Advice before my trip

[bennethos]

 

Hi everyone,

I'm going on my trip to france soon to do a full week of stargazing. As I got bad back issues and I suffered a lot last year I would like to try the video astronomy route/EAA, watch my laptop screen basically.
Plan is to have a look at planets, some Messier objects and learn how to setup the guiding with the 290mm as well as get to know all the software (sharpcap, firecapture, ...).

Planning a final order on FLO befor my trip but am very confused if everything will fit together so to speak.

Especially the spacing between my camera and scope, do I need extra rings, flatteners, tubes ? Any caveats ?

Actual equipment :

SW Esprit ED100 + default 9x50 finder scope
EQ6 motorized with eqdir usb/serial
core i7 2.7Ghz, 8Gb Ram, ssd 240gb, Panasonic toughbook CF-53 + win10 64(video card is a bit weak but I think it should be ok for astronomy)

Planning to order : 

ZWO 385MC  --> do I need any extra's to fit it on my Esprit 100 ?
ZWO 290 mini for guiding --> will it fit my default SW 9x50 ?

thank you

[shirva]

Fair bit of kit to take for a weeks stargazing, best advice I can give is test drive equipment before you travel,,  I have the heq5 pro and skywatcher wifi adapter and it's a nice bit of kit, hitecastro eqcable as back up, I recently changed the stock focuser on my skywatcher evostar ed80 to the ovl one and it put in a curve ball getting adapter for fitting the skywatcher 0.85 matched focal reducer,, I took for granted all would be roughly unchanged,, wrong ?.

Have a great trip

[bennethos]

Got some info in the ZWO manuals, but you are right. I will test and connect everything before I go. Already did so for the eqdir cable and slewing.

Fair bit of kit indeed, but 7 nights in a row of full dedicated stargazing is going to be lots of fun with all that gear. There will be other more senior stargazers who can potentially give me advice too.

Can you tell me why you're getting a focal reducer ? Is that to prevent curve ball/vignetting when you peek through your scope ? Why did you get another focuser ? Mine is 3" on the esprit, was looking for a remote usb focusing solution but haven't found one yet that has normal kind of plugs.

cheers
Ben

[shirva]

Hi Ben,

I got the focal reducer/flatner for the reason s you state,, getting a better corrected flatter image, give me a slightly wider fov and gives a slightly faster scope as well,, ideal for wide field video astronom.

I was using the high-tech astronomy usb focuser on my stock focuser but removed it for a while,, was putting it back on and had a seized shaft in the bearing,, I gave it a few taps with plastic hammer after soaking in wd40 oil, but it damaged the bearing and still didn't release,, the bearing isn't a full bearing,, only three balls,, not ideal.

I replaced it with the ovl upgrade focuser and couldn't be happier,, like night and day comparison to stock focuser,, but had it not been damaged I probably wouldn't have changed it,, I never expected it to be so good.. 

Been a bit wary of fitting the hitecastro dc focuser as I haven't seen any posts of the skywatcher electric focuser being fitted to one so far.

The hitecastro dc focuser is brilliant operated from the laptop, does a great job

[Martin Meredith]

Hi

I don't think very many of us bother with guiding, so if you're looking to save complexity of setup that is what I would consider dropping. You can get great results without it. That said, the 290 mini would work pretty well as your main EAA camera for some objects.

Best of luck

Martin