Maideneer

It took me 7 straight months of looking at 10 different retailer websites, every single day mind you, to find and purchase my C9.25HD/CGEM II package. Talk about frustrating, I get it!

On my way to Neptune I decided to try out Uranus, and got extremely lucky I guess. The focus was just right enough on my sensor (even with pretty poor seeing) and the blurry thing showed up for just long enough to grab 5,000 frames. No Barlow, filter or ADC on this. I processed it to subconsciously look like Neptune lol so I have work to do there. My original data showed a lot bigger of a blurry dot and I stacked it down to this tiny thing. Trying again tonight, expecting seeing to be better.

Sorry, I just saw you said that my apologies. You know, I had the same thing happen to me with my CGEM II, and lo and behold it was STUPID old me that had the time inputted wrong. In my head, I was thinking 12 AM/PM thing, so that's what I inputted until I realized the HC wants military time. I'm sure you've triple checked that, I'm just telling you my experience

Before you do ANYTHING, do a Firmware update on absolutely every Celestron piece you own...Hand Controller, Mount, StarSense etc. Sorry if that was already mentioned above, but my experience was just like yours until I completed that initial step.

Here's my rough guide on what to look for. These two triangle formations of stars give me a good idea of where to look and/or I could use a box pattern to achieve the same result. Once I get that I'm home free, just got to remember to set my motor speed really low because my tendency is to keep it at max speed and get annoyed with myself that I lost the formation lol.

I have the 9x50 finderscope that came with the bundle, you think that would be sufficient? I didn't realize my finder could even see that far. I have the 224MC

Thanks for this very detailed numerical review of things, I get the feeling you enjoy going down these number holes lol. I'm going to keep working on this 11px target as my mission of sorts, everyday if I have to! I love these sorts of personal challenges and once I start I make sure to see it through to the end no matter how long it takes. If others can do it, I can too! Will definitely use these guidelines to start in the right direction, cheers!

Oh I didn't wait, I tried last night. Not for long though, I developed a massive headache and had to call it early...but I did learn the ropes of the Polemaster at least. Giving it another go later on, I'll be able to focus (myself) better and really dig into things. My biggest obstacle really was removing my EP train and replacing with my image train...I have the auto-focuser in the way so that really makes for tight quarters for my fingers. Cranked up the gain to max for fun, and thought I spotted it but alas I was wrong after capturing 100 frames, for some reason I kept my exposure time to 5 seconds since it's the only way I could see much of anything but I have to play around more. Getting the focus will be trial and error too, so I'm thinking visual first and then replace with image train. Gonna try to add my 3x barlow to the mix too, that should change things.

Opposition is coming up in a few days (14 Sep), and I have never imaged Neptune before or seen it for that matter through my scope. See my sig for my equipment - I've become quite comfortable with capturing Jupiter and Saturn so I'm wondering if there is a vast difference between those and Neptune. I use Sharpcap so I need to understand gain and exposure settings. I also have to figure out how to add my 3x barlow to my image train, so I'm going to work on that tonight. I'm going to try visual only the next few days so I can prep, now that I've gotten my brand new Polemaster tested and working I'm happy to report my alignment is better than ever, what a relief!

Thanks for that. If I had a setup like yours I would consider Sharpcap's yearly fee, alas I'll probably never have a permanent observatory. I did order the QHY yesterday and watched some YT tutorials. but your input is appreciated as I like seeing what other quality options exist.

I do use Sharpcap but I don't image every time I'm out so I would probably just use the corresponding QHY software. Many thanks!

Ah, there's the million dollar answer. Cheers.

Before I purchase this thing, I'm wondering how (if?) this device communicates with your mount. Let's say I polar align using the QHY before I even turn the mount on and all goes well. And then I turn my mount on and in my case use StarSense Autoalign to get things set up with the sky/stars. How does my mount know I've already done my polar alignment? Is the polar alignment action totally and completely separate from everything else? Thanks, I'm just confused as to how this all works.

It's an extremely difficult turn for whatever reason. The added WD40 helps some but it's almost like the endpoints of the screws are digging in to the pin head so much so that there are indentations now. IMO it's just a weird system of making adjustments. Everything else is virtually automated nowadays, not sure why this mechanism can't be computerized and controlled without all of these physical parts. RA/DEC are computerized already, there's nothing stopping them from updating this too.

