Rallemikken

Preferably coins. Easier to salvage, when you've realize what you've done.....

This mount can be expanded with a motor i RA: https://www.omegon.eu/drive-motors/omegon-tracking-motor-for-150-750-eq-3-mount/p,21598 Maybe 100£. Depends on the quality of the kit, but with a good polar alignment you should get 30+ seconds exposures. With a 6" f/5 newtonian on a mount with the same functionality as a StarTracker and a DSLR, you have a very good starting point. More than enaugh to get you hooked, and crawing for more......

Think forward. The phone adapter is a dead-end. And you should not use money on a dedicated astro-camera untill you have a mount or a star tracker. I'd go for an old Canon DSLR, either a 600D, 450D or similar. You get those for a fistfull of dollars. And when you get a motorized mount, you're set for some very decent long-exposure pictures with that camera. Untill then, you have to respect the "500-rule", and limit exposure time according to focal lenght. With time and skills, you can get very decent pictures in this way to with a DSLR, but it's labour intensive. Result depends on aperture and focal lenght. If the scope is long and thin; go for the planets and the moon. If it's short and stubby, try galaxie hunting and the most prominent nebulas. Most of us started with a fixed mount and an old DSLR, me included.

I have a SW 200PDS, 200mm aperture and 1000mm focal lenght. I've run out of galaxies already in my second season, they just become to small. You have only a handful suited for this focal lenght. I'd say 1200mm focal lenght is to short, if you decide on a pure reflector, go for the 1500mm. Personally I'm considering this: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/stellalyra-telescopes/stellalyra-8-f8-m-lrs-ritchey-chrtien-telescope-ota.html Focal lenght of 1600mm, and a weight that makes me able to keep my HEQ5 mount.

Not much data to waste, in my opinion. I never image below 20 degrees, and usually try to get the whole session above 30. The only time I dip below 30 is when I'm targeting Orion (live at 64 N). I collect data an hour or two when the target is at it's highest, and continue one or two following evenings if necessary. The rest of the night is spent on other targets. I shoot with a DSLR. I spend some time in the beginning of the first session to finetune exposure time and ISO settings, and I use the same settings on the whole session and the following ones as well. It's OK that stacking software can do wonderful tricks, but the foundation is laid out when you choose wich subs to stack and which to keep. During a session with my cameras, the best and most plentyful data lies in the darkest subs. The difficult part is to hit right at the beginning, with time you gather experience. Histogram peak 1/4 to 1/3 from left works for me. If you start fiddling with exposure as you go, you loose the reference sub (which always is the darkest) and the overall view. If you compare two subs with the same capture settings from the same session, the darkest will always have the most data and signal. When the subs get lighter, it's always light pollution, sky glow or skies. None of that adds data, rather they outshines and washes out. Reducing exposure will not help, it will only make the subs look a little bit more uniform, untill you blow them up and take a closer look.

Mainly in the bottom. I've made a drawstring bag of double dark cloth when i image. Handy to put a dew heater inside, too. And I never take darks in daylight. Almost impossible to get everything tight.

Just a thaught: Empty the focuser tube, wind it all the way out. Set the mount so that the telescope tube is aligned horizontally with the ground. Use a spirit level. Twist the tube in the rings, so that the focuser point upwards. Use the spider as guide, not the focuser, use the spiritlevel again. Now the telescope itself is perfectly aligned in both ways. Put the spirit level horizontally over the focuser tube, and rotate it. If all is OK, it should be leveled all the way around. I belive that one of the holes for the spider alignes with the big hole for the focuser on this scope. If it's difficult to measure, maybe put a couple of magneto mini-spirit-levels on the vaines?

Good job! I'm nearing the end of my second season with Kstars/Ekos on native Linux (Mint 20 on a HP EliteDesk 800) and I've never missed a single minute capture time! Featurerich and highly underrated. I've never had my hands on a Pi4, so I've been hesitant to run the whole Kstars/Ekos on my Pi's, my approach has been to use it as a INDI server only. Sounds like the small berry has grown up! Two questions: Do you have the needed index-files for platesolving installed on the Pi's /home-directory, and do'es it work? Maybe not relevant, if you don't have a motorized mount. And two: Can you transfer the images from your Pi4 to your laptop/desktop inside during capture? Either with Samba for Windoze or NFS if you use Linux? The Pi4 should have very decent transfer times on wifi if your router is up-to-date. This has been my major hickup when running the complete KStars suite on the Pi3. Bad connectivity, unless you stretch a cable. And if you fire up geeqie (a well-hidden secret) and view and sort the subs, it could stall. I see this could work, if I can empty the Pi into my laptop/desktop during or after the session, without fidling with memory cards or USB-disks.

This is how it looks on my machine. The pencil next to the "Train" dropdown menu opens the small window on the right. This menu, the entrance to the whole "optical train" consept is not visible untill you have fired up a profile, and got the hardware reqognized.

Don't use either ASIAIR or Stellarmate; buT Linux Mint with the latest KStars/Ekos. You configure the optical train once the first time you start a session on a certain profile. Double-click in each column, and a drop-down list appears. Add stuff on the "telescopes and lenses" button. Not intuitive. Can't see how you can have more than two cameras (optical trains), but the guys are working on this. That's why this feature is implemented today, more will come.

