Lotinsh

I'm building an onstep and I have all the parts, but the rod to which I mount the 60t to is too short, is there a way I can make it extrude more to fit the 60t? Pictures for reference: p

I may or may not have turned some of the wrong screws that mess up your focuser's alignment while working on modding my telescope, I've looked through some threads but I haven't found any solution that would work for me on how to collimate the focuser. One method I saw was using a bubble leveler on the focuser and the secondary spider and aligning the focuser until it's the same level as the secondary's spider, though the stock spider of the 130PDS is flexy and both sides aren't perfectly straight, both of them flex enough by the tension of the screws due to their flimsy construction making it impossible to find which part should be used as a reference for the focuser. Another method I saw, some telescopes if I'm not wrong include a point in the tube itself to which you can just align the focuser, however, the 130PDS doesn't seem to have that. What can I do now? Here are images for reference: R

Hi, I'm trying to make an onstep for my EQ5 mount, so far I've gone with the blue pill option, I have the PCBs (empty) now I need all the parts. I think I have gotten all the necessary parts except now I'm kind of stuck with the motors. What motors do I need and what specifications? Also, would these do?: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32572890101.html?spm=a2g0o.cart.0.0.720c38datCrlqS&mp=1 Once I have chosen the motors, how do I figure out what pulleys and belts I need? So far I'm following the onstep bluepill guide for the electronics and stuff: https://onstep.groups.io/g/main/wiki/6408 Following this guide: https://astroeq.co.uk/tutorials.php?link=custommotors Are these the correct pulleys for my mount?: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004019238577.html?spm=a2g0o.cart.0.0.720c38da2Bn1qL&mp=1 and https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002226516848.html?spm=a2g0o.cart.0.0.720c38da2Bn1qL&mp=1 Sorry if this is a dumb question, it's hard for me to wrap my head around what I'll need and how it will all work later on, so far I hope that I will have everything and I won't need anything extra that hasn't been mentioned. Any help is appreciated, as I don't want to accidentally order the wrong parts. Thanks.

Yeah imaging indeed isn't cheap, hence I'm looking at the used market. I know I don't have enough funds to step up the game yet, but my plan is once a while make an upgrade once I can. For now my budget is <100 Eur, not much. Especially with the inflation. Are there perhaps other upgrades I could do to improve exposure time or something that helps imaging for my budget?

Sounds interesting, maybe I'll try the onstep, does it track well? Also would I need to buy both motors or I can keep the one I have? It seems like it could be a nice DIY project to do. Just need to understand even what it does and what I'll need etc. Thanks for the suggestion about darks, next time I'll photograph, I'll try taking them too, next time will be in early or late august as only then I get astro dark nights. I should have a guide scope, someone was giving one away, I just had to pay for shipping, it should arrive in a week. Though I don't have a camera for it, that too I will need to somehow get, I've seen someone use a webcam, would that be good enough?

@Vulisha What is OnStep? Never heard of something like that

For deep space I mostly use either iso 800 or 1600 with 45 second images and some 30 second. As for darks I didn't use many, not sure if I should or not, since I don't have a cooled camera the temperature changes a lot, not sure if I should take darks. I usually take around 15 flats and around 30 bias frames. For the M51 I have 120 30 second frames, 150 45 second frames, 15 flats and 30 bias for 45 sec. For 30 sec frames I have 16 flats and 28 bias frames. For editing I use only photoshop, I do everything there. And for starless image version for more editing in photoshop I use StarNet to get rid of stars. Stacking in DeepSpaceStacker.

I'm getting into astrophotography, want to step up the game and for not too expensive thought that this was the first upgrade to make. I have captured some objects and have learned a lot trough the process, though I definitely know that there's a LOT to learn for me. It's either this or a new telescope, maybe modifying my camera too but I want to still use it for regular photography, so not sure about that yet. I'm using a 130p Heritage telescope (Terrible for astrophotography, bought it for visual use only at first), a single axis EQ5 mount and a Nikon D3300 camera (not modified). Here are some photos I have captured so far: https://failiem.lv/u/ragctb8vu

@malc-c I'm not exactly sure but I think I have this motor kit: https://tavcso.hu/en/product/RAeq5 Also I don't have a guide camera, is it necessary? Can I use a webcam instead?

That's interesting. I thought you'd need both motors. Well in that case I'm going to at least try that, thanks!

Thanks for all the answers, unfortunate I cannot use other motors. As Cosmic Geoff said, the budget indeed is the issue, I have 100 Eur to spend so there's that. I already have a single axis motor but want to get into guiding, though I need the second motor and seems like I can't buy it anywhere separately. Not that familiar with DIY, would it be possible to somehow for the cheap DIY the second motor and the controller for guiding?

I have an EQ5 mount and I found someone here selling HEQ5 dual axis guide motors for a cheap price, but I was wondering, is it possible to somehow have them work on EQ5? There seems to also be the EQ5 dual axis motors selling here, tho someone already seems interested in them, so I'm probably not going to get them, hence I'm wondering if I could use some other mount motors selling here.

My guess it's due to street lights, as there is no way for me to not get them in my image, I'm basically surrounded by them. Is there a way to fix this green blob in my image? I'm using photoshop for post processing, but I can't seem to get rid of this green middle effect in this image, also sky gradient seems to be terrible, can I fix this? I also tried different settings in DSS, but the problem still persists, at least it got rid of the green color. Raw files: Autosave.tifAutosave001.tifAutosave001.tif Edit: Seems like I found something that helps, didn't think about gradients before: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9weEol1aWds Edit2: Seems like the method I found worked, got this as a result, thoughts?:

Ok, so this is going to sound super dumb. I purchased a cheap laser collimator, it was either a 50 eur good one, but I went with a 20 eur cheap one from aliexpress, I think I got a screw stuck in it while trying to collimate the damn collimator. What in the world do I do now? And why don't they come collimated and have sealed screws???

Thanks, that answers pretty much everything, so if my telescope will tilt and cause issues, is it a good idea to buy a new telescope at somepoint? It's probably not going to be any time soon as I don't have that much budget. Edit: Thanks to both of you, this will come in useful for sure.