My name is Julien, aka “Dark Sky Geek”. I live in San Jose, California. This channel is all about amateur astronomy, astrophotography, and many other “geeky” topics related to the discovery and the enjoyment of the night sky.
You did an excellent job explaining the fundamentals, running these tests, and comparing the results. Some people either don’t actually do side by side testing or test on different nights which isn’t valid due to conditions changing from night to night. Good job doing a valid controlled test!! Your results are consistent with the results from others that have also done testing with the exact same equipment during the same evening. The other mistake people make is using a narrowband target for the test case which is not a proper test as these are meant for broadband targets. Clearly for narrow band target you would want a true narrowband filter and for narrowband targets, the narrower the better. It’s too bad more people don’t realize that with the spread of LED lighting that these “light pollution” filters don’t have any benefit anymore for truly broadband targets. I’m certainly bookmarking this video as a reference to give to people when they are considering a light pollution filter. If I had to add one suggestion, it would be to actually do the SNR analysis of the samples you captured and present of those results too.
CLICK ON THESE AFFILIATE LINKS TO SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: * Agena Astro: bit.ly/487tmnj * High Point Scientific: bit.ly/49z9qdv * Amazon: bit.ly/darkskygeek-amazon-affiliate-link OTHER WAYS YOU CAN SUPPORT THIS CHANNEL: * Send a donation via PayPal: www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=49UXY8F6VVYFA * Click on the "Thanks" button in the toolbar located underneath this video. * Join the Dark Sky Geek Community Discord server: discord.gg/Rg7JYF8nHw * Like, subscribe, comment on this video, tell your friends about it, etc.
CLICK ON THESE AFFILIATE LINKS TO SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: * Agena Astro: bit.ly/487tmnj * High Point Scientific: bit.ly/49z9qdv * Amazon: bit.ly/darkskygeek-amazon-affiliate-link OTHER WAYS YOU CAN SUPPORT THIS CHANNEL: * Send a donation via PayPal: www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=49UXY8F6VVYFA * Click on the "Thanks" button in the toolbar located underneath this video. * Join the Dark Sky Geek Community Discord server: discord.gg/Rg7JYF8nHw * Like, subscribe, comment on this video, tell your friends about it, etc.
CLICK ON THESE AFFILIATE LINKS TO SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: * Agena Astro: bit.ly/487tmnj * High Point Scientific: bit.ly/49z9qdv * Amazon: bit.ly/darkskygeek-amazon-affiliate-link OTHER WAYS YOU CAN SUPPORT THIS CHANNEL: * Send a donation via PayPal: www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=49UXY8F6VVYFA * Click on the "Thanks" button in the toolbar located underneath this video. * Join the Dark Sky Geek Community Discord server: discord.gg/Rg7JYF8nHw * Like, subscribe, comment on this video, tell your friends about it, etc.
CLICK ON THESE AFFILIATE LINKS TO SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: * Agena Astro: bit.ly/487tmnj * High Point Scientific: bit.ly/49z9qdv * Amazon: bit.ly/darkskygeek-amazon-affiliate-link OTHER WAYS YOU CAN SUPPORT THIS CHANNEL: * Send a donation via PayPal: www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=49UXY8F6VVYFA * Click on the "Thanks" button in the toolbar located underneath this video. * Join the Dark Sky Geek Community Discord server: discord.gg/Rg7JYF8nHw * Like, subscribe, comment on this video, tell your friends about it, etc.
CLICK ON THESE AFFILIATE LINKS TO SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: * Agena Astro: bit.ly/487tmnj * High Point Scientific: bit.ly/49z9qdv * Amazon: bit.ly/darkskygeek-amazon-affiliate-link OTHER WAYS YOU CAN SUPPORT THIS CHANNEL: * Send a donation via PayPal: www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=49UXY8F6VVYFA * Click on the "Thanks" button in the toolbar located underneath this video. * Join the Dark Sky Geek Community Discord server: discord.gg/Rg7JYF8nHw * Like, subscribe, comment on this video, tell your friends about it, etc.
