ONIKKINEN

The low integration time popped out to me too. I have taken 14 hours of varying quality subs (avg = bortle 5-6 maybe) of this galaxy and i dont think im even halfway there yet, granted different kit and camera so comparisons are not 1:1. Its a very low surface brightness galaxy and on top of that its quite blue, which is where most cameras have by far the weakest QE so its even more deceptively faint than the numbers suggest.

Looks like the work paid off with how small your total guide error is now, what was it before the mount surgery? Mine is at around 0.7" now and am hoping to get under 0.5" after i get around to doing a similar process.

The average temperature during my nights out with the scope was -1 celsius for the past season, and i missed the 2 coldest months of January and February entirely so it could have been around -5 if i got the typical 2-4 nights per month. So for me it would be very much possible to shoot with an uncooled camera like this since the 533 has next to no dark current below -5. I kind of do this already actually since if its colder than -10 outside i have no matching darks or bias, since i cant easily take -25 or similar frames from indoors (and cant be bothered to, since dark current is so low).

Looks to me like like spacing needs addressing as stars have this circular elongation thingy going on around the edges. I thought this meant there was too much spacing between the corrector and camera and not the other way around? Cant find a source for that now though so hopefully someone can confirm that, but could also be the other way around.

This might be important for some models of camera, but for IMX571 based cameras there is no reason to take long flats as the sensor has a linear response all the way to saturated (99% + linear). A few milliseconds is enough if the panel is bright enough and there are no issues with calibration.

You will definitely need to calibrate your flats with flat darks or bias and your lights with darks or you will get overcorrection of flats. I use bias for flats since my flats exposure time is only 0,13s. Darks are of little use with how little dark signal the cameras produce but its still needed to weed out hot pixels and calibrate lights (removing offset mostly). I have a dark master made of 50x 30s exposures at -10 and use that for everything, even though often i take longer exposures or the camera is cooled lower than -10. But at -10 or lower it really doesnt matter anymore as the total amount of dark signal in a stack could still be less than 1 electron over many hours.

The Televue Paracorr type 2 that i just bought apparently moves the focal point outwards by 46mm. I have not tested this though as all of my kit is in various stages of repair/maintenance right now.

Is this really the case? I thought the focal length comes from the shape of the mirror itself and pushing the mirror up will just push the focal point up (and perhaps cause extra vignetting).

Have seen a normal not-great comet and plenty of shooting stars so supernova it is for me definitely. Preferably somewhere in lower declinations so that it barely gets above the horizon and doesn't actually bother me at night 🤣. Betelgeuse would be convenient as its not that high in the sky most times...

Good bye coma! TeleVue Paracorr type 2 from FLO.

I found out more on my particular Maxfield 0.95x corrector, and that is that my unit is either not collimated properly or introduces tilt of its own somehow. Which of the 2 it is, or both, i dont know but in any case i figured out that if i want to have good collimation i need to collimate my scope through the coma corrector and in the exact orientation it will be used for imaging. A bit annoying but i just marked the body on its 0 and 90 degree orientations and used those to collimate before screwing the camera in. I found issue in the outer edges of an APS-C camera even when in collimation but i suspect that if i had a micro 3/4ths size sensor like the 294 or 1600MM, or even smaller like the 533MC i would have not cared nearly as much about the star shape issues, if at all. So your mileage may vary but i personally would not buy the Maxfield 0.95x again given its very close pricing to the GPU which most folks i read are very satisfied with.

It was 1117€ in august of 2021 +40€ for DHL shipping. UPS shipping would have been half the price but i will gladly pay 20€ more to not have to use them. Looks like the Omegon one is almost the same price right now. I do remember it being closer to 2000€ not that long ago.

As far as i know all cameras run some version of a ToupTek driver as well as their own branded one. My Rising cam runs as ToupTek in every software other than the proprietary software that came on the CD (rising sky). I actually found another one but for folks over in the US: Looks like a carbon copy but with the Orion logo. The Altair and Omegon versions look the same other than a different coloured and shaped shell, but the front end of the camera looks identical. Also the connector end at the back.

So very close to the default 19% the site quotes. You dont pay VAT twice, so its not the UK 20% VAT on top of the already VAT including price. I would imagine TS either deducts VAT at checkout and a UK customer pays it to their customs when importing, or you pay UK vat to TS. Could be wrong of course. When i buy from FLO they deduct VAT at checkout and its my problem from then on to pay it to my customs.

Omegon is more of an Astroshop.eu brand than a TS one, at least judging from what they sell and promote. But to add to the confusion they are also made by ToupTek but somehow the pricing is very different.

Ah, my bad. The prices shown include German VAT if you have not logged in, when you log in they show you the correct one, at least for me, cant say for sure it works like that for out of EU shoppers. The price actually jumps to 2080€ then because Finnish VAT is 24% and the German is 19%.

Rising cam is ~1450€ with VAT, but for me there was also a 4,2% import duty so still around 500€ cheaper!

I dont know anything about all this glass type a vs glass type b talk but i do know that the example picture in the video posted earlier is not looking good if the scope was designed for imaging. Star bloat all over the place! Its a fast doublet (and a reducer) so not sure what else should be expected to be honest but i wouldn't call this an imaging first visual second type of scope.

