NEW StellaMira 90mm ED Triplet Refractor

[Anthonyexmouth]

16 minutes ago, Spaced Out said:

How was it ? 
 

I’ve had a run of unfortunate circumstances. Apart from just a couple of hours to set up and test the FF spacing when I first bought it, I’ve not been able to get out with mine again. Hopefully this will change in 2 weeks time, looking forward to actually using it. 🙂

Really happy with it. Nice and sharp and everything is so smooth and well fitting. It's just the rotators that are a little bit of a let down. I moved the camera today doing some cable management and had to reframe tonight on the same target as last night. Nina told me I was 10° out, markings on the rotator would have made it one movement instead of trial and error. Apart from that nothing bad to say. 

[Clarkey]

11 hours ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

Apart from that nothing bad to say

As a 'promoter' of the SM90 I'm glad you like it.

Personally I don't find the two rotators an issue. Apart from set up I only use the end one. You can use the 'notches' on the focuser to approximately measure the angle to move. There are 14 of them which equates to about 25 degrees per notch.

[Anthonyexmouth]

1 hour ago, Clarkey said:

As a 'promoter' of the SM90 I'm glad you like it.

Personally I don't find the two rotators an issue. Apart from set up I only use the end one. You can use the 'notches' on the focuser to approximately measure the angle to move. There are 14 of them which equates to about 25 degrees per notch.

I've locked the upper rotator but I do think it's a shame that a graduated scale was missing from the lower ring, If knew anything about 3d printing and had a printer I'd have a go at making a ring to slide on. 

[Clarkey]

Don't ask me. 2D printing is a struggle for me🤣

[Anthonyexmouth]

10 minutes ago, Clarkey said:

Don't ask me. 2D printing is a struggle for me🤣

Wish I had the time to get into it.

Something else with the scope, I wish they'd made the handle the same length as the sharpstar or william optics guide rail. I really want to put one between my dual rig setup but seems whatever one I find it means dumping the stock handle/rail, which seems such a shame. Be nice to get the guide scope closer to the centre of rotation. 

[Spaced Out]

20 hours ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

Really happy with it. Nice and sharp and everything is so smooth and well fitting. It's just the rotators that are a little bit of a let down. I moved the camera today doing some cable management and had to reframe tonight on the same target as last night. Nina told me I was 10° out, markings on the rotator would have made it one movement instead of trial and error. Apart from that nothing bad to say. 

Brilliant ! I am inclined to agree, haven't used mine properly yet, but the build quality seems really good.

[Clarkey]

1 hour ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

Be nice to get the guide scope closer to the centre of rotation. 

Can I ask why?

On a separate point, have you mounted both on an heq5? I had a similar dual rig on an AZ-EQ6 and it was on the weight limit. Admittedly I had a hefty bar, two dual saddles including an alignment one plus a mini PC and powerbox. Still looks like a lot though.

[Anthonyexmouth]

3 minutes ago, Clarkey said:

Can I ask why?

On a separate point, have you mounted both on an heq5? I had a similar dual rig on an AZ-EQ6 and it was on the weight limit. Admittedly I had a hefty bar, two dual saddles including an alignment one plus a mini PC and powerbox. Still looks like a lot though.

 

Well, it's more that it'll sit better when the cover is on . It stays outside all year. 

It balances really well and guiding has been spot on. For 3 years I've had it with an st80 as a guide scope, just swapped that for the sm90 and now I'll use the ed80 for lunar. 

I think I'm probably right on the limit but it's working. 

Just deciding if a new mount or mono set up is my next purchase. 

Thinking 533 with narrowband or a cem70/eq8. Probably the 533 first. 

 

[scitmon]

Took delivery  of mine today!  Can anyone tell me what the screw on the red part behind the tube rings does?  

[Anthonyexmouth]

2 minutes ago, scitmon said:

Took delivery  of mine today!  Can anyone tell me what the screw on the red part behind the tube rings does?  

Rotator. 

