Sabalias

Ah, I follow. It was suggested here that I might want to check the collimation as the stars are a little egg-shaped. Stu

How do you mean? This is something I haven't come across before. Thanks, Stu

Just the fact that the secondary alignment has moved after bring the primary into view. I don't really have a frame of refererence so I don't know what I don't know (trite answer perhaps). Stu

Ditto!!! I have a number of friends who constantly say they would be bored when they retire (so they aren't planning on retiring until they have to). I, on the other hand, am looking forward to my retirement and the joy of being able to carry on with my hobbies with more passion than I can today. Stu

Thanks Craig, Yes, the joys of taking a photo with your phone - just couldn't get it to focus on the mirror under the crosshair. Stu

Hi All, I was wondering if anyone could asvise me on whether this is good collimation or not - generally, when you look online everything seems to be absolutely perfect so it's difficult to compare. Also, I have had problems in the past with the focus tube being off-centre (now adjusted) but I can't seem to get the secondary/primary alignment exactly right while maintaining a spot-on secondary adjustment. First I used a concenter to make sure the secondary was in a good position and orientated properly: Then I checked with my cheshire: Then I had to adjust the secondary to see all of the clips on the primary (it's slightly off but the picture is slightly off to so it seems to be a bit exaggerated: Then I checked the secondary again with the concenter. It isn't as good as the first image but not quite as bad as the third: Finally I lined up the primary: Does this seem to be ok for a collimation? In other words - am I expecting the almost impossible? Many thanks, Stu

Update: I recently tried out some AP with my kit and the result seemed to show that the scope might be slightly out of collimation so went through the whole process again. I found that the secondary was very slightly off so I centred that using my concenter and checked with the cheshire: Then I found that the secondary wasn’t lined up with the primary - I dealt with that: then I went back to check the secondary and found that it was, again, very slightly off according to the concenter but I chose not to make any further adjustments: Finally I adjusted the primary: looking at the photos, can anyone tell me if there are any glaring errors please? Many thanks, Stu

I may have missed something in the previous comments but, ultimately, your decision needs to be influenced by what you want to do. Will you want to take photo's of deep sky objects or just carry out visual observing? For the former you can very easily spend a fortune but for the latter you can get away with spending much less. So if you are only planning on visual observations a good dobsonian setup with some nice eyepieces can be more user-friendly and easier on the wallet. Very generally, I think the following points are truisms: Wide aperture = lots of light-gathering Long focal length = greater magnification Better quality eyepice = clearer image (and probably wider field of view) Mount capable of taking greater weight = more stable platform; but........ An Alt/AZ mount is far easier to manoeuvre manually than an EQ mount Stu

I have the Explorer 150 PDS and I've not been disappointed with the scope at all; however, I did decide to sell my EQ5 Pro and upgrade to an HEQ5 because I was right on the limit of what the mount could handle for photography (which is something I wasn't expecting to get involved in when I started out). Stu

Hi there, It's also worth mentioning that you may need to collimate the focus tube. Mine was off and, as a result, I couldn't get the whole of the primary in view when the secondary was true (the problem was diagnosed by others on this forum). Useful video (doesn't show a 200PDS but it is still relevant) - Stu

Hi Michael, Sadly, I couldn't get anything other than a washed out image at max ISO 😄 - the skies were still too bright. As the year progresses I hope to be able to follow this process though. Cheers, Stu

Thanks Malcolm, I managed to get the dumbbell nebula in the FOV of the camera but my concern was that it wasn't close to central - I completely lost he veil but that might be because it's a fainter object. I've ordered a Bahtinov mask now though as focusing seems to be a challenge through a camera. Stu

I'll do that Peter 👍. Thanks, Stu

Hi Michael, I can attest to the relative complexity of the process 😂 but I believe those are the steps that I followed. I'll have to give it another go and make absolutely sure next time. Stu

Good idea. I'll give that a try next time I'm out Stu

Thanks Carole, I'm referring in particular to a session where I was trying to image the veil nebula but it didn't appear to be in the camera field of view at all (taking a 10 and 20 second, high ISO exposure to see). I switched to the dumbbell nebula and found that the object was way off to the side of the camera FOV; at that point I stopped the tracking, centred on the nebula and then started tracking again before initiating guiding. It's reassuring to hear that this sort of thing just happens and that it's likely to be my ham-fisted efforts at switching eyepiece for camera. Stu

Thanks for responding Peter. The eyepiece is 68 degrees but I'm not sure about the camera - it's an EOS 600D Regards, Stu

Hi everyone, I'm a bit confused about the tracking on my HEQ5 Pro. This is the process I follow after setting up (including balancing and starting in home position) I try to accurately polar align the mount Carry out an 2 or 3 star alignment Do a test slew to a known, visible object (last time it was Vega) and the object is nice and central in the eyepiece I even carry out a PAE with a star close to where I am imaging Now I'm ready to look for a DSO that I can image but the object winds up far from centre (and in some cases not in the field of view at all). The only thing that has changed is the very careful replacement of the eyepiece with a camera (weight is different but not significantly so); is that likely to knock the alignment off? Many thanks, Stu

Thanks Malcolm. I'll look into that. Stu

Not sure about ZWO ASI but I run my Astroberry off a 26800 mAh power pack which has up to 3A output per USB port. There’s enough power going into the Astroberry for it to drive the power requirement of my ZWO120MM guide camera. regards, Stu

Hi AstroScout. Sorry to resurrect this old thread but I am trying to do exactly this but kstars is saying that the controller is not connected. Did you have to jump through any particular hoops to get your handset and Astroberry talking to each other? Many thanks, Stu

Thanks Vlaiv. I did have some serious issues with collimation last week when I started using a concenter, it turned out to be focus tube alignment. I thought I had sorted it all out but maybe I missed something or the primary moved out of alignment a bit between my tinkering and imaging. For the flats I suspect I'll have to wait a little while for some longer nights and use the white t-shirt technique 😆 - here's hoping for clear skies in August and September!

Hi All, My first attempt at imaging a DSO. I managed to get out on Saturday night for a short spell (time was constrained by having to be up at 0530 on Sunday morning). I was only able to take 8 usable lights of the dumbbell nebula in the time allowed and I played around with the output yesterday and this morning on Astro Pixel Processor. There is a focus issue here but does that explain the egg-shaped stars? I'm also wondering if it's flexure (I thought eveything was locked down tight but maybe need to check that in future). I'm using my 150PDS with an astro modified EOS 600D and a Baader MPCC (which I thought was the correct distance from the sensor). I also took several darks and I have some bias shots too, but no flats (I didn't have the time). Any advice greatly appreciated. The sky was quite bright even at the time I was taking the lights which is why I had to stick with short exposures - looking forward to earlier, darker skies😂 Many thanks, Stu

Thanks all. The focuser was a bit off so now adjusted and everything seems nice a true. Stu

Thank you both. I didn't realise the focuser itself could be out of alignment but of course it makes absolute sense. Live and learn. Stu