Anne S

Thanks. I also had some misalignment of the images as I couldn't get Maxim dl to centre where I was on the 1st night, that's why I switched to sgpro for the remaining 2 nights.  I'm not as good guiding using Phd2 as with Maxim. I also did a bicolour version, see below. It's more muted!

Here's my version of the Elephant Trunk nebula imaged over 3 nights last weekend. 16x600 seconds for Ha,Oiii, and Sii shown in the Canada France Hawaii palate (Ha-red, Oiii-green and Sii-blue. My first attempt with sgpro. 

SXVR694 and Altair Wave 102 on Cem60ec Mount.

I'm struggling with autofocus, so I think focus could have been a bit sharper.

8 hours ago, johninderby said:

I have one of the Altair dual fit saddles which is a big heavy lump and seems to have a similar anodised finish unlike the ADM that is more of a matt finish. I also replaced the stock knobs with some matt stainless steel ones that are far easier to tighten. With the stainless knobs cost more than the Rowan one though.

Hopefully it will match. 🤔

Where did you get those knobs? I find Altair's hard to tighten.

I owned the later 8SE which had a removable ota. Therefore it's possible to put the tube on pointing the wrong way. That might upset it....

I was tempted by one at the show but they're only doing ones for Eq6 etc at the moment. I want one for my IEQ30pro as the 1 1/2 inch tripod is rather lightweight for imaging. I thought they were heavier than I expected, not too much lighter than the Ioptron tripier.

Nick also said they were proposing to bring out a bigger version. They were also asking for comments.

I tried a piggybacked dual setup last year for a short time. I only used one laptop using Maxim dl 5 for the main scope and camera controlling aiming, platesolve and guiding with AstroArt4 just controlling second scope camera. I didn't have any problem with laptop dealing with the subs as they came in. It's an old W7 Pro dual core laptop, the model that's slightly below an i3. My only problem is that I couldn't image high up as the second telescope was looking at the dome roof!

I'm going for side by side next time, once I'm happy with my Cem60ec mount.

Ioptron's Cem60 is also a possibility. I found I needed more payload than the eq6 could handle, I started experimenting with two telescopes and cameras to double my imaging acquisition!  It's been out for quite a few years now. Several members on this forum have one. It's much lighter than the eq6.

Having said that, I have the ec version which is excellent but some users have had an issue with the latest software, dated April this year.  There are posts on cloudynights about it. I was lucky and my new mount was still on the older firmware. It works perfectly.
 

I also own an IEQ30pro which is excellent. I'm very happy with Ioptron.

7 hours ago, JamesF said:

Someone posted quite recently about getting an adaptor made up for Canon EF lenses to convert them to T2.  I think that would make it possible.  If you need 44mm backfocus, then knocking off 13.5mm for the camera and, say, another 22mm for a filter wheel and male-to-male T2 to fit the filter wheel to the camera, as long as the adaptor was no more than 8.5mm things should work out.

I'll see if I can find the thread again.

James

I haven't a suitable Canon lens, I wondered if a Samyang had more back focus. Or I could try a Pentax srewfit which wouldn't need an adapter at all.

17 hours ago, wuthton said:

How much light pollution are you battling? If it's low then you're a lucky sod and ignore the following but if it's high you will go down the road of narrowband imaging very quickly. 

With high levels of light pollution you're better off spending on your camera and filters (imo) than on the glass as the colour correction is neither here nor there. 

Below is one of my efforts with an 85mm Samyang camera lens, Baader 7nm filters and an Atik 314l under Bortle 6 skies. The whole of which can be picked up for less than an Esprit.

There's also some much, much better efforts here with the 135mm.  

 

I'd like to do some wide field imaging with my Atik 428 and filters in a fw. I thought there was an issue with the lens back focus, at least with Canon lenses. How do you have your camera etc connected?

(Sorry to hijack the thread...)

On 14/10/2019 at 11:59, Jonk said:

Can I make a serious suggestion?

@michaelmorris could you organise teams based on 1 moderator as a team captain, with everyone's name pulled from a hat allocated to a moderator?

