Anne S

Here's my version of the very good data provided. I used the Hubble palatte but didn't go for the usual blue/gold look. I rather liked the more colourful version with the green Ha data still fairly strong. Processed in PI except for some unsharp masking and final image tweaking in PS3. After combining the 3 channels, I extracted the lum component and did HDR on it to reduce the brightness of the core of the nebula, then recombined it with lum at 40%. I then inverted the image and applied SNCR to remove the magenta stars followed by one instance of morphological transformation to reduce the star sizes as I felt they detracted from the nebulosity due to the sheer number of them. A little subtle noise reduction to reduce the small amount of colour noise, rebalanced the colour channels using the histogram, boosted saturation in Curves and applied a small curve to brighten the background a little. Then checked it in PS3, applied unsharp mask, as I can't do that yet in PI, checked black point and reduced the final png in size. It was much easier to process than my usually rather noisy data - please can I come and play with the new setup? The weather in Wales is horrible at the moment. Thank you for everyone for providing the data. I don't expect to be able to image M16 from home as it's so low and behind houses most of the time.

It might be worth shopping around. I notice Altair Astro have one, head and counterweight only.

I've only found this one - ADM Dovetail Side Mounting Counterweight Kit 'D' Series.

I was looking at getting that counterbalance system but it looks as if it only fits Losmandy. I was planning on keeping my 70edt on a vixen bar.

It's a pity my MHP is so big! It has to go on top.

I bought the Primaluce version as it's suitable for Losmandy as well as Vixen bars. Also stocked by FLO.

The smaller the scope the more difficult it becomes to balance everything. I've been balancing my Altair 70EDT this week on my CEM 60ec which is very similar to your 70. Due to the length of the saddle I've invested in a 350mm Vixen dovetail Which allows me to use a Primaluce weight on the objective end. I run a filterwheel with my sx694 so have much more weight at the back. I can now use my 9.5kg counterweight. There's a screw hole each side of my weight so I've a threaded rod full of washers and nuts to add some off axis balance. I find the focus motor causes some imbalance. I can't get my focus motor vertical due to lack of clearance. One other thing, when you focus properly the fact the focuser tube comes further out will make the dec much more back heavy you need to keep the objective end heavier until then. Once you've got it nearly in balance the cabling need fitting as this may affect everything. I have a Hitecastro Mount hub pro mounted on top of the scope in front of the guider. Hopefully someone more expert than me will chip in with other suggestions soon.

Just like I do it then except I use an odd Vixen dovetail as I haven't got odd bits of aluminium. It was the edge of your velcro I could see! It looked like the MHP had a plastic foot/spacer.

How have you attached your MHP to the dovetail? Mine uses velcro at the moment but I'd like to switch to a more solid attachment method. Anne

We're booked to go in our motorhome. At the moment caravan parks etc are open with reduced shared facilities. The pitches have to be well spaced apart to prevent fires so that's not an issue. The only problems I can see is having lots of tents will put massive pressure on the facilities and there may be issues with the sheer number of groups sharing tents. I can't see Kelling cancelling it willingly as they must have lost loads of income this year. It probably depends on whether COVID cases increase too much. Even if they cancel the formal event, we may well still go as the weather is usually grotty in West Wales that time of year. As long as the campsite is open of course! Let's all keep our fingers crossed.

No star parties then!

Does it show up in the dark?

Very useful talk. I only started using SGPro last winter. It's confirmed that I'm on the right lines. My imaging was much improved, largely to using autofocus. I'm looking forward to future talks.

I set 0 position via the Ascom driver when first starting. After that I change it to the last position used to keep the step count correct. If the focuser is moved manually you lose the 0 position unless you start again from scratch.

I've been imaging for years with a MHP (the one with 5 USB ports) and a MHP compact with Lakeside focusers and it's worked perfectly. I only use the hand control when I forget to rack in the focuser when storing the telescope!

Lovely image. I tried last night but only got a very noisy image. After noise reduction in Affinity Photo it did at least show the comet clearly. Tonight I'm going to try my Ioptron Skytracker, Sony A57 and Minolta 100-200 zoom. I'm glad you said not to worry about polar alignment, I was hoping to manage no more than 15 sec exposures.

Thanks for that information. One other question, do you have any issues with the top scope not being able to see the target because it's behind the top of the shutter? I found that once or twice. Possibly something to do with where I'd positioned the upper telescope. I notice you've got your guide scope right at the front of the setup, presumably for the same reason.

Do you need to shim the upper scope to get the fov matched? I tried running an Altair Wave102 with an Altair Starwave 70EDT a year or so ago and found they were fairly close, particularly as the upper scope had a larger fov. Also, do you have any problems with higher altitude targets and the upper scope? I've the same dome as you, the early Pulsar 2.1. I gave up with the dual rig at the time as I had an issue with the reducer on the Wave. I want to try again now I've fixed that and upgraded my mount.

Excellent images. I wish I could remember what the sun looks like!

My husband bought us a quark plus Altair Ascent 80mm f7 refractor about 6 weeks ago. It's been giving us excellent views of the recent solar activity. I took the images below with a Hypercam 174m cmos camera. It's certainty the best ting for solar at present given that any activity is on the small side. My Lunt50 just can't compete.

Eqmod is very good. It enebles multiple software commections to control the mount, ie planetarium, imaging software, guiding software etc because is acts as a hub. Many other Ascom drivers can only do the same if connecting using POTH. I tried wireless control of my Celestron Nexstar mount and wasn't impressed. It was several years ago though. If I'm viewing, which isn't often, I use the handset but have my iPhone handy so I can refer to Skysafari.

You don't need the handset but you do need Eqmod as that's the eq6 Ascom driver. Alignment is done using a planetarium programme such as Cartes du Ciel or Stellarium. You then slew to several stars around the sky and sync once centred in the eyepiece. You can have as many sync points as you like which enables you to build a pointing model all over the sky with enough points. I've not tried the wifi method where you can use the Synscan app, maybe someone will chip in with some info. You'll probably need a Wi-fi dongle. I only used my eq6 for imaging. Latterly I didn't bother with alignment points, I platesolved to find my target. Anne

What about contacting trading standards? They're horrendously dangerous.

At least you got the sunspot, I'm not expecting any sun until it's gone around the other side. Nicely done.

Thank you everyone. I hope the skies clear so I can image the new sunspot. It's not looking good though.