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Stefan Taube

Stefan Taube

Posts composed by Stefan Taube

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Celestron CGX: a mount close to the limits of perfection

February 27 2017, Stefan Taube

The Celestron brand once again has set the standard for hobby astronomers: The new CGX-mount combines the current technical standard with a well thought out product design – and all for an reasonable price.

CGX-Montierung

Some special features of the CGX-mount:

  • Toothed belt drive and spring pressure mechanism: The belt drive minimises the gear play when changing the direction of movement (“backlash”). The spring pressure mechanism ensures uniform contact pressure between the worm gear and shaft, reducing friction and optimising the operation of the gear – also evident by the reduced noise level.
  • Optical encoders register the position of the mount. The motors can then be stopped before the mechanical slew limit is reached and approach their home position. The mount is able to track objects up to 20° above the meridian.
  • Internal wiring: Only the power supply cable and the cable to the hand control box are exposed. However, the sockets for these exposed cables are arranged in such a way that they do not need to move with the mount.

Der neu konzipierte Antrieb der CGX-Montierung.

  • Large handles: Transport handles ensure easy transport, but all clamping levers are also designed for operation with gloves.
  • Compact design: The saddle plate position near the right ascension axis gives the mount very favourable oscillation characteristics. The declination motor serves as a counterweight.
  • Latest variant of the Nexstar+ control with internal clock to save the last settings and USB-port for simple software update.

Further information on our CGX product page.

Die neue CGX-Montierung mit dem EdgeHD 925 Teleskop.

The CGX-mount is available on its own or as a set with the well-established Schmidt-Cassegrain optics from Celestron. You can find all variants under the link CGX-Telescopes.For ambitious astrophotographers we highly recommend the CGX 925 in its Edge HD version. The most reasonably priced and recommended combination of SC-optics and mount for beginners is the CGX 800.

However, due to the dual Vixen/Losmandy saddle plate you can easily combine almost any other optic from other manufacturers with the CGX-mount.

Now available: the EQ6-R mount from Skywatcher!

February 20 2017, Stefan Taube

The new EQ6-R Pro SynScan GoTo mount from Skywatcher is now available for ordering. With its price of EUR 1,599 it is just slightly more expensive than its predecessor. We offer you the EQ6-R even cheaper than the price recommended by the manufacturer: You save EUR 100!

The EQ6-R mount is the further development of one of the most popular astronomical mounts. The classic EQ-6is an equatorial mount with computer control (GoTo). It has a high load capacity, but is still portable. And this all for a fair price. No wonder that the EQ6 has really found its way into the heart of the stargazer community.

“Only those who change remain true to themselves.” (Wolf Biermann)

The new EQ6-R does not do everything differently, but many things better:EQ6-R-Pro-SynScan-GoTo

  • Ergonomic design with bigger twist handles for polar elevation setting and a better polar elevation display, convenient handle for transport, mounting saddle for Vixen or Losmandy standard prism rails.
  • Latest version of the SynScan hand controller, permanent PEC correction and camera shutter control.
  • And best of it all: a toothed belt drive! With this new drive system there is no effect known as backlash, i.e. no gear play when changing direction. The mount runs much quieter, with higher torque. All this has a positive effect on autoguiding.

With this new version Skywatcher gives its classic mount a facelift. This way the new EQ6-R will be a standard in hobby astronomy for years to come: the EQ6 just keeps on running…

Now available for a special price: Skywatcher 120mm EvoStar on EQ-3 mount

February 13 2017, Stefan Taube

For years this has been one of the most popular beginners telescopes: the AC 120/1000 EvoStar EQ-3 from Skywatcher. As of today, you can buy this telescope for a price of only EUR 489 instead of the previous EUR 599. You save EUR 110!

A tried-and-tested beginners telescope:

One reason for the popularity of this telescope surely is its classic form. This slim refracting telescope with a focal length of 1000 mm perfectly meets the idea you might have of a telescope. But it does not only look elegant; its power or capacity is also something worth mentioning. With its aperture of 120 mm this achromatic refractor already is one of the bigger telescopes of this design variant. With an aperture ratio of f/8.3 the colour errors have been corrected quite well. As a refractor it offers a particularly high contrast, which has a positive effect when looking at planets. Moreover, with the aperture of 120 mm numerous DeepSky objects, like the Ring Nebula and the far away Globular Cluster M13, are also visible.

EvoStarA solid base that can be retrofitted with motors:

The mount is a further development of the EQ-3. It provides a solid base for medium size optics and is most suitable for taking a stroll across the night sky.

If the equatorial mount is aligned with the North Star before starting a stargazing session, all that is left to do is to track one single axis – the right ascension axis, also referred to as hour axis – to keep the celestial object visible within the eyepiece. On telescopes with basic equipment this tracking is done by hand. However, you can, at any time, retrofit a battery-powered motor for the right ascension axis. RA drive motor for EQ-3-2 mounts.

