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Hasselblad posted:That tripod looks like a serious weak point of the setup. I was initially skeptical, but it's a rock-solid fiberglass tripod (Vanguard VEO 2 235CB). Once it was set up and everything tightened down, it feels as solid as any other mount I've used - zero wobble to it. Last night was much more successful, though still room for improvement. Aiming at Cygnus, with the Veil nebula near center:  This is 15x3min, all I could manage before the clouds rolled in. Some drift, almost directly along the RA axis, so I think I should be able to fix that with either a small guide scope/PHD2, or just a more competent polar alignment.
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Jun 13, 2021 15:28
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Can anyone recommend a laser collimator for my Dob?
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Jun 16, 2021 04:06
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Don't cheap out. If you're determined to use a laser, get a Glatter. They at least consistently hold their own collimation and are specially designed for the barlowed laser technique. The holographic attachments are very useful too Personally I loving can't stand laser collimators because I don't want a collimation tool that itself needs collimation. I far prefer the sight tube / Cheshire / autocollimator system like the Catseye setup or the old tectron tools. What I personally use is an AstroSystems Lightpipe, which is a unique type of Cheshire/Sight tube combo tool and is as accurate as any laser. An autocollimator can be added later for multiple-pass precision. AstroZamboni fucked around with this message at 05:29 on Jun 16, 2021 |
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Jun 16, 2021 05:03
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AstroZamboni posted:Don't cheap out. If you're determined to use a laser, get a Glatter. They at least consistently hold their own collimation and are specially designed for the barlowed laser technique. The holographic attachments are very useful too Hoo boy, here I go down another rabbit hole. I didn't even know that poo poo existed. Thanks!
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Jun 16, 2021 13:06
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Clouds, the eternal enemy
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Jun 16, 2021 14:11
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Binary Badger posted:Clouds, the eternal enemy I've had 2 nights of perfectly clear weather and tonight looks good too. Then the next 2 weeks look terrible. It's unfortunate it doesn't get good and dark till midnight or so. The new Pegasus power box is working great, everything is now mounted direct on the scope or mount. I've got some cable organizer coming to sharpen it all up too.
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Jun 16, 2021 14:29
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B&H has a used 8” dob for $300 if someone is looking for a great bang-for-the-buck scope. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/used/1141702/sky_watcher_s11610_8_traditional_dobsonian.html edit: it appears to be gone now duodenum fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Jun 16, 2021 |
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Jun 16, 2021 14:29
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Yooper posted:Hoo boy, here I go down another rabbit hole. I didn't even know that poo poo existed. Thanks! It's a worthwhile rabbit hole. A bad laser collimator will cause more problems than it will solve, whereas visual collimation techniques are pretty well foolproof once you understand them.
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Jun 16, 2021 20:27
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duodenum posted:B&H has a used 8” dob for $300 if someone is looking for a great bang-for-the-buck scope. Well poo poo, I hemmed and hawed all morning and by the time I talked myself into it, it was gone.
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Jun 16, 2021 20:34
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I’m sorry this is so off topic but… What kind of dog is this? We have a dog that looks strikingly similar and the rescue we got her from claims she’s a border collie Pekingese mix but we are skeptical. 
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Jun 16, 2021 22:30
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So hey, quick question: Would either of these options be suited for Astrophotography, specifically Deep Sky stuff such as galaxies / nebulae? https://www.highpointscientific.com/telescopes/celestron-nexstar-102-slt-computerized-telescope-22096 https://www.highpointscientific.com/telescopes/celestron-nexstar-127-slt-computerized-telescope-22097 I have a Meade Infinity 102 that I've been using for lunar photography, as well as a Star Adventurer Pro package and a Canon T2i with an 18-55mm and Sigma 70-300mm that I've been messing around with whenever I get the chance, but I'm looking at computerized setups now more than ever. I'm absolute poo poo at finding Messier objects myself and frankly, my 6'5" self is tired of hunching over to fiddle with my polar alignment or adjust the focus on my T2i's lens  I've already got a T-Ring and 1.25" T-adapter that I use with my Meade, just hoping to find something relatively affordable in the GoTo mount department that I can toss my camera on. I'm really trying to keep my budget under $600 if possible because as-is, either of those options would take a bit to save for and I'm not trying to spend $1k or more
T1g4h fucked around with this message at 01:21 on Jun 17, 2021 |
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Jun 17, 2021 01:18
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Enos Cabell posted:Well poo poo, I hemmed and hawed all morning and by the time I talked myself into it, it was gone. Sorry! If my wife makes me get rid of it I'll PM you.