Take a look at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9AjNOCv-4I This guy know what he' doing. Not surprisingly, he gave the best scores for a small, long refractor; more precise the Celestron Astromaster LT60 f/12. FLO has it in stock for 129£. With a scope of that aperture you will not see much of DSO's anyway, it's more important that the scope gives crisp and sharp images of the stars, planets and moons. The higher f-ratio, the more forgiving optics. I have a 80mm f/5 refractor myself, hardly never use it. To much color distortion and to little magnification.

One mighty project! I'll try something similar when time permits, have the parts lying around, but my approach will most likely be a little simpler. Tempting with all those led's, though.... My first taught was to run it uncontrolled, and deal with the coma corrector with some sort of dew heater around the focuser tube. When I image small targets with my 200PDS I don't use the CC at all, so it's no reason not to go all out.

Never used NINA atall, so I can't really tell, but the coordinates to the center of your framing must be what NINA aims for after the flip. In Ekos I can solve this in two ways: Either make a flag or bookmark and manually enter the custom coordinates, and start the session from this, or make a reference frame with custom framing and platesolve according to this and run the session without more fiddling. I often do test exposures and try out framing and camera rotation when the moon is up or the clouds come and go. I don't have any rotator, but I give the final referance frame a name that tells me how the motiv is composed. Something like "M45_Horizontal_600D_200PDS.cr2" This tells me that this M45 is composed with the camera (Canon 600D) mounted 90 degrees to the tube on my SW 200PDS reflektor. I do either full horizontal or vertical; I don't like pictures with diffraction spikes all over the place. When it's time to capture, I just point Ekos to this raw Canon file and let it do it's things.

Maybe caused by the reference to the target. Seen this a couple of times in Ekos. If I tell Ekos to go to, say M45, it platesolves and starts tracking. If I start the session and leave it there, the meridian flip wil be spot on. But if I do adjustmentes to frame the target before starting capture it will be off, as you said. My solution is to create a referance sub, which can be used over several sessions. Have a small library already. Then I use the "Load image -> Solve -> Slew" function. New coordinates are registred, and the flip will solve to these before restarting capture.

First solve is 9 degrees out, next 8 minutes and last 26 seconds. Don't look strange, the rig is quit accurate on the first slew. It don't know where it's pointing at power-up. If you are one of those that loosen the clutches and check balance before each run, this is normal. The guiderings and numbers on the mount (if any) can't be trusted. Never done this myself, but you can slew the scope in a random direction, shift Ekos to the "Solve" tab, tick "Syncronize", then "Catch and solve" (not sure if that is the exact text, mine is in norwegian). Now the scope should know where it is in the world, and first target solve should go faster. Or just leave the clutches. I think my HEQ5 remembers where it points between sessions, first solve is often spot on.

It should. Sure there is nothing else stealing focus? Anyway, you normally need only two optical trains: One for the main scope, and one for the guide scope. Or, more simple, one for each camera. primary (main scope) and secondary (guidescope). You configure the optical train once for each profile. When you start a profile for the first time, it asks you, later it will remember the settings. Feels stupid and overcomplicated, but I think it is implemented for later features, mainly the possibility to run more than one rig at the same time. The config of the optical trains are NOT INTUITIVE! You doubleclick inside each cell to activate a drop-down list. THEN you can enter this list and make your choice. You add stuff with the "Telescopes and lenses"- button.

Don't see everything in that screenshot, but it seems you have lots of devices plugged in. Many things use the FTDI-driver, wireless adapters and controller boards among some. Caused my a lot of headache once. Unplug all but the one to the mount.

Don't know how your software stack looks like, I'm a Linux guy myself, but each and every piece of software that tries to communicate with the pheriferals may have their own COM-port assignment. Look around. Try different apps. maybe Stellarium? If it works one place, it's just a matter of config.

https://stargazerslounge.com/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=543048&key=ff03089e301899c4499852391991a4c5 The yellowish thing is a cheap dew heater. Need a couple for the guidecamera and secondary anyway, so I tried this solution. Works great. No affect on collimation.

And solid and reliable. I've got 5 Canon DSLR's that I switch between, and they all use this plug. Never trouble or bad connections!

Polaris always sits within a degree from the north celestial pole. For visual observing, that's good enough. Use the two right stars in The Big Dipper as guides. Polaris lies on a straight line trough these two stars.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. One size doesn't fit all. As a compromize, I'd go for a HEQ5 and a 6" f/4 newt with a Canon (600D?) DSLR in the back. You'll need a coma corrector and a DSLR-adapter. Most newt's comes with the standard 9x50 finderscope. Put the cheapest and smallest (sensor) color camera behind that, and you have a guide scope. Adapters are available. With this combo you will frame the whole Andromeda, but it will be tight. With a fullframe (Canon 5D MkII?) you will have plenty of space. When time comes for planet hunting, you replace the coma corrector with a beefy barlow or powermate, and move the little guide camera from the finderscope to the newt. You can even put one barlow on top of another, been there, done that, but it will be shaky. The nice thing about the HEQ5 is that it often can be sold for more than you paid yourself if you get your hands on a used one. Nice if you will upgrade later. And the fast newt's are always in demand secondhand. Worth considering if this is your first rig. You learn as you go, and this will be a combo that will take decent pictures without costing to much.