powerlord

Tested today with my APS-C and no vignetting - whether direct or via reducer. FF 6d though, very mild vignetting direct (50mm tube still), and major vigneting with reducer. I managed to source an SCT to 48mm adapter so will see if thats any better when it arrives.

That's a standard t size (42mm) unfortunately - I got one of those as a fall back and that has arrived. it works with my standard canon 42mm rings.

well yer in the same boat as me - I was searching through net for same answers. Yes, all SCTs other than the massive ones have this archaic 2"/24 pitch thread. The most common converters are those to T mount/42mm. And those would then just screw into a standard dslr camera t-ring. Like you though, I thought that was a waste - why would I want to reduce it to 42mm.. Im using a FF DSLR so would prefer to keep it as big as possible. Hence, you need an M48 (standard 2" filter thread and usually what's on the inside of 2" eye pieces and the like) to SCT. And then you can use it with you 48mm t-ring. The one you've linked to is correct, however (again - just be reading up at weekend) I think the antares is around 105mm back focus. Hence, with a DSLR you need an extra 50mm or so. You get that if you go down the 42mm/tring way easy enough. e.g.: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adapters/astro-essentials-sct-t-adapter-50mm.html But you are looking for a similar 50mm length sct to 48mm.. frankly if you find one of those let me know.. otherwise you need the sort of thing you linked to, plus an extension tube (48mm thread female to male, and.. whatever..40mm or so length) i reckon.

I get one tomorrow coincidentally. I assume its SCT thread - 2"/24 so youll need a reducer to m48. stu

just drill it ?

So, i've only been imaging for 3 months, but I've come on quite a bit in that time- mostly on the processing and editing front - thanks in no small part to people on here pointing me in the right direction. So I thought I'd apply some of those lessons learned to my first image I took other than the moon with my DSLR -M42 back on 13th March with my 1200D and a 300mm SLR lens. First is the original edit I probably posted back then: And now there-edit using startools, and new techniques I've learned as I've got to grips with using Affinity: Maybe not night and day, and still not wonderful, but it does show it's worth keeping learning - and that taking the raw data is only 1/2 the job. stu

that is what I aspire to for sure. lovely.

Hi chaps, I've just picked up a bargain C8 for 360 quid. I'd like to use it for imaging so as a minimum I need a SCT to canon adapter. But I want to purchase an f6.3 reducer/flattener too. After hunting through the forums it would seem that latest consensus is that the antares one is identical to the celestron, but 85 quid. And in stock somewhere.. so I planned to get that. Either way, I have an SCT to camera issue. And since with the flattener it needs about 50mm extension to reach focus (105-110mm) than means a reasonably amount of a tube that would, if I got the celestron adapter be standard t/42mm size... which seems to me not a great idea for a FF DSLR. I'd have though ideally you want to got SCT to canon direct, or SCT to 48mm to canon ? So though the celestron and others offer this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Celestron-93633-T-Adapter-C5-9-25/dp/B00009X3V8 https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adapters/astro-essentials-sct-t-adapter-50mm.html I'm gonna get vignetting surely ? why reduce SCT 2" down to 42mm ?? I'd have though a canon 48mm like https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adapters/ts-ultra-short-adapter-from-m48-to-canon-eos-ef-only-1-mm-length.html would be prefered, with a 48mm tube and a 48mm to SCT ? Basically a bit confused - what are folk using out there ?

Hmm. Thanks. OK ive screwed up somewhere then. I use affinity. I pulled each channel out as a bw layer, then set top one to difference for layer style. Each is simply the stacked stretched image from APP. One with halpha filter, one with oiii. Affinity does have a bit of a weird way of separating channels. I'll try it in PS. Now I know it's me, I'll work out a process. Thanks again.

Thanks, yeh I expected it to be similar on both but just down to noise alone they shouldn't be identical surely. Either the canon is doing summit funky or APP is doing something funky (wrong bayer mask or something surely ?

Hi chaps, is this normal ? I took some h-alpha with my 6d and got what I expected - all the data in the R channel, none in the B or G. All good, grabbed that R data out. When I did the same thing with my Oiii filter I expected to see none in R, and a bit in B and G probably. What I actually got was pixel identical data in the B and G and none in the red. I stacked in APP, so maybe something up there, but it did work fine with the h-alpha. I've attached the h-alpha and the oiii stretched, but as captured and stacked (RGB data) When I mean identical I mean identical - it's same data in B and G. Put a layer style of difference on the G with B under it, and you get black. If this was doing what it should be doing, ih-alpha.tifft can't be identical, so confused. oiii data.tiff

similar, but a lot better than my attempt last week.

