@solidusseal if you don't have the setting circles or arrows then do the bits with thr spirit level. But then you need to use the hand controller. On your hand controller it will tell you it's current position in hours or degrees. So just rotate in RA by 6 hours using the hand controller readout. Then rotate in Dec by 90° again with the hand controller. Polar alignment is different to star alignment. Polar alignment is pointing the mount to the north pole Then if you're not plate solving you need a star alignment routine. Basically you'll point to one, two or three bright stars in the sky and centre them in your telescope and tell your mount it's correctly aimed. This helps calibrate any error the mount has and means your GoTo becomes accurate :) hope that helps

@AstroFarsography thanks. Although this mount came without handcontroller so i use asiair mini to do whatever it needs to do. I did the polar align within the asiair. It said it was on point. But then when i used goto M31 it went totaly the wrong way haha.

Hi mate thanks for your comment. Considering these videos take ages to research and put together I definitely do look for ways to make them more efficient or readable to the viewer. You're absolutely right that for many DSO targets different focal lengths will work. I often will re-use targets but put them in a different field of view bracket for that very reason. For example this month I put the Auriga complex at 400mm, though next month I may put Flaming Star Nebula in at 600mm on its own as it will look entirely different and behave differently at a longer focal length. I've put the Elephant's Trunk Nebula at 200mm and at 1000mm before also. Focal ratio is an interesting example as well. The difficulty I would see with that is you can have two entirely different telescopes with similar ratios and they will operate nothing like each other. Example: Sky-Watcher Evostar 72ED with 0.8x Reducer/Flattener becomes 336mm focal length, 72mm aperture f/4.6. Whereas the Sky-Watcher Explorer 200p-DS is 1000mm focal length, 200mm aperture f/5. The difference becomes f/0.4 between them yet they will behave like two entirely different beasts when it comes to the field of view they will generate even before camera sensors are added. Aperture again falls back into that issue I find. Yes, it depends on the type of telescope also, which gets messy. William Optics GT153 Triplet is 153mm aperture with 1193mm focal length natively. Sky-Watcher Explorer 150p-DS is 150mm aperture and only 750mm focal length. Same aperture (effectively). Two very different focal lengths. And yes it's true also that if I put a tiny sensor like in the ZWO ASI585mc on a wider telescope to achieve a more narrow field of view, the image won't be as clear as using a larger sensor on a telescope with more aperture and focal length. To me I found that classifying by focal length seemed the most sensible and most straightforward way. Trying to break things down by field of view "this will work for equipment with an FoV of 2.5° x 1°.52" doesn't seem as easy to understand as popping a focal length down to me. In the end, it's just very messy. Field of View and Focal Ratio are all affected by telescope apertures and focal lengths and then it gets more complex when you factor in all the different camera sensors there are now. My intentions with this isn't a black and white be-all-and-end-all list. It's not to say "If you have a 400mm focal length and a Canon APS-C camera then this is all you can photograph". It's more just a sample, a suggestion and to get ideas in peoples' minds about what there is in the night sky. Anyone can feel free to turn their equipment to any target at any focal length, all I aim to give is a suggestion to what I think would be well framed for that focal length in that month. I'm always open to other ideas how to present information or how to make it clearer. If you have an idea that you think works well then I'll explore it. If you feel I haven't communicated that clearly then I thank you for bringing it to my attention and I'll look into how I can make this more clear going forwards. I am aware the charts with equivalents can be confusing to read at first also, which is something I aim to address and improve this year as it isn't as neat as I'd like! Clear skies mate and happy new year.

@@AstroFarsography For what it's worth, I think how I intuitively tend to classify targets is by size, light cost, and resolution criticality. Size: is an object wide-field, standard field, small, or very small? Actual apparent size in degrees / minutes /seconds can always be given. By light cost I mean how much light has to be gathered to get a worthwhile image of the object - e.g. are we talking 10 minutes at F4, or an hour at F2, or multiple hours? Or at the other extreme, short exposures or stacked video. And finally, how critical is high resolution to getting a worthwhile image? Of course, high resolution is always good, but is it really important for this object? (And resolution will depend basically on aperture and the native resolution of the sensor; and, of course, the quality of the equipment.) Also, naturally, atmospheric conditions will impose limits. Perhaps this could all be simplified into size and difficulty, explaining, as necessary, what makes a particular target difficult. Also sometimes larger objects have interesting smaller objects or areas within them, which can offer options, with their own size and difficulty.

Thanks Andres. Yeah, I think we have a clear night forecasted here tonight or tomorrow but that will undoubtedly change!

