Lightbox for flats

[gmessyhome]

Could anyone suggest a good light box please to use for making flats. I use a hyperstar so it needs to sit on top of the dewshield.

Thanks

[MartinB]

Are you committed to a light box rather than an EL panel?  I can't help if you are but can give some info re EL panels.

[gmessyhome]

Anything that will give me the flat i need. Im committed to astrophotography as its the hobby ill be taking into retirement so something that will last.

[Ricker]

Try an A3 tracing light off Amazon. 

[gmessyhome]

I did and its not what they look like on amazon. Light only shines in from the side . So its not even . So if anyone has a picture of a decent one that gives even light  that would be fab .

[Davey-T]

I use an LED tracing panel, works ok with a few sheets of printing paper covering it.

Made a proper light box for my 10" SCT

Dave

[Clarkey]

I have one of these:

AGPTEK Magnetic Tracing A4 LED Light Box Drawing Pad Dimmable Brightness, Physical Buttons Control, USB Power Cable for Animation, Designing, Stencilling X-ray Viewing/Sketching Diamond Painting: Amazon.co.uk: Kitchen & Home

It is A4 but I use it with an RC8 and it works ok. It is back-lit and even. I did get another one initially but it was lit from the side and the light was pretty poor so that went back. I have not used it for narrowband on this scope, but it is reasonably bright.

[MartinB]

EL panels are perfect for taking flats.  You don't need to be able to adjust the brightness, just your exposure time and match with dark flats.

I have used one of these for years https://www.earlsmann.co.uk/lighting-components/electroluminescent-products/el-panels/  complete with a 12v power supply.  I sandwiched it in polar white perspex sheet.  The cable between the panel and power supply is rather flimsy so I added some reinforcement where it joins the panel.  My imaging scopes range from 5-10" and I simply pop it on the top and am good to go.

[kirkster501]

I use a El panel too.  Only issue is getting it dim enough for the flats to be of long enough time length to overcome the sliding shutter of some of the CCD cameras.  I put thick white card in front to overcome that in the contraption I built.

[tooth_dr]

1 minute ago, kirkster501 said:

I use a El panel too.  Only issue is getting it dim enough for the flats to be of long enough time length to overcome the sliding shutter of some of the CCD cameras.  I put thick white card in front to overcome that in the contraption I built.

I had the same problem. I bought a grey acrylic sheet, which does the same job but just a bit more durable.  It was about £4 for A3. 

[MartinB]

14 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

I had the same problem. I bought a grey acrylic sheet, which does the same job but just a bit more durable.  It was about £4 for A3. 

My polar white perspex does the job nicely but a simple sheet of paper also works!

[SamAndrew]

Started using an EL panel on my Esprit, and I'm going to get a larger one for my orther scopes. To adjust the brightness you can supply them with a lower voltage; I've tried mine on 5v and 3.3V, but have no problems using it at 12v. The advantage is you can cut them to shape, so you could cut the middle out to slide if over the camera and hyperstar. Disadvantage is they're a fair bit more expensive than the tracing light boxes.

[tooth_dr]

1 hour ago, MartinB said:

My polar white perspex does the job nicely but a simple sheet of paper also works!

White wasn’t enough for me with the Epsilon. Even on the dimmest panel setting I couldn’t get the exposures above the 3.5s threshold.  I needed something like 12 or 17 or some ridiculous amount of paper so ended up changing to grey acrylic and it worked a treat. 

[MartinB]

57 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

White wasn’t enough for me with the Epsilon. Even on the dimmest panel setting I couldn’t get the exposures above the 3.5s threshold.  I needed something like 12 or 17 or some ridiculous amount of paper so ended up changing to grey acrylic and it worked a treat. 

Ah yes, important point if you are using a hyperstar system!

[gmessyhome]

Thanks guys, ill look into the EL panel and good old perspex.