If you would like to have both axes of the mount motorised, you should choose the EQ-3-2 motor set RA and DEC.

With such a motorised tracking system you can use this telescope to get started with astrophotography. The new EQ-3-2 motor set RA and DEC with ST4 even allows you to connect an autoguider – an advanced piece of technology in astrophotography.

The extremely robust and well-established telescope AC 120/1000 EvoStar EQ-3 can also be adapted to meet your requirements – and this even at a later date, after you have become familiar with the basics.

The portable telescope comes with complete basic equipment, which allows you to start immediately. The equipment includes 2 eyepieces and a relatively big finder scope with an aperture of 50 mm. Just unpack it, take it outside into your garden and start!

This offer remains valid as long as stock lasts – buy now!

 

Celestron Astro Fi: beginner telescopes with App

January 16 2017, Stefan Taube

It all started with the NexStar Evolution: Celestron had this telescope series equipped with WIFI. This enables you to connect your tablet or smartphone with the telescope. This not only gives you the opportunity to control your telescope without cables, you can also utilize all functionalities of the free-of-charge App Celestron SkyPortal: Your display screen uses an appealing planetarium view to show the current view of the sky and provides you with a lot of background information. The most popular objects are available as images and even an Auto-Guide (in English).

Celestron now offers this technology also for reasonable starter telescopes. At present this series Astro Fi consists of four different instruments:

Newton telescope N 130/650 AZ GoTo Astro Fi 130

Refractor N 90/910 AZ GoTo Astro Fi 90

Maksutov telescope MC 102/1325 AZ GoTo Astro Fi 102

Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope SC 127/1250 AZ GoTo Astro Fi 5

astro-fi-5

Our tip: The Astro Fi telescope with SC optics.

The model Astro Fi 5 mentioned last is particularly interesting. With its aperture of 5 inches it is already relatively fast. However, the telescope is very compact and thus only has a minor leverage effect on the tripod. The closed tube protects the main mirror against contamination. Moreover, SC optics show a high adjustment stability. Despite their compact design and the high focal length, SC optics are highly suitable for taking photos of moon and planets – a well suited camera is the NexImage 5.

As already described before, all four Astro Fi telescopes generate a WIFI for the control via the SkyPortal App. In contrast to the NexStar Evolution, Celestron delivers the Astro Fi without an additional manual control box.

Just like the bigger Celestron telescopes, the Astro Fi also come with the SkyAlign technology. This is a particularly simple technique for aligning the computer control to the actual night sky and your station. At the beginning of your stargazing session you must align the telescope to three bright celestial objects, that is all. The telescope uses the angles between the objects and the GPS-data from the smartphone or tablet to calculate the actual view of the sky. After this short procedure you can automatically approach any object that the SkyPortal-App shows you. All you must do, just touch the object on the touchscreen.

The special feature of this SkyAlign method is the fact that you even don’t need to know the names of the three bright objects you use for initializing the control. For beginners this is a great help, but it is also a useful feature for experienced stargazers, because at dawn the number of visible stars is often too low to assign the correct names.

The Astro Fi telescopes are equipped with a battery compartment. However, the best power supply method surely is the LiFePO4 powerpack from Celestron.

Skywatcher Sky Panorama Eyepieces: More economical in a set!

January 9 2017, Stefan Taube

With immediate effect the popular ultra wide angle eyepieces of the Sky Panorama series are available in an economical set:

Skywatcher Eyepiece Set Sky Panorama with focal length of 7 mm, 15 mm, 23 mm.

You save 69.90 Euro when compared with the purchase of the individual eyepieces.
The three focal lengths fully cover the sensible range needed for observations with Dobson telescopes.

The Sky Panorama ultra-wide angle eyepieces offer a large field of view of 82° – a unique viewing experience across a very flat, well corrected and almost undistorted field. The eyepieces come with soft eyepiece caps, which can be simply rotated for correct positioning. Convenient viewing and also suitable for persons wearing glasses. For high contrast and maximum light transmission the lens areas have been broad spectrum multi tempered. The thread cut into the plug-in sleeve enables the use of filters.

Sky Panorama

Skywatcher: A new addition to the Star Adventurer family

November 7 2016, Stefan Taube

The Star Adventurer from Skywatcher literally is a handy camera mount. For us, a camera mount is an astronomical mount that tracks the rotation of the sky with a photo camera, not with a telescope. This way you will successfully shoot impressive wide field images of the night sky: entire constellations, the belt of the milky way, or atmospheric constellations of the Moon and planets.