It's got 2 

[scitmon]

Upon discovering that my Sesto Senso requires a rather expensive adapter to fit my new SM90, I've decided to just replace it with a ZWO EAF.  I notice at least a couple on here have installed one... can someone advise which screws you used to fix the bracket with?  I don't want to touch any that effect the tension of the focusser.

 

Edited October 11, 2022 by scitmon

[Anthonyexmouth]

Here you go

[teoria_del_big_bang]

On 19/09/2022 at 19:05, Clarkey said:

Don't ask me. 2D printing is a struggle for me🤣

I don't do much 2D printing as I find the ink is much more expensive than the plastic for the 3D stuff 🤣😂

Steve

[scitmon]

7 hours ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

Here you go

 

Thank you.  I'm presuming that 1) the draw tube friction adjustment screw you've replaced is not needed to hold it in position? and 2) you don't remove the grub screw on the right one, just used the remaining thread above it?

 

[Anthonyexmouth]

35 minutes ago, scitmon said:

 

Thank you.  I'm presuming that 1) the draw tube friction adjustment screw you've replaced is not needed to hold it in position? and 2) you don't remove the grub screw on the right one, just used the remaining thread above it?

 

You need to remove one grub screw to get to the grub screw that holds the course adjustment knob on, but that's the only one. 

[Gary Clayton]

First light with my new SM 90 using the 0.8 reducer, Antlia 5nm filter and Hypercam 26C camera, I still have to tweak both my back focus and camera tilt  but very happy with my first results.

40X5 minute subs

Edited November 6, 2022 by Gary Clayton

[Gary Clayton]

Elephant Trunk nebula in the HOO palette 30x5 minutes subs, so just 2.5 hours total integration time.

Drizzled in Astro Pixel Processor then finished in PixInsight

StellaMira 90 with 0.8 reducer/flattener

Antlia golden dual band 5nm filter

Altair Astro Hypercam 26C Camera

Ioptron CEM40G equatorial mount

[scitmon]

Currently have my SM90 out for the first time with a ASI 294MC pro.  Here is a single 2 min frame of the Wizard Nebula... does my spacing look out?

 

 

Edited November 12, 2022 by scitmon

[Gary Clayton]

Looks about right to me, maybe a bit of camera tilt but it's minor

 

[scitmon]

Here is my resulting image from first night out with this scope:

 

Considering it was a night of trouble shooting with new equipment, and what I think was poor seeing with intermittent cloud coverage, I'm very pleased with the outcome.  Looking forward to getting some more integration time on some targets this season.

 

Oh and a big shoutout to the deepskydad flats panel for this scope, made flats so much easier with my L-extreme filter

Edited November 17, 2022 by scitmon

[Mr Spock]

All the images coming out of this scope look fabulous 👍

[Spaced Out]

At last, I can contribute something 🙂. Here's my first image using the SM90 from last night. I'm still learning the ropes with processing so it's not an expert effort by any means, but I was pleased to pick up some dust !

I'm really enjoying using the SM90 so far, I bought it because I couldn't afford a SW Esprit 100 but I am pleased I went for this, the build quality is lovely. 

SM90 + ZWO ASI 2600MC

35x 120secs stacked in DSS and processed in Photoshop.

[Gary Clayton]

NGC 6888 in the HOO palette, it's just 1 hour 10 minutes total exposure time thanks to the British weather

 

Drizzled in Astro Pixel Processor then finished in PixInsight

StellaMira 90 with 0.8 reducer/flattener

Antlia golden dual band 5nm filter

Altair Astro Hypercam 26C Camera

Ioptron CEM40G equatorial mount

[Gary Clayton]

I would like to use my SM90 at its native focal length but with a FF that screws onto the scopes M63 focuser thread as the deadicated SM 0.8 reducer does, can anybody recommend one

[Gary Clayton]

I seem to be having issues with elongated stars using an APS-C size sensor with this scope and it's 0.8 reducer, I have run the aberration inspector in NINA and tweaked my sensors tilt as best I could, even ASTAP says that I am down to 4%  yet it seems to me that I am to close in one corner and two far away in the others or am I expecting to much?.