I've now been twelve months on this journey, trying to avoid the newbie pitfalls by asking lots of dumb questions.
I'm on my third mount, and haven't taken a worthwhile shot yet.
I have a HEQ5 Pro, a Losmandy side by side plate to mount a DSLR camera on one side, and a guide scope and camera on the other. I have bought a ZWO ASI120MM-S and a Williams Optics 50mm guide scope.
In the interests of stability I felt I should mount the 'scope directly to a 'V' plate instead of using the flimsy looking post mount it came with.
I've found, after two days of 'googling', that not a single manufacturer has a 'V' plate with the same drillings as the WO mount.
Now I can understand manufacturers not wanting to push business to their opposition, but it seems almost like WO have gone out of their way to design their mount to be non-compatible with Losmandy, Vixen, ADM etc.
If I wasn't such a tenacious old fart I'd go back to photographing birds, and forget about this astro stuff.
Agena Astro has the Williams 50mm finderscope rings/bracket, plus the mounting foot, for $58 usd. Your 50mm WO guidescope will fit that bracket.
Alternatively, any ring set that takes a 50mm tube, and with a Vixen mount bar should work. Check the Astroshop, and Bintel locally, and Teleskop-Express in Germany ( they seem to have mounting gear for everything).
Agena Astro has the Williams 50mm finderscope rings/bracket, plus the mounting foot, for $58 usd. Your 50mm WO guidescope will fit that bracket.
Alternatively, any ring set that takes a 50mm tube, and with a Vixen mount bar should work. Check the Astroshop, and Bintel locally, and Teleskop-Express in Germany ( they seem to have mounting gear for everything).
Cheers Glen
Been down all those roads, and I got the WO 'scope with the rings and mount, I just don't like the flimsy post, and there is no way I can find to mount it securely on the Losmandy side-by-side plate.
I went for WO because of their high-end gear and figured that some of that tech would rub off on their bottom feeder stuff. I have to say that I'm less than impressed in the guide scopes locating screws, lots of play, and to me it seems to need need a tighter thread.
But then, what do I know. I'm just a dill that has forked out well over $AU2K, and I realise that is a pittance in this field, thinking that when dealing in light years, tolerances would be critical and manufacturers would be providing gear to suit.
I'm confused Kev; If you have yet to produce what you consider a
worthwhile image, why are you buying guiding equipment and Losmandy
plates etc; and making the learning curve steeper than it need be?
Your HEQ5 properly aligned using your DSLR and a 100mm lens will
give unguided subs of several minutes duration. A 500mm lens will give
subs around 50-60 secs. Stacking subs of these lengths can produce nice
images. Get this routine and the associated processing off pat, and then
move on to guiding. Single subs can be quite nice too. Of the attached pics,
the Rosette Neb. is a stack of 6x 30sec subs, and the other two are single frames. All unguided.
raymo
Gotta go with Raymo on this one. Walk before running! Don't worry about guiding yet - when you're starting out it adds vastly more complications than it solves. Vastly more. Take it from someone who's still learning the hard way about guiding - it's a pain.
Put your DSLR and 100mm (or whatever) lens on the HEQ5. Learn to drift align. Once aligned, take as many subs of 1-2 mins as you like - do an hour's worth. Take a similar number of darks immediately afterwards. Stack the results in Deep Sky Stacker, edit the resultant TIF in Photoshop or the software of your choice. Bang! There's your first image.
A non-guided go-to mount with DSLR and medium to long focal length lens is the absolute first step into imaging. Anything more is simply asking for trouble. You HAVE to drift align first, and that takes a while to really get good at. Guiding, for me at least, only made things far more difficult when I added it!
Where exactly are you having issues? This forum is a wealth of knowledge and is full of people willing to help you with any specific issues. Chances are good that many if not most people here have been through whatever it is that's hampering you.
I am assuming the guide scope you have is designed to go into a dovetail finder bracket? If so you will find that it is quite solid enough for short focal length imaging, which if you are using a DSLR with a camera lense sjould be find. The problem is that these are designed to be mounted on a scope rather than on a bar with a Vixen attachment.
Now tell me if I am wrong but if the side by side bar looks like this http://www.bintel.com.au/Accessories...oductview.aspx and you get a finder scope dovetail bracket like this then assuming the dovetail on your finder is the same width you should be able to attached them together. I have checked on my bits I have that are the same and it would be possible. Of course this assumes the dovetail on the guidescope is a "standard" one. WO may have made a unique design that is designed to attach to one of their scopes.
I've now been twelve months on this journey, trying to avoid the newbie pitfalls by asking lots of dumb questions.
I'm on my third mount, and haven't taken a worthwhile shot yet.
I'm much newer to this game than you and I'm beginning to see how frustrating the hobby can be. I still haven't managed to get aligned well enough - despite putting in a lot of effort - to do pics greater than 30-40 seconds (I can't see the south celestial pole)
Overall, I'm wondering what your expectations are & what you view as a worthwhile picture?
The longest exposure in this bunch is 20 seconds. They are nowhere near as good as anything normally posted - would you view these are worthwhile? Don't worry you won't hurt my feelings if you say 'no', just trying to gauge where your aiming at.
I'm going to slightly hijack this thread, being as Kev hasn't responded for several days.
Mick, google DARV, and use Robert Vice's method. It makes alignment easy and quick after a little practice, and you don't need to be able to see the
polar regions. Stack large numbers of 30-40 sec subs in DSS, and you will be surprised by how good your images will turn out,[just ask Cometcatcher] or
have a look at some of his fairly recent examples.
raymo
I'm going to slightly hijack this thread, being as Kev hasn't responded for several days.
Mick, google DARV, and use Robert Vice's method. It makes alignment easy and quick after a little practice, and you don't need to be able to see the
polar regions. Stack large numbers of 30-40 sec subs in DSS, and you will be surprised by how good your images will turn out,[just ask Cometcatcher] or
have a look at some of his fairly recent examples.
raymo
Just some quick (possibly stupid) questions. I guess these instructions are written for Northern Hemisphere and he is using an alt/az mount?
So I'd do my best with polar alignment and then slew the scope North at Dec 0 (about 56 degrees Alt for Sydney?) and pick a star?
I would then use the controls to move the star to the left of camera sensor? Then the 'W' button is whatever makes it move right direction across the sensor?
I then fiddle with the Az adj bolts to get the scope moving a little bit left/right until I get it right??
Then I slew east or west and find a star as low as possible and this time use Alt Bolts to move a little up/down until I get it right?
Or am I totally off the mark here (I'm not sure if I'm making sense myself)
I've just received a much better quality set of tube rings that were on special, and I've ordered a pair of Losmandy VUP4 plates, one to mount the tube rings and the other to mount the Arca Swiss clamp to hold the camera by the lens foot.
No drilling or modifying as I can mount both through the unthreaded and recessed slots.
And feel free to hijack the thread. For me forums are about sharing information and I'm sure I'll learn something from the posts.
Cheers
Kev
PS: I know I'm probably wanting to run before I've learnt to walk but I'm very hard on myself with my results and expect nothing less than perfection, or as close to it as my gear will allow.
PPS: I'll post a pic when it's all together, hopefully by the end of next week.
Last edited by DarkKnight; 25-11-2016 at 09:31 PM.
Reason: Add PPS
