Esprit 100 First Light

[The Lazy Astronomer]

Made use of my last few nights of astro darkness (although most of the subs ended up being taken outside of astro darkness). 

Conditions weren't great, but here is 36 x 300s h alpha, taken over 2 nights last week

P.s. quite possibly my total lack of processing skill, but if anyone has any tips on how to prevent Startools creating those ugly grey halos around the stars I'd very much like to hear them!

[The Lazy Astronomer]

Turns out my issue may just have been the data was too noisy to leave at full resolution.

New version binned 50% and reprocessed. Thoughts, comments and criticisms welcome (help me get better at this!!)

Thanks.

[Sunshine]

Criticism?? something tells me you won't be hearing a whole lot of that, these look fantastic!

[The Lazy Astronomer]

22 hours ago, Sunshine said:

Criticism?? something tells me you won't be hearing a whole lot of that, these look fantastic!

You're too kind ☺

As a bit of learning exercise over the summer, l may attempt to put together a mosaic of this region. Watch this space 😉

[Jonny_H]

On 24/05/2021 at 10:07, The Lazy Astronomer said:

Made use of my last few nights of astro darkness (although most of the subs ended up being taken outside of astro darkness). 

Conditions weren't great, but here is 36 x 300s h alpha, taken over 2 nights last week

P.s. quite possibly my total lack of processing skill, but if anyone has any tips on how to prevent Startools creating those ugly grey halos around the stars I'd very much like to hear them!

Looking good there TLA.

I received my Esprit 100 not long ago too, but sadly haven't had a chance to use it yet. The same can be said about my az eq6 😩

Good work though. Are you pleased with the scope so far?

[The Lazy Astronomer]

16 hours ago, Jonny_H said:

Looking good there TLA.

I received my Esprit 100 not long ago too, but sadly haven't had a chance to use it yet. The same can be said about my az eq6 😩

Good work though. Are you pleased with the scope so far?

Thanks very much. ☺

The scope's really nice, very pleased with it so far, but l have to say a fair bit bulkier than l was expecting.

The focus point also seems super sensitive to temperature changes, so I think a focus motor is going to be a must for me to be able to leave it snapping away all night unattended.

[Jonny_H]

21 minutes ago, The Lazy Astronomer said:

Thanks very much. ☺

The scope's really nice, very pleased with it so far, but l have to say a fair bit bulkier than l was expecting.

The focus point also seems super sensitive to temperature changes, so I think a focus motor is going to be a must for me to be able to leave it snapping away all night unattended.

Yes I must admit I also wasn't expecting it to be as bulky. It is certainly a lump!  

Have you kept yours on the standard Losmandy dovetail or did you upgrade?

I cannot comment on the focusing yet but hoping that this horrid weather (up to today) and relentless cloud cover passes in the not so distant future!

[The Lazy Astronomer]

8 hours ago, Jonny_H said:

Yes I must admit I also wasn't expecting it to be as bulky. It is certainly a lump!  

Have you kept yours on the standard Losmandy dovetail or did you upgrade?

I cannot comment on the focusing yet but hoping that this horrid weather (up to today) and relentless cloud cover passes in the not so distant future!

I just kept the standard dovetail - with my setup it balances with the front of dovetail just a couple of millimetres forward of the saddle.

Another thing I found though: the rings are rubbish! They don't grip the tube tight enough. I ended up shimming them with some strips of folded paper and while that works perfectly, l will probably look for a better solution in the longer term.

It's a good scope, but slightly let down by poor accessories.

[Jonny_H]

7 hours ago, The Lazy Astronomer said:

I just kept the standard dovetail - with my setup it balances with the front of dovetail just a couple of millimetres forward of the saddle.

Another thing I found though: the rings are rubbish! They don't grip the tube tight enough. I ended up shimming them with some strips of folded paper and while that works perfectly, l will probably look for a better solution in the longer term.

It's a good scope, but slightly let down by poor accessories.

Ah ok - that is interesting to know re: the rings. I will keep an eye out for that when I set mine up.  Thinking about posts I have seen in the past that actually makes sense as I recall many people saying that they had upgraded to Primaluce rings or similar.