CLICK ON THESE AFFILIATE LINKS TO SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: * Agena Astro: bit.ly/487tmnj * High Point Scientific: bit.ly/49z9qdv * Amazon: bit.ly/darkskygeek-amazon-affiliate-link OTHER WAYS YOU CAN SUPPORT THIS CHANNEL: * Send a donation via PayPal: www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=49UXY8F6VVYFA * Click on the "Thanks" button in the toolbar located underneath this video. * Join the Dark Sky Geek Community Discord server: discord.gg/Rg7JYF8nHw * Like, subscribe, comment on this video, tell your friends about it, etc.
CLICK ON THESE AFFILIATE LINKS TO SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: * Agena Astro: bit.ly/487tmnj * High Point Scientific: bit.ly/49z9qdv * Amazon: bit.ly/darkskygeek-amazon-affiliate-link OTHER WAYS YOU CAN SUPPORT THIS CHANNEL: * Send a donation via PayPal: www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=49UXY8F6VVYFA * Click on the "Thanks" button in the toolbar located underneath this video. * Join the Dark Sky Geek Community Discord server: discord.gg/Rg7JYF8nHw * Like, subscribe, comment on this video, tell your friends about it, etc.
CLICK ON THESE AFFILIATE LINKS TO SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: * Agena Astro: bit.ly/487tmnj * High Point Scientific: bit.ly/49z9qdv * Amazon: bit.ly/darkskygeek-amazon-affiliate-link OTHER WAYS YOU CAN SUPPORT THIS CHANNEL: * Send a donation via PayPal: www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=49UXY8F6VVYFA * Click on the "Thanks" button in the toolbar located underneath this video. * Join the Dark Sky Geek Community Discord server: discord.gg/Rg7JYF8nHw * Like, subscribe, comment on this video, tell your friends about it, etc.
I used a card board box, aluminum foil, and a house lamp. Very carefully with a very sharp needle, poked a small hole in the a/f, as small as possible, cut a 3" circle in the card board box, taped the a/f over the hole in the cbb. Ran an extension cord 300', put the lamp on a small stool, put the cbb over the lamp, make sure no other light escapes except thru the the pin hole. At night, had my refractor firmly bolted down 300' away. Using the lowest power lens, focused on the pin hole. Once focused, went to a higher power lens and slightly defocused it. Then looking thru the lens, I saw rings that were not centered. Then started messing with the 3 focusing screws till I saw a perfect bulls eye (as best as you can). The only problem I had was when I tried tightening the 3 screws (to make sure the lens does not move) next to the focusing screws. It took me 4 nights to get it correct. a/f = aluminum foil cbb = card board box
Are all early versions of cem70 plauged by the RA circuitry problem? I bought mine at the end of 2020 December. I havent been doing AP for some time and cant remember if it was the RA or DEC that was going all wonky on me, amd nothing I did fixed it. So i get oblong stars as you did.
You likely have the same issue. If I were you, I would ask iOptron support. They will send you a document that describes how to get the RA board model number. That information will allow them to let you know whether your board has the problem. CS!
@@darkskygeek already emailed Roger. Board #2024. Your faulty one was 2004. Ive seen a CN users board who thought it was an issue, but it was a faulty bearing, board was 2117. Im curious of your new board number? If you recall off hand.
Usb3 has been a problem in the past for connections. Ive been out of AP for some time, so im not sure if the problem has been rectified? I have a cem70g with usb3 and the only resolution was just to use usb2 cables.
@@darkskygeek is there an aftermarket replacement or do i have to contact ioptron again? Its not a big deal really, the transfer speeds of usb2 for the purpose of still pics is plenty fast. Usb3 i would assume is more for video, which i dont use. I mean, perhaps one day i could use it for the moon, but im not into planetary AP, yet, lol. By the way, do you have a link for the FFT software the cloudy night users made? Is it paid software? And thanks for video and quick response.
