ONIKKINEN

Looks very similar to my shots when i had focuser sag/collimation issues with my newtonian. Dont know if collimation can be an issue with your refractor but focuser sag or tilt somewhere in the camera-corrector-focuser area would look like this.

Increasing gain will not be bringing fainter stuff in, it will just make brighter stars saturate faster and make the image look brighter. Higher gain has a lower read noise but with exposures as long as yours it really doesn't matter any more with modern CMOS cameras. I personally wouldnt take longer exposures than the ones you are already taking as it increases the chances of losing more data due to wind/mechanical issues etc. Your camera is pretty good so longer than 60s exposures are pretty much guaranteed to be sky-limited unless shooting narrowband, hence almost no benefits from longer subs. You did not mention using a filter (H-alpha/O3/both) with your setup, but using a narrowband filter would make the image be better much faster. Many such filters out there for colour cameras like the Optolong L-extreme. Also, the kind of sky conditions (light pollution, etc) you image from will dramatically increase or decrease the time required to reach a good looking result in the end. But could also just be not quite enough integration. But in the end its difficult to say without seeing the picture first, mind posting what you are working with now as it is?

Postman brought 2 very heavy boxes. Didn't include rocks as i first believed! Feels very solidly built unlike my previous Skywatcher mount 👍. Unfortunately wont be using this for a while as i seem to have finally gotten the C(not from the postman that one).

Thanks for the recap, it all makes sense now how this happened! The rust markings are only on one spot, presumably the spot that was towards the ground when the mount was sitting for 40 days. I think if it had been in use faster after the water damage, this wouldn't have been nearly as bad or even rusted at all since the water could have had a chance to drain off.

Clear nights are rare? Just use 3 telescopes at once. looks like you have figured out the weather problem just fine 🤣

Looks like rust damage

Then they would probably work just fine. But one more tip i will give about the.FITS files not being viewable easily: They dont have to be viewed! In NINA you can set various parameters to be written on the file name itself and so can inspect all the useful information of the sub without opening it. You'll find this in the options-Imaging tab. Example below: In this image you can see a screenshot of the folder i have saved my subs. The file name consist of the time and date it was taken on, then the exposure time, then the number in the sequence it was taken on. The next number, for example on the top one 1.15 is the guiding error in RMS arcseconds from the duration of the sub, not the total error of the session mind you. Next line is the name of the sequence that i had created. The final 2 numbers are HFR being 3.77 in the top example and the number of stars NINA detected and used for this HFR measurement. If these values are clear outliers from the average sub, then probably a good idea to just throw it away. Just by glancing at this list i can immediately tell that there are some clear outliers that should not be used for stacking because either the guide error or HFR was too high (for example the HFR 4+ subs are not good). This way i dont need to inspect the sub itself and can just remove it from the list without much worry on losing data. I find this to be an essential method when there can be hundreds of subs after a night to inspect.

They might still be a bit out of focus, hard to tell if its processing or just slightly big stars due to focus, but coma is gone. I just see a Canon driver option in NINA. Have not downloaded anything from Canon, thats for sure. I think this is just on NINAs end to deal with the driver? I dont see this option straight away by the way. I must plug in the camera and then click the refresh button for this option to appear. Also, the camera must be set to manual shooting mode first. Can you use the FITS files as you would raw files, as in they are debayerable and have usable header information (ISO or gain/exposure time)? If you can, then im not sure there is a benefit to having the files be in .CR2 format. One benefit might be that .CR2 format files are easy to open and browse through in windows where as .FITS files really are not.

Coma corrector is doing great 👍, very nice images for such short integrations. Actually just nice looking images even without considering the integration. I focused with a bahtinov mask for a few dozen sessions but then switched to just using NINA HFR readings. Takes maybe a bit more time (not always) but i am guaranteed good focus. It can be difficult to tell by eye whether the bahtinov mask diffraction pattern is truly centered or not, and changing seeing can make this difficult. I found that i could reach what i thought was good focus with a bahtinov mask but still improve it after taking the mask off and doing tiny adjustments with my 1:10 reducer gear in the focuser. Your mileage may vary, but i dont trust my bahtinov mask anymore.

Does the dark stuff not come off? Difficult to tell without handling the bearing myself but looks slightly oxidized. If it feels slick when rolling then nothing to worry about, but if you can feel the dark stuff with your fingers or when rolling the bearing it should be taken off.