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Jun 17, 2021 01:33
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PerniciousKnid posted:Sorry! If my wife makes me get rid of it I'll PM you. Hah! Glad it went to a goon at least. I hope you and your wife both enjoy it, I'll be ready for the next deal!
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Jun 17, 2021 01:38
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Enos Cabell posted:Hah! Glad it went to a goon at least. I hope you and your wife both enjoy it, I'll be ready for the next deal! Thanks! My wife will complain about how big it is but I hope the kids enjoy it! They love space but my 5yo is poo poo at holding binoculars. The timing is great, we're going to an Airbnb in the boonies for vacation in a couple weeks. I just need to learn how to use a Dobsonian by then.
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Jun 17, 2021 01:43
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Field flatteners: do they show correct image or is it flipped?
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Jun 17, 2021 01:58
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It's just about setting now, but Venus was pretty bright half an hour ago.. no wonder people constantly mistake it for a UFO sometimes..
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Jun 17, 2021 02:32
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PerniciousKnid posted:Thanks! My wife will complain about how big it is but I hope the kids enjoy it! They love space but my 5yo is poo poo at holding binoculars. It comes with a couple of really cheap eyepieces and doesn’t appear to come with a collimation tool. You might want to look into that. Practice collimating and align your finder scope before you’re out in the dark trying to read the manual. With well aligned mirrors and a nice eyepiece or two, you have a great scope.
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Jun 17, 2021 04:14
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Enos Cabell posted:Hah! Glad it went to a goon at least. I hope you and your wife both enjoy it, I'll be ready for the next deal! If you're in Florida there's an Orion xt8 (same thing) that's local pickup only on eBay. Seemingly the only way to get a good deal on telescopes on eBay is local pickup only.
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Jun 17, 2021 17:54
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GutBomb posted:I’m sorry this is so off topic but… That's a cute puppy right there! Hamdog was originally a rescue from a litter of "lab mixes" but a DNA test has shown us that she's actually just pile of Siberian Husky/Chow Chow/Staffie/German Shepherd parts stuck together like the world's smelliest Megazord.
