bosun21

I’m pretty sure that the LT70 I bought for the Starsense unit had an aluminum tube albeit thin aluminum.

I’ve never used a UHC filter in a 80mm scope, but it’s certainly beneficial in my 102 and larger scopes. It does darken the background but brings out the details on emission nebulae. My best ever view of M42 was with a UHC filter.

I agree. However it all depends on whether there's an internal nut securing the existing block. The 150 has two internal nuts. This would require removing the meniscus plate to gain access. If however the 102 has no internal nut then changing to a dovetail sounds like the way forward.

Why not just fit another finder shoe. I had to do this with my 150 Mak for when I swap between EQ and Alt/AZ.

Yes indeed, as is the RASA. I should have said the standard design SCT's.

Here is the video showing a photograph of the blue Takahashi. The section starts around 6m 30 secs.

With a full blue or black tube? I thought that the previous owner may have painted it blue. Ed had trouble removing the lens cell due to being stuck in place with paint.

Ed Ting bought a blue Takahashi and after a month or two it drove him nuts. He ended up getting it repainted to the standard Takahashi colours.

What telescope do you have? If focussed correctly they should be totally invisible despite theoretically still being there. Do you have a photo of your focuser with the eyepiece fitted and any extensions used?

I believe that the white Celestron SCT's were the last ones to be produced in California if I'm remembering correctly.

Welcome to SGL 👋.

I have at the moment still stuck with the ES 2x but like you I also have that niggle at the back of my mind is the PM better. I very seldom use any kind of extender as I can reach high magnifications with just my eyepieces alone. My shortest FL is 714mm which with a 4.5mm Morpheus gives me 158x. That being said when nights of good seeing do come around I use the ES with this scope which appears invisible to my eyes. I still have that niggle though.

Perhaps your red LED lights were interpreted as fog lights by the astro gods.

Yes, and apparently it was so bright it was visible during the day.

It's the purple/magenta glass that works for me.

For taking flats

Yet more stuff for my new adventure into EAA and AP. A light pad, a USB3.2 cable and a 120MM mini. Just need some clear skies now.

Darn it, I didn't know this either! You can tell that I'm relatively new to this planetary imaging/EAA game. I did own a previous 585 all set up on a Starfield 102 with the reducer/flattener and the back focus set at 55mm taking into consideration the 17.5mm of the camera and black ring. I also had a smaller black ring that screwed inside the one on the camera which held 1.25" mounted filters. Once I get back into the EAA I'll probably advance onto a bit of AP.

The 585 doesn’t come with anything other than a 1.25” nosepiece. If removed it’s just a M42 female thread on the camera body.

When you go to pick it up take a torch with you and shine it on the rear side of the mirror. If you can see a circle of light on the mirror while looking down the tube then that means the coatings are failing. It looks okay but I would check it if I were you.

Thanks for taking the time to explain your procedure to me. It’s very much appreciated. Do I need to have the frames captured in the Winjupos time format during capture? I think I’ll just carry on with my method including the addition of Astrosurface, and as I become efficient I’ll then add Winjupos and Image Analyser. Otherwise I feel I will get slightly overwhelmed. A sincere thank you Geof.

Fantastic images. I have had my head buried in all the software and practicing on each of them. Winjupos is next on the list for me to learn, at what stage do you de rotate? I initially thought that you had to do it before stacking with a SER file or am i way off the mark? Thanks.

It is spelt the way it's spoken to my understanding. BOR-TIL.

Hi Deanna 👋. A warm welcome to SGL.

I think I'm slightly undersampled as scope is f12 and 5 X pixel size = 14.5. Or have I got the over/under the wrong way round? Regarding gamma I have only set that at 0.5 as that's what they used in the tutorials I watched on YouTube. I will try the higher settings next time. Thanks.