Equipment reorganisation: quit solar imaging and simplying deep sky imaging

I sold my Solarmax 60 / BF10, so my Tele Vue Ranger goes back to its original shape.  The JMI focuser is removed and it's going back to its original 1.25" helical.  The tube ring is removed too.  The ASI 462mm could be sold too, since it's now only for guiding, a bit overkill.

I am selling my Canon FD 300mm f2.8 with the JMI focuser, together with the ZWO EAF Pro.  I hope to find someone who could use it more than I do.  

Serious deep sky imaging is not my cup of tea.  I will go back to DSLR imaging or with ZWO Seestar.

Simplicity is the best.

The best telescope is the one that I can use most.  

I began solar imaging when my kids were too small so that I dare not to leave them at home.  Moving to Scotland makes solar imaging harder, I simply couldn't do it in winter since it's too low in the sky.  I can go back to the night sky eventually.

I love solar imaging, but I prefer night sky.   Setting up the equipments for a single target (the sun) is not really cost effective, I will need to go back and forth to bring all the stuff ready for a few shots.  The bottomline is that, I still got white light solar filters.

2026/8/13 Resuming Messier Marathon M57 (also M56)

Playing Mahjong with family until ten o'clock and the sky already got dark.

There is no reason not to take out the S30.  Just use the time for brushing teeth might be good enough for a target or two.

Doing M57 as it was one of those best targets in the database for the day, 15 minutes of total exposure, no AI denoise:

And then M56 for ten minutes:

Two more!

20260812 Partial Solar Eclipse

This is the second time (?) observing a partial solar eclipse in Scotland.

Friends will come so better setup something in spite of the poor sky, it even rained.

We still have some fun in between the gaps of the cloud.

Some of the shots:

Before, around, and after the maximum moment...

2026/5/25 M39

It has been long since my last observation, since the sky won't get dark until after 23:00 at least.  I am starting from 23:30 tonight.

I will confine myself to a single target namely M39, again with my S30.

15 minutes of exposure, a fine open cluster.  

Darkness will keep on shrinking until 21st of June, so maybe I might only be able to do once or twice again in the near future.

Bad weather and late darkness

Bad weather combined with late darkness as summer is coming, all these rendered no observation.

I have ordered a little cheese board to mount my camera lenses together with my little guidescope side-by-side.  

It looks very elegant.

I will be selling my camera lens adapter for my ASI camera, it will be simpler to go for a guiding setup like this.  This is more stable and cheaper to run.  The only downside is no light pollution filter could be used, but I don't think it's needed for relatively short focal length.

20260430 Canon 6D with Canon 200mm f2.8L, S30 Messier make up M94

Really trying out the Canon setup, unguided.

Markarian's Chain of galaxies M86, M87, M89, M90, M58, M60, M100 and many NGCs.

Could do no more than 30s at ISO 1600, the sky was not dark enough until 22:15.

Stacking of 30s exposures did not bring anything good enough.

S30 Pointing at M94, for around half an hour, this target was done before but the result was less than satisfactory.  

20260429 Sun

 ASIAir plus with Solarmax60.

The higher frame rate is good enough for solar imaging I would say.

Two frames mosaic sttitched.

Focus by JMI-CM modified with ZWO EAF Pro via ASIAIR Plus.

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.