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Jun 17, 2021 19:35
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T1g4h posted:So hey, quick question: Would either of these options be suited for Astrophotography, specifically Deep Sky stuff such as galaxies / nebulae? In a nutshell, not really. The 127 would be OK for something like planetary, and I see some really great stuff on Astrobin in that realm. https://www.astrobin.com/search/?q=nexstar%20127 Your focal length (1500mm) makes for a very slow scope, so it'll take a very long time to collect photons for faint stuff like nebula or galaxies. Relatively bright stuff, like planets, will be awesome. The other issue is the mount is alt-az, and not equatorial. So you run into issues of rotation, as the night goes on the target will rotate inside of the view. I'm sure DeepSkyStacker can compensate, but it further reduces your usable area. You absolutely could add a wedge though. The capacity of the mount is 8 lbs. I can't find a weight on just the OTA, but as a general rule of thumb you cut the weight rating in half for astrophotography. So I don't think it'll have the capacity to add a Canon T2i. The 102SLT is faster with a focal length more suited to nebula and galaxies. Something like Andromeda is too big on it's own and nebula are really really faint. An unmodified camera will have a very hard time with nebula too. I ran my T3 for hours and hours shooting nebula with a 200mm lens and had basically nothing. I actually have a version of that scope, but not that mount. I did stick it onto a bigger mount and hooked up my T3 to it and shot a galaxy. You run into a lot of chromatic aberration with it though. My Canon T3 had extreme issues with walking noise until I added a guide scope and dithered. So to work with what you have I'd focus on galaxies and clusters. Star clusters shoot really quick (they are bright!) and galaxies can be pretty good too. I'd scratch the 127SLT, the FL is too long. The 102SLT will be more suited but will suffer from lack of a field flattener and will have chromatic aberration. Switching to a reflector like the https://www.highpointscientific.com/computerized-telescopes/celestron-nexstar-130-slt-computerized-telescope-31145 130SLT will take care of the chromatic aberration issue but creates problems with coma (out of shape stars) and will require collimation. If I had a $600 budget, I'd get this mount : https://www.highpointscientific.com/explore-scientific-iexos-100-equatorial-mount-with-pmc-eight-goto-es-iexos-100 and stick my Canon T2 to an Orion Short Tube 80 ($175). Ed Ting did a review of the scope where he did some basic astrophotography with it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdPaKtK_7Zk The used market will be prodigious for something like that too. There's a gentleman north of me who uses that mount with a Rokinon 135 and takes world class images. https://www.astrobin.com/users/FrostByte/ But he's also dithering to prevent the walking noise. I'd also be concerned about the accuracy of the SLT mounts for long exposures. The chunky nylon gears may create some really wonky stuff on long exposures. edit : Here's a link to a dude on CN talking about his ST80 for AP : https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/558530-m42-m45-a-year-of-progress/ Yooper fucked around with this message at 20:18 on Jun 17, 2021 |
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Jun 17, 2021 20:13
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Thank you so much for the detailed reply! I genuinely appreciate all of that, you have given me a ton of stuff to bookmark and study tonight.  These are my best 2 shots that I have managed to get as photo tax for all the help and advice! The moon is a composite of probably 6 - 8 shots taken with my Meade Infinity 102, and the Andromeda shot was a pure luck one I managed with my 300mm telephoto. I have a right angle viewfinder on the way that will hopefully make it easier to get my focus sorted out since I won't have to bend at such odd angles to see what i'm doing
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Jun 17, 2021 21:05
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T1g4h posted:Thank you so much for the detailed reply! I genuinely appreciate all of that, you have given me a ton of stuff to bookmark and study tonight. I was basically where you are a bit over a year ago. Hooking up the laptop to the camera opened up ease of focusing and plate solving so I didn't spend a whole night imaging nothing. After solving one glaring issue I'd suddenly discover another one. Ditching the telephoto lens for a prime lens was next, then mount etc. etc. This was from last night, no calibration frames of any sort (you can see the hot pixels) as my house is a mess of drywall poo poo. Roughly 3 hours of exposure, 30s exposures.  It's the Bubble Nebula, which is really too small for my scope, but it still looks cool with that cluster and nebulosity.
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Jun 18, 2021 02:31
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Yooper posted:I was basically where you are a bit over a year ago. Hooking up the laptop to the camera opened up ease of focusing and plate solving so I didn't spend a whole night imaging nothing. After solving one glaring issue I'd suddenly discover another one. Ditching the telephoto lens for a prime lens was next, then mount etc. etc. That's gorgeous, really nice especially considering that there's no calibration frames. I tend to be completely screwed without flat frames.
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Jun 18, 2021 15:49
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Golden-i posted:That's gorgeous, really nice especially considering that there's no calibration frames. I tend to be completely screwed without flat frames. Thanks! The scope seems to be fine without any flat frames. I typically do bias and darks, but I may pass on the bias as the 533MC supposedly doesn't require it. I keep doing it because it doesn't add any time and doesn't seem to detract. My plan is to image with this rig for an entire year then look at an upgrade to a larger scope. For now though I'm pretty happy.
