ONIKKINEN

My first scope was an Astromaster 130 and it was not center spotted. Spherical aberration and astigmatism all over the place. Not much better than a typical bathroom shaving mirror. Some people report a not so bad experience and actually image with the thing, which i find difficult to believe. The only way i could imagine this happening if they have several different types of mirrors that get fitted to the scope. Maybe some of them have the better mirrors like the ones found in the 130p series of dobs/newts by skywatcher? (also a synta brand). Mine was also not 130mm, but 122mm. Tells you a lot about how much Celestron cares about the product...

Seems oddly cheap for VAT included. If you change your location to somewhere else in aliexpress youll find that this price is without VAT. VAT or not, still cheap. If your invoice doesnt specifically state a vat paid then its probably something that youll pay when it arrives in your country.

This is a completely unnecessary step that serves no purpose other than to waste your time. This manual movement is no different than the initial "guess" of your mount to take you to the target coordinates. The initial go-to accuracy is based on the accuracy of your polar alignment, the accuracy of your home position and the accuracy of your mount. None of these 3 points will be perfect, but the initial slew is still probably within a few degrees of the target, definitely closer than the manual slew to horizontal. After the first platesolving run you will be at exactly the same point as by just starting the sequence at home position. You can start a sequence from home position and let NINA do the rest. As long as you have the options "slew to target" and "Center target" toggled on the platesolver will take you all the way there.

How tight are your clutches? under the clutches are sliding surfaces that are lubricated and if you dont tighten them enough you could have slipping. That would lead to the motors running to the target but the actual movement is less because of slipping. If you can easily move the scope by hand when the clutches are locked, so can the motors.

Platesolving in NINA goes: Slew to mount assumed coordinates - platesolve - sync - slew again and repeat until within tolerance or out of re-attempts set in settings, so platesolving a scope at home position shouldnt happen normally. Problem for me is a weak mount and the final slews are chasing vibrations or backlash or other issues if i set it to a low value.

I was looking at this too, but decided to not spend a cent on Celestron products if possible. For not that much more cost you can get a proper power station like a Jackery: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jackery-Portable-Explorer-Generator-Outdoors/dp/B08RNPYLQW?ref_=ast_sto_dp AC output on the field, regulated power outputs from every socket etc. I dont have a Jackery but do have one like it from another brand (ecoflow river). One of the better purchase decisions i have made.

No need to ever star align again, platesolving will do that for you. Accuracy of the initial go-to is really of trivial importance since you will probably need a couple loops of platesolving/re-slewing to reach the target with reasonable accuracy. Experiment with how accurate your setup is and set the pointing tolerance with something you think is good enough. Under 1 arcmin is probably a bit nitpicky and will take more slewing and solving to reach. Of course polar alignment is still important though.

I have the celestron on the left, and i would never recommend anyone even consider buying it. Complete piece of toxic junk. It can NOT supply the rated 3A it states, at least my unit cannot. Since it has an internal smart circuit it decides if it supplies power or not, not you. It randomly cut off power during GO-TOs with my relatively low power EQM-35PRO. I am able to replicate this issue 100% of the time by quickly changing direction of slewing. Also the power supply cuts off if the current is too low, like when supplying power for my flat field light panel that has a very low power consumption LED. The LED is on for 10 seconds an then the power is cut off due to being too low. Also you cannot use the USB ports at the same time as the DC output, it is one or the other. Oh and the flip up dust cover permanently came off after just a couple of uses (some plastic broke inside). Complete waste. Your mileage may vary though, just my experience with the product.

You'll save around 10% when buying straight from ZWO with for example a ZWO 2600MC, assuming you would buy from FLO otherwise. Up to you to decide whether or not that's worth the hassle if there is trouble. If i had a local seller i probably wouldn't risk it for this kind of price difference. Its not really possible to spend more on import taxes since that happens for someone anyway, either you or the importer of the product. In this case the importer takes a cut to cover the costs of dealing with potential returns, hence the 10% difference in price.

Great thread, lots of answered questions.

I am using the Skywatcher EQM-35 PRO with an 8 inch newtonian, with cameras and extras mounted it weighs in at around 9kg. Dont do what i did and buy a mount that technically should work, its a huge pain in the backside and i lose the majority of my exposures to different unsolveable problems. Now the 130mm newt is a lot lighter but it is still a big chunk of metal and will be difficult to balance properly. Wind and vibrations will be an issue with any sized newtonian too. I think a mount like the EQM35 or EQ5 will be decent for you, but not without frustration. I would not buy a barely within limits mount again if i could go back in time.

Changing my location to Sweden changes the price to include VAT, where as any other country leaves the VAT out of the price? Weird. So yes 1530 USD with VAT, whereas the ZWO 1800 USD does not include VAT. With taxes added to both there is still a 700-ish USD difference. I expect customs to hold the package until taxes and fees are paid since i was not billed VAT at checkout.

the EQM35 PRO can be used manually, if you have slow motion control knobs. The opposite to the motor side of the worms are free and the motors spin freely but with a bit of gearbox resistance if they are unpowered. I use manual knobs when adjusting backlash, much easier when you feel it. Of course i left them at home though.

I bought it for 1224 USD, its on sale right now. Not sure where you got your numbers. Looks like most camera manufacturers are running a sale now but imo the price difference is still significant. I find the RisingCam graphs impossible to read, especially considering that gain starts at 100. The graphs look similar if you remove the ZWO parts before gain 100 though. Sharpcap sensor analysis will tell me what is the best gain im sure.

