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What mount would you get if in my position?

AndrewG

By AndrewG
in Discussions - Mounts

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tony210

tony210

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Great thread - I still like the EQ8 which gudes well with OAG and have been very pleased with plate solving with Astrotortilla BUT it took me weeks of fiddling with the perameters and the views through my 8 inch RCT to get it to work consistently - SGPro looks good but hopefully set up isn't as taxing as that for plate solving- definitely a plus though with a guided mount to plate solve and sync your mount quickly also to frame you shot consistently each night- I'm sure an Avalon is a good bet however but doesn't have the load capacity for big scopes /setups necessarily and the ATIK 6 will be great I suspect -my 314l ATIk seems indestructible!

- Tony

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AndrewG

AndrewG

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Have just ordered the following from Ian King :grin: :-

Avalon Linear Fast Reverse EM

Atik One OAG bundle including GP Guider

Bader LRGB and Ha Filters

Tak 60x30 Finder & Bracket

The Avalon is on one weeks lead time so when I get it all assembled will post a pic,  thanks for everyones help... 

I must also say how good SGL or should I say it's members are for providing great advice :icon_salut: and different points of view so that people like me can make a more informed decision.

Thanks

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AndrewG

AndrewG

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Good stuff Andrew.  Exciting week ahead!

Barry

Thanks Barry...  I have one question though I have been looking at EQMOD / Astrotortilla for plate solving and realise I need a cable - does everything I need come with the mount or do I need to get anything separately (looking at Ian Kings website I think it is included but thought it prudent to check)?

P.S. I thought I had some Deja Vu looking at he posts and realised I had seen you in S@N with your observatory :cool: !    You live in a great place :Envy: , my family & me come down to the area every year and always have a drink in the Seven Sisters and stop in the sister hotel. I guess light pollution is not to bad down there from memory (generally at night though whilst on holiday I tend to have had a few though :grin: ).

Thanks for your help and cannot wait for the gear to arrive end of this / beginning of next week; I have however noticed on the news that the tropical storm is now on the way.... that would probably be my fault given it was bound to coincide with my purchase :eek:, maybe I should have bought an ARK instead!

Best Regards

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AndrewG

AndrewG

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Thanks Barry...  I have one question though I have been looking at EQMOD / Astrotortilla for plate solving and realise I need a cable - does everything I need come with the mount or do I need to get anything separately (looking at Ian Kings website I think it is included but thought it prudent to check)?

P.S. I thought I had some Deja Vu looking at he posts and realised I had seen you in S@N with your observatory :cool: !    You live in a great place :Envy: , my family & me come down to the area every year and always have a drink in the Seven Sisters and stop in the sister hotel. I guess light pollution is not to bad down there from memory (generally at night though whilst on holiday I tend to have had a few though :grin: ).

Thanks for your help and cannot wait for the gear to arrive end of this / beginning of next week; I have however noticed on the news that the tropical storm is now on the way.... that would probably be my fault given it was bound to coincide with my purchase :eek:, maybe I should have bought an ARK instead!

Best Regards

Oh I meant Seven Stars not sisters... how apt :laugh:.

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strutsinaction

strutsinaction

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Hi Andrew

Probably best to remind Ian K to include the EQDir cable - he forgot to include it with my order and had to send it out a few days later!

I'm currently using my NexStar 8SE OTA with the Avalon for visual whilst I get used to the mount (FSQ 85 + QSI-690 WSG-8 will be my next purchase). The 6Kg counterweight that comes with the mount was too heavy to achieve balance withthe 8SE so I had to purchase the lighter 4Kg counterweight. You may need to do the same for the FSQ 85. Maybe Ian can advise?

The mount is superb. You won't be disappointed!  I'm using mine with the wooden Geoptik tripod. Will yours be pier mounted?

Regards

John

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AndrewG

AndrewG

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Hi John,

Thanks a lot for the info, most useful. I will drop Ian an email in the morning.

Yes it is going on my pier so for now I ain't getting a tripod, maybe though as it is portable in the near future I could get a tripod and take it somewhere with less LP.