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Jun 18, 2021 16:06
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Yooper posted:Thanks! I never do dark frames with my 294MC-Pro any more. It seems like a waste of time when I'm running a cooled camera, and doing basic image calibration can offset the hot/cold pixels just as well without much effort.
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Jun 18, 2021 18:40
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Yooper posted:I was basically where you are a bit over a year ago. Hooking up the laptop to the camera opened up ease of focusing and plate solving so I didn't spend a whole night imaging nothing. After solving one glaring issue I'd suddenly discover another one. Ditching the telephoto lens for a prime lens was next, then mount etc. etc. There are so many goddamn stars out there I can't wrap my mind around it. 
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Jun 18, 2021 23:13
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Golden-i posted:I never do dark frames with my 294MC-Pro any more. It seems like a waste of time when I'm running a cooled camera, and doing basic image calibration can offset the hot/cold pixels just as well without much effort. Counter to that, with a cooled camera its very easy to take dark frames and just have a dark library that you use for a long period of time. I suppose it does matter how cold you're able to get your sensor. I'm in Phoenix and so -5 is about as low as I can go and there's still some pretty considerable noise that the dark frames help with. I'm also using a 294MC-pro. In other news, I did make a very questionable purchasing decision. I was able to get a 2600MM-pro that I am chomping at the bit to use. I also bought a full set of Chroma LRGB and 3nm NB filters. Holy poo poo my wallet. Or as my wife said when I proposed the purchase to her, "jesus christ!". The filters are still a few weeks out but I got the camera, so I'm in the middle of making said dark libraries for it. The behavior of the sensor at even -5 is really impressive. With this camera I think you could definitely make the argument that darks are not necessary, but maybe old habits die hard. This is a 120s dark at -5C and look ma, no glow!  Compare that with the 290MC's 120s -5C dark  These 2 images are stretched a similar amount.
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Jun 18, 2021 23:14
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simble posted:Counter to that, with a cooled camera its very easy to take dark frames and just have a dark library that you use for a long period of time. I suppose it does matter how cold you're able to get your sensor. I'm in Phoenix and so -5 is about as low as I can go and there's still some pretty considerable noise that the dark frames help with. I'm also using a 294MC-pro. I should probably do some more testing with my setup to see if I'd benefit from dark frames, then! I'm in Minnesota so most of my shooting has the camera around -30F to -40F so maybe that makes a difference?
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Jun 19, 2021 00:25
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 That certainly makes a big difference. However, the amp glow should still be there. I'm surprised its not detectible in your lights.  This is the top right of a single debayered, but uncalibrated light that I have taken with the 294 and you can definitely see the glow (the faint white line). It gets worse when stacked.
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Jun 19, 2021 00:32
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Yooper posted:Set up last night and discovered my USB hub was dead. Packed up for the night and discovered this morning that it also fried my ASI120MM guide camera and the USB port on the EQ6-R mount. Ah, yes. It's like a curse. I had this happen TWICE to my AVX (replaced the internal board both times - once I had to send it back to Celestron and the second time I just bought the board myself on eBay and did it myself - not cheap) and at a different time, fried one of my EQ6-R's EQMod USB cables too (fortunately the mount is fine). I wish these things didn't have RJ-45 cables and had proper USB ports. I think some of the iOptron mounts do?
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Jun 19, 2021 00:50
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I can still move the mount using the hand controller so it's not totally fried. 
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The newest revisions (like last 2 years) of the eq6-r have a usb-a port next to the guider port.
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Jun 19, 2021 01:24
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It's incredible how much difference an eyepiece makes. My right angle viewfinder for my T2i arrived today so I decided to go out and do a few quick test shots to see if it actually helped. It 100% did, no more contorting myself at awkward angles to try and see how i'm looking or guessing at focus! This isn't amazing, but the important part is it's actually in focus. Vega in the top, Epsilon Lyrae down and left, and Zeta down and right. Considering I did a fairly quick and dirty polar alignment and was shooting with my 300mm telephoto, I'm not at all upset!
