20260428 Testing of FD 300mm f2.8, S30 at Leo Triplet

The setup got a lunar video early before sunset:

Started rather late at around 22:40.

The Canon FD 300mm f2.8 is pointing at M109 unguided at 60s exposure.  

This is a test on the latest adapter, hopefully solving most of the previous issues.  

Stars look quite nice.  Effective focal length was calculated to be 293mm (it was around 270mm formerly).  Another good indicator.  The adapter could be further enhance to ensure better squaring, and slightly shorter to provide full focus travel to the NGF-CM.

For some reason I switched to M51 later, again with 60s exposure.

Unprocessed stacked raw.

The S30 is pointing at the Leo triplet (M65, M66 and NGC 3628).

Will keep these for the rest of this session.

Final version of Canon FD 300mm f2.8L with NGF-CM

I reprinted the adapter with a longer nosepiece to avoid misalignment due to the setting screw hitting the grove.  This new one is printed using PETG with carbon fibre.  To do this, I have to use stainless steel nozzle but it's still difficult.  

The first one failed in the middle, since the supporting structure collapsed during the print:

It's so bad that I have to cancel the print, wasting quite a lot of filaments.

I did a atomic pull to clear up everything, slow down the print as advised by Gemini.  It did help but some of the supporting collapsed too:

Since I kept a close eye on the printing process (3.5 hr!), I am aware of the issue before it's too late.  Pausing the print and ask Gemini again, I trimmed the hairy part so that it won't hinder the nozzle movement.  But the lost of some supporting part will be a trap for closing the ceiling.  Gemini suggested to use masking tape to replace the lost support:

Gemini said it's valley of death!  I slowed down the printing of the ceiling to 40%, and it closes sucessfully.  The new adapter was printed nicely.

No more misalignemt issue with the longer nosepiece before the grove, another issue was found about squaring the focuser.  It could be adjusted by the fixing screws on the NGF-CM.

This is another hobby altogether.  I mean DIY of equipments.

Frustrating sometimes but lovely at the end.  I will test it out shortly.  Dark night is getting shorter and shorter.  

20260425 S30 + 300mm guided

Setup everthing before 10:00pm, I got around 30 minutes before sleeping.

I am still using the old PLA adapter, with minor adjustment.  The new PETG-CF was a failure during printing, some of the supports collapsed...

Aimming the Canon 300mm to M101, taking 180s exposures.  

Seems some major issue with that adapter.

Aimming the S30 to NGC 4631, taking 30s exposures, for 40 minutes.

Nice target.

20260424 Adapting the NGF-CM to 2", visual observation on the moon, messier marathon M92

This is the second adapter made for the NGF-CM, this is a 2" nosepiece to connect with my Meade 8" SCT as well as my 85mm refractor.  It can be used with any telescope with a 2" focuser if it could provide enough focus travel.  Since the NGF-CM is pretty low profile, so at least the above two will work without problem.

Pulling out my Meade SCT to test:

It's not yet dark, but observing the moon is no problem.

The collimation is dead-on this time, pushing to 250x with the SVBony 8-16mm at 8mm is great.  I missed the view of the moon at such high power for long.  Good thing is that, the SVBony is nearly parfocal with my Explore Scientific 30mm.

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Setup my S30 at around 10:05, pointing at M92, a globular cluster:

Around 30 minutes of exposure, dedicated this short session to this target.

20260423 Night Session: M51 and Lyrid meteor shower

Did once in the afternoon, now this is the night session, started at around 22:10pm.

S30 aimming at M51 tonight.

Setup my Insta360 One R with starlapse, 5s each frame for Lyrid meteor shower.

It begans to fog up very quickly, hope it will clear up soon.

It didn't clear up at all until even the next morning.  The above was stacked with 30 minutes.

JMI NGF-CM Renovation

It's always nice to give a new life to a long time trusted partner.  

My Tele Vue Ranger is a great example, and this is still my solar imaging workhorse.

Another project is my JMI NGF-CM.  I have owned a few JMI focusers, JMI NGF-S and JMI-CM with or without the digital readout.

I have replaced the focusing controller with a DIY USB rechargable controller box a few years ago.

This time, I even use a ZWO EAF with it.  It can be used with my Ranger, my Meade 8" SCT, my 85mm refractor and also even a Canon FD 300mm f2.8!  The switch could be done within seconds!

20260423 Solar Imaging

Didn't do solar imaging for quite long.

Just upgraded to a ASIAir Plus in order to do planet/solar imaging, so given the great sky today, why not?

I always love my nearly 30 years old Tele Vue Ranger, it has been given a new life with a JMI NGF-CM focuser, and better yet now with a ZWO EAF!  It keeps on evolving.  

I also got a solar finder for it, very effective indeed.

Centering the solar disc cannot be easier.

Despite seeing is no good, fine focusing with the EAF is lovely and accurate.

I took two videos with 1080 ROI, both hit the limit of 4G maximum file size in less than one minute.  Frame rate is good with this little box, I couldn't get too much more with my aging Windows laptop.

I am now stacking the videos by using the ASIAir Plus, seeing is less than optimal so why not do a simple processing from out of the box?  Stacking one video of 4G took more than nine minutes, not exactly fast but it might be faster than pulling out my Windows laptop.

Below is processed with a laptop, the ASIAIR version will be uploaded later.  I don't really have patience in this kind of seeing, so the exposure and mosaic was actually unusable.

Somehow I lost that image processed from out of the box with the ASIAIR Plus, anyway, my impression is that it's pretty nice.

20260422 M95, M96, M105, NGC 3384 and NGC 3389 mosaic

There is no unrecord objects during this time window, so I go back to normal imaging.  

I will fix my S30 in this area tonight, slightly more than 50 minutes of exposure.

Setup my Canon 6D with a 50mm f1.8 lens stopped down to f2.2 pointing at the Makarian chain, 180s exposures at ISO 3200.

Not a good one, just skip it.  Maybe the ASIAir is not controlling the Canon 6D good enough?  I don't know.

The dovetail slips, problem found.

20260421 Visual observation with friends on a cloudy night

We had a BBQ together, and the dark was not getting dark until later than 10:00pm?  But why not take a look at the moon?

So I pulled my 85mm refradtor out and set it up on the SVBony mount.

Some of them had their look through the eyepiece for the first time.

Afocal imaging was a must have action.

20260418 Another Clear Night, marathon and also Gemini assisted collimation!

Come back from a gathering and it's not yet dark.  Good thing and bad thing, good is that I miss nothing, bad is that dark skies are getting shorter and shorter.

Let me do M103 first, this is an open cluster, should be easier with not-yet-dark-sky.  

It's kind of blocked by nearby stuff, so I relocated my tripod a bit to see if that could be done.  A bit marginal right now, see if I can capture it tonight or else it would mean next season!

Part of the field of view is blocked, got it badly.

And then M59 and M60 within the same frame:

Relocated the tripod to capture M49, not bad:

and then M61, the last target of the night:

I should be collimating my Meade 8" SCT but it's Sunday tomorrow so I better sleep earlier.  Let me set a deadline of 10:30pm.

Finally I did it with my manual SVBony mount, very nice.  I did AI assisted collimation by using Gemini to analyse the out of focus image and diffraction pattern.  The view is confirmed to be great on Jupiter.

There was some pinched optics formerly and it should now be fixed.