M40

Plan is to do planetary on the skymax and EAA on the refractor. I can't see me doing many hours of imaging at the moment. As a first step I have been looking at the ZWO ASI244 or 462. Both work really well on the skymax for planetary and then EAA on the stellamira using something like sharpcap for live stacking. I got my first EAA picture under my belt using a lodestar x2 on the refractor which was great but severely undersampled, giving a very pixellated image. So while the ZWO sale is on, I thought maybe now is the time to buy a more suitable camera. Without using either a Barlow or reducer, both give a similar field of view with the 462 having the edge. Again, without a Barlow or reducer, the 244 is just over the Dawes limit with the 462 well under which led to the question. Looking at your answer vlaiv, I might be going about this the wrong way (no surprise there :D) so many thanks for the info as that was what I was looking for in the question. I must admit that I was angling down the line of the 462 and if it worked well, leave that for planetary and look at the 290 mono in the future for the EAA side of things.

🤣 Sums it up for me, thanks for the video link I will look at that later 👍

Hello Located and welcome to the site. I haven't had either of the telescopes you mention, but the Skywatcher 130P you mention has some good reviews and is currently in stock at FLO as is the 130M if your budget goes that bit further. The difference between the two appears to be the motor in the 130M but you can get that as a bolt on later. The 200P I have had and is a great telescope, but it is big. You will need somewhere to store it. Before you do anything though, have a quick look at this topic... Don't forget that you will want a few extra bits and bob's to go with it so leave a little wriggle room in your budget. Enjoy your journey

I am trying to understand aspects of cameras and telescopes and like most, I am trying to get one thing to do everything, so looking for a few clues please. Matching a camera to a telescope, would it be better to have the camera pixel scale below or above the telescope Dawes limit? Put slightly differently, which would be the best limiting factor, the telescope or the camera? Thanks for any help.

Interesting thought, has anybody used a usb hub into an asiair?

Hello Astro_Nic and welcome to the site. I don't know if you have found it yet, but there is a forum on here that is Observing - Deep sky. It would probably be very worthwhile having a good look around in there to see what people are using and what can be achieved. It's an interesting hobby this, with all wanting to look at something and achieved by taking different paths to get there. So if I can suggest, take your time and have a good look around and plan your route, I find that part of the fun anyway. Personally, I have started down the visual planetary and EAA for DSO road.

Interesting challenge, I don't have an Asiair but I do think that there is a typical connection diagram for it out there somewhere. At the same time, will you be looking at planetary stuff or DSO? If planetary, loose the guide camera and stick the EAF in there. With DSO possibly focus at the scope with the hand controller for the EAF? Be interesting to see how others do it.

There is always the good old battery power pack if 230V isn't easily available... https://www.firstlightoptics.com/batteries-powerpacks/skywatcher-powertank-7ah.html I have the larger 30A version of the Nevada, they are very good but they are bench power supplies so you will need to put it in a weatherproof box if you intend to take it outside near to your mount.

Hello all, I have a challenge that I am hoping that someone can help with. The mount is an HEQ5 pro and I am trying to remote from the laptop by using the synscan pro app for windows. I can remote using eqmod/ascom and stellarium and I can remote using the eqdir cable but I was trying to remote using the handset in pc direct mode via the usb/serial port to the laptop. Why? simply to use the star alignment routine within the handset/app. I have visited the skywatcher site and downloaded the ascom driver for windows app, I have set the comms to serial and connected to the "correct" port, but when I try to connect it returns "Cannot connect". Any pointers would be very much appreciated. Thanks for your help.

Hello and welcome to the site, as the others have said, don't mess with the screws unless necessary. Only worry about it if the polar scope is out of alignment and that is easily checked at any time. Find an object that is some distance from you i.e. a TV aerial, center it on the polar scope, then spin the mount head. If the polar scope keeps the object centered leave it as is, if the object goes off center you will need to align the polar scope so you might as well align the numbers then. If all is good, ignore the numbers and just picture the positions of the clock face on the circles.