Thank for this tutorial. I have a question on illuminating the cheshire eyepiece - what is the best way to do this? Dark room with a narrow beam of light ? Does the light have to be perfectly perpendicular to the cheshire eyepiece? Thank you
You’re overthinking it 😁 As long as you put the telescope cover on the dew shield, you can work in a well lit room. And for the light source, a simple LED work light placed on top of the opening of the cheshire eyepiece will work just fine. CS!
@@darkskygeek I must be doing something wrong then. I can only think it must be the backfocus from the 10mm x 70mm FL lens. Does it have to be exactly 70mm from the glass to the camera? Or does this vary per scope. I’m trying to collimate an 80mm f6 ES. thanks again for
@@paskoh It depends on the lens you picked up and installed into the cheshire projection device. If it has a 70mm FL, then yeah, the sensor should be close to 70mm behind that little lens. Hope this helps!
All ground pins must be connected together. The ground of the 12V DC power supply, the ground of the USB cable/Arduino GND pin, and the servo motor ground wire.
hi, with your system it is possible to manage a simple 12v motor, I have already made the cover, but for now it works with two-channel Sonoff, I would like to use your system but I saw that the motor goes with two wires, why?
Julien, first of all, Awesome review!!! I wish more reviewers out there took the quantifiable results approach that you use. Secondly I apologize for the late reply, I originally passed on this video since I neither have the mount nor was I interested in purchasing it but you caught me with the Japan video and I just kept watching this next! Despite not necessarily being interested in buying one I did very much enjoy seeing the methods you used to quantify your results. One thing I am interested in is, did you have to set up a pointing model? I have a Paramount MyT which has a similar relative encoder system to the HAE69C and I also recently received an A-P Mach2GTO and both of those mounts don't really do their best work until the pointing model is complete and in place. Also in the case of the Paramount MyT you really need to to a PEC model as well. Next observation is that with my ZWO AM5 I found that I got my best results like you did with this mount. By polar aligning with slight RA and Dec drift and setting an appropriately low MinMo and aggressiveness I found that I could pretty much always be correcting in just one direction and avoid the horrendous backlash that my AM5 has. Keep going with the great videos!
I did not use a pointing model (I think I mentioned it at some point in the video). Also, PEC is not supposed to be needed with the high-resolution encoder in RA. Interesting to hear that you have had issues with the AM5. That mount has been often reviewed, but unfortunately, all the reviews I have seen of it are extremely superficial, and who knows which ones are real reviews as opposed to “sponsored content” 😉 Thank you for the kind words. Clear skies!
Bonjour Julien, I'm surprised by how much you attenuate the Ha signal in the green channel (4:16). Is it 0.2*Ha/0.2*Sii/0.6*Oiii or rather 0.6*Ha/0.2*Sii/0.2*Oiii? We're losing a lot of the beautiful Ha signal with this formula, aren't we? Great mini series! Thank you! ;)
In the end, it won’t matter that much, especially after all the post-stretch adjustments. A better way of doing this is to stretch each channel independently *first*, and then blend them to taste and proceed with adjustments (saturation, curves, etc.) CS!
Voilà une chouette vidéo pleine de motivation pour faire connaître outre-Atlantique ces magnifiques inventions. Que d'économies grâce au bon sens, une fente et un réseau. Bravo !
I travel to Japan 2 to 3 times a year. Although I visited the Starbase shop I never purchased there yet. So far all my purchases (including today) 😊 were at the Kyoei shop - amazing service!. ZWO equipment especially are so much cheaper than in Europe. I travel to many countries for work but Japan is my favourite.
You spent 1500 on airfare to save 700 lol. But you got a trip to Japan out of the deal which is super cool. I've lived here for about a three years now. I love JAPAN! FJB! Great Video Love your content!!! Keep up the good work.
