill you can just about make out in the picture.

“Looking clear here guys” @bomberbaz I don’t live so far away from you Steve and I was thinking the same thing. But then you had to anger the cloud gods didn’t you 🙄

Nearly got first light on Saturday but clouds had other ideas 😡. I did learn that everything seems to connect ok and I actually guided for about 30 seconds! Was getting some strange outcomes with plate solving though but couldn’t see the EQMOD interface to check what was going on with alignment. Is it normal to not see the EQMOD interface when EQMOD is operating via the SynScan App?

It was from AliExpress. Ordered 28/4 and arrived yesterday - £44 with shipping so not cheap. I tried the StarAdventurer counterweight kit but it didn’t seem heavy enough. I considered getting an additional SA counterweight which I’ve seen a few people do but I went for this bar as it’s designed specifically for the AZ GTi and is a bit longer I think (in case I want to really overload the mount in the future 😂). The counterweight is a Bresser 2kg which I bought from Amazon - £32. If there’s a way of doing something more expensively, I’ll find it 🙄.

Yes, definitely easier on the finger tips now 👍

Ta dah - and for once, no additional purchases necessary. Bolt attaching mount to dovetail (and serving as a safety bolt) has been pinched from the tripod extension that I’m not using. The green dovetail came with the Evoguide and the silver dovetail with my WO GT81 and I’ve already upgraded that to Losmandy so it was spare. Using a short 1/4 - 20 bolt that I had in stock for the safety on the green dovetail. You can probably tell I’m quite pleased with tonight’s efforts. Thanks for the advice all 👍

Here’s my new light weight, portable but definitely not cheap set up, ready for first light 🤞. See what people mean about the altitude adjustment for polar aligning being heavy on the finder tips but I reckon I’ll manage. There’s also no more telescope money left in the piggy bank for an ASI Air so I’ll be sticking with the cable spaghetti for a while 😂. All fits in to a tripod bag and a small oklop eye piece bag too so I’m chuffed with that.

In that case I think it will be a very good scope. In terms of the focusser I don’t think you’ll actually need an auto focuser like the EAF although it is handy to be able to focus from the laptop, in my experience anyway. If you don’t get an auto focuser then I’d suggest some sort of upgrade to the stock focusser. Damian Peach (top planetary imager) recommends an upgrade and I personally went for putting a Crayford on the back which, as you mention, helps reduce mirror flop too.

I like my 8” LX200 for imaging but I also have a WO GT 81 for when I want to actually enjoy the process 😂

Ok, I think I can help out a little bit at least. I don’t know if the focussing mechanism is the same as my LX200 but this YouTube vid should give you an idea of how to disassemble. https://youtu.be/qECRqoUlG4o I can’t be certain on the Celestron Bracket for yours but I can say it didn’t work for my LX200. There is a US manufacturer that produces 3D printed brackets https://buckeyestargazer.net/Store/ZWOEAF.php. It doesn’t list the LX10 but the owner is pretty responsive and has offered to make me a bespoke part in the past. So I also bought the Skywatcher Dual Speed focusser and eventually got it working but only after Flo kindly sourced an ‘old’ flexible adapter. Apparently ZWO changed the flexible adapters and the new version that I initially received didn’t fit. That worked ok but the focusser is a heavy bit of kit and adds quite some length to the optical path which subsequently increased the F ratio so ultimately I sold it on. I eventually landed with the JMI focusser and I’m very happy with it. Lighter and shorter than the Skywatcher and just as well made. Only caveat is that the ZWO bracket didn’t fit perfectly and I had to add a couple of washers but after that I am well pleased with it, if a little lighter in the wallet! Hope some of the above helps. Sometimes best to try on CloudyNights forum as there are more Meade owners in the US than the UK and they have there own Meade section. Cheers Andrew

Very pleased to report I’ve managed to sort it. Remembered a similar issue with Firecapture that was resolved through not saving the App in the Program Files folder. Something to do with Read/Write permissions I think. Anyway, once I’d saved the SynScan Pro app to desktop rather than Program Files, all worked fine 👍.

Hi all, New AZ GTi owner here just trying to get started and this thread looks like a good place to get some help 🙂. My aim is to use a wired connection to my laptop and do AP using SharpCap, PHD2, and CDC. I have bought the Lynx Astro EQDIR cable for AZ GTi and I’ve already used this to update the MCFirmwareLoader to access EQ mode. My problem is that I seem unable to get my windows 10 Laptop to connect to the mount through the windows SynScan Pro app. Each time I press connect it asks me to enter location, which I dutifully do, but then it just asks for it again when I press Connect. I can validate that the connection is ok as the EQ Firmware update has worked ok (I can tell this when I connect via iPad) so it looks like it’s just the Windows SynScan App that’s the problem. Any hints/tips much appreciated. Andrew

No worries - not my own wisdom, it’s a cut and paste from ‘Uncle Rod’s blog’. Think it’s clear that’s what I did but just wanted to make sure the original author was credited