ONIKKINEN

I dont think it matters that much if you have a comacorrector, spacers and maybe filters etc between open air and the sensor. As long as you install everything without dust on the surfaces there really shouldnt be a place for more to enter. Only place that can have dust is the inner lens element of the comacorrector which is probably at least 100mm away from the focal point so the shadow the dustmotes cast is really out of focus when it reaches the sensor. I know i have dust on the first lens and it doesnt show up in flats so i dont worry about it.

Thats a real nice result for a 4th try. I also processed the stack, just for practice as im still quite new and certainly not an expert in processing. I don't do any kind of star reduction so im not sure i improved on yours. What i will say is that the image has an overpowering blue tint to it, so colour balance seems a bit off. I used SIRIL (free) to do the initial processing, including background extraction, color calibration, and histogram transformation. Exported to photoshop for some final saturation and denoise touches. Also resized the image to hide problems in both my processing and maybe the data itself. I try to go for a very natural look with my shots, which is why i like the stars to remain bright, as they are several times brighter than the galaxy is supposed to be. I noticed that you have some walking noise that is also in the direction of your star trailing, its difficult to notice but its there and its not simple to remove in processing. You can get rid of this by dithering! Especially important if using a DSLR since there will be a lot of all kinds of noise. You can dither even without any guiding setups, just manually move the camera a few pixels every now and then. The more you bother doing this the better it works but every bit helps.

I tried to adapt my TS-optics 50mm finder to a guidescope with an adaptor and hated every second of trying to work with it. Difficult to focus and even then not very good because of the F-ratio being around 3.2. I ended up buying this:https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p7073_TS-Optics-Deluxe-60-mm-Guiding-Finder-scope-with-micro-focusing.html Its a bit of money but worth every penny. Its also lighter than the 50mm finder i had at first. Doesnt have to be this exact one but a dedicated guidescope is imo money well spent. For the scope i would advice to get the smaller one. 200mm newtonians are wind magnets and require a lot from a cheap mount. Less trouble (note less, not no trouble) with the 150.

You could buy a decent mount and some gadgets for your current setup with that kind of money. Skies are full of objects that are suitable for your field of view. Most of a beginners budjet (if not all, at first) should probably go towards a sturdy mount. The mount is the only piece of kit that can and will ruin everything if its not good enough. You can always buy a telescope later, if you want to so buying a mount with some room to grow is a good idea. For focusing there are these kinds of things: https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/info/p11969_TS-Optics-Microfocuser-for-Camera-Lenses-from-50-mm-to-100-mm-Diameter.html Havent used one myself but i understand the pain of trying to focus a telephoto lens that is not specifically made for at-infinity focus operation. Also a bahtinov mask is pretty much a must have to take out the guesswork from focusing. Dont do what i did and try to buy everything as a budget compromise, it just wont work. Mount first, everything else is less important imo.

Cheap models suffer more than others too, with the influx of lockdown astronomers in the last year and a half looling to buy beginner equipment. I bought my EQM35 for 750e about a year ago when it was in stock. Havent really seen it in stock since and the price has hiked up accordingly. I was looking at the PDS models of Skywatcher newtonians but decided not to buy one since it was out of stock everywhere. I dont think this issue is going away any time soon. I waited several months for a few items a while ago and then just decided to order things that aro shown as in stock for now.

Both of the EQM-35 versions in your pic are in the "reduced mode" where the DEC axis is removed. The example on the right uses star adventurer accessories (dovetail, counterweight) for some added stability. To be fair the mount is rock-solid for just a camera and lens in this mode. I bashed the mount pretty harshly but i think its a bit unfair to say that it allows a 72mm at most. Technically you can mount an 8 inch aluminium newtonian with cameras and guiding on top, its just not time-efficient and you will never get to arcsecond resolution accuracy. Pictured below is the monstrosity that is my setup and a sample picture. Youll notice that the counterweights are not at the end when the OTA is mounted upside down. RA is workable while DEC i have abandoned completely and rely on polar alignment. Sure the picture is not anyting special and nothing most people havent seen before, but just wanted to make it clear that it is NOT impossible to use the mount for higher payloads. I would just never recommend it as it is a waste of time, most of the time.

The dec axis is very weak and will have backlash that is only partially adjustable. You can tighten everything down as far as possible without binding and still have play in the gears or the mechanics of the mount itself. This is more noticeable with higher payloads, but not fixed with smaller ones. Backlash will ruin guiding, especially if it is not consistent (it isnt). 60mm aperture refractor might be an ideal load with the mount, so maybe not entirely a wrong choice. Most products in the affordable astro gear markets are manufactured by some single factory in china and sold under different names and sometimes even wildly different prices. Doesnt mean its all bad, just takes a bit of research to know what youre buying. The modular part of the mount is its strongest point as it removes its weakest point: The entire DEC axis 🤣. This way its an extra sturdy camera tracker with RA go-to and periodic error correction. That would be a direct upgrade for a star adventurer, but imo a bit of a gimmick. EQ5 and EQM35 look quite similar but are different instruments and have mechanical differences. The specs dont really mean anything for imaging, they are just marketing fluff. The real payload for imaging purposes is around half of the stated one, if you want to have a consistent mount.

Double the payload? No. Payload of 10kg is false advertising and only applies to visual use, and even then it is not a good idea. Ask yourself what you want to do with the mount: Carry a camera, small refractor, medium to large focal length telescope? Rule out everything but the camera and small (fl less than 500mm) refractors if you want to remain relatively frustration free. I am imaging with a technically within payload limits telescope and i throw away somewhere between 50-100% of my 60s guided subs. Most of the issues are not fixable due to the bearingless bushing design. The DEC axis is unfixable and you will almost certainly have to guide in one direction or not at all in DEC. I would argue that the EQM35 is more expensive than for example an HEQ5 since you will probably want to upgrade soon after anyway and getting rid of the mount is not guaranteed for a good price. If i could go back in time i would pay more for a better mount.

The camera is here, a bit over 6 workdays until i got it in hand including customs. Pretty fast delivery all the way from china. Total cost for me ended up being 1380 euros including Finnish VAT of 24% and DHL shipping which was 40 euros extra. Im not a huge fan of DHL but i will gladly pay 40 euros if it means UPS doesn't throw my package off a cliff several times, and "try to deliver but the recipient wasn't home" I ran a Sharpcap sensor analysis with HCG mode and "low noise" on. Even illumination with the camera attached to my newtonian covered by a t-shirt, 2 sheets of paper and a tracing tablet as a flat field panel. Looks about the same as others have reported with gain 100 (lowest value) as the best overall setting for imaging. . Sharpcap has limited functionality with the "direct show" toup tek drivers and full functionality with the ascom touptek drivers. N.I.N.A works just fine with both, although the settings are in different places. The cooler appears to work pretty fast, cooling down to below 0 in a few minutes from room temperature. Although i noticed that it overdoes it at first and goes a bit below the target temperature. Give it a few minutes more and it appears to be stable at whatever it is set to. Changing the gain mode will cause the cooler to "search" for the temperature for a while again, although i don't know why you would want to change it mid session. NINA reports the temperature in increments of 0.2 and it is mostly stable, with the occasional jump to one way or the other. The camera comes with a 30?(32?)mm T2-M48 2inch barrel adapter and a T2-1.25inch adapter which i will not be using. I will need some adapters to fit this to my coma corrector with 55mm backfocus. Also i will probably need an IR-cut filter since i bought the full spectrum AR glass model. Really didn't plan on it arriving anytime soon so i wont be imaging with it for some time.

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.