It's just the one built in to it. If memory serves correctly it's a compression ring and not the screw type

@@Geekchess thanks mate 🍻

@@konstantin7869 I'm not sure I understand the question: what do you mean by a blend?

@@AstroFarsography I am really sorry, I mean lens hood. Blende goes from Deutsch's word Streulichtblende I looked at your video how to clean the lens. But I think it'd be much simpler to remove lens hood.

Thank you! Will do!

@@Tony-Elliott my pleasure Tony glad you liked it

I've only ever seen the Eagle once and I had about 20 minutes to see it. Too high up for it. Spaghetti will be great. It's dim though so best of luck! FRA400 sounds great

Thanks mate. Yeah that Moon has interfered with practically every major shower this year. Such a troll. Hopefully next year is more better for us!

Agreed. Always good. I just try to vary them so I don't say the same target month after month 😉

Thank you mate. Yeah the sensor companions get received well. Adds loads of work for me but it helps the community and that's important for me

Thanks Gary my pleasure. Glad you enjoy them. Clear skies 🍻

Good to hear mate glad it was helpful for you. Thanks for watching!

My pleasure mate!

@@davideckes2072 yes I can't see why they wouldn't work. I'd probably wait for the stack to be finished through else you may get some weird artefacts around the stars

@efx245precor3 i had it quite a while but due to personal reasons I wasn't doing any filming earlier on in the year. Also, not everyone buys a camera on release and people are always entering and joining the hobby at different stages 🙂

Hah! I am surprised the video scraper didn't flag that up as a curse word if I'm honest!

@@AstroFarsography lol, yeah, as an american there are some words from across the pond that definitely need context. I was training to go to Iraq, and 2 of my instructors were from england/UKOne was british and one was scottish. At break time one day, the brit said, "alright, grab a drink and a fag and be back in 15".... We all were like "whoa whoa whoa. We know what you mean, but you cant just throw that word out there, especially here in America." Then we spent like an hour talking linguistics

I've noticed some aftermarket coolers cropping up here and there. Did it make a difference in your images?

@@AstroFarsography not had time to test as I moved on to mono but I will test it.

It is a bit expensive if it's the first camera and I would never recommend someone dive straight into a dedicated astronomy camera. But I think, when you look at the market for dedicated cameras, £350 is on the lower end. You make valid points though, it's what you find more important. This camera will still probably outperform a lot of DSLRs at that price range and the DSLR still needs modifications also. It'll be what the individual finds important

Thanks Simon. I've seen that Rouz Astro cropping up a bit more actually. I looked at their store the other day. They're Canadian also I believe? Yeah the small crop sensor and the fact it's already a 16x9 aspect ratio makes it quite fun to use and for use on computers. Thanks for your support over the years mate! Clear skies

Oh man, that's a can of worms question that is. The problem about cheaping on the telescope is it's like buying the most expensive camera you can, and putting a cheap kit lens on it. The telescope is arguably just as important if not more important than the camera. If you're looking for best aperture for price, then focus on a Newtonian telescope. You may get better image quality out of a refractor, but you begin paying for aperture a lot. It also depends on what you'd like to image. So, a bit more information would be needed before any suggestion can be made. I used it with a Sky-Watcher Evostar 80ED doublet Apochromatic refractor and it performed really well.

@@AstroFarsography > It also depends on what you'd like to image. So, a bit more information would be needed before any suggestion can be made. Although I only had a child's telescope and took shots with a Canon PowerShot A610, I am not far from astronomy. I think all the available objects in the sky are static and become boring after some time since the best images of them have already been taken. So, I would like to capture images of comets with their beautiful tails. Edited later: Randomly, I saw Dwarf 3 in a KZbin recommendation. It seems interesting...

@@DrNat1 I definitely can see why. I may buy the cooled version myself

Thanks Kevin and good to hear about the performance you get out of it. Agreed, it could be a very good introduction into dedicated cameras. Seriously tempted by the cooled version myself

Glad it was helpful! Enjoy your new camera

Cheers mate. Yeah I'm sure the UK has to get a clear night... at some point 😂

I didn't know they put a 174 in it. Was the 585 even an option for them to use when they made it i wonder

@@AstroFarsography Sorry 178. IMAGING SENSOR INFO: CMOS Image Sensor: Sony IMX178LQJ, color, back-illuminated Sensor Size: 8.92mm (0.35") diagonal Pixel Size: 2.4μm x 2.4μm Number of Effective Pixels: 6.44M (3096 x 2080) Field of View: 1.27° x 0.85°

Glad it was helpful! Yeah hopefully that zipped data helped as well