Ags

My most expensive and disabling injury (if it can be called such) was crushing my glasses one fine evening. Most painful was the papercut inflicted on me while replacing the leg clamp on my tripod. My deepest psychological injury was the slug that crawled up my arm on a dark and terrible night.

A friend asked about a sketching book, so I quickly put together a ring-bound A5 Messier sketch book like the following. Note the above extract is the printer PDF and I am using full bleed printing on this one, so it includes 0.635 cm around the edges that gets cropped. The finder page goes down to mag 7.5. The notes/sketch page is based on the BAA observer form, although it only includes one sketching area. Any thoughts on whether this would be useful, or how to improve the form, which I have struggled over to be honest?

So my rig at 4 kg with 2-3 kg counterweights should be fine. Hopefully...

Does anyone have an idea?

What do people think - do I invert north and south for southern hemisphere maps?

A little update, I am working through the southern hempisphere doubles and should have a southern hemisphere version complete by month end. When the southern hemisphere version is complete I can produce the the hardback "all sky" version (with full color plates!) from the same source data. In addition I have put together a collection of about 1000 objects for other works I want to produce, collating information on objects like planetaries, globulars, carbon and variable stars.

How about a C6 - it will obviously have the same aperture as a CC6, but be a further 2kgs lighter. I think a C8 is getting too big, especially for an AZ-GTi. Versus the C8, you lose a bit of aperture but gain a bit of field, which is important in a travel scope I think.

There is an open source mosaic util called Hugin I will give a try.

This thread makes my head spin. With every post I hear about new exotic compounds that I never even imagined existed. But every option gets shot down. We are the species that put some of its members on the moon right? How hard can it be to keep some threads unlocked? What about ordinary items I might find around the house? How about vaseline? Shoe polish? Actual graphite from a pencil? Extra virgin olive oil? Goose fat? Skin cream? 😀

The AZ-GTi was originally intended as an AZ mount only, so I've been wondering about the off-axis load on the RA gear in EQ mode. How much would be too much? Counterweights reduce strain on the motor, but add to the off-axis load. I hesitate to try out my C6 (3.3 kgs with presumably 3kgs of counterweights) for example.

Yes, I know... my curse is a always get distracted by shiny new things. At least I hardly ever translate my over-enthusiastic shopping into over-enthusiastic buying 😀 There are many advantages to getting a mirrorless camera (conventional photography, aside from anything else, but also milky way and astro landscape shots), the main disadvantage to me seems to be the small batteries they come with (and I don't know any options to provide offboard power). But it is an option I am considering. I used to have an 1100D mirror camera and the unnecessary clacking of the mirror was annoying (no mirror lock). I can keep the ASI 178 MM and pick up a second hand M100 this month, it is porbably a better option. I gave the 1100D to my granddaughter and it got burglarized the next month. The insurance money upgraded her to a 1300D and a new lens!

OK, so I still need the bigger sensor 😀 The native resolution of the ASI224 is just too low. I think the sensor size of the 485MC would be more practical with my C6, even when it is reduced to 945mm focal length.

Witchcraft I say! It is a very interesting idea, and one I will try on the next clear night! If I can get this to work, then I can get a smaller and much cheaper RGB camera and mosaic. The obstacles I see are simply leaving gaps, and dealing with gradients, which I expect get worse the wider the field. Thank you for the clear explanation. Can you recommend a good (free) mosaic stitching program?

Well... I am looking at buying a new camera, not an new telescope and a new camera 😀 My thinking is that the camera would let me capture larger targets, so it effectively offers more (RGB filtered) light gathering than the 178 MM. I wouldn't attempt the same targets with the 178 MM because I don't get enough time for a mosaic, the most I can manage is a couple of hours now and then... In an ideal world I would keep both cameras and have an ultralightweight dual imaging setup with camera lenses!

Actually, a couple of months back I asked FLO to update the specs to 45 degrees (for the shorter SLVs only) to match the stated figures on Vixen's own website. Very happy with my 6mm SLV. I would guesstimate the AFOV of the 6mm to be 45 degrees, definitely less than 50.

Still not sure I go OSC. Does the larger size of the 485MC counterbalance the greater sensitivity of the smaller 178MM? Selecting targets that fill each sensor, the 485MC is nearly like having a triple rig of 178MMs with RGB filters...

That's a lotta laptops!

Still no reviews of this exciting camera. It seems to have a good blue sensitivity, which is very attractive. With my current blue filter, the ASI 178 MM is almost immune to blue light!

Excellent work!

https://wd40.co.uk/tips-and-tricks/can-wd-40-help-arthritis-stiff-joints/

Yes you are right, I misread the dimensions. Still, I would prefer it to be squarer...

One issue with the 485MC is the odd shape of the sensor - the aspect ratio is nearly 2. Personally, I find squarer sensors more practical as a high aspect ratio just pushes the corners to the edge of the image circle.

Just had another nice mini-session on Jupiter, followed by a couple of double stars. Collimation can be a wonderful thing!

That's good info, I thought OSC binning was difficult. Do I understand you correctly that I can bin from SharpCap, or only in post-processing?

I have already changed my mind - the 482 is better all round. For planetary, I would simply add a barlow to get to around F20.