Any chance posting in new thread? I'd find that interesting and I'm sure others too

Have a look on ebay if u decide to change. I picked up a full frame 6d for £320 because the lcd plastic screen cover was cracked. It works fine, but I fitted a new one from ebay for 6 quid anyway. Recent polls showed most of the top dslr ap users use 6ds. But definately start with nikon and cheap t mount. Cheap intervalometer from ebay and yer cooking on gas. Stu

one way, is to push it with a finger - it it feels the same force to make it move both ways, yer good. slightly more technical - pull up with an elastic band - note length when it moves. should be same other end. If you want to get more fancy, attach a luggage scale and pull up. should be same both sides. stu

very nice. Yup, as still learning I'm taking every opportunity I can. Focusing (sic) on North America at the moment. I took broadband with h-alpha with a DSLR (see this forum), and the other day took some oiii (which is very washed out on bottom half.. I'm wondering if light leakage). Next time sii. All with the DSLR as that's what I've got. Narrowband seems to work ok last weekend even up to 3.30am. The h-alpha for example was really noise free in the R channel. Er..as a newbie.. what is yours off ? I want to say jellyfish.. as that's what it looks like but nebula names are not the most sensible sometimes.

Because safari shows you graphically where it is in the sky. Asiair doesn't. WiFi wise, all u need is a 15 quid extender with ethernet. You set up extender on mount, plug in to asiair with ethernet cable and now your asiair is wired into your home network. The extender has big external antennas so has no probs extending/connecting to your main WiFi. Now power wise, you want it to run of 12v right? Well all extenders I've taken apart have a 240v circuit board separate, that outputs either 3.3v or 5v dc. So all you do is bin the 240v board, and replace with a wee 12v to 5/3.3v buck regulator (see ebay for about 2 quid). End result is a WiFi extender which can be powered by 12v from asiair. AND if travelling, you just flip the extender to Ap mode in the field, and you can now directly connect to your asiair from yer tent, motorhome, whatever. Simples. Stu

That's why I did what I did Dave. Maybe I should do a video on it, as it's maybe not easy for the non techies ? basically I don't use the asiair wifi at all, but can access it anywhere from my home wifi. Stuff like converting the extender to 12v from 240v for example is actually pretty easy I think for anyone who can solder a bit. And yeh, I think it's easier if you are at the start of the AP journey and not bought stuff yet - then it's not a big deal to stick to zwo stuff. If you have already invested in other gear I can see why it's not a good match. I'm kinda waiting for news at work - if it's good news, I plan to splash out on asi1600, zwo 8 filter wheel, full set of filters and zwo focuser - which will really let the asiair shine. Problem is I'm not sure I want to part with the vast number of DSLR lenses and my DSLRs I've accumulated in the last 4 months. This is how it starts isn't it ? I am going to have a fecking house full of AP stuff by the end of the year. I'm alread into regular photography and video and must have around 10 4k video cameras. stu

I went straight to ASIAIR PRO, so again, can't do a compare. But for me, I love it. Yes, it limits you to ZWO cameras (though supports loads of DSLRs), ZWP filter wheels, ZWO focusers. It does support all mounts. Up front: looked through first telescope when i got one in January, started imaging in March.. so I am no expert. My view is for me, it's absolutely great. The AP is not quite as easy as synscan as not live adjust - but still can PA usually to less than 1 second in about 8 mins. The app is solid reliable and very well integrated - allowing guiding, dithering, etc. You setup autoruns for your targets, and fire it off. You can livestack too if you want, and the results are every bit as good as from APP in my eyes, though I tend not to, as I don't have a need for it unless I'm trying to impress mates. I still use DLSR live view for focusing with a bahtinov mask. It live stretches each shot it takes, so its really easy to see if you are actually where you want to be for a nebula, etc - whereas before I was shooting based on histrogram on DSLR and of course couldn't actually see anything bar a star or two on the DLSR while shooting - which was a pain. My setup is an EQ5, manually updated by me with EQSTAR PRO goto. OTA is usually a 72ED, but sometimes make127 or DSLR lenses. I've got a 200p, but not used in anger yet with it. I guide with a 120mm and main camera usually 6D or 1200D or ASI224. My guiding usually under 1 sec rms with this crufty old EQ5. I get 600 sec exposure fine with the 72ED and 6d. It all 'just works' frankly. any issues I've had have been due to slight quirks with the EQSTAR bit rather than ASIAIR. Using it with a big samsung tablet is a pleasure - I spend about 30 mins now setting up in evening, then retire to my bed, and fart about looking at stuff, setup targets and let it get on with it. You can set it to park mount back home and turn everything off at the end of session. It also can do video with ZWO cameras, but Ive not tried that yet. So pretty much nothing but praise for it. I've posted a few times over the last few weeks about this, and realise I'm in danger of sounding like a fanboy/zwo shill - but imho if you are happy to pay 300 quid for a pi4, custom power board and a fancy case. But imho the work has gone into making the software integrated, easy to use and building a great mobile app. As a software architect I know how difficult that is - and I am impressed how well they have managed to pull everything together into an easy to use mobile app. There are folk trying to hack other stuff into it, but general view is that its not using indi drivers for cameras/etc so can't extend to non-zwo stuff. It will also let you control the cooling on ZWO cameras, control 12v dew heaters by output voltage, etc. I have a 256gb very fast usb stick stuck in it, and I have it ethernet wired to a wifi extender - all on the mount. So it's basically on my home network meaning I can access it anywhere in my home. Also, it supports EQMOD with safari, meaning you can run safari on tablet too, and see where the mount is pointing and control if required easily - I use that to move targets a bit sometimes off a nebula 'centre' for artistic framing, etc. Also, as you can only set targets based on the classified name (why ? wish they'd update this), I use safari to get that often. i.e. finding out elephant nebula is IC1396, and then search that in ASIAIR and goto. stu