This would mean a bit more interaction between everyone and not having a team of 6+ vs a team of 3 (which we had a couple of years ago!).

Couples etc could still sit together on a team, just put both names on the same bit of paper.

Numbers should be fairly predictable?

Good idea. 

As to a replacement with smaller pixels, I use a Superstar which has 4.65 micron pixels with a finder guider. They can be binned if necessary which should allow use with an oag.

I just had a thought. Something tells me you can only switch on R.A. guiding with the handset. I can't remember if mine wa on or off when it arrived but it should be on "allow R.A. guiding".

12 minutes ago, souls33k3r said:

Like Anne mentioned, there's a thread which I started on CN a while ago whether I should buy the CEM60 or the EC version which has morphed in to issues with the firmware. I stayed well away from doing any of the upgrades but clearly so many clever cogs are on it and have issues. I understand not nearly half of what those guys talk about but can clearly see that there is an issue with firmware. I don't even know what firmware I'm on but at least I know I haven't changed it. 

You've said it all Dave, at least I have the assurance of FLO brilliant customer service which is why I'm hopeful that my issue will be resolved. 

There's a setting in the handset which will show you the firmware. Menu button then setup I think. It'll say where to look in the full instructions too.

I've always moved the R.A. manually when using the Polemaster. It says to do it using the handset/Commander but as it's only finding where the mount is pointing, I've never found it makes any difference. One less complication. As to the stars appearing to be off the green circle, I would put that down to atmospheric distortion or the lens on the Polemaster. I don't normally zoom in that closely. We get rubbish skies in Wales mostly! When I polar aligned earlier this year, the only issue I had was when I tightened the adjusters. There was some movement showing on the screen. I spent some time running unguided exposures last night and managed 2 minutes unguided at 564mm with my SX694 pointed at M52 which was pretty high. I got increasing elongation on 3 and 4 minutes. I put that down to the movement when I polar aligned. I'll fix that when I get back from Kelling as the Polemaster is at the bottom of the motorhome garage!

i haven't noticed any issue with the Polemaster adapter but I don't leave the Polemaster in as I need it for travelling.

As to the guiding, that looks like the issue reported on cloudynights. Have you tried contacting Ioptron support to see if they've got anywhere with a fix, or if they can supply a copy of the earlier firmware from 2016/17 that my 60ec is using? We've got several Ioptron mounts and we've always found them very helpful.

I'm hoping to actually do some imaging next clear night after spending last night running v-curves mostly.

Anne

On 05/09/2019 at 05:50, Hughsie said:

Paid user here too.

The only issue I had with APT was connecting to the planetarium software, Stellarium. To be honest though I think that was rather a Stellarium/me issue than APT so in the end I chose to use Cartes du Ciel and have never looked back. If I recall correctly, Ivo actually extended an extra month free on the licence earlier this year......it was cloudy so never got used  

I have played around with the idea of using Sequence Generator Pro, but once you get used to APT, changing is very hard when everything works........and once you do your first plate solve, you will chuck away that finderscope and wonder what the hell you have been doing on your hands and knees star aligning every time you go outside at night.

John

I'm a paid user but I only use it, infrequently, with my dslr and tracking mount. The rest of the time I use a ccd with Maxim dl. It's excellent for dslr imaging. I couldn't get it to work with Cartes du Ciel and had to get Stellarium instead!

I tried M27 in narrowband last winter. I used S2 as well. I got the red edge quite well. I hope you don't mind me posting my version. I can't remember how many subs but it was probably the same for each filter and about 2 to 3 hours total data. My focus still needs work!

1 hour ago, souls33k3r said:

Appreciate your input Anne, my dovetail is plenty long but maybe it's not long enough for this mount  everything of mine stays on the top. 

I wanted to have my guider on the top dovetail but there's not enough length to fit the MHP as well. I need a longer vixen plate on the top (and a smaller MHP but there's nothing wrong with mine and I need to have a reason to replace it). I'm going to have to rejig it once I've some more dovetails.

