herne

Penny drops why you were asking how much my Z61 and everything else weighs 👍. Are you including the counterweight in your 5kg+ weight? If not, my Z61 weighs more than that scope you linked (2.2kg) yet with guide scope & camera, camera (OSC or DSLR), AAP, cables et al I’m still under 4kg total. If you are including the counterweight, mine weighs c.1.7kg so total = 5.4kg.

I’m not aware of and can’t see any way to import a list to the app (other than sitting there on a cloudy night and tediously typing your own). The manual doesn’t even mention it and only discusses connecting to other apps such as Sky Safari, which I know you can’t do. Short of contacting Skywatcher direct I’m afraid I’m out of options 😔.

From the Synscan app’s main menu, you are going into Star > Double Star? That gives a list of 32 double stars. The only other options I can suggest are either: 1) Tap on Deep Sky rather than Star from the main menu. You can then enter any categorised object from Messier, Caldwell, NGC or IC. Not sure if there are many (any?) double stars in those lists though. 2) If you know the coordinates of the double star(s) you want to look at you can enter those directly to the app. From the main menu tap User Objects > Celestial Objects then define what you are looking for using RA/Dec co-ords. I believe you can save those so in effect you create your own list. That’s the only way I can think of to expand the list of doubles within the Synscan app.

I prefer that than your greenish one above 👍. As you say, you’ll definitely benefit from more integration. My only comment is it now looks (through my screen anyway) to have a yellowish/golden tint. May I also ask - why are you using a filter? Have you tried comparing with and without one?

It’s a lovely scope, I’ve been very pleased with it. Total weight is c.3.7kg (excluding the homemade counterweight).

@LaurenceT As requested 🙂. The Z61 has 2 small allen key bolts on either side of the focuser tube (the right hand ones highlighted yellow below). I simply unscrewed the 2 on the left side (2.5mm allen key) and attached the little dovetail base by screwing the bolts back into place through the slots in the bottom of it. Then it's just 2 thumb screws to hold the AAP in place. Balance is fine, I didn't even need to move the dovetail bar further forward to compensate (although the whole rig is shifted slightly further forward in the mount). If you need any other pics give me a shout 👍.

Will do 👍.

Happier with this effort from my first light. Still room for improvement but better I think. Will hopefully get more clear skies soon to add integration time. I also just bought this dovetail base from Amazon to attach the ASI Air (or guide scope) as I'm not overly happy with hanging the AAP off the top end of my dovetail bar as I have been. Will let you know how it goes. (FLO sell something identical made by William Optics for more than double the price + P&P, so I cheaped out 😅).

I actually intentionally left some graininess in the background as I don’t like it too flat but all part of learning with the data from a new camera 👍. Definitely a lot of learning points and like you say good to have a comparison image now - a decent enough starter for 10 but plenty of room for improvement. Will keep the filter in mind cheers.

Had a play this afternoon from my first light with the new camera last night. Deep Sky Stacker remains somewhat of a dark art to me, I need to work on taking my calibration frames with the new camera and I don't really like how the background colour turned out, however I'm still pleased the image and is my best shot of M81/82 to date by quite a long way. I'll still re-work it at some point if only to sort out the background and will hopefully get more clear nights soon to at least double the integration time. Some of the stars could do with a touch up too. Other than a slight crop to remove a few stacking artifacts around the edges the image isn't otherwise cropped. 125 x 2 min light frames (I binned 25 due to satellites and a rapidly approaching dawn); 4hrs 10mins total integration. Stacked in Siril with Bias, Darks and Flat frames. I did try DSS but I'm still doing something wrong with it plus the calibration frames have room for improvement. AZ Gti; ASI 533MC Pro; William Optics Z61ii; ASI 120MM mini guide scope; Astro Essentials 30mm f4 guide scope; no filters; Moon 48%. Stacked and pre-processed in Siril; finished in Photoshop.

First light with the new 533MC Pro last night. Very impressed! I haven't had a chance to process the data yet but thought I'd show a quick comparison below (also @Lee_P from my other thread about mount v camera). On the left a single raw, unprocessed 2 min sub from my modded DSLR taken 3 nights ago, ISO 800. In the middle a single unprocessed 2 min FITS frame from the 533 taken last night. Gain 101, temp -10C. (Image viewed via ASI's FITS viewer, saved as a png). On the right, the same FITS frame with a simple debayer via ASI's FITS viewer (again saved as a png). Bortle 5/6 skies, no filter used. I was in two minds to go after M101, M51 or M81/82 last night, decided on M81/82 to compare with my DSLR results from the other night and to avoid a meridian flip. I'm glad I did as I think as a comparison the (initial) results are very interesting. It also looks like I have back focus nailed. The AZ GTi itself performed very well - frequently guiding below 1 arcsecond, with an average probably around the 1 mark. A solid start - will post the final processed image later.

