ONIKKINEN

I am on a long and frustrating journey to find every excuse on earth to not have to upgrade my mount (also the EQM-35). I think the answer to do you need one is No, but would you want one? Yes. I hate my mount but i am determined to find the least bad way to use it with my very overloaded setup of 9kg on it, its frustrating and i will definitely upgrade one day, but since then i am trying all kinds of hacks to make it tolerable. So far results are mixed but my setup technically does its job, it just wastes a bit too much precious clear sky for my weather conditions. Not guiding in DEC is a very effective way to tone down the wild seismograph that is the PHD2 log. DEC guiding will affect RA aswell since there will be stiction, backlash, sudden jerks or hiccups that shake the entire mount. Not touching DEC removes a good chunk of these temper tantrums. This relies on good polar alignment and short enough subs to make DEC drift a non issue but polar alignment to this degree is not that hard. I had the idea of taking the mount completely out of the question by taking 5-10s exposures with high gain and live stacking those into 5min subs while capturing. Then just stack and process the resulting "synthetic" 5min subs as you would normally. This would cut down the processing and storage space requirements for the otherwise thousands of subs but still retain the accuracy of a very short exposure. Someone suggested using sharpcap for this as it apparently could livestack a predetermined amount of exposure into a frame, but i actually haven't tried this yet. Why spend fortunes on a mount if software can emulate this? Seems like astrophotography is headed towards software and technology improvements instead of mechanical improvements anyway.

Necessity as in impossible to image without, which it is not. Some targets like wide emission nebulae are impractical without a filter and the result would be underwhelming, but not impossible to get. In the end its a practicality question of how long do you want to image a single target for. The required time to reveal a target from a sea of lightpollution noise increases with sky brightness. I have started and given up on a few targets after realizing that im looking at 10-20h on the same target to get where i want. A narrowband filter will work great from light pollution, so much more than just a slight difference. Narrowband filters also require that the target is bright on that spectrum. Typically a duo narrowband filter lets in emission lines from oxygen iii and hydrogen alpha - which are the most common types of bright nebulae. If you want to image nebulae you will definitely want this kind of filter. Short exposures will be troublesome for the narrowband filters as you are cutting out most of the light. Im not sure untracked would be effective like this. Galaxies do not benefit from these filters, as they are broadband targets so you might aswell image them without the filter, (actually better without) but here your focal length will limit the available targets. The 135mm samyang will get a great shot of andromeda and perhaps triangulum with a longer integration, but the rest are quite small. But Andromeda, Orion, Pleiades would turn out nice without filters, and thats already a list of targets to start with.

My grab and go is an 8 inch newtonian, full astrophotography setup including guiding and mobile power station, EQ mount and steel tripod. Oklop EQ5 bag carries the mount with counterweights on one shoulder, Oklop bag carries the newtonian on the other shoulder, backpack fits all the small items (cameras, electronics, guidescope etc), tripod on one hand and power station on the other. I cant open doors, or walk more than 50m with the 40kg+ mountain of gear but technically grab and go 🤣.

https://shop.stcoptics.com/product/clipfilter_fujifilm/ Could be worth checking out for the Fuji. Broadband imaging from light pollution is not impossible at all by the way, it just has additional issues and restrictions but a filter is never a necessity. Bright broadband targets like the popular nearby galaxies should be doable from anywhere, just takes more time.

I have a weak mount that really suffers with longer exposures. Ideally i would take 10s or shorter subs to make the best of a bad situation. But this means hundreds of gigabytes of data per target, which is not really possible practically. I am imaging with an IMX571 OSC camera so read noise and light pollution combined means that exposures as low as 2 seconds would completely swamp the noise floor. Is there software that i could use to livestack lets say 5 minutes of 10s subs and then save that 5min sub as a "raw" sub to be stacked later in actual processing? I know of sharpcap live stacking, but isnt that more for EAA? This would be the best of both worlds, good tracking, little to no wasted subs, low storage and processing requirements for long integration time targets. 5 minutes of total exposure per livestacked raw also means gradients are manageable. Of course i know another solution: a good mount. But if software can emulate that its not needed.

I never had colour issues with my 550D, even in horrible bortle 8 conditions. It was difficult to pull out but not impossible. Maybe try shooting 800ISO and 30s? According to some sources (like APT) 800 ISO is the ideal setting for the 550D. Try in daylight and see if you get a good image, that should put the sensor issue to rest.

