Fixing my Crazy Tilt with the ASG Photon Cage
Vložit
- čas přidán 7. 09. 2024
- ASG Photon Cage website: www.asgastrono...
💪🏻 Found this helpful? The best way to support us is through Patreon: / galactic_hunter
✨ Become a lifetime member of our Premium Astrophotography Course: www.galactic-h...
🎨 Our PixInsight Processing Guide: www.galactic-c...
📚 Learn more with our books: www.galactic-h...
Galactic Hunter was created by Antoine and Dalia Grelin, a stargazing couple from Las Vegas, NV. We do our best to publish entertaining and helpful Astrophotography content, through videos, written tutorials, books, and more. The main goal of this CZcams channel is to help as many beginner astrophotographers as possible in this difficult yet rewarding hobby. We hope our content will help you reach new heights in your deep-sky imaging journey!
Website: www.galactic-hu...
Facebook: / galactichunter
Instagram: @galactic.hunter
Starting Astrophotography, a Complete Guide: www.galactic-h...
Beginner DSLR Astrophotography Equipment Guide: www.galactic-h...
The equipment you see in most of our videos: www.galactic-h...
Hey Antoine! I am way too familiar with the infamous RASA tilt. Using a Baader FCCT I was able to eliminate my tilt in my QHY268C but I went a step further and now I was able to get a QHY600M to work on a RASA 8! You thought fixing the tilt on a APS-C sensor was hard, imagine a full frame and the optics not being designed for that. But after about a week of frustration, I got every corner to have clear skies and the whole full frame chip illuminated. I'm glad you gave this another try! The RASA 8" is a finicky beast but truly powerful! Thanks for the video and Clear Skies!
The faster the scope, the more sensitive to tilt you are (I learned this from watching your channel). Good to see a robust solution to the problem of fast system tilt correction!❤
Hi Antoine! I remember being very frustrated with my EDGE 8 + Hyperstar. I lost several nights trying to fix tilt or collimation issues, which I never did. .
I ended up buying a RASA 8, which I have never collimated since I took it out of the box. It came out perfect from the factory, and survived the trip from USA to Peru!
I remember doing tilt adjustments to my ZWO 071 MC APSC camera on the right side of the sensor. After that, stars looked perfectly round all over the frame.
If your stars aren't perfect, and you've done the best you can with tilt adjustments, maybe your RASA needs collimation, which I know, it's a pain to get right.
I really hope you get it perfect. The rasa is an incredible scope!
Thank you! Yes it might need collimation considering how terrible the stars were on my first night.... Luckily after taking care of the tilt, the stars are mostly fine, but I'll have to see on the next night in the desert how a full image turns out. Hopefully it won't be noticeable much because I'm scared of collimating the RASA lol.
Absolutely this. I'm in the midst of collimating my edge 8 and hyperstar, what a nightmare. I'm very tempted to return to F/7 with a focal reducer instead of slamming my head against this impossible task.
@@GalacticHunter You are welcome! I don't have any experience collimating my RASA yet, but I would start adjusting the bad side of your frame.
If it still can't get perfect round stars all over, then maybe you should try recentering the corrector plate.
@@IXTJ I'm in the process of correcting tilt on my EDGE 8 with Hyperstar- I now what everyone is going through - it's not easy and a lot of patience is required!
@@davidf9494 I ended up using a Hotech laser collimator and spent several days carefully going through the process in my garage. This worked well, but needs to be done with extreme patience. Best of luck to you!
The price is exaggerated for some aluminum parts that can be manufactured very easily in CNC. It does not have any complicated mechanism that deserves that price. The idea is great, but the price not so much.
Low production quantity rises prices very much.
@@selfworthy so does pure greed that price is extraordinary
Nice Video. I had similar issues with my RASA 8. What helped enormously, was doing an initial precise collimination with a tri-bahtinov mask. This removed almost all the issues. I just needed to adjust one corner ever so slightly.
No. I sent my RASA back to California where they re-collimated it exactly. It didn't have any effect on the tilt.
I spent quite a bit of time adjusting my hyperstar, and found that I was able to achieve almost perfect collimation, alignment and backfocus. The key is to adjust the collimation by centering the corrector plate while keeping the hyperstar perfectly flat.
I can't seem to add a link. You can find the link in my "About" info...
I saw Luke using the old ASTAP tilt utility to fix his tilt on his new R11, it looked a lot simpler display to monitor and make adjustments than those Nina graphs. Perhaps give that a try?
Welcome to the RASA club mines been a pain in the ass since I owned it but capturing photons when its dialled in it's insane, good luck & clear skies
That is awesome work! I have no doubt it was not easy. Congratulations. I would think your refractor will be much easier.
Ah yeah, the tilt issues. Been there. I'm glad you've find a way around.
Useful episode, I built my own astrophotography telescope and made my own rasa mirror at f1.5, with a tilter built in the design, testing soon 🤩✨
Glad you got a way to fix that. Good luck with it 👍
Hey Antoine! Was one of the first buyers of a RASA 8 in Germany several years ago. Had major tilt issues as well. Back then the seller thought it’s all about user error. Now I was not able to image 1.5 years due to work, started again yesterday and now I read LOTS of comments about Rasa 8 and Tilt on cloudy night and now found your video. So happy now that no one can blame it on user error anymore :-) and thanks for pointing out what a solution could be! Fortunately with my small sensor 183MC Pro I only have 2 bad corners. But I’m still using the standard camera holder coming with the RASA8. Read on cloudynights that the „felt gasket“ was a problem for one guy - did you try out removing it? Keen to try it during the next nights. All the best, Roman
I have had exactly same experience. I used my RASA 8 for over 2 years before giving up and purchasing a nice Epsilon E160.
