Basic Scope Setups (Uwe Deutermann)

Basic Scope Setups

There it is now, setup and ready to go! Got my needed spacers (from Teleskop Service in Germany, super fast, took a little bit more than 2 days to get it to Florida, a big thank you to my "old" homeland). Funny enough, I could not find anything that I needed here in the US, I needed some very thin M42 spacers, and a 5mm M42 spacer to get the camera exactly at the correct distance. I took some test images with 7mm further away and the edges did not look very good. The instructions that came with the telescope mentioned it though, it has to be exact by the millimeter. So now I am of course curious about the results, but no clear skies in sight for the next few days, hopefully next week. Would be moonless too 😊.

The first test images showed already the difference in power, targeted the Rosette and there were so many more stars that the image was almost "unusable". Well, I took a 5 minute exposure, might be a bit overkill now.

I definitely could detect the CWL shift that was to be expected with an f/2 scope, the 7nm Hα seems to cut off quite a bit. My next try will be with the 12nm Hα, that should be ok during moonless nights.

Update: I tried this setup now for 3 nights, and it is working fairly well. I knew that my guiding would suffer from this, but it was not too bad, still under 1" average accuracy (actually after the meridian flip even better, tells me that the RA balance was not perfect). I will leave it as is for now (although Andreas (G 4 0 0) passed me a link to a website that has all the accessories that you need to make it better, and they look COOL! 2nd next step 🤗). Next step is to add the Baader UFC parts since my focal distance is not good enough with my current filter drawer! Thanks to Equinoxx for helping me out on this, really appreciate the support!!

Updates added.

B

Description: Looking the "other" way.

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C

Description: Will this be overkill for the Losmandy mount? Or even worse, for my back? Will try that out hopefully soon!

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D

Description: Limiting the cables from the laptop to the scope/mount, added Pegasus Pocket Powerbox and it worked right away 😊😊. Now just short USB cables needed. Makes definitely a difference, how many times did those cables tangle up somewhere, driving me crazy why the guiding did not work. This is the setup that was used last night, having OIII images with the RASA and RGB with my little Williams 61 mm and 0.8 focal reducer. Almost identical FOV with that setup 😊.

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E

Description: Waiting for clear skies ... look how lonely it is, I have to pad it once in a while ... LOLOL

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F

Description: I had to fix the play in declination that was so bad that even PHD was telling me that there is something wrong. Of course now I am facing the problem after fixing the play that the mount things that it is not easy enough to move and stalls. Fine tuning needed here too!

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G

Description: Added the Ultra Mini Guide scope to the rig. If that works out (clear skies needed!!) I will be able to take guided images with the Z61 (RGB with ZWO ASI071 MC) and narrow band with the ZWO ASI 1600 MM at the same time. Since the clear skies are rare that would be great to get more exposure times together.

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L

Description: Barlow 2x session tonight! I know, it will be f/14 or so ... yikes, long exposures needed.

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M

Description: Ready for action!! New mount (Software Bisque MyT), old tripod, new program to learn (SkyX, so far this reads GREAT). Just the weather is not playing along so far ... of course. But that gave me time to learn a lot about the program, has many GREAT features!

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N

Description: This week one of the neighbors trees was cut down, one more to follow very soon, which will give me more access to the south, which I desperately need as you can see with this chart (for Midnight last night).
I obtained this chart by using my phone and 2 apps, compass and bubble level. Pointed to the direction in the sky, lined up the phone with eye sight to the lowest spot and took a screenshot every 45 degrees or a bit less. The bubble level app determined the angle, pretty cool.
The SkyX program that came along with the MyT mount gives you the opportunity to draw your horizon so that at calibration time only stars will be picked that are within the observable area (you can even take a photo and integrate this into the program, with all the hight trees though it did not make sense for me).
I am still in the learning phase of this program, but it has fantastic features that I already read about. Still no chance to try it out in the yard though, miserable weather. Next week looks like that there will be one or two evenings with clear skies, let's cross the fingers that they weathermen are correct.

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O

Description: Tonights guiding, not as perfect but still in a very good range!

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P

Description: Who would not love THIS mount. Again a thanks to John, he encouraged me to buy a bit more expensive mount, and after I finally learned how to do the polar alignment correctly (the worst part was that my phone north was 10 degrees off!!) it is working just fantastically! Let's not forget, I have to get everything aligned every evening from scratch! MyT GO!

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