Hello and welcome to the site 👍

Hello and welcome to the site 👍

🤣 just one evening??? you wish 🤣. Like the rest of us you are now doomed .... have fun looking, it never ends....

I am going to plug a planisphere and a phone app like stellarium for locating things. If you get a goto mount, then it will ask for a couple of stars to align to, using either the planisphere or the phone app you will soon know that that bright star is vega. And you get a +1 for downsizing from me, I had a 200p dob but knew I would drop it sooner or later so changed tack and got a skymax, not so much difference in the weight but so much more manageable.

Hello GalacticBoba and welcome to the site 👍. I don't have that telescope and have never used a Celestron device so these are just my thoughts. As randomic said, no one telescope does it all but that one certainly does seem to tick a number of boxes, very good brand with lots of future upgrades etc. A quick nose at some reviews tells that the goto is easy to use which as a casual user is good to know. Looks like you have had a look at the info available such as the weight the mount can take. If you would like to go down the astrophotography route later, add the weight of a dslr, plus an eyepiece/lens and a few adapters to the weight of the telescope and make sure it can handle it. The more space between the mount weight limit and the load the better. Another thing to think about with that telescope is the weight and storage of it. It's quite a lump and I am not sure that the telescope can be stored off the mount, hopefully someone else will confirm that, so it will take up quite some space and will be quite a thing to move. Have you found the "field of view" tool at the top of the page? go to resources, astronomy tools and click on field of view. Enter that telescope and a selection of eyepieces to give you an idea of what you could expect to see, not so much the quality of the object viewed, but more of an estimation, it's a really good guide and one of my goto places for looking at different objects with different eyepieces etc. Leave some wriggle room in your budget for a few eyepieces, moon filter, dew shield, power supply and a couple of books. All the best and enjoy

Have you tried slewing to a known object eg vega with the camera installed then looking at vega using live view of the camera? Is vega centered on the camera display?

I think you have hit the nail right on the head there, I put the telescope and the lodestar info in the CCD suitability checker and straight away it flew over to the under sampling side of things. The telescope is a Stella Mira 85mm, f/6.6, 560mm focal length. I have future thoughts on getting a zwo asi385, that seems to work very well in the calculator but that's in the future. Now I understand what under sampling is at least I can work with it. Many thanks

Thanks Mike, by blockier I mean more pixelated. The picture just seemed to overwrite itself and get less definition. I guess it's down to playing with settings etc and more experience with the settings and what to expect. Overall though, exceptionally well pleased and looking forward to the next time

Here it is, my first effort at EEVA and the grin factor is still there. All I have done is lighten it a bit in ms photo's. 15 x 20 seconds using a lodestar x2, 85mm refractor and starlight live. I am going to have limited opportunities in the near future as we are building up for a move but there was no way I was going to miss at least one clear night. I am puzzled over one thing though, I expected the image to get clearer with the more pictures taken but that proved not to be the case as all that happened was the image got blockier, is that normal or is it user error?

Have you considered the "Stonehenge" option? Multiple piers laid out in the format of a time gone by? 😉 You could also go all arty and paint them different colours..... two very helpful suggestions I am sure 🤣

I suppose having a hobby where one security light later etc etc ...... so maybe the answer is to think about an astrocamera. On the flip side, you are so lucky to live in an area where the only thing that disturbs you is a camera click.

Thanks all, sorry about the clouds. We have an East facing garden, the mount is roughly facing North in the last picture and in that spot that gives me a clear view of Polaris. Also in that location, to the South East I can just clear the roof top of the neighbour's house at about 20degrees so the plan is to get it set up, chuck the TG365 over the whole and wait for a clear morning and give Jupiter a go.

And at work...... All that's left to do is when the clouds give me a few minutes, line it up and drill the North peg.

Dressed up for the normals.....

Moved on and more or less there.... We have an old house as such we have what was once an old concrete washing line post. The base of the post is at least 600mm deep solid concrete, I know this because I thought about digging it up years ago, anyways a bit of imagination turned it into this...