My Kit

Sky-Watcher 130p on EQ2 mount.

I had been looking at a 150mm aperture scope but found that they were a bit outside my initial budget. I visited the UK Astrobuy and sell website and this instrument was being advertised by someone fairly close by for what I considered to be a bargain price. It came complete with laser collimator and a RA motor unit so tracking the stars was going to be easy now!!

Or so I thought....

I have since learned that the EQ2 mount is good for visual use only. Polar alignment is important for successful astrophotography. That is not easy to accomplish on the EQ2 as there is no provision for a polarscope. In a wind the telescope will move slightly, blurring the image and the weight of the scope plus the camera is at the limit of what the mount can take. I've not tried it with a video camera but doubtless a lightweight one may produce some worthwhile images. It would be interesting to see if anyone has tried this.

Sky-Watcher 200p on my own Dobsonian mount. The black box is the fan speed controller.

The OTA was obtained from Astroboot and was advertised as having had an accident in the warehouse with a forklift truck. The dent in the side had rendered the OTA unusable and so I started drawing up plans for my own wooden telescope using the optics. When I received the tube I decided that it would be worth the effort to try and beat out the dents. So stripping all the parts off the OTA I set about it with a hammer and some blocks of wood and managed to reduce the dents to a few ripples along the one side and now I found everything which previously didn't fit that well. went back together a lot easier. The tube was rounder than when I started and was now a functional if somewhat battered OTA. A coat of paint took care of the scrapes and flocking the inside darkened it down beautifully.

Then after a few months of using my home made dobsonian mount I came across an ex demonstrator HEQ5 pro again from Astroboot. After removing the dobsonian side bearings from the Sky-Watcher 200p I was able to mount it on the HEQ5 Pro. I have since changed the dovetail for the Sky-Watcher long version which has plenty of room for mounting guidescopes and other bits and pieces. It also provides a convenient means of carrying the scope.

I have since acquired a Skywatcher Explorer 200p which on the HEQ5 is my main imaging rig. I have an ASI294MC pro camera and a filter drawer.

Also attached to the telescope is the dew heater controller and the the top bar will also carry the focus motor controller all wired in to the Raspberry Pi sat on the accessory tray of the tripod.

The white 200p has had the Dobsonian bearings reattached and is now sitting back in the Dobsonian mounting which is great for a quick set up to take a look when the clouds are not co-operating.

I also have a 127 Skymax on a EQ5 mount to which I have also added the drive motors. This is a useful grab and go scope and I can add the camera to the scope and control it from a tablet device for as long as the tablet batteries last.

Orion magnificent mini auto guider.

I purchased this handy little auto guider in January 2016. It's an impressively package piece of kit with its own tin box to keep it in if you so wish. The instruction manual was simple to understand if a trifle optimistic about ease of use. The first task was focussing the scope but if you are familiar with skywatcher finderscopes then you will know that this is achieved by simply releasing the locking ring on the cell on the front of the scope turning the front cell until focus is achieved then locking it in place with the lock ring.

It was to be a few weeks before I had a good opportunity to use it but plenty of time to practice and get familiar with the camera. I have mounted it on the top dovetail of my telescope and aim it between the camera when it is on the eye piece and the finderscope.

In use the camera requires software and as I mention above I use it with PHD2. This has perhaps been the most difficult part of this great piece of kit; getting to know the software. Even so I have been able to get using this great little camera almost straight from the box. As the concept of PHD2 is simplicity, then it really is a case of Push Here Dummy to get going. At the same time there is plenty of scope for advanced users to exploit this software to improve their astrophotography.

Unfortunately the first opportunity to use this camera and software came with a moon at 50% but even so I was able to see round stars rather than oval even though the images lacked sufficient contrast to be worthwhile.

All in all a useful purchase.

A set of eyepieces forms part of the kit of any amateur astronomer and is as individual as each astronomer. Most telescopes come with two or three eyepieces usually of a simple but cheap design. Skywatcher is no exception in this regard and telescopes they supply often have a 10mm and 25mm eyepiece included, sometimes with a x2 Barlow and sometimes not.

