jacko61

I have the same issue with my iPolar and windows 10. I got it working again for a short while by accepting all the driver updates in win 10 notifications but it's stopped again and nothing I try seems to work. I've since bought a used polemaster at a decent price. Graeme

First time I've attempted the horsehead and flame nebulae in Orion's belt. WO ZS73 / flat74r, ZWO asi533mc pro. 14 x 180 second lights plus darks. Stacked in DSS, processed in GIMP. Wanted to collect a lot more but the clouds rolled into central Scotland around 11:45. There's a couple of dust bunnies to deal with when I get round to taking flats but I'm quite pleased with the results so far... Graeme

Incredible image Ed! Graeme

My ROR is an 8x12 shed with an 8x4 shed stuck on the end for the warm room. Works very well for AP in this cold weather as I can stick a small fan heater in the warm room and be very toasty watching APT take my subs Loads of room in the scope end to move around or sit on an observing chair. The only thing I think I'd change would be the material the roof is made of - it's currently a clear corrugated polycarbonate which gets so much condensation this time of year I have to have a waterproof cover on the scope. Next spring it's coming off and getting replaced with a ply and roofing felt roof. I'm also looking at ships chandlers to see if I can get some sort of windlass to move the roof. graeme

The postman just delivered a small box from FLO. I'm not going to find out what's in it till Christmas day tho Graeme

Hi. The C8 SCT is (IMHO) a great scope for imaging small objects. Although I've recently been concentrating on M31 with my William optics ZS73, my forays into AP earlier this year were done using my C8 SCT (0.63 reducer) and Canon DSLR ... BUT I was guiding with an SVBONY 60mm guidescope and ZWO ASI290MM mini and was getting great results in PHD2. Here's M13 and M101 showing some nice round stars from 180 second subs, and also my first attempt at Jupiter using an ASI533MC pro astrocam. Backfocus from the threads on the reducer to the camera chip is 105mm - took me ages to track that little snippet of info down. It's well worth fitting Celestron's focus motor - Focus Motor | Celestron - manual focussing on the C8 is a hit-or-miss affair but the motor makes it as smooth as satin (although you may need to update the Nexstar handset to the Nexstar + depending on the age of the mount (although the AVX is a more recent version of my ASGT so it should have nexstar + anyway). As the Nexstar + has a miniUSB port, it's a straightforward job to connect the scope up to CPWI to simplify the alignment and goto process and also allow PHD2 to implement pulse guiding instead of ST4. For visual. I fit a 2" Baader clicklock. All my eyepieces and barlow are 2" and I find the views through the C8 to be superb. Graeme

Thanks Malcolm. One less length of spaghetti Graeme

Probably a dumb question but hopefully a simple answer . I set up CPWI over the weekend to run my Advance GT mount from the warm room in my observatory - mini USB from the handset to my Laptop. Prior to this I was doing all the alignment and GOTOs from the handset and I was guiding with PHD2 using the ST4 cable to the mount from my guide camera. Yesterday, when I was trying to guide with PHD2 alongside CPWI I couldn't get a calibration to work and the guiding was all over the place. After some googling, I found I had to Change the Mount Driver from 'On camera' to CPWI (ASCOM). So.... Does this now mean I can dispense with the ST4 cable? Graeme

Insanely Jealous. That's on my wish list for next spring. Graeme

Hmm. I did a factory reset of the handset this evening and it still does the 10 degree slew straight after switching on. However, if I then go into the utiities menu I can tell it to goto Home and it slews back to the alignment marks. Very strange. but I'm not going to worry about it till it blows up completely (and by then I should have an EQ6-R pro to play with). Graeme

All set up last night to do some imaging - first clear night for ages! Got everything lined up, polemaster working perfectly, focuser connected to APT fine etc. Started the Alignment routine in CPWI and the mount lost power as soon as the slew started. Tried a few more times but got the same results s I gave up and did some googling instead. The consensus pointed at a dodgy switch so I went out this morning and soldered a small jumper cable across the switch contacts so it's always on. This seems to have fixed the power issue. HOWEVER, when I switch the mount on at the plug now, as soon as the handset has finished it's initial checks the mount slews about 10 degrees. If I then move it back to the start position it seems to go through the alignment routine ok. I'm just wondering if anyone else has encountered this 'startup slew' when they've fixed the on/off switch problem. Graeme

Last week I received a ZWO EAF courtesy of RVO which has since been attached to my Zenithstar 73 meaning I can now finish setting up the warm room in my observatory instead of having to focus at the scope. Today I received an 'opened the box but never used' Polemaster from an Ebay seller. Tested and works fine but I have to wait for an AVX adaptor coming in the next day or 2 before I can use it. This is replacing the iPolar I've had since the start of the year - for some reason it's lost compatibility with Windows 10 and no longer connects to the iPolar software even though it starts up ok in device manager. If iOptron come up with a fix I'll most likely put it on the for sale section. Till then it'll make a lovely paperweight. Graeme

When my iPolar is working, I can polar align in seconds - home observatory and fixed pier so nothing moves between sessions. However, I've found an issue with iPolar and windows 10 where, even though the device connects and says it's working correctly, the iPolar program can't connect to the camera. After doing a driver update I managed to get it working again but since then it's stopped working again and iOptron don't seem too interested in giving any advice so I've just invested in a Polemaster Graeme

I've had good results from the RVO 12 volt dew straps - RVO Heater Bands With Integrated Controller - Rother Valley Optics Ltd These have an integrated controller (glorified dimmer switch) so there's no need for a separate controller. I have them on both my C8 and zenithstar 73 plus the two guidescopes. I run two 12 volt power supplies to my pier, one for the mount itself and the other for accessories so I don't have an issue powering them. They also do 5volt USB versions. Graeme