A new addition to the Star Adventurer family

The Mini Star Adventurer Wi-Fi from Skywatcheris now available:

mini-star-adventurer

Just like the classic Star Adventurer we also offer this model in two variations: The Photo-Set only consists of the photo mount without any further accessories. This variation is perfect for customers who already have accessories, or want to use the Star Adventurer for applications other than astro photography. The Astro-Set variation comes with everything you need to be able to use the Star Adventurer as an astronomical mount. You only need an additional camera tripod. An excellent solution is the very light Titania 600 from Omegon.

What has changed on the new Star Adventurer?

The Mini Star Adventurer Wi-Fi is no replacement for the classic model. As indicated by its name, the load capacity of the new version is lower. The classic Star Adventurer is able to carry approx. 5 kilogramme; for the Mini Star Adventurer the manufacturer recommends an additional load of maximum 3 kilogramme. This low load gives you the opportunity to operate the Mini Star Adventurer via an integrated powerpack, which is charged via Mini-USB. You no longer need any batteries.

Another major difference is the control via app: The Mini Star Adventurer Wi-Fi generates its own WIFI network. You can wirelessly connect your smartphone or tablet to the camera mount. For this purpose, Skywatcher provides an app for Android and iOS free of charge. The advantage of this app is the fact that no additional manual control is required because you already own a smartphone, including the convenience of the graphical user interface and touchscreen. You can actually use the app to control your camera via the Mini Star Adventurer Wi-Fi and to make a vast variety of settings. This all takes place without touching: no camera movement, no disturbance of the polar alignment.

By the way: With camera mounts like the models of the Star Adventurer series you will also be able to take panorama and time lapse images. Camera mounts are highly versatile tools for ambitious photographers.

Winter clothes: The nights are getting cold again!

October 24 2016, Stefan Taube

Fashionable clothing actually is not our core competence, but we know exactly how the temperatures can drop during these autumn nights! This is why our outdoor range offers a selection of cold protection clothing.

The following items have been very well received:Planam

You can even get your hot tea from a Thermos flask from us! Just add the hot tea.

Celestron Inspire: New ideas for starter telescopes!

October 17 2016, Stefan Taube

My first telescope was a small, 60 millimetre refractor on a very wobbly azimuthal mount with a wooden tripod. Even though it was only a very simple piece of equipment, I had fun with it right from the beginning. I can still remember the fascination when looking at the Orion nebula for the first time. Even today I gladly use this simple achromatic telescope to watch sunspots – obviously through a solar filter!

However, such reasonable starter telescopes do not have to be wobbly! Telescope manufacturer Celestron shows that even budget-priced refractors on azimuthal mounts can feature exquisite product design. The new Inspire series features a few really innovative improvements.

Inspire

This starts with a solid steel tripod. The accessory plate, which also stabilizes the tripod, no longer needs to be unscrewed after a star gazing session (the screw required for this purpose will sooner or later be lost in the grass anyway). Just simply open the interlock instead and fold down the tripod including the accessory plate. It has never been more convenient to set up or disassemble a tripod!

Apart from this, the clamping screws for the extendable tripod legs point inwards to make sure that you will not accidentally get entangled with your trousers.

Stativ InspireFurther features of the Inspire series:

  • The newly developed red dot finder comes with target circles instead of an annoying centre mark.
  • The Amici prism ensures an upright image, so that daytime nature observations are also possible.
  • The focusing screws of the focuser are big and have a good grip to allow the use of gloves.
  • The dust protection lid for the eyepiece also serves as a smartphone adapter. All eyepieces included in the scope of delivery can be clamped into this lid, just like the smartphone. This allows you to use your smartphone to take magnified photos of the Moon and planets through the eyepieces.
  • The mount is equipped with an integrated red light lamp. The diffuse light of this lamp illuminates the accessories plate without dazzling the eyes. However, you can easily pull the lamp out of the mount to use it as a pocket torch.

Currently, Celestron offers three models of the Inspire series

Each of these three models is far better than my first telescope, but I still had a lot of fun with it!

 

New: SkyTracker Pro from iOptron

September 26 2016, Stefan Taube

You do not need very much to be able to take long exposure photos of the night sky. Even with a system camera or a DSLR with interchangeable lenses you can take photos of large regions of the sky, such as constellations, special constellations of the Moon and planets or even the belt of the milky way.

All you need besides the camera is just a little piece of accessory to be mounted between tripod and camera. This accessory, referred to as camera mount, makes your camera rotate with the starry sky. This makes sure that stars will not appear as dashed lines after a longer exposure time. The SkyTracker from iOptron is the mount that has set standards. This narrow and light piece of accessory fits into any photo bag – ideal also for travelling!

