Robculm

Hi Luiscarss, Stunning image. As David mentioned, would be very interested to know a little more about your telescope, sounds like quite a beast! Cheers, Rob

The cone / Xmas tree, henceforth to be known as the sea bass nebula! 😆👍

Thanks 🙂 Hi Olly, yes, I did struggle with the colour! I typically use a UHC filter for nebulae, which would have accentuated the red / blue, but I tried without this time as I'd hope to capture some of the yellow colour I've seen on other images of this target. To be honest, looking at those other images now, I'm not sure the yellow is 'real' anyway and maybe I should be capping the green & concentrating on blue / red?! I've also found that adding in the UHC filter causes unpleasant halo's around bright stars like this (Altinak): I guess just due to the extra 'surfaces', or perhaps I just need a better filter! But for now generally avoiding to use it! Cheers, Rob

Hi all, It's been a while since I imaged / posted anything what with rubbish weather & other distractions, but finally made it out an the recent run of clear nights and had a go at this not particularly 'original', but lovely none the less target! By no means perfect, but I'm reasonably pleased with the results 🙂 Comments welcome. All the best, Rob

Very nice and particularly interesting / unusual to see this target in 'portrait' rather than landscape 👍

Hi Ed, as per Craig, I used the V-Tech VT-130 Clear RTV Sealant (via Amazon). Worked well, but don't use too much. I initially stuck it all the way around which did stress the mirror, had to cut it out (not fun!) and re-stick with 3 'spots' which is now great. Rob

Thanks all for your comments - Much appreciated 🙂 Rustang, I hear what you're saying and although I have reasonably dark 'backyard' (~Bortle 3), there are plenty of obstacles, so far from ideal for widefield, but at this stage I'm just dabbling. I'm very close to Dartmoor here, so that's a possible option if it goes well! Thanks for highlighting the Star Adventurer mounts, I wasn't aware of these. I certainly wouldn't want to be lugging the HEQ5 any distance! Also just to mention, your profile image is absolutely stunning 👍. Elp, thanks for your comments, that's a very good point regarding the lens, I think I need to research this a little more & probably go for something low cost from ebay to start with. I bought the camera as body only as to date it's always used with my scope, so don't even have a kit lens! Alacant, good to hear from you 🙂 . I have the original vixen bars from my PDS200 (you remember I switched over to the Losmandy) so that's perfect, I can use that to get started. I think I'm just confusing myself regarding the ASI. I use it with with this camera on the PDS200, was just overlooking that in this set up, the camera lens will be the 'telescope', so in theory it should be no different! 😆

Hi. I'm looking for a little advice please. As you can see from my previous posts, I'm usually imaging with my canon EOS800D through a 200PDS, but I fancy having a go at some wide angle milky way shots this year. Can anyone suggest / post me a link to a simple mounting bracket I can mount the EOS800D directly to my HEQ5 Pro mount please. After a little research, I'm contemplating the Samyang SY14M-C (14mm F2.8 Ultra Wide Fixed Angle lens), again, thoughts on that would be appreciated (although I wouldn't want to spend more than the price of this one!). Finally, my understanding is that for such wide angle shots I can get away without guiding, but I wonder can I set this up through my ZWO ASI Air? Or I need to revert to the HEQ5 pro hand controller & run the camera independently (i.e. revert to my old intervalometer etc)? Many thanks, Rob

Hi All, In preparation for returning to the Western Veil (one of my personal favourites) now that I've had the DSLR modded, thought I'd have a trial run on the Eastern. Almost too much Ha to handle now! Had to suppress it somewhat and even now not sure of the colours here. It looks completely different if I'm viewing on my monitor, laptop or phone! Comments welcome please. Cheers, Rob

😆 Yep, definitely a hint of lime there now you mention it! Will have another run at processing it and fix with the cap green (startools). Many thanks for the comments 😀.

Not very original I know, but I can't help coming back to M3. This was 5h of data, although ~50% of the shots are less sharp (tracking), so I'm wondering if to try taking those out & compare. So not overly satisfied with this one, but here it is anyway! Cheers, Rob

So finally a fantastic run of clear nights. Have to admit, I feel guilty about not having set up again tonight, but need an early night after 3 in a row! Here's M81. Was M81/M82, but wasn't too happy with how M82 was coming out so cropped & concentrated on processing just this one... Cheers, Rob

Just a quick update on my progress / lack of! Found a nice 479mm Losmandy style plate from TS optics at a much more reasonable €75 😀. Also discovered that there was quite a bit of slack in the DEC axis on my mount and followed the Astro Baby guide to adjust that. Added extra springs on the locking nut screws. There was definitely some slack in the mirror, but feels pretty solid now. Have also bought an aluminium bar for the top, which I'm planning to mount the guide scope on. But haven't for now, mainly as it's quite a bit of extra weight & I'm worried it will impact the HEQ5 performance. Will give it a try in time, or wait until I upgrade to an HEQ6. Should mention here that I'd also purchased a step down DC supply for the camera, so that I can finally be done with changing batteries & them running out... Got all set up for M81/M82. It was a couple of weeks back now so the frustration has faded! Terrible tracking! Usually I'm down at around 0.6RMS combined, but was up over 1. Spent a good few hours fiddling with the guiding, but no improvement. Wondered if for some reason it could be related to the camera supply (was running the mount, air pro & camera from the same power supply), so popped a camera in the battery & things definitely seemed to improve. 😁 Has anyone else found this? When maybe 'straining' the power source, the guiding is impacted? Hopefully that's the problem & I can resolve it with an extra power supply! Then for the frustrating part... All looking good, set it running & went to bed (alarm set for 3am as I'm still not confident just to leave things going all night!). Lucky I did, as by 3am the bottom of the scope had hit the mount & stopped. Need to explore that, it's happened to me a few times recently. Perhaps I need to explore this meridian flip thingamibob? Anyway, to cut a long story short, popped the memory card in to my laptop the next morning only to discover the card was full! 🤣 In fact it had been full the whole night, so didn't record a single image!!! Oh well, we live & learn huh!