Here you go. Feels a little long at the back with the spacers used so may have to fiddle with back focus (or it might be it’s ok and I’m just used to a DSLR). We’ll see.

All connected up and working. At least it did once I realised (30 mins of scratching my head later) I plugged the OSC into one of the AAP power output ports I’d previously turned off…🤣 I also had to slightly rejig the position of the AAP down the dovetail (so nearer the AZ GTi) in order to use the shorter cables supplied, otherwise I’d be dealing with long trailing cables again. The AAP will now touch the mount if rotated far enough, but it’s way past 90 degrees before that happens so should be fine with meridian flips. Lovely sunny day here, rain forecast for tonight. Hey ho.

The William optics adjustable ff for z61

Yup 👍. And trying to figure out my back focus to the field flattener. Oh and how to actually use it of course 😂. All part of the fun.

The postman delivered my new toy this morning. A lovely clear night last night with rain forecast for tonight. Typical 😅.

Oh yeh me neither, just looking at options 👍.

Power draw’s an interesting point. At present I can happily run the AZ GTi and camera from the AAP. Trying to plug dew heaters in as well feels too much, so would need their own supply. Alternatively I could power the mount direct to power supply and plug camera + heaters into the AAP. I‘ve seen that done. So it’s either try out those those little adapters I linked above to power the dew heaters via the AAP, powering the mount separately; or get a USB hub to power the heaters direct with the mount running off the AAP. Bearing in mind ZWO themselves don’t recommend powering mounts via the AAP then option 1 is probably the one to try out.

Not strictly related to the AZ Gti I know, however a lot of you use the ASI Air so thought I’d ask here rather than start a fresh thread somewhere. I have 2 dew heaters - one for the main scope the other for the guide scope - which have USB connections for power. At present I plug them directly into handy USB ports on my electric extension cable. What I’d like to do is connect them to the ASI Air Pro via 2 of the 2.1mm power output ports to help my cable management. I’m also trying to get rid of that extension cable as it’s exposed to the elements. I found these adapters online in the Raspberry PI shop (there are similar things on Amazon too) which are female usb to 2.1mm jack adapters, and wondered if they might be any good or if anyone could suggest alternatives (short of buying new dew heater straps with sensible connections). They’re only a couple of quid each so might try them out anyway but figured I’d ask here first.

Tomorrow 😉.

#excited 😀.

I already have an L-enhance filter which I’ve been enjoying with my DSLR so will see how that goes with the new camera first 👍. I’ve been reading your blog more lately, some great stuff in there - thanks for sharing!

Thanks Lee, I’ve seen your blog before. Stunning images but I have to say that for me your Iris Nebula and it’s dust lanes is the pick of the bunch. That’s not an easy target, especially from your city centre location. Your point about shorter subs confirms the decision I made earlier - I bought an OSC (ASI 533MC Pro). I know my little mount can already give me a stable platform (relatively speaking) for decent length of sub and, as you say, an OSC can help relieve possible pressure there through shorter subs / longer integration. Dithering is something to look into in future for sure though. Thanks for input all, it helped clarify my thoughts 👍.

There's always room for improvement but unless you are trying to win a competition a great image is only what you consider to be great. I'd be happy with that as my first light image 👍. I can't speak for baz however to my eye (and remember it's only really your eye which is important) the Cigar is a little washed out and the sky is a bit too black (which is weird to say about deep space haha). So purely for my tastes it's a little over processed rather than over stretched. Regardless, it's a very nice image especially bearing in mind the gear you are using is really aimed at wide field targets so really good job 👍👍. To see what I mean about "too black", here's a recent image of M42 I took (76 x 3min subs) using my Z61 scope and a DSLR - so only slightly larger than your redcat. I'm not saying my image is better than yours by any means, I'm just offering a comparison of the sky in an image I had handy as I've been working on it recently to show the difference. (I don't really like the image that much yet as the core is blown out, I need to work on it a bit more). Again though, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I'm sure others wouldn't like it. I also need to sort out my dust bunnies.

Off the top of my head I couldn't say the RMS. For subs I typically stick to 3mins guided - I have done loads of test shots of 5mins which look perfectly fine although I haven't pushed that for an all night session. For reference below is a recent shot of the Rosette Nebula - 59x3min subs + Darks frames only using my DSLR and AZ Gti. The processing needs some more work (stacked and processed in Siril, with a little tinkering in Photoshop) and I should probably stop being lazy and add flat frames, but still quite a nice pic. Bear in mind I'm not looking to replace the AZ GTi, the new mount would be for a second set up. Yeh exactly. I'm already pushing the weight limit (I can actually hear the AZ GTi creak a bit as it tracks on occasion) so I'm really not putting anything larger on it.