jacko61

Hah!. I'm in central Scotland. We barely get enough clear sky for an hour or two of OSC imaging per month never mind trying to get multiple angles of the same object. Graeme

You might think that BUT.. I've had my 533 for a year and just this week shelled out for an ASI2600MC pro as, even with my zs73 reduced I can't fit some objects on the 533's square sensor - e.g. the sticky out bit of the heart nebula. Graeme

Ordered from Rother Valley on Friday despite Adam saying it was out of stock and would take a few days to come in. Then, on Saturday afternoon Adam rang to say he'd found one on a shelf that wasn't showing in stock so he'd sent it off. Arrived yesterday afternoon!. it's perpetual daylight in central Scotland now, so I'll be building up a substantial darks library while I wait for some dark nights. The camera is huge (and heavy) compared to my ASI533MC pro so I might get a chance to use the second counterweight on the EQ8R-pro (the ASI533 will no doubt be appearing in the for sale section soon). Graeme

I have the Eaf on both my WO ZS73 and my Altair 150edf. They are very accurate when focussing in APT either manually (with a bhatinov mask) or using the APT Auto focus tool. Even imaging near the Zenith I've never seen any slipping which is quite impressive on the 150edf as there's a lot of weight in the 3 inch focusser with extension tubes , focal reducer and camera fitted. very easy to install too. Graeme

As there's very little astro darkness right now I thought I'd have a play with our neighbour. First real attempt at imaging the moon. Best 50% of a 1 minute video captured in Sharpcap, stacked in Autostakkert, tweaked in Registax and cropped/sharpened in GIMP. Altair 150EDF with a 0.8 reducer, ZWO ASI533MC pro, Skywatcher EQ8r pro mount. Graeme.

First look at this target for me and unfortunately it had to be one of the shortest nights of the year. Also, M16 is really low for me so my scope was barely clearing the wall of the observatory - add in the big tree in the way and I only managed 30 minutes of imaging. Altair 150edf, ZWO ASI533mc pro, skywatcher EQ6R pro. 11 x 180 second subs with Darks, Flats and Dark flats. Also used an L-Enhance fliter. Next time I'll try with just a UV/IR cut as the stars don't look right. Graeme

That's yet another nice sharp image. Do you get any true astro-darkness at your site this time of year? I'm at 55 north and there's still a glow even at 2am. Graeme

Do you then have to have a separate set of gain 200 darks to calibrate your gain 200 lights? Graeme (sorry for the hijack)

Cool! Will it be ringbound when it goes on sale? That's a lot more useful in the observatory than a glued spine IMO. Graeme

£70. https://www.trifibre.co.uk/product/max520/ unless you're meaning the one I have - it'll be repurposed when I replace it. Sorry. Graeme

I wouldn't have thought not straddling the dec axis would be an issue so long as the set up is balanced. However, It's possible that with your tube rings so close together you may get some lateral flex of the main OTA. (if you hold a stick at both ends it stays where it is but move both hands to the middle and the ends will wobble all over the place). I'd also be concerned about the flex between the handle and the guidescope mount - It's only locked with one screw so I reckon there'll be some movement there. FWIW, I bought a hard case for my set up so I can put it away with the reducer and guidescope still fitted and with the dewshield only partly retracted. (since the pic was taken I've added a ZWO EAF focus motor and a Losmandy plate and now it doesn't fit the hard case so I'll be looking for an alternative.) Graeme

Do you have a reducer/flattener? The stars (especially the bigger ones to the right of the galaxy) look a bit eggy which may be contributing to the soft focus look. However, even with a reducer I could never get pin sharp stars with my C8 so I think it's maybe a feature of SCTs in general. Graeme

Welcome to the club Stuart. Best (astro) investment I've ever made. Now of course you'll have to build a permanent observatory and fasten it to a massive lump of concrete Graeme

I've recently discovered I can connect wirelessly to my smart TVs and 'throw' my images over for display. One is a 32" and the PNG images look stunning. They get a bit too grainy on the 65" but viewed from a distance look fine. The interesting thing is they show that my laptop display needs colour calibrating. Graeme

I've only attempted this target once, a year ago when I'd hardly started astrophotography. Canon 70d, celestron c8 on an Advance GT mount. Virtually no detail, Stars are bloated but round Graeme

I 'll admit that since getting more into Astrophotograpy I'm using Stellarium more for GoTos but I do still refer to my SkyAtlas 2000 when I'm in the house and I have a Phillips starchart pinned to the observatory wall that's very useful just to get a wider view of what's in the sky. Stellarium is great for getting into the detail though. Graeme

I downloaded v4.0 last night, mainly because all the online tutorials for autofocusing showed pop up menus that were different to mine. Naturally It now looks like it'll be at least a week before I get clear enough skies to test it out. I think, seeing as the tool is so good, it's only fair that I stump up the 18 euros so I'll be doing that later. Graeme

In Contact, a young Ellie and her dad are about to watch a meteor shower through a pair of refractors when he dies suddenly. and Tony Stark has a big celestron Reflector in his house (which unfortunately looks out towards Los Angeles - Bortle 20 maybe) Graeme

That looks like a good start but I have no idea what the target is? .....this is my first attempt at imaging with the l-enhance. 45 x 180 second exposures of IC1396. Altair 150EDF plus 0.8 reducer and ZWO ASI533MC camera. It took a lot of faffing in Startools to tame the red! graeme

Nice roofrack. I'm after something like that for my 110. Graeme

My first look at this target on Friday night. Just over 2 1/4 hours of reasonable dark before the clouds started to roll in. Also the first time I've used an Optolong L-Enhance filter - I was surprised at how red all my subs were. It took a lot of faffing in Startools to tone the colours down a bit but I'm happy enough with this first attempt although I think I should have moved it further up the frame to get more of the bottom bits in. Altair 150/1200 EDF reduced to 960mm. Zwo ASI533MC pro. Skywatcher EQ8R pro. 45 X 180 second subs plus Darks, flats and dark flats. Processed in DSS, Startools and a final sharpen in GIMP. Graeme

I have ZWO EAF on both my WO ZS73 and ALTAIR 150EDF, both with flatteners, and I've had no issues with the EAF managing the weight. Very easy to fit and the set up in software takes minutes. The EAF can also be bought with a plugin handset to use without a computer (although it does need a USB 2 cable for power). Graeme

The dedicated William optics flatteners replace the entire visual back (the blue bit) as in this pic (obviously mine's gold but it's the same thing..)

Not the best of nights for imaging last night. We had varying cloud cover up to about 23:30 and I was having a real job trying to get platesolving working properly. Couple that with a strange issue with Stellarium where the EQmod marker would stop several degrees away from the target I slewed to and I didn't actually start my imaging plan till after midnight. I was intending to have another go at Bode's galaxy but decided with the limited time available to slew to M13 instead. I'm glad I did as previous versions have been really blobby and lacking in any detail. In contrast, I think this has turned out better than I was expecting. Only 30 x 120 second subs plus Dark, Flat and Dark Flat frames, Stacked in DSS and processed in Startools. Altair 150EDF, ZWO ASI533MC pro, Skywatcher EQ8R pro mount. Graeme

I can't see an earlier post from you Peter (or is there a link missing? ) Graeme