It's a good channel. entertaining. Other than the rabbit, his schtick is a bit top gear - you know.. something terrible always goes wrong or dumb mistake, but it all works out in the end. Which I assume must be planned as it happens every time. And I wish he had more info in his descriptions. For example I was watching and near the end he says 'both were grading using an automatic grading tool'. well.. ok.. what ? startools ? PI ? Be good to know. It's not one for detailed tutorials or reviews, but for entertainment, it's definately the best astro channel out there for sure.

yup correct. youve therefore got all you need to start guiding. I can't recommend the best of easiest windows software I'm afraid, because 1. i use asiair, and 2. im a macos user. So I'll leave software choices to others but I suspect all you need is PSD2. stu

I was saying no need to wire the DSLR in for now if you want to simplify - laptop will still do guiding etc. you'll still need all the stuff I said (or do it wifi), but you could leave DSLR control, plate solving, till later. You'd just keep using synscan to do your 2/3 star align, PA, etc. But just my opinion - and I know there are strong feeling either way here, so you need to decide where you wanna go - but I'd recommend asiair everytime - original 2nd hand for 90 quid. And it just works. However others will tell you windows and all that software just works, or astroberry just works, etc - each to their own - I can only say what my experience was - I was like you '$%@£@£ I need what now .. kstars does what ? and now I need ekos.. and what is psd2 ? and does that control camera or do I still need sharpcap.. and this APD thing.. and do they talk to each other and where do I start.. and jeez this is complicated - [removed word] it, I'll get an asiair - 30 mins reading manual, 30 mins watching youtube - first night I'm guiding and dithering for the first time, I'm controlling dslr for first time, I'm plate solving for first time - absolute revelation. stu p.s. if ZWO is reading this, I will accept an ASI1600 pro as payment for being your mouthpeice p.p.s. not really - no connection. just think its a great product.

sure wifi will work, just be aware you will lose internet access from the laptop - assuming it was previously using wifi for internet. I started that way, but soon moved to a cable that 'just works'. But yeh - give it a try that way first by all means. Of course, while sounding like a ZWO shill - buy the asiair in classified for 90 quid. bin the laptop. access via tablet or mobile. no need for any farting around with 100 different windows programs. even the first asiair will do everything the laptop does, not setup, no fuss inc plate solving, dslr contol, guiding, dithering the lot. As a numpty to all this - I got mine and on the very first night I was imaging. On the second night I took this - so imho it was the best purchase I've made so far in astro. stu

make up an EQDIR cable, or buy one. This is USB to RJ11 which you can use to connect to the AZGTI. This allows the laptop to directly control the azgti. Guide camera plugs in to laptop. And to get fancy, plug the DSLR into the laptop via USB. This will allow your software (e.g. Kstars, EKOS, etc) to plate solve and control your DSLR AND mount, meaning no more need to do any aligning or use synscan at all. But you can leave that out if you want, and use synscan (pc or mobile) to setup as usual, PA and then control DSLR via intervalometer, etc. Basically guide ports are a bit rubbish. the protocol they use is very basic. Allowing your mount to be controlled via ascom EQMOD drivers is far better - and all you need is the EQDIR cable. If yer handy - all you need is a TTL USB cable for about a fiver from ebay, lop off the end, and wire it to the USB (pin outs easily found - there are only 4 pins). If not so handy, buy one for 20 quid. If you really dont want to do this, then you plug a guide cable (rj11 to rj11) from camera direct to your mount. And the laptop basically communicates through the camera to tell the mount what to do. But you'll get far better functionality and accuracy by doing it the way I've recommended above. stu

Have a look here. https://astrobackyard.com/light-pollution-filters/ You'll find they cut off below 400 (UV), and above 750 or so (IR) stu