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Imaging with the Skymax 127.


Paulus17

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Sounds like I might struggle without live view then. As for the FR I was thinking that because the mount is tracking using AZ then the subs would be rotated relative to each other as time goes on. Maybe my understanding is flawed somewhere. Thanks for the useful tips - definitely a lot to consider here.

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  • 3 weeks later...
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Well my Skymax 127 was sold today so no more images will be posted by me on this thread.

I have really enjoyed using this set up both with imaging and observing as i liked how easy it was to set up.

I would like to thank all who gave me help and advice when i first had this scope and for those encouraging me to keep on with the imaging,if my processing skills were better i'm sure the images i took would have been a lot better.

so i just hope i have at least encouraged other owners to get out there and do some imaging with their SM127s and hope the new owner has as much fun has i have had with it.

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  • 3 months later...

Thought i would start a seperate post showing the images i've managed with my new set,namely the Skymax 127 with GOTO,which i am really enjoying using,so long as i keep meself and everything around me perfectly still when imaging.

These three images have been stacked using Deep Sky stacker and are all 10 x20 second exposures with 21 darks,and using CS3 to process them.

M92.

attachicon.gifM92-DSS-jpegpp.jpg

M13.

attachicon.gifM13.jpg

M3.

attachicon.gifM3.jpg

Nice shots.. all of them! did you have any problems with vibration during the shots?... cheers BB

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  • 3 months later...

This is a great thread, very nice going, shame to see you sell the Mak!

I think you where doing really well for such short exposures and on a alt az!

I started out in a similar fashion, then when I realised that I could not do long exposures I switched to planetary

This is a picture of Jupiter through the Mak

P80_19-22-56-117_g4_b3_ap21.png

I went through a similar journey, then upgraded to a EQ5Pro, although I could not part with the Mak as I just loved it so much for planetary.

Later I happened on a celestron F6.3 reducer, which I used with my Mak on my EQ5 and this is what I have achieve on the Leo Triplet
M66_7hr22_16C_IA.png
I have since purchased a 80ED same as you have and I find that it is great for large objects such as Nebula, but I am still learning how to take pictures of them. I need to mod my Cannon so that it is more sensitive to the red channel.
This is the Orion nebula taken through my 80ED
IA-PS-M42_2014-02-26_Luminance_AllStack.

Hopefully you will continue on your journey and keep the great images coming!

Regards

Chris

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I cant even get a couple of seconds exposure with my mak on goto!

Hi,

You need to get the tracking and guiding sorted out, I did this last May as an experiment to see if I could go deep with my MAK127 at it's native FL, it is a short data set of  8X900s of M51 under not so ideal imaging conditions so it is very noisy but it does demonstrate the point that is possible to go deep with DSOs using a 127.

http://www.astrobin.com/96528/

A.G

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've just seen your M51 image A.G - :shocked: That's incredible!  I've been thinking that my next step might be an equitorial mount, as this will help me with widefield imaging and some longer exposure stuff with the mak 127 until I can add another scope...and I think seeing that picture has made my mind up! 

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I've just seen your M51 image A.G - :shocked: That's incredible!  I've been thinking that my next step might be an equitorial mount, as this will help me with widefield imaging and some longer exposure stuff with the mak 127 until I can add another scope...and I think seeing that picture has made my mind up! 

Hi Derek,

Many thanks for the compliment, my only point of reservation with the 127 is that you'd need a very sensitive CCD or camera and this combined with lenghty sub frames means good guiding.

Regards,

A.G

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  • 6 months later...

Need HELP:

My husband and I own Skywatcher Mak 127 SynScan Goto.

We are extremely satisfied with its visual strenght and contrast.

BUT, few days ago we tried some astrophotography for the first time with Nikon D90 and we had some serious problems. :(

The goto system had troubles with Nikon's weight and Nikon continued to pull the telescope down. :/

Does anyone has the same telescope and could give us some advice how to use Nikon D90 with it? We would be very grateful. We are afraid that the Nikon D90 is too much weight for this alt az mount and that maybe we will do harm on it...

I saw in this forum topic that some of you used the same Nikon D90 with SW127 and took very nice pictures. I hope we will be ablw to do that too.

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Need HELP:

My husband and I own Skywatcher Mak 127 SynScan Goto.

We are extremely satisfied with its visual strenght and contrast.

BUT, few days ago we tried some astrophotography for the first time with Nikon D90 and we had some serious problems. :(

The goto system had troubles with Nikon's weight and Nikon continued to pull the telescope down. :/

Does anyone has the same telescope and could give us some advice how to use Nikon D90 with it? We would be very grateful. We are afraid that the Nikon D90 is too much weight for this alt az mount and that maybe we will do harm on it...

I saw in this forum topic that some of you used the same Nikon D90 with SW127 and took very nice pictures. I hope we will be ablw to do that too.

If your scope is on the standard AltAz GoTo mount that is sold as a bundle with the scope then you will have periodic issues with this mount. First you have to get the balance of the scope and the imaging gear right with this mount but this is not easy as you do not have a clutch to release the axis. I used to do it with everything attached but off the mount and on a flat table using a round pencil under the scope and just make a mental note of the point of balance ( it won't be 100% but it will do ) and then making sure that this point is where the locking bolt is pointing to once in the saddle. There is a locknut on the inside of the saddle and you need to gently tighten this very slightly to make sure that the drive mechanism does not slip under load. Ultimately if you are using the AltAz mount you'd be restricted to very short exposures in order of a few seconds before trailing and rotation become an issue. I would not really bother getting an EQ mount for this scope due to is long FL and Slow F ratio if DSO imaging is your goal. I have used mine for long exposure DSO imaging with an HEQ5 Pro but I would not recommend this as an ideal scope for this kind of imaging.

A.G

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