Try to clean all of the rollers and all the surfaces they roll on as thoroughly as possible and apply the new grease after that. There should be no feeling of grit or jerkiness in any of the bearings, if there are it means metal or rust has flaked off and is causing friction. Rust specks will act as sandpaper and will destroy the bearing, if it isn't already gone. It does look a bit rusty but i wouldn't call it ruined yet. But if not cleaned it will be ruined in use eventually. I think it can still be used without worry of further damage as long as its well cleaned and greased, but do keep in mind that eventually it should be replaced.

Surprising for sure. Good grease will deter rust from forming on surfaces you apply it on, so its unlikely you'll run into this issue again. Although this brings a question to my mind: How did the rust get there? Either something was improperly assembled and water/humidity was in there since new or water has a way to get to the inner workings of the mount. Both are bad options, but its not that rare for rust to form in weird places. If the mount has been outside in the rain it would explain how it happened. Do try to clean off the rust that has already formed to stop it from spreading, but dont use unnecessary force as to not scratch anything that shouldn't be scratched.

Use high quality lithium grease, leave the copper paste out. Copper paste is very durable and tough but also abrasive, so not a good choice for mounts. Copper paste is good for brakepad holders and other things that must not seize but also do not need to be perfectly slick and fluid all the time.

I was curious about this conversation about darks being not helpful with Canon DSLRs, and i admit i never thought about it or measured my own darks when i shot with a 550D. I took some test darks and found that a 1s dark has a median ADU of 2049 while a 600s one has a median ADU of 2047? So it seems Canon is doing something to make all dark signal be somewhere around 2048 ADUs regardless of exposure time.

Platesolving all the way, there are no real reasons to do manual align points or star alignment if you have PC control of the mount. There are some who claim platesolving is bad but just ignore those comments, they are stuck in the ways of the old. Star aligning is dead, long live platesolve!

The linked sub is very out of focus, this is easy to see if you zoom in and see that stars are hollow donuts with dark spots in the center. The screenshotted frame also looks like it might be a bit out of focus, but maybe not that much. The aberrations and elongation of stars everywhere except the center of the image is coma, which all fast newtonians suffer from. Looks like you already know about this since you have a coma corrector in your signature so i assume you just didn't use the corrector for this night? That is what my NINA settings window looks like, and it is true that this setting is ignored. My 550D files are always saved as .CR2 format RAW files and i cant save them as .TIFFs even if i try. As i open your .TIFF in Siril it seems i cannot debayer the frame as it has no bayer matrix pixel order information in the header (as it does not have a header because its a .TIFF and not a raw file). This is why it is monochrome when you open it. I can split the color channels into individual frames and maybe re-composite them later but maybe not worth the time and effort, something is wrong with capture. I found this thread on CN: https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/745264-nina-saving-canon-files-as-fits/ Where someone had a similar issue as you, but instead their frames were saved as .FITS files. Question is, what driver do you use to connect to the camera? Native Canon driver should be used instead of the ASCOM one is what i gather from that thread. This by itself is not that strange if you took short exposures. Or longer exposures but with a slow scope. I cant see anything but the cores of the brightest stars in all of my images, and its not an issue at all. The reason why DSS doesn't detect the stars in your case is because it doesn't recognize them as stars, due to their large size and coma from being out of focus. Nothing to do about the focus issue now except reshoot and pay attention to focus drift during the next night. If the temperature changes, so will your focus. Also focusers can slip and cause focus to drift during the night. From your screenshot it looks like you have the image statistics completely off-screen and star/HFR measurements are not in use at all. Click the star icon to use the star analysis and use this to focus the scope. The more stars NINA finds per shot the better, the lower you can get your HFR the better. Looking at HFR values in NINA is a very easy and quick way to reach very good focus, and you'll immediately see if focus has drifted when the HFR value increases.

You can rotate the lens to which these markings are etched on a Skywatcher polar scope, although you will need to collimate afterwards (you also did not mention what polar scope you have). But an easier way is to rotate RA so that the orientation is the right way up when polar aligning.

I think HFR values are a bit arbitrary and difficult to compare, since it depends on the number of stars NINA has decided to include in the calculation, tracking accuracy and field flatness, so seeing is just one part of the equation. But you should be able to produce an average value from your own data to see how much seeing has an effect. My HFR values are a bit higher than one should expect from an 8 inch newtonian, since my coma corrector is not that great (TS maxfield 0.95x), so mine should be much closer to yours on average since the imaging resolutions are quite similar. Im not 100% sure on this, but i think NINA HFR values are in arcseconds based on the focal length you have input in the settings tab.

The APM UFF 24mm is a joy to use even in my fast F4.2 newtonian. Has very generous eye relief and i feel like i can have my head in various different positions to use it. Highly recommended!