This was a business trip, so I certainly did not pay airfare, except for the flight between Seoul and Tokyo, which cost me $300. I saved about $2,400 on the telescope.
Wow, you found I favorite telescope store in Japan. I use to live & work in Japan. I bought two Takahashi telescopes from Starbase, a big thank you to Matsumoto san who is retired by now! TOA130F and a Mewlon250 Special tube ring version. Still have them and will never sell either. Since then my Takahashi telescope collection has grown. You are right the warn people about the waranty, however, its a Takahashi, what can go wrong?
I used to live not far from Starbase and would cycle past all the time, but never went in. Now that I've moved and am actually doing AP I've never been to the shop! I have visited Kyoei but their hours tend to be erratic and one time they were "closed" even though it was technically open hours! Congratulations on your purchase and taking advantage of the great forex rates. Come visit again!!
Fun video! Used to travel to Tokyo for business quite a bit but before getting into the hobby. I noticed on your CEM70 that you have what looks to be a nice 3D balance set-up on the counterweight bar (@ 11:05). Mine is a more basic approach using washers on a threaded rod. Appreciate any details on the components you used as it is much nicer!
Thank you for the kind words! Regarding my 3D balance system, if you look closely, I have a homemade counterweight made with washers attached to the side of the dovetail saddle. And on the counterweight bar, I have a little gizmo I purchased on AliExpress. I think it’s called “Star Pal” or something like that. Clear skies!
Nice thing about the CEM70 is that you dont need such an adaption. The counterweight bar has two allen screws either side of the attachment point that shift the bar slightly left or right, much like azimuth adjustment, that allows balancing. Works very well. I get 0.18-0.35 rms with the CEM70 all the time now in B7 skies.
There is a review on RU-vid of this scope and comparison with Esprit 80. Tak FSQ85 is supposed to be worse Tak ever produced. By the way, you are not set as yet. Missing 12-14” RC or DK with more serious FL.
CLICK ON THESE AFFILIATE LINKS TO SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: * Agena Astro: bit.ly/487tmnj * High Point Scientific: bit.ly/49z9qdv * Amazon: bit.ly/darkskygeek-amazon-affiliate-link OTHER WAYS YOU CAN SUPPORT THIS CHANNEL: * Send a donation via PayPal: www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=49UXY8F6VVYFA * Click on the "Thanks" button in the toolbar located underneath this video. * Join the Dark Sky Geek Community Discord server: discord.gg/Rg7JYF8nHw * Like, subscribe, comment on this video, tell your friends about it, etc.
Great video, but would not touch an FSQ85 with a barge pole, awful scopes when used with modern small pixel cameras….so good luck with it, and I hope you have not got a lemon there….because if you have, the only option is to go back to Japan with it…👍🏻
@@darkskygeek I hope so, I had a nightmare with mine, and how many scopes do you know of that have to use 2 flatteners, it’s a joke TBH, it’s a petzval design scope with built in flat field yet they had to ad another flattener in the package to correct the issues with modern small pixel cameras, I have a video about mine on my Chanel…
It is true that it is an older design. Once I have more practical experience with this scope, I may do a quick review of it on the channel. I’ll check out your video! CS!
@@Astro_Shed Your scope was miscollimated, and brutally astigmatic to be fair. Not everyone will have your problem. We get perfect correction out to full frame with the 1.01x flattener, with without it on 1 inch to micro 4/3 chips, for 3.76 um pixels and up. There is nothing better for spherical and chromatic aberration correction in a scope less than 100 mm aperture. Issue I have is the aperture vignetting issues with dark wedges on bright stars that affects broadband more than narrowband, and that is inherent in a true petzval (front long focal length doublet and back correcting doublet). The inbuilt flattener can flatten small chips, but that is not what it is for. It corrects spherical and chromatic aberration to a level that a triplet + flattener so-called modern petzval cannot do. Any mirror will best it though! The flat field is a bonus out to 28 mm, but not its main strength. Horses for courses, though, and a PITA for those who have issues with sensitive lens arrangements such as these - I can see how that will hurt if it happens.