37 minutes ago, Brian28 said:

If you check out this guys Youtube channel he has a couple of videos on balancing .. it might just be worth a look .

i am probably not as pernickety as I should be with my balancing , I tend to get it near enough , and I seem to get good  total RMS of 0.12 - 0.15 consistently..     

here's some pics of my modified mount .. 

hope this helps ...   

Brian 

I like your power socket mods. It's a pity Ioptron used unsuitable threaded sockets. Also, I don't fancy leaving the polarscope uncovered, I don't use it as I have a Polemaster but I like to look after my stuff. 

I find it helps to have as long a dovetail as possible. I then put a weight on the end that I can move back and forwards to balance the Dec axis, both when the R.A. is horizontal and when it is in zero position. I'm using a 300mm one but I'd prefer something longer. The saddle is so long! The guider stuff needs to be on the top as said by others. I've also got my Mount Hub Pro on a dovetail on top. It's mounted slightly on one side to counter the focus motor weight.

As to the R.A. falling to one side, the threaded rod, nuts and washers did the trick and was stocked by a local hardware/decoration shop. I live in a small town! It would be nice to screw a counterweight into the normal counterweight which would make it neater. I have to be careful not to walk into the rod at night! I just need to investigate whether anyone sells a m12 threaded counterweight, or get one made. A bit like the ADM one on FLO used to balance Dec. 

So would I but that's not going to happen at home. I mean to try it one day when I'm at a starparty. I just need something to work with Maxim to enable it. Or switch to SGpro.

Hopefully someone who can autoflip will come along soon.

I tried my first meridian flips in the spring to image Thor's helmet. I also found that my EQ6 trailed the first sub after the flip if I started too quickly. I don't think it was balance as my eq6 was belt modded and balanced well and it improved after the first sub. I was running pec through Eqmod, maybe that was slow to start.

I guided in Maxim DL5. I'd not imaged both sides of the meridian before.  

My method was to park the scope once the last sub had finished and wait until Thor's helmet was past the meridian then do a fresh goto and platesolve. Then restart the guiding. Maxim should adjust the guiding without calibrating. It just seemed to take a bit of time, I was using 20 minute subs so it was a pain. I didn't have tracking beyond the meridian enabled.

I don't know if any of the above applies to you.

I've been out since about 9.30 trying out my Cem60ec. I've only imaged m101 just to test everything out as it took a while to get guiding going in Maxim dl. I've just come in as m101 started going behind some trees at the end of the garden. There's a lot of moisture in the air, I thought that was affecting seeing. I was also trying to get Focusmax3 setup for autofocus but with variable results. The star being used looks very odd at times.

1 hour ago, Rainer said:

Hi,

Here it is how it works on a CEM 120EC2 or any CEM 120 model.

Look at the white arrow on the DEC Head which has to point North or South depending in which hemisphere you live. Very easy to find out just by unscrewing the saddle plate and looking underneath it.

Thanks for posting those images. I see what you mean. One other thing, does it matter which way around you have the saddle?  I'd rather have the screws on the bottom, it'll be easier for me to tighten them. I've seen photos of them at the top.

I'm eventually going to do the same thing with my Cem60 once I've got used to it. I've asked Ian from Altairastro to show me how to do the Dec rotation when I'm at a Kelling Heath next month. I'll post details once I've seen how to do it. I'm worried about damaging the cables as I'll need to use the USB ports for the second telescope camera and filterwheel.

I imagine it'll be similar to your mount but I can ask him if there are any pitfalls if you like.

58 minutes ago, apophisOAS said:

Hi all, i am on 314 from 23rd to 30th ,driving a hired caravanette 6 berth for the first time!

Using a dual rig like Carole, Sw120 ed ds-pro , Altair Astro Ed66-r, Canon 1000d and Sky-Watcher EQ6-R PRO and first time at Kelling for my Eagle3 control unit.

Roger

 

I'd like to come and see your dual rig too. My 2nd attempt is to try a tandem setup. When are you arriving?