{"id":346,"date":"2020-08-19T15:00:04","date_gmt":"2020-08-19T15:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/coochey.net\/?p=346"},"modified":"2021-02-11T15:26:04","modified_gmt":"2021-02-11T15:26:04","slug":"gearing-up-for-a-new-season-of-astrophotography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coochey.net\/?p=346","title":{"rendered":"Gearing up for a new season of astrophotography"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I&#8217;m gearing up for a new season, we have some pretty poor autumnal weather here at the moment, and very few clear skies forecast for quite a few days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, I have placed an order for the following new equipment:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>A SkyWatcher Esprit 120ED Pro Triplet Apochromatic Refractor. This is to replace my achromatic SkyWatcher Startravel 120T. Unfortunately there is a long leadtime on these to arrive from China, so it might not be until November that we see first-light with it.<\/li><li>A Field Flattener purpose made for the above, to ensure better astrophotography results.<\/li><li>An Astro Essentials Filter Cell Adapter, which  should allow me to fit a light pollution suppression filter between the field flattener and the focuser on the Esprit.<\/li><li>An IDAS P2 Light Pollution Suppression Filter to be used in the above (2&#8243;).<\/li><li>A Primaluce Lab Sesto Senso V2, this is a a stepper motor to replace the HitecAstro DC motor, it should be more accurate with less slippage, although going with an Apo should mean I have to spend less time refocusing during filter changes.<\/li><li>A Temperature sensor for the Above.<\/li><li>A 17ah Powertank &#8211; I will be trying to power all my kit from a battery this year, in preparation to see if travelling to a dark-skies site could be possible.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>I suspect that this means that I will soon put the StarTravel 120T, with its focus motor and HitecAstro DC unit on the second hand market, it will come with a fabric carrying case as well, and I may be able to throw in a few extra accessories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course, it all depends on when the above will arrive, which is forecast to be around 10-12 weeks at the moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ve also gone to place an order for the following now:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>ZWO ASI 290MM mini USB2 mono camera for guiding<\/li><li>ZWO 1.25&#8243; Helical Focuser for the above<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>On briefly attempting to guide with my ASI120MC-S at the weekend, I was reminded how noisy a camera it can be, and unfortunately, while I bought it for guiding I kind of let myself be lent to a possibility of doing planetary imaging, which it is probably more suited to. The ASI290MM should be a better dedicated guiding camera, and I hope the helical focuser will allow focusing off the off-axis-guider easier. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Clear Skies All!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m gearing up for a new season, we have some pretty poor autumnal weather here at the moment, and very few clear skies forecast for quite a few days. However, I have placed an order for the following new equipment: A SkyWatcher Esprit 120ED Pro Triplet Apochromatic Refractor. This is to replace my achromatic SkyWatcher [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[27,26],"class_list":["post-346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy","tag-astronomy","tag-astrophotography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/coochey.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/coochey.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/coochey.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coochey.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coochey.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=346"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/coochey.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":560,"href":"https:\/\/coochey.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346\/revisions\/560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/coochey.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coochey.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/coochey.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}