Yep, I actually returned mine. There is a chance it was a lemon, and it was built right during the pandemic, so maybe they aren't all like that... but there seem to be enough stories to indicate it's been problematic for a decent amount of people. It was easily beaten by the Askar Fra400 I replaced it with, with the only issue being less aperture. (At least as far as imaging goes, I've never looked through either of them visually).
@@darkskygeek And now I watched the video - all great tips, especially the one about spending more to keep the CFO happy :p And it was a blast "randomly" bumping into you like that ;) To anyone reading, Julien is as nice as he comes across on the channel!
The INDI driver is NOT an iOptron product. If you want to use INDI then you are on your own if there are issues. My experience with iOptron support over the past 15 years has been positive. They are not going to answer the phone but all my emails have been responded to quite quickly.
I am considering upgrading to either the CEM120 or the HAE69C (C-EC). I already have the Tri Pier. Additionally, the recently added AM5N has reduced its periodic error by half. The fact that it is priced at half of the HAE69EC also piques my interest. Which equatorial mount do you think would be less affected by wind with equipment weighing around 16kg? Personally, I'm leaning towards the HAE69C (or EC), but I would appreciate any advice. Also, I'm curious about the wind resistance of the HAE69C as a travel mount. Thank you in advance.
The CEM120 is likely to be the best, but it is not a mount you can easily move around/take to a dark site. The HAE69 (without an encoder) could be an option. I don’t have any experience with the AM5, but it may be a little on the light side for a C11. Clear skies!
@@darkskygeekThank you for your advice. I have decided to ultimately purchase both the HAE69CEC and either the AM5 or AM5N. I will report the results in the near future. Although both have challenges with PA, there is an excellent screw manufacturer in Japan called NABEYA BI-TECH, so I plan to perform stable tuning for fine adjustments.
In the case of a Q-Focuser that has an included temperature sensor that constantly shows -100C plus or minus 15C, is your recommendation just to use a different device to use focus temp compensation? No way to fix, just buy more gear?
As a chronic refractor ATM'r, before any optical testing, I collimate the scope and check the collimation of any scope sent to me for testing. There is no reason to optically test a scope that is mis-collimated. For me, there are two physical collimations. The very first one is the focuser by using a quality laser in the focuser, hopefully, shining through a hole precisely centered in the middle of a paper mask placed over the objective. If the laser misses the hole by more than a mm or two, if I can, I adjust the focuser as best I can to make the beam pass through the hole. If I cannot make the adjustment, the scope goes back to the source. If it does "pass", I use a quality Cheshire to then, like you, makes sure the reflection dots merge to form a single dot. If not, and If possible, I then adjust the lens cell axial collimation screw sets to get them to line up. If there is no adjustment capability, and they are far enough off, the scope goes back to the source. Only after the scope "passes" those two tests, does the scope get optically tested (DPAC and star). If I see astigmatism in the star test, I will try to adjust it out with the axial collimation screw sets, even though it may then "fail" a subsequent recheck with the cheshire. After all, the goal is to have no astigmatism or coma at high power, at least for visual use. Best Regards Jeff
Thank you for an very unbiased review of light polution filters. Regarding baader neodymium, semi-apo and contrast booster, Svbony moon, optolong moon filters. These are of same type, with different cut-off. Horrible light pollution filters, should never had been promoted as such. To short up. They are brilliant visual planetary filters, to boost contrast. The non-cut version (neodymium can be combined with yellow optics/eyepieces to get a more natural color scheme. Semi-apo, is very good at Jupiter, when low in horizon, or using a not so compensated refractor. And contrast booster is the best Mars filter on the market. Combining sv-bony or optolong moon with written #8, is supposedly neutral, but gives a supposedly good boost on Jupiter or Mars.