I noticed that TS-optics has started selling what looks like ToupTek made cooled astrocameras with naming schemes that clearly directly compete with ZWO: IMX571 OSC: https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p14967_TS-Optics-Color-Astro-Camera-2600MC-Sony-IMX571-Sensor-D-28-3-mm.html IMX571 MONO: https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p14976_TS-Optics-MONO-Astro-Camera-2600MC-Sony-IMX571-Sensor-D-28-3-mm.html 533MC :https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p15280_TS-Optics-Color-Astro-Camera-533MC-Sony-IMX533-Sensor-D-16-mm.html The OSC version of the 571 at least looks 100% identical to my Rising Cam version also made by ToupTek, but this TS version costs a whopping 500 euros more! (with tax etc included) so its a bit confusing. They are somewhat cheaper than ZWO models though, so might be a safer option for someone not willing to shop in AliExpress for the Rising Cam. Anyway, more competition in the camera market is good!

For the same FOV you have the 2600MC from ZWO, or various other manufacturers who put the same sensor in their version (IMX571, available mono and OSC). I also see that you mentioned the Asiair but that you have not yet bought one so ill recommend another route, a cheaper camera with the same sensor inside as the 2600MC from ZWO: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001359313736.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.6f047164JGhOx6&algo_pvid=88c7fc7f-59b2-4b58-9bdc-a75b08237944&algo_exp_id=88c7fc7f-59b2-4b58-9bdc-a75b08237944-0 Ok, its maybe not the best known brand out there, but there are many (me included) who are satisfied with the camera. Mine has worked almost without issue for the past year in challenging conditions and i cant see why i wouldn't recommend it to someone. The little problems i have had have been software related, so not special to any specific camera and just how it is in the hobby. Then to replace the Asiair pro you would get either a Windows 10 mini-pc (best choice) or a Raspberry pi based mini-pc (easier, but not as many options). Both are around the same price or cheaper than the Asiair. This is actually an argument to get a mono camera instead of OSC. Mono with filters will get you a deeper image in the same amount of time as an OSC. It may not seem like it if your night gets cut short due to sudden change in weather and you're missing data from one of the filters, but if given equal imaging time the mono camera will win every time. You did not mention budget, which will carry a lot of weight in the decision of camera because mono+filters+wilterwheel will be much more expensive than just an OSC camera so you might not have a choice in this matter. There is the mono 1600MM for a lot cheaper that you could get with filters for the price of the 2600, but this is somewhat old tech now. Plenty of people post amazing images taken with this camera though so its far from old and useless even though there are better, newer cameras available.

Exactly what i was looking for, thanks a bunch! Didn't spot your thread by searching for some reason. I will see if i can easily remove them, if not then ill leave them be as they are just supporting bearings. I used to do mechanic stuff for cars and most bearings like this (in engines mostly) do not come out cleanly unless they are well worn. But sometimes slightly heating the casing with a hot air gun and hitting the bearing from the inside with a piece of wood of the right size and they fly off. With a piece of wood you dont actually damage the bearing after a few hits so the option to leave it be is still there even though its less likely to work than something less agricultural.

Anyone know which bearings are these in the RA axis of the AZ-EQ6? I dismantled my mount to see why the RA axis is maybe a bit unnecessarily difficult to balance and doesn't seem to be fluid. The mount is not broken or anything, it works just fine but i would like to see if it can be made better. The bearings seem rather crude and definitely not good quality bearings but likely some cheap low grade stuff that really shouldn't be put into mechanical things that need precision and fluidity. The lubricant is also a bit more in the sticky rather than fluid side than it should be. So, anyone know which model of bearing to look for to replace these?

You are experiencing periodic error in the RA axis since the trailing in your example is in that direction. Periodic error exists in basically all equatorial mounts and is the number 1 reason why people generally use some kind of autoguider, and by doing so the problem is fixed. If you dont want to guide you need to shoot exposures that are short enough to not be effected by periodic error. What length that is depends on the mount, target DEC, pixel scale and how much trailing you deem acceptable. Since you noticed the error when shooting M81, a very high DEC target (and so moving slower through the sky = less apparent trailing than at lower DEC) it looks like you have quite a lot of periodic error. Solution is to shoot shorter subs or guide.

Looks great for a third shot, certainly much better than whatever i conjured up as my third shot. In my personal opinion denoising has gone too far if the image looks denoised and often its better to leave the grain as is and just try to very slightly even it out. Before denoising i would recommend just a selective desaturation on the background to reduce colournoise. This usually goes a long way to make the image look less noisy and denoising might not even be necessary. Then maybe just a bit of denoising if needed, again selectively, just on the background by using some kind of layer masking with just the background selected. To even out the denoised background and untouched signal you could run denoising on the galaxies as well but with a much lower setting. I find that Topaz goes too far in the low light mode even with denoising set to just 1 or 2, which is why i run it like that and then fade that with the original layer with a low percentage to get a smaller effect. Typically i find that more than 50% faded will look denoised in the end because the tool is so aggressive on astrophotos (designed for daytime use, where it works great).

I have a toy-quality amazon A4 light panel and used to use printer paper in between the scope and panel to act as a diffusion layer. One night i decided to try without the paper and saw no difference whatsoever except for faster exposures needed to get a good flat, so i just never put the paper back in again. Your mileage may vary of course, but the panel is so far out of focus that it should act as its own diffusion layer so to speak.