Mamm7215

Was trying for Bodes and Cigar galaxies but missed them. In any case this is my first attempt with my Nikon Z50 and a 55-300 DX lens with the FTZ adapter using a skyguider pro mount. I can’t see Orion from where I am so I have to try and find things near obvious patterns like the Big Dipper. Seeing was ok but there’s a fair bit of light pollution. I used Astro Pixel Processor and Affinity Photo, poorly. I’m just learning though I got the same basic results with both. This is the APP image. 30 1 minute lights, 15 bias, 10 darks and 15 flats. My battery was dying so I didn’t get many calibration frames, just trying to hone the technique.

Will do, just got a z50 today.

Hi, great pics!!! I'm seriously looking at getting the Z50 in my beginning astrophotography journey. I'm also thinking of getting a bigger mount like the HEQ5 but you seem to be getting great shots with the Star Adventurer and no guiding. Really impressive.

Dobsonians typically need collimation every time you take it out, even if just a small amount. I have the same scope, I move it from my sitting room to my back deck gingerly every time I take it out. I have a well collimated laser collimater and almost every time I need to make a small adjustment. Takes 1-2 minutes tops.

Guess I’ll be doing some reading

Ok that’s interesting. On another note, I braved a primary mirror clean today and I managed to not destroy anything! It was pretty dusty with some goopy small blobs (pollen?) and a bit of a blue film. Rinsed in sink with water, soaked and rinsed with a couple drops of detergent in water and lightly washed it off with my cleaned fingers. Then rinsed off with distilled water and blew remaining dust that had settled after off with a hair dryer on low. Put back together and it collimated fine so here’s hoping it works out. The secondary could probably use a clean, too but I’ll brave that another day. I’ll probably just blow it off for now. Just a bit dusty

Wow, that's a sweet cap, if I had a 3D printer I'd do that for sure.

Thanks! The primary actually does look dirty, dusty with a couple of larger (but still small) spots and a bit of light blue haze to one side almost like a dirty rear view in a car. I was able to look at the moon for a bit after I eyeball collimated it and lined up the finder scope. Works good enough but a decent right angle scope is on the list. I know it wasn’t extended fully, just wanted it out to take the photo but I have to ask, what’s the 2nd indentation for. It gets halfway out or so and the first lock holes set. Then you pull it out a bit for to fully extend it, why the 1st set of indents, is it to reduce the focal range?

I couldn’t pass it up, too sweet a deal. Not sure I was looking for a 10” Dobsonian but I’m beyond thrilled. The eyepiece in the scope is a super plossl 25mm multi coated 52degrees piece. There’s also a 10mm plossl and a 6mm ultra wide piece. Also a 2” eyepiece adapter and a small red filter that says Antares no.21 on it. 25 and 10mm come with the scope. Of course skies here are cloudy. I don’t care, really stoked. I haven’t taken the dust cap off yet, need to have a peek inside but it seems to be basically near-new condition. Turn left at Orion will be showing up tomorrow.

Thanks, it’s pretty clear to me that if I enjoy this hobby I’m going to end up with a couple of setups. I’m not wary of the AVX mount, I also see there’s diy and some commercial eq mounts for dobsonians. Are these much different than a dobsonian with a goto?

Hi all, recently joined here after scouring the Reddit /telescopes and /astronomy feeds. Looking at getting into the hobby and reading tons so I have some limited understanding of types of equipment and terms, though still a newbie. I think my place in all of this will settle out somewhere around wanting a good medium level scope but NOT wanting to go balls deep into astrophotography but WILL want to be able to take decent pics of planets and some DSOs. That said, I will attempt stacking shots et al at some point but I'm thinking of a budget of around $1000-$1500 CDN (Vancouver, B.C.). GOTO? Maybe, I've looked at the Skywatcher 8" Dobsonian GOTO but maybe the non-GOTO is a better option, then I would look at the 10" possibly. Anyways, here's a couple I'm thinking of: https://www.brandonoptics.com/Sky-Watcher-Flextube-SynScan-200P-8-GoTo-Collapsible-Dob-Telescope_p_245.html https://www.firstlightoptics.com/reflectors/skywatcher-explorer-200p-eq5-goto.html Just trying to nail down a good starting point. I'm a quick learner and have learned not to go cheap right off the bat. Getting a crappy telescope and not enjoying it or getting lame results is just a waste of money. Anyways, there you are... I’ll add one more to my list, narrowing it down. May possibly look at the 6” version, too but this seems to be checking a lot of boxes. Or get the mount separate and look for the OTA in a skywatcher? In any case this should keep me busy learning the skies plus has a decent enough eq goto for basic AP. Also keeping my eyes open for used equivalents... https://markarianfineoptics.ca/reflectors/-celestron-advanced-vx-series-go-to-equatorial-8-newtonian-reflector