Strictly speaking, Herriot is a real vet's nom-de-plume I really enjoyed this month's programme - watched last night on the iplayer not 3 hours after December's mag landed on the mat (we have a very erratic post guy). I was quite surprised at the quality of the images Pete showed of Jupiter and Saturn taken through that massive refractor. They didn't seem anywhere as good as some of the images we see on this forum taken with much smaller amatuer scopes. Graeme

You're absolutely right there. My 2" Moonfish 30mm is green and black and it's fantastic. Graeme

Very surprised it's taken me so long to get round to imaging M45 as it's easily my favourite object in the sky. I had planned to get more data on M33 but I was so late getting into the observatory last night I'd have had to contend with a meridian flip after less than half an hour and the Celestron advance GT doesn't handle those with much grace So here's M45 - The Pleiades. 30 x 180 seconds lights @ 100 gain. 15 x 180 second darks. both at -10C. William Optics ZS73 with Flat73R. Main camera is a ZWO ASI533MC pro. Guiding in PHD2 using a WO 50mm uniguide and ZWO ASI290mm mini. Captured in APT, stacked in DSS and processed in Gimp. Graeme

In case there's any misunderstanding, I wasn't suggesting using 2". In fact my reply was excusing myself from the 1 1/4" barlow debate BECAUSE I use 2". Hope this clarifies matters Graeme

Sorry - I didn't spot the big white NIKON in your photo otherwise I'd not have mentioned EOS The T adaptor I posted above would fit in any 1 1/4" Barlow - Telescope Camera Adapter 1.25 Inch (harrisontelescopes.co.uk) As to what Barlow you get - WELL that's a whole different subject that I'm not equipped to answer really and I suppose a lot depends on how deep your pockets are. I've stopped using 1 1/4" accessories and have a 2" baader clicklock visual back on my C8. My only barlow is a 2" Revelation astro 2x. I guess you might want to browse through the forum using the search function for Barlow recommendations. Another option might be to use a zoom eyepiece instead - many of those have a removable rubber that reveals the 'T' thread that'll fit your Nikon adaptor. Graeme

As you say, the adaptor you have will give the exact back focus for your DSLR - this is for prime focus imaging and ensures that your star field is not distorted across the whole frame. This is the best set up for deep sky imaging. If however, you want to get planetary close ups by using a barlow (or an eyepiece for that matter), you are no longer doing prime focus imaging so the set up will be different. In order to use your barlow, You have to use a standard visual back, NOT the celestron T adaptor. You would have a short nosepiece on your Camera EOS T adaptor which would then fit into the barlow. It looks like that celestron adaptor is in 2 halves. If you split them, does the camera end fit into your normal visual back? (I suspect it won't as most 8" SCTs come with a 1 1/4 " visual back. ) in which case you would have a 1 1/4" barlow and a 1 1/4" nosepiece in your eos T ring such as this one - Telescope Camera Adapter 1.25 Inch (harrisontelescopes.co.uk) You would have to make sure the thread on the adaptor matches the one on your eos T ring. Graeme

Just to add, if you do use your Barlow you would need a short nosepiece that screws into the camera's T adaptor - Astro Essentials 2" T Mount Camera Nosepiece Adapter | First Light Optics Apologies if you already know this Graeme

You'd use the SCT adaptor to connect your camera directly to the tube to take photos at prime focus. As I understand it, your EDGE has a built in field flattener so to get the best out of that, the camera focal plane has to be at an exact distance from the tube thread. here's a link - Considerations on EHD Back Focus Under Limited Seeing Conditions (innovationsforesight.com) This is especially important when taking deep sky images where you want the stars at the edges to be as round as the stars in the centre of the frame. With planetary imaging, you're probably not as bothered by stars at the edge so you're using a barlow to get as big a planetary image as possible - using the barlow messes up the calculations for the flattener backfocus but the planet will be at the centre of the image (which you might be cropping anyway) so it won't be affected by distortion at the edges. Graeme

I'd say, if you're going to be using a Barlow you'd need to use the standard visual back and 2" or 1.25" clamp. Graeme

First attempt at M33 in only the second clear night I've had since the start of September. Saturday night was a catalogue of errors - firstly, my iPolar wouldn't connect even though I tried 3 cables (found on Sunday to have been some new driver downloads waiting on windows 10 - not sure how they would have broken the existing drivers but it's working now). Then I found my Advance GT alignment was way off and it was taking ages to get the alignment sorted - AND - once it was lined up, the power lead fell out as it had been dislodged while I was faffing with the iPolar. Eventually got everything working though - However, for some reason I had the gain on the ASI533MC-pro set to 150 (no idea how that happened) and I think that's the reason some of the stars look blown out - could also be my processing skills Next clear night I'll try again with longer subs at 100 gain. And finally, I had to bin half my subs as the clouds had rolled in while I was inside keeping warm. M33 - William OPtics ZS73 with flat73r , Asi533MC - pro. Guided with WO uniguide and ASI290mm mini in PHD2. APT, DSS and GIMP. Graeme

I started out in astrophotography in the late 90's on 35mm, initially with a Pentax MX then later a Canon SLR (can't remember the number - maybe 250). Only really had any luck photographing the moon through a 10 inch Meade Schmidt newtonian using the camera's own light meter. I didn't read anything on the subject and the internet was nowhere near as informative back then so I really had no idea what I was doing or how to get long exposures. Like Sean from Barcelona above, I don't hanker for the old days Graeme