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Jun 19, 2021 06:56
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simble posted:
Oof! Wallet indeed. It'll be cool to see your outputs later. T1g4h posted:It's incredible how much difference an eyepiece makes. Rock on man! Everytime I set up I learn something, which makes it easier to shoot a nice photo down the road. simble posted:The newest revisions (like last 2 years) of the eq6-r have a usb-a port next to the guider port. Yup, mine has the newer board. There is also a USB port on the handset but it doesn't use EQMOD driver but some other package. The only trade off is I'd have burned up a handset instead of an internal board.
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Jun 19, 2021 12:57
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Hello thread! Last night I took my old Rebel T3 outside, with its kit 55-250mm lens and took a series of shots of the Moon. After processing them using advice here I got this result:  I'm honestly blown away with what you can get even if you don't have a telescope or star tracker! The next thing is to try the same thing with a deep sky object, with living in a city center, don't hold up as much hope though...
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Jun 22, 2021 00:56
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 No filters for the 2600 yet. Here's another taken with my 294MC. North America and Pelican Nebulas. 36x3m subs, taken through an Optolong L-enhance filter. Would've been more subs, but I guess my laptop rebooted for an unexplained reason around midnight. I was messing with my scope and I think I took my flattener out of spec so the stars are a bit stretched in the corner, but  I also tried to make the switch from SGP (which recently went to a subscription licensing model) over to NINA and I think NINA has come a loooong way. I'd say at this point it is pretty much at feature parity with SGP. It worked great.
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Jun 22, 2021 05:05
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simble posted:
That's nice! The filter does a good job of popping the nebula without overwhelming things with the stars. Windows deciding to update has ruined a couple of nights for me. I had it set to not do updates at night, but sometimes it still does that. Agreed on NINA, I tested out SGP, Voyager, and eventually settled on NINA. I think it helps I wasn't invested in one software or another. The new advanced generator is really looking good.
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Jun 22, 2021 12:30
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Yooper posted:I was basically where you are a bit over a year ago. Hooking up the laptop to the camera opened up ease of focusing and plate solving so I didn't spend a whole night imaging nothing. After solving one glaring issue I'd suddenly discover another one. Ditching the telephoto lens for a prime lens was next, then mount etc. etc. This is beautiful! simble posted:
As is this! This thread is seriously getting me excited to try and advance my own astrophotography, y'all are posting some amazing shots!  I managed to get this tonight. Used my Meade Infinity 102 with a 2x Barlow and my T2i. It's not awful, but I can definitely tell i'm going to need a better telescope at some point. The chromatic ab on the Meade is super noticeable unfortunately.
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Jun 23, 2021 03:40
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I’m assuming the OP is out of date, and this thread is both incredible and overwhelming with how many thousand dollar telescope legos y’all seem to assemble in order to capture amazing shots. My question is: what’s the best solution for out-of-the-box astronomy and Astro photography? I wanna look at planets and nebulas and poo poo but I don’t have the time to devote to learning about z-filters and laser collimators and stacks and photoshops and stuff. It looks like the evscope is that turnkey products I’m looking for, but it’s optical specs seem a bit low-end for something that costs 3 grand. Is there a Celestron kit I can get that will allow me to go out and do similar stuff for $3k or less?
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Jul 10, 2021 01:42
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facepalm edit: go on and google up that magic bullshit yourself, “libcrusher.” duodenum fucked around with this message at 01:50 on Jul 10, 2021 |
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Jul 10, 2021 01:48
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I did watch a YouTube video of a slurring Englishman babble about it for several minutes, but he didn’t really seem to get to the point. I’m guessing that it’s not the best value, but I guess what I’m asking is: will a nextar8 with an iPhone mount be better than it for the same price? Is it as easy to use?
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Jul 10, 2021 02:04
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