Hmm, im not so sure the flats would be 100% to blame on the gradients, i get gradients like these imaging at the edge of an intense lightdome where one side of the image is much brighter than the other. What quality of skies was this shot from? Colour is incredibly difficult to pull out for some reason, something must have gone wrong during stacking or capture. Maybe try with the 32-bit option in DSS if you were bitrate limited? (doubt it but worth a shot).

Lots of this is born of people being shift workers without their say in it and not the inherent badness of a later schedule. Working mornings and evenings mixed was a miserable existence until things got really irreparably out of hand for me with sleep quality. I have worked permanent evening shifts ever since and it felt like this is how life should actually feel when i adjusted to it! Nobody should be forced to work outside their "natural" schedule, but unfortunately the world doesn't work like that. Obviously astronomy is a great hobby for someone whos free time usually begins at around midnight 👍.

The EQM-35 is not a good option for the money, it is more comparable to the EQ-3 than the EQ-5. The differences between the EQ3 and EQM35 are a "reinforced" RA-axis, removable DEC axis to make it a big Star Adventurer and an extra counterweight. Note that the RA axis is not an issue in the EQ-3, the DEC is, and they are the same (trash). Comparing weights of the 35 and 5 are also very similar if given equal counterweights. The EQM-35 is very error prone and just generally a bad time, perhaps even with a little 80mm scope. There are really almost no benefits to getting an EQM35 compared to an EQ5, so no contest there given the almost identical prices. Trust me, i have the mount and hate it 👎. If the person you are advising said that there is a good likelihood it will be used for imaging, i would assume the likelihood is 100%, once the first pics roll in and they cant believe what they are seeing. For this reason the 150PDS might be a better choice. I am also using a 200mm newt, and i probably should have gotten a 150. Imaging performance is quite similar, but the 150 is a lot more manageable for the mount (i would assume, just judging from physical size and weight). HEQ-5 + 150PDS would be a cheap and upgradeable choice, HEQ-5+ + 200PDS could be worse for imaging because of its bulk. Both would be a chore to carry outside, but it doesn't have to be comfortable and they could always carry the mount and OTA in separate trips. And in the subject of comfort, whether the 200 on an EQ mount would be usable depends on the persons height. I am 187cm and the 200 on my EQ mount is just about perfect for zenith viewing.

Took the words right out of my mouth. I am using the short exposures route with a weak mount: Skywatcher EQM35-PRO with 9kg payload. Depending on weather conditions of course but usually i reject around 25% of my frames taken with guided 30s exposures. Thing is, with CCD and a requirement for several minutes of exposure i would never get a single usable sub. So while its a bad idea, its not an impossible idea.

The conversion process is less intimidating as it sounds. I have done something like this multiple times with hundreds of frames with some lunar stacking i tried with adjustments to each frame. You can crop a frame by X amount, do some general adjustments to curves and levels and then copy the settings to all the frames opened. With just a conversion for stacking use you're looking at a few clicks and some time spent processing the conversion so not that time consuming. Converting for stacking use should be done on the raw frame, so no adjustments. Pentax is another brand often overlooked by astrophotographers because of similar issues as with FUJI, lack of support from software. Cuiv, The Lazy Geek on Youtube has some videos with the Pentax astrotracer in use. Might want to check those out if you want to go that route. I think he succeeded in capturing some simple astrophotographs without a tracker with just the astrotracer feature and a tripod. This is the video with the astrotracer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3p9Shx3jNZY

Nice! Damn you weather, i missed these completely. Would have been a spectacular sight at my latitudes too.

Went back to this and reprocessed it a bit since new data isn't coming in due to weather. Stacked in SIRIL instead of DSS this time, deconvoluted in the linear stage and reduced stars with PS StarXterminator layer fiddling. Not sure what else i did differently. I think its a bit easier on the eyes this way. What do you think, did it improve or not?