I use the same telescope i use for everything else, my jack of all trades and master of none: OOUK VX8. With the Native focal ratio of F4.4 it is not optimal for planetary observations having a 30% or so linear obstruction, but so far i have no complaints. Not that i would know even if it could be better since this is the best scope i have looked through. But Jupiter shows nice detail in multiple distinct bands and some noticeable "swirls" between them. The Moon is always a joy to look at. Sharp as a knife views guaranteed at reasonable altitudes.

Can you elaborate on what you mean with "10mm lens". I will assume you mean 10mm eyepiece? As in the piece of plastic/metal/glass that you put into the telescope and then look through? Could you tell us what the model of telescope is? If all else fails it could be that the Moon is just too bright. With my 200mm aperture telescope the Moon is not observable AT ALL without specific light blocking filters. So, what kind of telescope are you looking through? Aperture is the key factor here.

It looked like i was blessed with stable skies, clouds in the far south but should not interfere with Jupiter, Saturn and the lovely orange full Moon. Of course i packed everything i should need in to my car and set off for an observing location better than the 16, something SQM skies i live under. Everything is FINE. I arrive on site, see that the skies are favourable and the seeing would appear to be average or better than average, judging from how much the stars appear to twinkle. Jupiter is obscenely bright and Saturn is clearly a naked eye object, which is a nice turn of events after the Finnish summer. First things first, i plug in my power supply to my OOUK VX8 mirorr fan. Plugging the fan in as soon as i arrive on site is usually good enough to equalize the mirror to ambient temperatures. I polar align with a smartphone app to a reasonable degree. I dont plan on doing long exposure ( not that i could, with the July skies) so i am fine with a "good enough" type of very fast polarscope alignment. I spent more time than usually for balancing my OTA as i found previously that fighting backlash is really annoying, and if i have to spend 5 more minutes to make it even a bit easier, i will. After this i aligned my finder red-dot with my optical train using a 19mm eyepiece and a street light a bit of a distance away, all good for now. Then obviously its time to plug all the cables and power on the mount to start my night! Of course it would be easier to do if i had packed everything i needed. I had not. Only then i found out that i packed everything except the synscan hand controller... So, the observing report for today is: Moon looked nice and orange, Jupiter and Saturn looked like stars.

I am using N.I.N.A for all my deepsky acquisition and from the looks of it there is at least some compatibility with RisingCam models in the "nightly builds" versions of the software: https://nighttime-imaging.eu/downloads/Setup/Nightlies/1.11.0.1114/index.html It looks like RisingCam drivers were recently added, fingers crossed that everything works out.

I am very interested in seeing how much of a difference these things make, ill make sure to run some tests once i get my hands on the thing. This will be my first cooled camera so i have nothing to compare it to, but there are a boatload of other IMX571 sensor cameras in use so it shouldn't be that difficult to make some comparisons. What is this "starburst" you mentioned, i was not able to find much information on this?

Im sure it cant be worse than my 11 year old DSLR that is mostly noise. Is there a learning source for this noise thing and cameras in general? I just assumed that the sensor creates the image and the associated noise with it. Sure there could be amp glow from internal electronics but the descriptions of the product specifically mention some anti amp glow design.

I just placed an order for the colour version of RisingCam IMX571, expected delivery in about 3 weeks. Too cheap to pass on, less than half the price of a ZWO IMX571 version. The sensor is the exact same one so i cant really see how the important bits could be all that different, i guess we'll find out!

Sure, bright objects are good to go already. The Moon and Jupiter are probably at least a bit enjoyable throughout summer but polar aligning will be impossible as no stars are visible. I am able to PA now but was not just 2 weeks ago.

Still waiting for a while longer here. Late august is when i expect to start my DSO season again...

I'll add my 2 cents to this as a fairly new guy in the hobby. I mostly image, but bright and easy objects like the planets and the Moon i do like to observe visually. I live under horrible bortle8-9 skies, and there is sadly not much to see in terms of deepsky objects. I usually drive a bit out of the city to a bortle 6-7 zone but the story remains the same, not much to observe. Imaging however is possible under bright skies and i am able to see the objects as i imagined them. It helps that we have maybe 30 suitable nights a year for astronomy, so plenty of time to process pictures. I would imagine a lot of newcomers are from big cities where owning or using big visual scopes is not very convenient and small scopes are drowned in city lights. I havent actually visited a moonless bortle 4 or better with visual in mind yet so my opinions might change when that happens.

Small and unregulated power supplies are a recipe for frustration and disaster, especially once it gets colder outside. Voltage can drop below 12V well before the charge should be empty which is something you should definitely avoid when trying to run a computer/cameras with something. This is especially true once you start adding things to the setup like dew heaters, maybe cooled cameras etc. I would recommend buying something like a Jackery or an ecoflow river, i bought this one: https://www.amazon.co.uk/ECOFLOW-Portable-Flashlight-Generator-Emergencies/dp/B091YMZKRY/ref=pd_di_sccai_1/258-3720988-0828560?pd_rd_w=vLeyA&pf_rd_p=2529c273-c9d4-4495-807e-68ed4dfade5e&pf_rd_r=6DN7500CZGHV1AC9G8HJ&pd_rd_r=83988aa6-6fd4-4f76-aa7d-4160a538ac07&pd_rd_wg=4vkOc&pd_rd_i=B091YMZKRY&psc=1 It is heavier and bulkier than what you would prefer, but its not unwieldy as it has a nice handle. I carry mine in the same hand as i carry my tripod and can still remain fully mobile carrying a mount, 8inch newt, camera and guiding equipment. Proper power supplies like these are very expensive but you will permanently leave any problem related to power behind. One of the best purchases i have ever made, never looked back!