These eyepieces are great for starting but I soon acquired a set of Revelation eyepieces which gave a nice range of focal lengths but no real improvement in quality. In fact the 6mm ep for me is not an easy one to use and so sees very little use. At the other end of the range the 32mm ep is a delight to use.

I have an illuminated reticule ep in my collection for those times when I need to align the scope and finder scope.

I have also added a 28mm 2" ep to my collection from Skywatcher. This gives great views of the sky and plenty of eye relief.

A more recent purchase has been three BST Starguider eps 25mm, 12mm and 5mm. The eye relief on these is great, they have a 60 degree field of view and produce nice images. The 5mm is a pleasure to use and gives great views of the moon. They even come with a lens cleaning cloth!

Like most amateur astronomers I have a collection of software to enhance the enjoyment of my hobby. The software I use is:

Planetaria

• Stellarium - Planetarium software which I have used for controlling the telescope mount when it was hardwired. http://www.stellarium.org

• Sky Safari 6 - Planetarium software which with the use of the Synscan WiFi adapter and the Synscan app on a tablet or smartphone enables control of the mount over WiFi.

• Kstars - and Stellarmate. See below.

Image Acquisition

• Canon Digital Photo Professional - This has a useful intervalometer function enabling me to set up an imaging run and sit back and enjoy the view with a cup of tea!

• Stellarmate - Image acquisition will do the same thing as the Canon software but is integrated with other control functions; although it can also be used on its own.

Mount control

• PHD2 - Working this out and how it keeps me on track with the stars through my autoguider. http://www.stark-labs.com/phdguiding.html

• Polar Finder - again another app on my phone which gives the position of Polaris to aid my alignment.

• Stellarmate - An integrated astronomy package see my comments below.

• Sky Safari 6 - Handy planetarium app for tablet devices can also control the mount with Synscan wifi adapter

Image processing

• Deep Sky Stacker - I'm still learning how to use this. http://deepskystacker.free.fr/english/index.html

• Adobe Lightroom - Useful to me as Photoshop Elements doesn't handle the Tiff files produced by Deep Sky Stacker.

• Adobe Photoshop elements

• Clear Outside From First Light Optics in Exeter this handy app on my phone tells me what conditions could be like for astronomical observation. http://clearoutside.com/forecast/50.7/-3.52

• Neat Image - Currently the evaluation version but this handy piece of software allows the user to vary the intensity of the noise reduction. https://ni.neatvideo.com

• Affinity Photo - a much vaunted replacement for photoshop at a much lower price. It does just what it says on the tin and at the moment presents another learning curve.
  The current version 1.9.0 of this software includes an astrophotography processing module which looking at the tutorial videos looks to be very capable. Whilst I have only used it briefly it certainly appears to do the job. Taking the files in FITS format and stacking them, then processing the image all in a 32 bit workspace.

StellarMate. This in my opinion is the best thing to happen in the amateur astronomy field since the telescope. Well that may be overstating things a bit but it is a cracking piece of kit. Stellarmate does it all. Kstars planetarium software, Ekos for scheduling and capturing and all communicating via Indi. Best of all it runs on a Raspberry Pi.

Now if you've never heard of such a thing as a Raspberry Pi then it is a credit card size computer that sells for around £35 and will do everything a turn of the century computer will do and more. Stellarmate is a package that sits on a micro SD card which is simply plugged into the Raspberry Pi and you're off. Well not quite that simple. It does require setting up.

StellarMate does everything; telescope control, auto focusing, image acquisition, changing filters if you have an electronic filter wheel, polar alignment, plate solving, auto guiding and observatory control. I'm sure there are other things as well. Best of all it can run from a tablet device, via the StellarMate App, very useful when you are out in the field. In a home setting with Stellarmate being used as a WiFi hotspot means after setting up you can retire to the warmth and comfort of the house and control the telescope from there.