The budgeter in me wanted to skip spending money as much as possible, hence the advice. Taking it slow and in steps will definitely be the more comfortable choice as you'll learn pretty much all aspects of astrophotography on the way. Lots of targets in the sky for Bortle 8 with any kind of setup, telescope or lens. Some things get very difficult and require more exposures to get the object to appear from all the noise but nothing should be impossible. The DSLR astrophotography world is dominated by Canon and Nikon for available kit and software, but since the you are looking for a mirrorless, i dont think you'll run out of lenses to use with adaptor possibilities. Software to control the camera with a PC will be difficult (or impossible, im now aware of software that works with fuji) but since thats a step in the future, maybe dont worry about it now. PC-control is not a necessity for DSLR astrophotography anyway, just a convenience thing. The samyang 135mm is a great performer and there are lots of targets to shoot with just that, so if you can fit that to the FUJI i think there are no problems. I was able to find some Canon EF - X mount adapters so shouldn't be an issue. Looking at the specs of both cameras i would go with the cheaper XT-3. Both share the same sensor and inner guts, so astrophotography performance would be the same or very similar. If you want to buy the XT-4, probably look at the differences in terrestial photography, and how much value do you want to give to that. Something that i will say and might come as a surprise but your camera can eat batteries very fast with it sitting outside and taking long exposures. So in this way the XT4 with its bigger battery is more convenient, but you'll still likely need to get extras.

OAG vs guidescope is an accuracy vs convenience question. For long focal lengths and very long exposures an OAG will be better since there is no differential flexure. Finding a guidestar can be difficult with an OAG with the small field of view and youll likely need to up the exposure time to use dimmer stars for guiding. Guide scopes are just fine for most setups and scenarios though. I use a 60/240mm guidescope to guide my 840mm focal length setup. Having a guider resolution of 1/5th your main scopes resolution would probably be OK on most seeing conditions. Guidescopes are very plug and play, there is no setup or hassle. Just put the camera in, focus and PHD2 will be able to start multi star guiding. I usually have 10 or so guidestars with mine at 2s exposures. Budget friendly guiding will be difficult. If you already have a laptop and doom that to astrophotography then you only need the guidecam, guidescope and all the cables. So even this way youre looking at 300 euros or so(or whatever currency). If not, options are the AsiarPro, stellarmate, RaspberryPi (with stellarmate software), or a Windows 10 mini pc. Out of those the asiair is the easiest to setup and use, but youre forced to only ever use ZWO products which can carry a price premium. I recently bought a camera very much like the 2600MC but for about 60% of the price - not possible with the asiair as its not a ZWO product i bought. Stellarmate and RaspberryPi are cheaper and will work with most mabufacturers, but are limited in software to use (probably fine, everything you need will be there). The least convenient to setup but the best in terms of available software and options is a WIN10 mini pc. With a Win10 mini pc you can run any software you could with a desktop pc and use products from any manufacturer. You need it to be Win10 Pro to remote desktop to it with a mobile device. You could also process images in the field while still shooting to see what youre working with. Best choice for future proofing. Prices can vary wildly, but this option is around the same price as an Asiair pro, but much better.

The USB connector means you don't need the usual EQMOD cable to connect with a PC, so if you have a guide camera in a guidescope you can guide with it. Mounts without USB connectors need a special cable that takes the place of the hand controller - which means you cannot use the hand controller and PC controls at the same time. Most skywatcher mounts come with USB connectors these days, so its not as big of a selling point as it would appear. The EQMOD cable is also not that expensive or difficult to setup/use, so i wouldn't make my purchasing decisions based on that. Im just trying to make sure as few people as possible make the same mistake as i did of buying the mount based on specs and hearsay. My experiences with the mount are almost entirely negative, so i would not recommend anyone buy it, and if ranting in forums deters even one person from buying it i have done my part. I will be replacing the mount whenever i get the money for it, but for now i have figured out some "hacks" to use it somewhat effectively for my use.

While generally i like this channel, i believe this review was far too hasty. The mount is simply not good. It should be compared to the EQ-3 and not the EQ-5. The EQ-5 has competent mechanics and bearings in it, while the EQM-35 only has sliding surfaces and bushings. Backlash is unfixable, there is a very good chance that anyone who buys the mount will end up disliking it. The EQ-5 is only just a tiny bit more expensive but so much better it doesnt make any sense to buy this mount. The EQM-35 PRO is just an EQ3 with a slightly improved RA-axis (not the issue, DEC is the main issue and this is the same as in the EQ3) and an extra counterweight. The improved payload rating is completely made up and is based on nothing at all. And yes there is a USB connector on both the hand control and the main control box. You can hook up a USB cable to the handcontrol and control the mount with a PC and the handcontrol. Doing this both the hand controller and PC know at all times where the mount is pointing, and both can initiate GO-TOs.

