Below are un edited live captures for Mars, Saturn and Jupiter. Here are some details on my setup in capturing these planets
Last night, I was just updating the drivers for the EQ Focuser but something came to my mind. I was looking at my current setup with my Explore Scientific 127MM ED with the 80EDT-CF. Both scopes are equipped with the same focuser motor, the ST35-12VDC and wondered why not use a single controller to focus both scope and that’s what I just did. A little bit of an update on the Arduino Sketch file and some pin reconfiguration to accommodate another 4 pins for the UNL2003 stepper controller. We’ll it worked out well in the end.
I have pushed the code to my github repository https://github.com/EverettQuebral/EQFocuser and released the installer. Just make sure to update the Arduino with the latest sketch file. The rough diagrams are also in there just to see the pin connections. Not much detail on the motor as you can use any other motor aside from what I’m using.
Hoping for a clear sky.
Having a hard time trying to look for targets at the night sky. I decided to use the sky tour from the SynScan hand controller and it gave me a couple of familiar targets. Andromeda Galaxy, Dumbbell Nebula and surprise, the Ring Nebula. Pointed the telescope and quickly checked on my camera if I can see the target. Well here it is, very small but pretty.
The Ring Nebula
100 ISO
16 min 40s (5 frames)
Went to the Orion Telescope store in Cupertino just to buy a 182mm tube rings for my other telescope, the Celestron C6N, an old telescope that I wasn’t really able to use that much. This time wanting to fix it and learn a couple of skills such as collimating and aligning.
For some reason, already went out of the store and started the car but just can’t take my eyes on it, went back and couldn’t control my compulsive buying. Left with it unfortunately got home and the weather forecast wasn’t that good as it’s cloudy and rained for the next 4 days.
Got home and unboxed it and figured out that I don’t have the AC adapter. Good thing that I have the Celestron PowerTank that I can use the car batter adapter. Assembled to make sure everything is working, but ooopppss, the hand controller have a very old firmware, the motor controller have a very old firmware, and the motor when slewing sounds very noisy and something is not right.
Finally, clear skies, went outside my backyard and tried it. Spent a whole lot of time aligning it comparing to the Celestron AVX. Mounted, placed the telescope, waited for the Polaris to show up and did a 1, 2, 3 star aligment. Again something is odd, it doesn’t point to the right direction by a complete hemisphere. Pointed to the star in the western hemisphere but pointed on the eastern hemisphere. It was a complete disaster. Only one conclusion, return or replace.
Went back to the store talked about the problem but they couldn’t believe what was wrong with it. The guy in the store tried it and obviously the motor doesn’t sound good so the head was replaced.
Again went home and opened it and see the major difference. The hand controller is newer with the latest firmware. The motors are so quiet and smooth. Probably I got a bad old copy of the mount.
It’s time to test it, alignment was so easy, choosing the stars for alignment was a breeze, a complete turn on my first experience on setting it up.
First target, Andromeda Galaxy, to test the Celestron f/6.x focal reducer/corrector. Made some error on tracking and using a very long exposure, the result was not very good.
Second target, the Pleaides, not so sure what happened as the result are not very good. Alignment was good but the images did not turn out so good. My post processing capability seems to be lacking.
I was about to give up as it’s already very late when I saw the Orion Nebula and I gave it a shot, pointed the telescope and looked at it and I was very surprised with what I got, a very beautiful nebula so I reset the tracking and the imaging cameras and added all the exposure information. Fired all my automation and slept.
Next morning, I got this very beautiful image, with a very minimal post processing that I did before going to the office.
Before and After comparison
The final image
Before and After comparison
The final image
Software for stacking : DeepSkyStacker 3.3.2
Final image processing : Lightroom
Total number of light images : 13
Total number of flat images : 14
Total number of dark images : 11
Exposure length : 2 hrs and 14 minutes
Recently added the Orion 80ED Carbon Fiber Triplet APO to my arsenal. Used the Orion Nebula to test it and the following are the images. A more wide field sense of the Orion’s Belt with the Running Man on the left.
Taken with an old Celestron Newtonian, the stars seems to glow with star pointers very visible. This is a very old telescope, one of my first and still the image is very good.
I bought the Celestron C11 with the AVX Mount last May and was so disappointed that the mount is broken. All I’m getting from the NexStar+ hand controller was Error 16 and 17, while I’m getting a better error message on the StarSense hand controller where it says “Unknown model, can’t communicate”.
Called the service center and they we’re all very helpful but again disappointed with the repair duration where it will take 30 working days. That’s technically 6 weeks of waiting. Well what can I do than to wait. This might be good for me as it buys me time to complete my Focuser.
The mount on it’s way to the service center.
UPDATE:
Yesterday I received the mount, surprised that it was early. Did a quick test and it seemed to work just fine. I noticed some problems on the mount as the cover for the RA motors seems to be missing. The cover of the declination motors seems to be touching the rotating head and I can clearly hear the friction. Took my screw driver and just readjusted to give some clearance.
Today, I just thought of checking the StarSense AutoAlign with the mount, and unfortunately it was not working. The StarSense hand controller is reporting that the mount is not known. What a bummer. Extremely dissatisfied with Celestron Repair Service.
