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First light with WO Zenithstar 61 on a SkyGuider Pro


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The postman was kind to me today and dropped off a William Optics Zenithstar 61 and Flat61A flattener and the gods smiled on me with clear skies for 30 minutes. It would be a shame not to christen the new toys :)

I only managed 10 lights so I didn't even consider darks or flats. The 10 lights from the Canon 5D MkIV, shot at iso 1600 x 60 seconds, were stacked and aligned in PS, median filtered for some noise reduction and then a few layer/curves tweaks to pull out some basic detail so I could look at the star profiles and and any vignetting.

Overall impression is extremely good build quality and the focusing through the mask is ok on very bright stars but quite a challenge on lesser star magnitudes. Very little vignetting through the imaging train so the image circle cover the full frame sensor and it will be simple to either remove the gradients in PS or use flats and sharp stars corner to corner with no obvious colour aberrations.

I do need to check where the weird smudges are in the imaging train because they weren't on the camera sensor yesterday, hopefully I'll find them pretty quickly because they are nasty!

Screenshots are also included of APT focusing, Stellarium for the imaging area after plate solving in APT and then PHD2 for the guiding with the ZWO ASI120mm-mini camera on a ZWO 30mm f/4 scope (I've no idea if the guiding is good or bad but the polar alignment was achieved with the iPolar camera in the SkyGuider Pro mount

I think at some point I'll add an 2" IDAS D2 filter into the imaging train and see if I can counter some local light pollution we have around here.

 

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Edited by Photosbykev
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Very interested in this. I have the same setup but on a Skywatcher Star Adventurer. I had no end of trouble last night. Couldn't get my guidescope scope focused until late, star trailing even on short exposures. Going to give it another go tonight as next 2 nights are forecast clear. 

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8 hours ago, Radders said:

Very interested in this. I have the same setup but on a Skywatcher Star Adventurer. I had no end of trouble last night. Couldn't get my guidescope scope focused until late, star trailing even on short exposures. Going to give it another go tonight as next 2 nights are forecast clear. 

Im comfortably getting 3 minutes without any trailing with the 360mm fl scope. Tomorrow night looks good so hopefully I'll get some decent data to play with. I've also ordered an idas d2 lp filter to counter some local pollution. 

Kev

Edited by Photosbykev
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Very interested in this. I have the same setup but on a Skywatcher Star Adventurer. I had no end of trouble last night. Couldn't get my guidescope scope focused until late, star trailing even on short exposures. Going to give it another go tonight as next 2 nights are forecast clear. 

 

How are you setup? I seem to be struggling still. Balance seems ok, and once I've Polar Aligned in Polemaster all is good but once I choose a target and start guiding, it all goes down hill. 

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17 hours ago, Radders said:

Very interested in this. I have the same setup but on a Skywatcher Star Adventurer. I had no end of trouble last night. Couldn't get my guidescope scope focused until late, star trailing even on short exposures. Going to give it another go tonight as next 2 nights are forecast clear. 

 

How are you setup? I seem to be struggling still. Balance seems ok, and once I've Polar Aligned in Polemaster all is good but once I choose a target and start guiding, it all goes down hill. 

I've got a guidescope mounted alongside the wo z61 scope and camera and the balance is fractional camera heavy, not by much but enough to keep the gears engaged. Guidescope is controlled by phd2 with mount selected as on camera. Once polar aligned and tracking I'm seeing rms errors of <0.5px. At the moment I'm shooting 4min lights with no visible trailing with a full frame Canon 5D4 

Edited by Photosbykev
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Wow 0.5! That is good. I think tonight is the night it's finally all come together. I'm currently shouting M31 at 3 min subs with no trailing hurrah! PHD2 is currently showing 1.34. Can live with that. 

Look forward to seeing your results. 

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13 minutes ago, Radders said:

Wow 0.5! That is good. I think tonight is the night it's finally all come together. I'm currently shouting M31 at 3 min subs with no trailing hurrah! PHD2 is currently showing 1.34. Can live with that. 

Look forward to seeing your results. 

I ran out of battery lol I wasnt expecting to go for so long but Ive got 30 x 30s, 30 x 60s, 30 x 120s and a handful of 240s lights to play with. Battery swopped out and gonna leave the camera shooting darks for a few hours.

Kev

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