Dont have that model of mount, but in my experience with another equatorial mount adjusting the worm is something that has to be done quite frequently if the temperature and/or humidity changes a lot. It has happened to me also, i adjusted backlash on RA to be as good as it can be, tested that nothing binds and then several sessions and a couple months later it no longer slews at all due to binding. Your case does sound a bit different though since you cannot even move it with the clutch open. I would try to adjust the clutch, since you said there is a knocking sound on both ends it means something is binding that shouldn't bind. No idea how to adjust the clutch in the AZEQ6 though, since its different from other clutches, but maybe someone who owns the mount can help you there.

If you use NINA to capture you can set it to measure and show HFR per sub. HFR depends on your telescope and tracking too but seeing has the biggest effect and i find that on good nights it can be under 3 while on terrible nights its 4+. Most or even all of the HFR 4+ go straight to the bin, and this is with 1.84 arcsec/pixel. I think youll need to bin2 with the 1400mm fl scope unless imaging from a mountain top in a desert/doing planetary as seeing doesnt really support that kind of resolution 99% of the time.

I dont care about seeing when planning a night. If its clear i will go out regardless of seeing conditions, but i also expect to not get all that great results. On the worst nights i could end up throwing most of the subs away, but im still left with some decent subs at the end so the night is not really fully lost.

The very first thing i saw when i scrolled down the list to the number 1 telescope they recommend: The astromaster 130 😬 which is apparently good for long exposure photography. Having owned and used that as a first telescope i would point a few things out, which i believe most of us already know about. "you'll need to collimate the setup. This process can be tricky for beginners, but with practice it's easily achieved – especially given Celestron has supplied a manual that walks you through the process." - True, the manual does touch up on collimation. Reading it it just says to center your eye on the focuser drawtube and adjust until you see all 3 mirror clips and the reflection of your eye in the center. Technically a form of collimation but just eyeballing it will not work and the views will keep on being bad. "The equatorial mount assists with tracking, which is essential for longer exposure astrophotography." - So it assists in it or it does it? Which is it? Assisting in it does not lead to long exposure photography, unless 1s exposures are long. "The optical performance is very good, with no major visual defects visible and we enjoyed the stunning contrast and clarity in the field of view. " -No visible defects other than spherical aberration from the entirely spherical F5 primary mirror, astigmatism and just a general lack of sharpness even on-axis. So if we ignore these deal breakers then yes we do not have optical issues 😂. "The Celestron AstroMaster 130EQ comes fairly well equipped, and features two good quality eyepieces (20mm and 10mm), a StarPointer red dot finderscope" -The 20mm erected view eyepiece might actually be the worst piece of optical equipment i have looked through. I dont know what the apparent FOV is but it is similar to the 10mm... The 10mm is your average Kellner 10mm (i think kellner) and nothing to write home about. Not awful is what i would call it, although wouldn't dream of using it if there are any options. The red dot finder has plastic adjustment screws and loose threads so it looses alignment pretty much immediately if you touch it. Sometimes even if you dont touch it. "Overall, the package is a sound choice as a first serious telescope for astrophotography." 🤮 Honestly i am quite shocked reading this through since i agree with almost none of it, pretty much all of the review is the opposite of truth. There is no way the person who wrote this has ever been in the same room as an astromaster 130, which leads me to believe that yes this is indeed just an ad, probably written by Celestron themselves.

I ran into this as well while browsing Light pollution and searching for good spots local to me. There is the Helsinki nebula in the south, with around 1.5 million population producing the light pollution. Turku to the West and Tampere in between, all "big" cities. Then there is another nameless blob to the northwest, where the town of Närpes with less than 10k population is. Was wondering how its possible the light domes can be similar in size but turns out most of Finnish vegetables come from there! I have never heard anyone seriously considering doing anything about light pollution, but then again we do have immense areas of almost complete wilderness still left so maybe its not seen as a big issue here.

Not really an expert in good guiding and definitely never seen a graph like yours on my setup, but a few things come to mind. What sort of guider do you have? Setting the focal length wrong in PHD2 settings can give bogus readouts and also, if you have something like the 30mm miniguider its possible PHD2 just doesnt pick up the errors and so the graph is flat. Another option is that the periodic error correction is doing a good job and it really is doing that well. This is what i hope is the case as a soon to be user of the AZEQ6 😁. Also, could be a combination of all of the above + shooting in high DEC. At 73 degrees of Declination my EQM35 sometimes reports RMS of under 0.4 too. Definitely not truly that good but that is what PHD2 and my guider can pick up at high DEC.