billhinge

I had the Skyportal wifi dongle, used with CG5-ASGT but I sold it a few months back. Did work and I'm pretty sure it was supported when I bought it otherwise I wouldn't have I have the skywatcher EQ6-R now and I have to say I prefer skywatcher One thing I dislike about the CG5 is the noise. I turned my CG5 into a frankenstein before I bought the EQ6. You will find the plastic motor housings amplify the motor noise like a soundbox so I took them off 😉 (I was going to make a free hanging housing)

Two methods 1 - RGB stars blended with HaLRGB galaxy with colour masked curves tweaks (looks darker here than PI despite SRGB profile?) 2- Images in full HaLRGB - normal & lighter versions ====================== PI Dynamic background extraction on Ha Create new L with old L plus Ha Create HaLRGB with SHO-AIP blend ArcSinhStretch Dynamic crop of uneven right and bottom edge Slight amount of LAB curves DarkStructure Enhance Sharpen Adjust colour balances, AI Noise reduce & Super res in Pixelmator

got mine today, really love the soft texture of the cover etc, certainly oozes quality

Hi Francis Thanks for that, it says still in transit between SAN FRANCISCO, UNITED STATES and destination, I'll keep an eye open, mind you still waiting for the ebook (checked spam filters etc)

I received a reply to say that the book was in transit, just leaving the US, also received the pdf version However, I also bought the Deep Sky Colors ebook and despite asking twice via the contact email I have had no response after 2 weeks (I don't use facebook)

Replenishment I believe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane_on_Mars Methane (CH4) is chemically unstable in the current oxidizing atmosphere of Mars. It would quickly break down due to ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the Sun and chemical reactions with other gases. Therefore, a persistent or episodic presence of methane in the atmosphere may imply the existence of a source to continually replenish the gas.

If you want a fluorite no expense spared https://www.baader-planetarium.com/en/accessories/optical-accessories/barlow-lenses-coma-and-glaspathcorrectors/fluorite-flatfield-converter-(ffc)--3x-8x.html https://www.astro-physics.com/bpffc I believe you can get x2 with minimum distance, maybe overkill though 🙂 As this product was designed to provide perfectly round stars - without increasing their size - to cover the 90 mm diameter field of a 6x6 medium format camera, the performance is even much more impressive when it is used visually. Many people call it "worlds sharpest barlow lens" - we don´t disagree. Answer by: Baader Web Team (Admin) on Oct 9, 2017 8:37:00 AM

define best grease, everyone has a favourite, there are more holy war threads about grease on the internet than anything 😂 Personally I used WS2 grease, developed by nasa, slippiest substance known to man, you can make teflon slippier, its hard, thin, overtime it binds into the metal and you can actually powder coat metal to dry lubricate without grease, they use it in space and high performance engineering http://ws2.co.uk/engineering-ws2-applications.php seems to be hard to get the grease/powder in this country, I had to order it from US several years ago but many people seem to recommend superlube, I also tried lubriplate plus various teflon bike greases all seem to work but not sure how to pick the best (wasn't keen on bike grease I seem to recall)

My basic SHO in Pixinsight ; same starting point with red=SII+Ha mix, green=Ha+OIII mix, blue=OIII in pixelmath then alltered in curves LAB to make red-blue not sure which direction I prefer 😉

Presumably you looked on cloudy do-dahs https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/680923-dead-celestron-avx-motor-board-nxw445-rev-h/ could this be similar issue?

How old is the battery?, many years ago I had a desktop pc go funny due to the bios battery My old CG5-AGT doesn't have a battery As I recall from recent research and tinkering the handset and aux ports share a common bus (not the autoguider port) hence probably why the handset can see the starsense

Hi Pete Here is a teaser http://planetary-astronomy.com/index.php/preface/ for those who haven't seen it, read a couple of chapters, very good (nice glossy print, coffee table style book), even has a chapter on telescope tuning and customisation, cameras, adc, uranus and neptune. http://planetary-astronomy.com/index.php/content/

I received my copy last week, 288 pages of very detailed stuff inc hardware, definitely the most comprehensive and professional planetary imaging book to date (hadn't had time to read it properly yet)

no problem

yes it was, I did the sums and bought premium parts, there is a write up here I also took the electronics out of the plastic sound boxes, those plastic things seem to magnify the sound. I had planned to put the electronics in a dedicated box and add damping to the motors (so far just a piece of blutak - works in high end audio 😉

If you are interested I have a CG5-ASGT which is surplus to req, I upgraded the bearings and converted to belt drive, replaced one of the motors from David Hinds. I had planned on selling it for parts at some time this year if you don't mind waiting, bit time poor at the moment (there is an £80 abec 7 bearing in the RA that I want to remove, still got the old one) If no one wants it I'll just use it for further experiments 😉

Class action seems a bit dodgy to me, who benefits?

I get the support aspect but it doesn't leave you with many viable alternatives in this price point? Vixen / ioptron?

I presume they are still made unless there is a huge surplus stock? http://skywatcher.com/download/software/ => http://skywatcher.com/where-to-buy/ => http://www.xdwyj.com/ ?

I could order one and hopefully lock in the price, 3 or 4 months would fit my timeline perfectly, I'm taking the delay into account (been waiting on a filter since October 😉

Thanks, I'm tempted to get one, do I want one, yes, do I need one, not sure

If you had the cash, no questions asked, would you be tempted to upgrade to an eq8-r just to be 100% certain weight was never a problem? Say mounting a C11 plus heavy cameras for example

I recently had the celestron and the skywatcher dongle, we have lots of different wifi signals in my house from my own devices plus neighbours. From the respective trouble shooting guides it stated 'try low data mode' - that worked for me, low data mode doesn't mean what it sounds like Low Data Mode turns off routine background tasks that would ordinarily use data. When you turn on Low Data Mode, your iPhone may stop performing some common activities like automatic video playback, automatic updates, and automatic photo backup.

I have one of those, great sheds, lasted for years with no sign of rust etc. Only trouble is mine is full of junk now, perhaps I should clear it out (again) 😉

Right, thanks Miguel - I am building my setup as purely photographic & robotic. I wasn't sure if the starsense would fit before sharpcap,ipolar/polemaster polar alignment or indeed it was needed at all? (when I bought the starsense I was working visually with a dslr on a limited budget - not so much now)