With the Sky Tracker Pro, iOptron now launches a new version of this popular camera mount:SkyTracker

  • You no longer need any batteries! The integrated powerpack can be simply charged via your computer or via a mobile power supply, sufficient for approx. 24 hours of operation. You can obviously also use a Powertank to supply the Sky Tracker Pro continuously with electric current via USB.
  • The polar finder for aligning the equatorial wedge (Alt-Az base) with the North Star is illuminated with eight selectable brightness stages. A rough alignment is made through a peephole and a height scale on the wedge.
  • The equatorial wedge is mechanically considerably more stable than the classic SkyTracker. It has a large height adjustment wheel with a non-slip clamping lever and adjustment screws. The wedge can be separated from the tracking unit. This way it may stay on the tripod and the SkyTracker Pro can be simply plugged on.
  • You can choose from four speeds: stellar, solar, lunar and 0.5-times. Half the stellar speed is quite useful if you want to photograph landscape details in the foreground together with the stars.
    Due to the reduced tracking speed, these elements remain sharp. By the way: You can also reverse the sense of rotation of the motor, so that the SkyTracker Pro also works in the Southern hemisphere.
  • With a weight of slightly more than one kilogram and dimensions of 12 cm x 12 cm x 10 cm, the SkyTracker Pro is quite compact, despite its high quality mechanics, and will surely fit into your travel luggage.

Besides the tripod, you also need a ball head in order to use the SkyTracker Pro in the most effective way. Since many photographers already have a ball head in their possession, it is not included in the scope of delivery of the SkyTracker Pro. Under the “Recommended Accessories” tab on the SkyTracker Pro product page you will find a highly suitable example.

By the way: At Astroshop.eu we also offer astro modified system cameras. These cameras are highly sensitive in the red range of the spectrum and enhance the image quality of cosmic nebulae.

 

EAGLE: The computer for astrophotography

September 12 2016, Stefan Taube

Why EAGLE?

Hardly any other sector of our hobby, astronomy, has experienced such a dynamic development over the last few years than astro photography. But this all comes at a price! If in the past one had to set up a Dobsonian telescope, search the eyepiece bag for the correct focal length and probably also a colour filter, the mobile astronomer of today travels with an “observatory to go”: Equatorial mount with heavy counterweights, optics, camera, guiding telescope, guiding camera, laptop and large powerpack. Is there no easier way? The EAGLE control unit makes this possible. It is a computer that is tightly connected to the tube, and it controls mount, camera and guiding camera, centrally supplies electric current, and saves images. You can operate EAGLE wirelessly via WIFI with an input unit of your choice.

EAGLE

No messy or torn cables

All power and data lines to the mount and peripheral equipment run centrally from EAGLE. This allows the use of short cables and to leave these cables partially connected for a quicker setup. Since the EAGLE computer performs the same tracking movements as the mount, no cables can be wound up or torn off by the mount. You can quite confidently allow your astro photographical equipment to run for hours without supervision. The only cable you need to keep an eye on is the electric power supply cable for the EAGLE. Talking of power supply: Due to the power management of the EAGLE, you only need a smaller Powertank, or you can take photos over an even longer period of time.

EAGLE generates its own WIFI

With the associated app you can use all the programs you need, wirelessly and conveniently from your garden chair. Popular software like PHD2 Guiding are pre-installed. Since the EAGLE runs under Win 10 Enterprise, you can also install other programs. The advantage of EAGLE is the fact that you can control your system with any WIFI-compatible computer and any operating system: no matter whether you use a laptop, tablet or smartphone, and no matter whether you use Windows, Android or Apple. In the field, the WIFI range is approximately 25 metres.

EAGLE-Tablet

EAGLE saves your photos

You can have the camera images directly transferred to your tablet, laptop or smartphone via WIFI. Since you obviously take a lot of photos which need to be saved without losses, the EAGLE is equipped with an SSD memory card. Saving to a USB stick is also possible. However, there is no possibility to edit any of the photos in EAGLE. The computing power has been designed for low current consumption, which is why EAGLE also works without ventilation.

EAGLE is a fixed part of the system

The EAGLE computer is no additional accessory that you have to carry around. The small, but very stable box can stay mounted to your tube. The best way of installation probably is the installation between the tube and the guide scope rings. However, you can also mount the EAGLE box on the same prism rail that you use to fasten the telescope on the mount. This is recommended if you do not use a guiding tube. On our EAGLE product page you can see examples for this.

There is nothing you can’t do without the EAGLE control unit. However, anyone who is actively involved in astro photography on a regular basis and now and again likes to travel to good star gazing locations or telescope meetings, will quickly appreciate the EAGLE: no cable problems, no computer crash, a stable power supply, a compact system.

There is also a more powerful version available, which has been designed for large mounts and observatories: EAGLE Observatory.