I'll make sure to do that with the new pin, but unfortunately as I said...this current pin was shipped like that so not much I could have done. But to avoid any future malfunctions, I'll be sure and put that into practice going forward.

I actually ordered one just a few minutes ago. Since I didn't exactly think it through that much and tried to fix on impulse, I actually did make the threading a bit worse since I stuck it in a bench vise and tried to bend it back to no avail. I managed to screw it back into the tripod since it wasn't totally destroyed and then put oil on it. But a new, unbent one is on it's way thank goodness. Good advice though, I should look up what local machine shops are around here since I never really needed one before, it's just handy information just in case.

This peg protrudes up from the tripod base and it’s where the mount housing sits so that you can adjust the position of the azimuth knobs which are basically long screws, one on each side of the mount and those control the movement of the mount for polar alignment purposes. It actually came this way and I didn’t think anything of it until I learned what it was for, which took a few weeks. By that time there was no way to really prove it was shipped like that so I’m stuck with it. I’m gonna order a replacement but in the meantime I popped some WD40 on it and it’s gotten *slightly* better.

Ever since I got my new mount, I’ve been having an extraordinary laborious time turning my Azimuth knobs and I’m starting to think I figured out why. Call me crazy but I think I have a bent alignment peg…would you agree? I’ve never owned a mount like this so I’m suspecting it shouldn’t be like this correct? It’s takes outrageous effort to turn these knobs and the mount doesn’t even seem to turn much if at all anyway. It’s also causing all kinds of scraping in the metal of the peg itself. I’m happy to get another one so would you think the one I attached is the right one? Didn’t know if there was a difference between the CGEM and CGEM II pins.

It turns out I need one of those M48 to M42 adapters. I played with every conceivable piece I own and that was the missing link, so I ordered it. So now I'll have a train setup with and without an ADC. I won't worry about Barlow setup yet but I imagine that's another hurdle but confident I can solve it now thanks to you. Since I was shopping I also picked up an auto-focus motor lol...man I really fell in the rabbit hole here!

Am I really that thick that I didn't try unscrewing the nosepiece lol? Looking at the specs, the nosepiece accounts for 27.5mm, so if I remove that then I'm left with 55.9mm of ADC. Combined with T-Adapter and flange distance, that's 158.95 or about 13mm over recommended (and that's with ditching all the spacers). Do you think THAT much difference will make a change or is it gonna be like a trial and error thing where I just have to get out there and give it a shot to know? Totally forgot about barlows...that's gonna complicate things further isn't it? I haven't even attempted it yet. Here is a recent one I just did of Saturn. No barlow, no ADC, and I think it turned out alright. Anyway, thanks for the insight, that REALLY helps.

I suddenly found myself in an equipment predicament that I might not have thought through and now I can't figure it out. For my C9.25HD, I successfully put together my needed146.05mm back-focus with the following: 1) T-Adapter - 91.05mm 2) Sensor to flange = 12mm 3) 5mm spacer ring 4) 16.5mm spacer ring 5) 21mm spacer ring That equals 145.55mm, which is only .5mm off from 146.05 so that works just fine, nothing noticeable. Now the problem I didn't account for is attaching my ADC. The spacer rings don't have thumbscrews and the T-Adapter doesn't either and is larger than 1.25" in size...so I have nowhere to put this thing. On one side of the ADC, I can thread the camera onto the barrel end but the nosepiece side is a different story. I'm thinking I now have to re-think my whole train because I can't think of an easy fix. The 21mm ZWO Filter Drawer *looks* like it has a thumbscrew but that's just a little pull tab to open the actual drawer, so probably a no-go. Really could use some fresh thinking here since I'm kind of stuck.

I don't have a polar scope because I'm relying on ASPA to handle things and my own 2 eyes to center things in the EP. What I'm finding though is I'll of course never be able to get things perfect without some sort of crosshair, so I'm wondering if I should either get a polar scope (2nd choice) or get a reticle eyepiece (1st choice) that can assist me with centering stars. I did pretty well yesterday but still noticed some drift which means I need to improve things.

What a great site! What I thought of is that I don't really own any filters...would any of those be beneficial to attach to the EP when viewing nebula/galaxies or is that really only for AP?

Nope, don't know how to do that. I find myself in Sharpcap and haven't really used ASI's software.

I made decent progress last night. The summer problem now is that there aren't a ton of 0-2 magnitude unique stars in the right spots so it's a bit limiting, but I made out alright. Altair is a life saver.