+1 for Siril. It's got great pre-set / auto stacking if you don't want to go in to detail and of course you can learn how to do it all manually in more depth as you like. As Onikkinen mentioned, you can also look at the resulted stack and edit to some extent. I started with GIMP for processing, you can also get free PY asto add on's etc, but I found it to be very 'hit & miss', no logical processing steps, so unless you gradually figure it out and write yourself a process flow... I then switched to Startools which personally I find ideal. It might not be to everyone's liking, but it has a set process flow, you can spend just 20 minutes (assuming you have reasonable hardware!) going through the set steps and end up with a very decent image. Likewise you can spend as long as you like fine tuning the steps. Only downside (could just be my lack of understanding though) is that you can't save your progress along the way and go back to edit steps very easily. As has already been commented though, there are many options / preferences. Computing is not a strong suite for me, so I've opted for Siril + Startools where you can get a great result without a steep learning curve! If you have a stronger capability & plenty of spare time, you might prefer other options!

Thanks for your comments Alacant & Olly. The OAG definitely looks an interesting solution. I'm glad I didn't rush out and buy another guide scope. Let's see for the modifications first, but it's definitely on my wish list now! Cheers, Rob

I could see that being a problem in a small aperture refractor set up, but I guess in a Newtonian set up there's a huge amount more light to begin with. Ignoring the central obstruction, the 200mm aperture has ~31,000mm2 of light collection compared with a 50mm guide scope at 2000mm2 or only 700mm2 for my current 30mm mini guide scope... So you don't need to pick off much of that to achieve an equivalent level!?

Thanks all for your comments / suggestions. I will stick with the plan of upgrading to a 50cm Losmandy plate (so far I've only found the ADM in a 21" and that's £115 + out of stock at the moment) and add an aluminium bar to the top, where I will mount the current guide scope. Mirror mod & 3rd tapped hole in the focuser is already done. Will add the extra springs (will drill and tap central to the others if I get around to it). One thing that does beg asking though, maybe not for now, but longer term... OAG looks great & not especially expensive, so why doesn't everyone use this method? There must be a downside? This one for example: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/off-axis-guiders-oag/zwo-off-axis-guider-oag-v2.html Only downsides I can see so far is that the extra space between camera / secondary means the focus draw tube will protrude further into the tube (I've already pushed the primary forward a little to keep it out), so will definitely need sawing off, but not a big deal. Also looks a little tricky to set up, especially with a DSLR (i.e. the OAG will interfere with the side of the main camera). but aside that it looks a great solution, so why do most people stick with a traditional guide scope? Thanks again, Rob

Asi air pro

I'm using the AAP for guiding, direct (EQMOD) to the mount, so don't think there's an option for this. I have tried PEC on the mount back when I was using the handset and recall it being a right palaver! As I mentioned, longer term I'm likely to follow the advice of a mount upgrade (probably the EQ6R).

Thanks Stuart & Clarkey for the clarification. Hi Alacant, It's not really that I'm trying to solve a specific problem, just trying to optimise all possible aspects of the set up. I lose some subs, like left above with elongated stars, the right one I would keep as good. But my guess is it's more associated with the worst periodic error points in the worm gear cycle and the tracking can't 'keep up'. On nights of good seeing my guiding is <0.5" total, but on bad nights (as it was for the above images actually), it's closer to 1" total. Here's another example: Actually I'd say this is quite representative of most of my subs. What I would say, is that on my finished images, I struggle to get the really crisp 'pin point' stars that I see in your posted images!!! Maybe it's my processing, but here's an example: I can shrink down the centre a little in the process, but it still leaves the fuzzy outer blob! So if I'm not careful I then get a hot centre, dark circle, fuzzy outer. Anyway, as I said, it's mainly just an exercise in trying to ensure I have everything optimised as much as possible to achieve best possible images from a fairly 'basic' set up! Cheers, Rob

Hi Stuart, so as a starting point I could use the reducer (https://www.firstlightoptics.com/astro-essentials-eyepieces/astro-essentials-05x-1-25-focal-reducer.html) on my current set up?

Thanks Stuart, I will do a little more research. If I'm going to fork out that much I'd better choose something really optimal. Any suggestions welcome. The other concern is how much a larger guide scope will overload my HEQ5! I'm hoping to upgrade it later in the year, but not for the time being.... Cheers, Rob

Hmm, thanks Stuart. So something like this would be a better match: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/guide-scopes/sky-watcher-evoguide-50ed-guidescope.html Cheers, Rob

Hi, I'm wondering if my current guide scope set up is optimum for my scope / camera. Sorry, I know there are lookups for this somewhere, but don't recall where. I have the 200PDS, with x0.9 reducer (coma corrector) so focal length 900mm. EOS800D, so pixel size 3.72um. ASI 120 mini camera (3.75um pixel size). ASI mini finder/guider, 30mm aperture, 120mm focal length. I selected the guide set up without much thought, mainly going for low weight (on my HEQ5pro), but now I wonder if it's really optimal. Many thanks, Rob

Hi Varavall, That sure is a fully loaded rig! 👍