Although I haven't seen the Avalon first hand, I do have a good feeling about it!

Cheers

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AndrewG

AndrewG

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Hi Andrew

Probably best to remind Ian K to include the EQDir cable - he forgot to include it with my order and had to send it out a few days later!

I'm currently using my NexStar 8SE OTA with the Avalon for visual whilst I get used to the mount (FSQ 85 + QSI-690 WSG-8 will be my next purchase). The 6Kg counterweight that comes with the mount was too heavy to achieve balance withthe 8SE so I had to purchase the lighter 4Kg counterweight. You may need to do the same for the FSQ 85. Maybe Ian can advise?

The mount is superb. You won't be disappointed!  I'm using mine with the wooden Geoptik tripod. Will yours be pier mounted?

Regards

John

Hi John,

The 4kg counterweight has been tagged onto the order and the EQDIR cable will be with it......  just need to wait now for it :rolleyes: .

Thanks for you help.

Best Regards

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Barry-Wilson

Barry-Wilson

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Yes, 'The Seven Stars' is a regular haunt as is 'Rumour'.  I'm on the edge of the town near Dartington and I am fortunate to have a relatively dark sky.  Yes, it was me in S&N, Ian asked if I would participate to help promote his observatory . . . I was delighted to help.

I have found plate solving integrated into my capture software to really help save precious time when imaging.  I tried to make AT work but I had limited repeatable success: it would regularly solve once or twice before freezing and then causing Eqmod to crash.  I found CdC and Eqmod 'synching' before slewing.  Many others on the firm have had great success, but I just became frustrated, seeing the potential but unable to make to work seamlessly.  Manually framing on successive nights is of course possible.  Nevertheless after the free trial I opted for SGPro bought a stepper focuser - a very important addition to me - to achieve autofocusing and initially used Elbrus, the free plate solver which integrates with SGPro.  latterly I use PinPoint as it is more reliable and quicker.  If you have wireless connectivity where you image, the blind failover option is the perfect back-up.  I'm sure you'll find plenty of threads on the merits of the different image capture offerings!

Clear skies,

Barry

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AndrewG

AndrewG

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It took some time to arrive (Avalon had a factory shutdown, I was away and then so was Ian King) but finally the mount was delivered last week :grin: :-

Avalon Linear Fast Reverse

I have been spending some time last week getting to grips with EQMOD (using Cartes du Ciel) and last night we had a clear night; spent time doing a Polar Align to start with and then the problems really began!!
After Polar Aligning (not Drift at this stage) decided to try and get the OAG / Atik GP to guide...... :eek:   spent about 1.5 hours messing with settings to get the software to calibrate and when I finally did the guide was all over the place + - 20Pix.
Eventually I gave up with the Atik Artemis Software and decided to just try PHD2.. guess what... it calibrated first time and and guide trace didn't look to bad (+ - 0.7 ish pix).   Just had time to get a 10 min Ha sub before going to bed :-

First Light with Atik One OAG and Avalon Linear

I didn't frame or really set-up for the image.. just pointed slew at a deep sky object in the Cartes du Ciel and didn't bother fine tuning the focus; found out today that it was part of the Soul Nebula.
It is definitely better than using the DSLR given it is a single sub (camera was cooled to -20°C) and is stretched to the max in Pixinsight; and looks better than some of my DSLR stacked images!
I know it is early days and I need to now get to grips fully with PHD2 settings and also investigate Plate solving...
It would be good to here what you all think so far?    After the guiding issues I am really happy with the initial result.
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strutsinaction

strutsinaction

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Astrobug

I chose the Synscan option with my Avalon Linear because I wanted to use EQMOD to control the mount. EQMOD is a widely used and respected package with plenty of support available in this forum or the Yahoo EQMOD group if you need advice (you probably already know this).

The StarGO system is relatively new so I guess not many people have used this control system yet. I've not seen any reviews or Synscan comparisons online so far.

Regards

John

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