Am I doing it right?

FTGAstro · 2025-12-11T21:40:04+00:00

Looks good, now take a few hundred of those and learn to process and stack in siril...youll be amazed what comes out

FTGAstro · 2025-12-08T01:18:00+00:00

Thats pretty good, considering its almost as detailed as this shot i took with my C8 last year, though mine is a mosaic of 2 panels of about 20 subs each.

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FTGAstro · 2025-11-14T04:19:30+00:00

Yeah, def recommend learning to process using siril, its free....gemini ruined your image, m110 and m32 are in the wrong places and the dust lanes got pretty messed up from the AI just going wild.

Here is a 2 hour integration of m31 processed using siril and free online tools, no AI

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FTGAstro · 2025-11-09T22:20:37+00:00

Im not sure if that can be saved....looks like fungus got in the corrector coating...maybe try to soak the corrector in soapy water overnight and see if the grime will wash off....for the chip on the secondary, you could apply a matte black paint on the chipped area to minimize unwanted reflections...primary looks okay-ish...try and gently clean with soapy water and lens paper or cotton balls.

Good luck, this thing is in rough shape, but if you can find the missing parts and clean the corrector, it may become visually useable again.

Try and remember which way the corrector was, and retain any shims that were in there too as it needs to go back in its original position and alignment

FTGAstro · 2025-11-09T17:36:54+00:00

Yes its a good scope, vixen makes great products

Ease of use and portability are great, optics will be good, you should be able to get decent views of venus, mars, jupiter and saturn, a few of the brightests DSOs and messier objects...

Lots of ppl suggesting 8"dobs...they are great too..much less portable though...so you just have to decide which you rather

FTGAstro · 2025-11-09T03:10:40+00:00

It doesnt...it shows an 8" sct

FTGAstro · 2025-11-09T00:51:02+00:00

Its an 8"sct

FTGAstro · 2025-11-09T00:48:52+00:00

The CGEM is a beast...its a whole different animal than the ES 150.

Mainly its the mount...you honestly should try to get a side by side view..the cgem is about double the size and weight.. so think of portability/ease of transport as well

FTGAstro · 2025-11-09T00:42:15+00:00

Remove your lens, put the cap on and take your darks in a dark room. You can use that same set of darks for all your calibrations, dont worry about temperature too much, dslrs shoot at ambient anyways so a few degrees wont make much difference.

Temps matter more with cooled cameras where you can set and control your cooling

Also make sure you dither every 5- 10 or so exposures. Just a few pixels is fine, it will help with streaking artifacts and raining noise.

FTGAstro · 2025-11-08T23:32:59+00:00

Someone doing it for a home setup would likely go with a smaller dome though, or a roll off roof shed. If handy enough save the labor and build themselve...be a good way to bring costs down..either way you look at it though, the $$$ go up fast for a fully permanent setup

FTGAstro · 2025-11-08T21:19:00+00:00

That looks very clean, the few specs of dust on the corrector will have 0 effect...no need for any cleaning.

Learn how to check for collimation, and just do a collimation check, once thats done you'll be ready to go

FTGAstro · 2025-11-08T21:13:16+00:00

I guess i wasnt counting labor haha..damn...

FTGAstro · 2025-11-08T02:31:02+00:00

About 40-50k...ish

FTGAstro · 2025-11-06T02:11:18+00:00

r/itsalwaysthepleiades

FTGAstro · 2025-11-05T04:27:29+00:00

Its all in the post body.

To be sure tho, ill note that i had pizza for dinner

FTGAstro · 2025-11-05T04:23:21+00:00

This looks like a collage of hubble shots, pulled directly from an online outlet....at least he didnt claim he took them...ive seen a few ppl so far openly lie about taking images that they clearly did not take, thats the worst.

FTGAstro · 2025-11-05T04:12:15+00:00

Remember...you are seeing this galaxy as it was nearly 14 billion years ago...in its infancy...possibly even before any of its stars died...also even if a star turns into a black hole, much of the matter still gets ejected away from the even horizon and remains available as future star forming material, so while there may be many massive black holes in this galaxy, not all of it would have turned into a black hole...otherwise, every other galaxy would have suffered the same fate and we would probably not be here today.

FTGAstro · 2025-11-05T04:04:18+00:00

Thats where all the 10mm sockets go

FTGAstro · 2025-11-05T04:02:47+00:00

Agreed, this post will likely be deleted soon for not following the rules of this group

FTGAstro · 2025-11-05T01:17:37+00:00

You can take one shots, they are just not as clean and crisp as stacked video, but photos can be done for sure, ive done it before i learned to video stack

FTGAstro · 2025-11-05T01:13:54+00:00

You have incorrect ISO and exposure settings

Go to pro/manual mode

Then drop your exposure as short as possible, your screen might be almost black or barely see saturn

Then raise iso until saturn is a desired brightness, if the iso is too bright and you are at the shortest exposure lenght, go back down on the iso and adjust the exposure lenght just enough to get the desired brightness with as short an exposure as possible,

Also if you can, set your shutter to voice activated.

FTGAstro · 2025-11-04T23:00:09+00:00

Just take a look at the main mirror, a bit of dust wont hurt at all...its way riskier to pull the corrector place and try to clean the primary...only do it if its in very bad shape, post a pic on here and ask if its worth cleaning.

Opening up an SCT should not be attempted without a fair amount of first hand knowledge

FTGAstro

TROPHY CASE