Show us your set up in action at night.

[Kon]

Out with the little man to capture ISS again.

[callisto]

26 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Yup, I’ve got a CQ extender for the FC 76 👍🏻
Interesting re the Masuyama 26 👍🏻

Is the Mas 26 on your list now Jeremy 😁

[Daf1983]

Finally had the time and courage to tune my mount to get rid of the horrible backlash in ra. Shooting m81 and m82 tonight, and guiding seems much better so far. 

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

1 hour ago, Kon said:

Out with the little man to capture ISS again.

I totally forgot about the 1930 ISS pass until the station flared fantastically while I was out in the garden... and immediately thought of you two outside.

The sky looked clear here but brightness and transparency are terrible. I can barely see Cassiopeia, only four stars in Leo and Ursa Major is almost overhead but only just discernable.

So half an hour or so to set up, get perfect gotos and after another half an hour I'm sitting in the garden chair behind the mount just enjoying the breeze...

 

Kon I hope the ISS capture went well. 😀

[AstroNebulee]

1 hour ago, Kon said:

Out with the little man to capture ISS again.

Good luck, I hope you managed to capture it again 😊

[Stu]

Better pop this one up here. 16” Truss dob.

[Victor Boesen]

4 minutes ago, Stu said:

Better pop this one up here. 16” Truss dob.

Now stu.... When will you be covering that dob with a full size Baader solar film and stick your binoviewer in the focuser? Would mean serious business!!

[Stu]

2 minutes ago, Victor Boesen said:

Now stu.... When will you be covering that dob with a full size Baader solar film and stick your binoviewer in the focuser? Would mean serious business!!

Terrifying prospect! I would probably end up setting fire to something! 😱

[JeremyS]

1 hour ago, Stu said:

Terrifying prospect! I would probably end up setting fire to something! 😱

Yes: something like Crewkerne

[Sunshine]

2 hours ago, Stu said:

Terrifying prospect! I would probably end up setting fire to something! 😱

Yes, setting fire to your entire head! NOT GOOD!

[The Lazy Astronomer]

Not quite the setup, but a graphical representation of how it's doing 😁

Some of the best guiding I've had, being absolutely wasted by shooting 30s subs...

[powerlord]

Big gun out tonight. Surrender wee galaxies, resistance is futile!!

Tonight, sunflower, silver needle and ngc2903.

Stu

 

[ONIKKINEN]

17 minutes ago, powerlord said:

Big gun out tonight. Surrender wee galaxies, resistance is futile!!

Tonight, sunflower, silver needle and ngc2903.

Stu

 

Does look a bit like some napoleonic era field artillery piece with the mount hidden like this.

[Paz]

I had a very light set up last night that I could take out in light bits and then put together as I can't carry much at the moment. A Neewer carbon tripod and 72mm refractor, plus hand grenade and associated counter weights. I had a huge field of view hence no need for a RACI finder.

[powerlord]

Eq6r Pro with the 'monster' on it.. 300pds, with 20kg weights.

 

Not bad rms that - ill take it!!

 

[Sunshine]

1 hour ago, powerlord said:

Big gun out tonight. Surrender wee galaxies, resistance is futile!!

Tonight, sunflower, silver needle and ngc2903.

Stu

 

It never occurred to me to put my scope inside an inflatable swimming pool! 😂

[barbulo]

Ready to catch a few photons:

[Froeng]

cooling down...

[Sunshine]

1 hour ago, Froeng said:

cooling down...

Loving the tripod/mount/scope combo and that bokeh with golden light of dusk is totally making that image.

Wonderful color temperature.

Edited March 25, 2022 by Sunshine

[Roy Challen]

My most photogenic telescope - the Skylight 76mm out double star spotting. 

Sorry about the not so photogenic garden...

[Sunshine]

1 hour ago, Roy Challen said:

My most photogenic telescope - the Skylight 76mm out double star spotting. 

Sorry about the not so photogenic garden...

Photogenic it is! and I would be willing to bet that at least once you have tripped over those stones under each leg 😂

[wornish]

I have only used my HD925 on Planetary and Moon shots so far and so didn't need to bother with guiding.  I built my own little power distribution box to hold a RaspberryPi 4 and  run KStars/Ekos to do guiding and control the imaging Took my first images of the pinwheel galaxy last night.

Here is my setup in action taken with my iPhone.

 

 

[IB20]

On 23/03/2022 at 18:48, HollyHound said:

I know you have the same scope @JeremyS and if you haven't tried the CQ Extender on it yet, I would highly recommend it... apart from being a tiny bit longer (and so be more mindful of the length when I carry it outside), it really does turn the scope from great to awesome 😁

I am keeping the FS-60CB now as a truly widefield and "finder" scope, as I'm not sure I'll put it back into FS-60Q configuration much now that I have this setup for that purpose 🤔

BTW The Masuyama 26mm (which lives in the case with my other main 1.25" eyepieces... XWs and Masuyama 16) is fantastic in this scope configuration.... such a lovely wide, sparkling, bright field and pretty much flat too... Pleaides is sublime through this 👍

Interested to hear people’s views of the CQ extender module on the 76DCU. I’ve found the standard set-up pretty awesome to date but might prove beneficial for the planet season, particularly Mars?

Is it just more for easier higher magnifications?

I have a wish list of upgrades, but lots of other bits are in front of the extender unless I can be persuaded otherwise. 😅
 

[Stu]

15 hours ago, powerlord said:

Big gun out tonight. Surrender wee galaxies, resistance is futile!!

Tonight, sunflower, silver needle and ngc2903.

Stu

 

Are you in a swimming pool?? 😉

[Stu]

2 hours ago, IB20 said:

Interested to hear people’s views of the CQ extender module on the 76DCU. I’ve found the standard set-up pretty awesome to date but might prove beneficial for the planet season, particularly Mars?

Is it just more for easier higher magnifications?

I have a wish list of upgrades, but lots of other bits are in front of the extender unless I can be persuaded otherwise. 😅
 

I don’t think it is essential necessarily, but it does flatten the field so I’ve found stars stay sharp out to the edges in the Morpheus for example whereas they don’t without it (without refocusing). It makes a bigger difference with the FS60C but I still enjoy using it with the 76.

I would quite like to use it for solar work but I suspect that would result in heat build-up and potential damage so I won’t do that.

It does obviously, as you said, also make it easier to reach higher powers with eyepieces which potentially have more eye relief etc. I think it does push the eye relief out as a barlow does but haven’t actually checked specifically for this.