I have a camera with the aps-c sized Sony IMX571 chip in OSC version and it is top notch. Read noise of 0.86 electrons (you could cut your current read noise by 90%!), no amp glow, for all intents and purposes no thermal noise as a 600s dark at -10c has under 4 ADUs of mean and 2 ADUs of median signal over offset. Very low maintenance camera to work with in terms of calibration. As time goes on i would assume interest in CCDs will drop dramatically, so if you are planning on selling your current camera for a decent price then maybe the time is right. I was definitely shocked to see the performance on mine, so don't doubt this at all. Most of the raving is well deserved IMO.

Found this to be very true aswell. With my 200mm aperture scope with top notch optics 300x should be clear every time, but i find that beyond 200x things are entirely seeing limited with views unlikely to improve much beyond this level in average conditions. Probably less than 5% of my time at the eyepiece is much beyond 200x, and my visual time is almost entirely dominated by planetary and lunar. Maybe this rule works better with smaller apertures to a point, but i don't think ill ever see seeing steady enough to have pleasant views at 400x.

Only for the first one! If you do a 3-star alignment your go-tos will be accurate with any reasonably close starting position so don't sweat it. With platesolving none of this matters, you could have your DEC 45 degrees off north and still reach your target with ease.

Fingers crossed, its hazy but blue skies at the zenith and maybe 30 degrees off right now. If it doesn't get worse there should be a glimpse or 2 of aurora in a few hours. Clear outside shows that its 100% cloudy right now so don't know what to think 🙄

Im a bit of a beginner in most ways, but as i understand it both are true to a point. So sharper and better SNR. Sharper probably only with planetary as long exposure is seeing limited. Well maybe long exposure is affected with very small apertures in sharpness, but generally i think all other effects are greater. Photons dont arrive as steady streams from dim targets, but as just a likelyhood of x per aperture area. As the area increases, photons hitting the aperture become more and more likely. If the camera and focal length stay the same SNR must improve.

Having recently switched from a Canon 550D to a dedicated astronomy camera i can say that it is worth the money. Its hard to even compare an uncooled noisy DSLR to a cooled and clean astro camera - especially from light pollution. Its hard to say exactly how much better it can be, but i estimate that i get usable exposure (better signal to noise ratio) about 2-3 times faster than with the 550D. But in reality i wouldn't have wanted to start with everything at ones as it is a lot of things to learn. So in that way a DSLR is a good first camera as it is basically plug and play. But its probably a good idea to keep the astro cam in mind for later. Might i suggest you only buy a DSLR, but no lenses for it if the end goal is to do telescope imaging anyway? 2000 pounds is enough for a basic APS-C sensor DSLR, GO-TO mount and a small telescope, basically skipping a few steps for you. Maybe a Skywatcher HEQ-5, some 80mm ED refractor and the various trinkets required for them. Once you grow out of the 80mm refractor you can still keep using the HEQ-5 as it is a fairly capable mount. An EQ-5 would be cheaper and also decent for many sized scopes, but i would advice you to stay away from the EQ-3 /35 class of mounts as their only good points are the price and the size. The reason you might want to not get a full frame camera is most telescopes are not capable of producing an image (or at least without significant optical troubles) up to full frame sensors. APS-C is actually a big sensor size for telescopes as well, but manageable with almost all scopes. Most targets are small anyway, so this is not as big of a problem as you may think. You could get something like my setup, a light aluminium newtonian and a weak cheap mount that is portable. I hate the mount and wouldn't recommend anyone do this, but it is technically possible to do all of the things you listed. Its incredibly frustrating to deal with an overloaded mount when clear days are as rare as they are for me (and for UK folks, if im not mistaken?). Newtonians can do DSO and planetary, and are cheap, but they are physically large and act as sails in even low wind speeds. Its probably best to not make the same purchasing decisions that i did, if you're not extremely stubborn and willing to tackle problems left and right.

Do you platesolve? Its a blessing. I have never star aligned since.