I am ready to admit that there is no fixing the RASA absent a tilt corrector. But I wish you had reported that it was a bit easier than you made it sound.
I can and would watch the man's video, but I would have no one helping me, and I already know how difficult it is to twist small screws in the dark.
Part of my effort to fix the RASA was to give up on my nice ASI2600s, they have sensors too large for the RASA. I went to the ASI294 and that actually helped some. Perhaps putting the cage on the smaller camera would yield better results than you got. The 2600s work great on the E160ED.
Congrats on making it work!!
So you're telling us you were tilted by tilt?
I'll see myself out :-)
Lol, yes tilt is my personal hell, I have nightmares about tilt every night.
I was lucky that my RASA had no tilt, buuuuut I did get one with the primary mirror defect. so using it with a 533mc and 3d printed stepdown rings, it now shoots perfect, but it F/2.3 now
my only problem is now that I got it running good, Im scared to touch anything, so now my 533mc is rasa dedicated. So I need another 533! I do have the 2600, but I was always afraid the weight of that camera would be enough to cause tilt
I have an Officina Stellare RH200 f3 telescope that I was not using due to the same issue you have/had. Could not ever get the tilt right. Purchased a photon cage and it made a big difference.
that's an extraordinary amount of money they are asking for this which is just an aluminised frame with screws. This looked more like a mirror issue than actual tilt
I have had a RASA for several years. It's not a mirror issue, it's tilt. I sent mine back to California to check and it came back newly collimated but the tilt was unchanged.
I’ve had one on my refractor for a year now - so much better and easier to use than the ZWO tilt plate. On the RASA, or any SCT, isn’t mirror flop an issue.
So this is a push-pull system! That is tricky but eventually doable 🎉
Yes it definitely takes a few nights to master but once you understand how each screw works, it becomes much simpler :D
Another option might just be the Player one cameras that have a built in tilt adapter that can be adjusted from the back.
Interesting, I didn't know these cameras had that, sounds useful for sure!
There is a new back facing ZWO tiltplate aswell now.
Antoine, my ASG photon cage just arrived and about to start setting up. Do you leave the Celestron optical glass in or remove it? I'll be shooting mono narrowband and broadband, and curious what you found works best.
Hey! If you're going to mount the RASA on the AM5 you may want to invest in the solid pier extension instead of the one you are using. It's not rated for that kind of weight.
Good point, I'll have to look into the other pier extension, thanks for letting me know!
@@GalacticHunter NP. I use my AM5 with my C11. Have been really tempted to mount the RASA 11 but I’m too scared 😂
Maybe you need the 4 screws with a rasa. But to me it seems that having 4 screws rather than 3 is a difficulty multiplyer
My tilt issues on my RASA were identical to yours. I got the photon cage as well, but couldn't get the hocus focus to work. It wouldn't register any changes. I just looped 1 second subs and got it as close as I could. It's not great, but better than it was. You are right though, it made me want to quit Astro.
Glad to know you managed to get it much better, I'm hoping mine is fine, I'll find out on the next moonless night in the desert!
just placed my order :)
This video made me wonder why there aren’t more options for variable spacers just for backspacing. A device that could be used to dial in the exact distance required for back spacing off a focal reducer would be great (rather than playing mix-and-match with multiple spacers and a caliper ruler). Does such a thing exist?
$700 is outrageous for an item like this 😂
That's what I thought when I first heard about it but it's actually very well built and the precision is insane. Plus, getting a scope that costs $1000 or more and having terrible stars, that's outrageous ☠
Hi :)
My question will maybe look dumb for you, but why using an external tilt adapter, and not the one that is on your camera?
Is the ZWO one, included within the faceplate of the camera not usable?
Pretty sure you have to remove the camera each time you make an adjustment. PIA.
Think the above poster is right. I don't have a ZWO-camera myself, but from the looks of it, the adjustment-plate is on the side that is facing the telescope. Which means you'd have to remove the camera, make an adjustment, mount the camera again, take a test-shot and then repeat until satisfied
@@Wheeljack678 yep.
@@Wheeljack678 What I wanted to point, is maybe an easier solution, and more permanent solution would have been to buy a camera from a manufacturer that allows tilt adjustment from the back, without removing the entire camera from the scope(Player one)
I'm not a fan of adding complexity in systems that are already quite complex.
The tilt plate screws are tiny and most people report that they were not able to make fine adjustments using that.
If you scratched the rasa correction lens lol
Did you get a chance to image SN2023ixf in M101?
I finished imaging M101 right before the supernova and don't really want to reshoot it lol
@@GalacticHunterI just happened to choose to shoot M101 on May 22 on a work trip. Found out from a colleague the next day there was a supernova somewhere. I was truly unhappy until I found out where it was .
Question though how do you go if you have a filter wheel in front?
You shouldn't use a filter wheel on the RASA
Yes. Pricey. But if it fixed your problem...
First..