Enceladus Dan

That's what put me off trying it out, I must look into the farm tracks now then. I Was thinking it could be a good place for a milkyway shot with my nifty fifty lens. Also it would be nice to get away from the city Street lights. Clear skies Danny

I'm not to far from winchester and often wondered about going to cheesefoot head. Security has always made me change my mind with being close to the road and never know who may come along. do you need to ask anyone's permission for the farm track? Clear skies Danny

I did manage to get out on the 19th, but I too had a tablet issue. I stopped using my gaming laptop and now have a mini pc and remote desktop from my tablet. As my west view is blocked I only every image to the east, on the 19th I decided to try and get M101 after the meridian at 1am when the street lights go out. Issue was I had no idea how to force calibration on phd2 to corect the guding after the meridian without a keyboard to shift click. (Lesson learned and screenshot on my phone from the manual now) So after getting frustrated I gave up and just admired the long missed veiw of the stars. After a sleep, I thought to myself why didn't I close phd2 down and open again. The evil light that stops me imaging before 1am. Wish they would turn them out at 2200. With my lessons learned on phd2, hopefully next clear night I'll grab some uncooled images. Clear skies Danny.

Depending on how tomorrow's skies pan out for me I might have an example image for you. I'm hoping that block of clouds either come early or late, its not great but the best opertunity I've had in a long time. Clear skies Danny

I recently (december) bought the asi533mc uncooled, so far I've only managed to test it quick on a ser file of a full moon. Between the clouds, work and full moon I can't seem to get a break. My situation was like yours, uncooled now or wait longer, my choice was down to a video on the uncooled 585mc having great results and on Paper the 533mc should be similar. I compared the dark current between 533mc and 294mc, I saw that the 533 will have similar dark current at 10c to the 294mc at -15c. My decision was put down to it being my first dedicated astro cam coming from a 600D so cooled or uncooled will both be a step up, I could get used to the 533mc and when confident look to my next one being bigger than a 1" sensor and possibly mono too. The £300 saving now can make a start towards a goto mount. As well as my trusty eq5 has been, I'm liking the idea of remote goto making things easier. Hopefully soon I can have some images to share from my uncooled 533mc. Clear skies Danny

Would sirill be able to convert tiff to fits? I tried sirill for my comet ztf image and all my cr2 were converted to fits before I could do any of the other processes. I found sirill a bit complex and ended up using a trial of PI to do my image, but it it's first step creates you some fits maybe from there DSS will accept them and apply the debayer? I'm following this as I have bought a 533mc and not managed to use it yet due to clouds. Clear skies Danny

his was the video i used as reference to fitting mine, the scope is different but has the same focuser as mine.

I think backlash is for rack and pinion focuser, ours are friction between a pin and the flat side of focuser tube. There is constant connection if the tension is too low the tube slips. I used 4x bolts as these were the original mounting holes for the focouser plate, the other holes are for focus lock, tension adjust, and Bush leveling.

Definitely do the trial, it's a full version for 45 days. Get as much practice as you can, try some videos with data to follow the steps. Then try some of your own to see how it works for you. I was trying DSS and gimp and siril in January for my comet ZTF image and couldn't get anything to work. PI did it perfectly, with some youtube help. Good luck Danny

I just bought PI and find it worth every penny. I did try it twice on a trial which is 45 days long each go. Being new to any sort of image processing it was a learning curve, but any choice of program would have been for me. As mentioned by Wim there are some good tutorials on YouTube, I liked ones by Lukomatico who is very clear and easy to follow. He also provides data to use and follow with him. I spent my trials following his guides and using the workflows on some of my old data with much better results. This convinced me to go ahead with the purchase, even if I have only used it once since due to the terrible UK weather so far this year. Clear skies Danny

If you take the whole plate off, be careful as there is 4x small rubber o rings. 1 on each screw.

Mine fitted.

Here is a pic of the bottom, The 4 corners hold the plate to the focuser, the 3 down the center are focus stop thumb screw, tension adjuster (take slip out) bottom ( counter screw) has no mentioned function but i think it levels the plate as it presses againt the focuser housing.the 2 either side of the tension screw level the Teflon Bush against the pin. The 4 corner ones hold the EAF bracket in place, will probably need new longer one. I bought m3 x 25mm long and took few mm off the end. To turn whole plate round I swapped the thumb screw and counter screw over and spun the whole plate 180 degrees. That way the fine knob was facing to the open end of the OTA. Danny

Also note once the EAF is fitted the knobs can't be used while the motor is fitted, if you plan to always use the EAF and the fine knob slipping on the pin isn't effecting anything else, it could be left alone. Clear skies Danny

I recently put an EAF on my 150PDS, I swapped the fine and course over as I wanted the EAF pointing away from the front. I just spun the whole plate with the knobs and the pin. I took out the focus lock thumb screw and the hex screw that doesn't adjust anything and swapped them over. The whole plate then fits the other way round. Clear skies Danny