@jdlbt this is great to hear! Now that I’ve put a half year in in my new Arizona home, and having (extensively) looked at weather trends for each season, I was sad to realize that we have awful cloudiness (at least for astronomy) in summer — that I remembered — but also winter, leaving fall and (eek) galaxy season. Finally realized if I don’t want to be out of luck for half of my good weather in the year, I need reach for galaxies. Should be plenty to shoot at 518/600 (depending on corrector)

@jdlbt I’ve heard horror stories about collimating and light leaks, but it might be more appropriate for galaxy season under light pollution than an SCT at f/8 even after using a reducer. Still pondering!

@jdlbt I really like the hyperstar! It’s incredible once you get it figured out. A little temperamental but then all fast optics are.
I’m not sure I’m going to keep it, just because at 300mm it is kind of in a weird place reach wise compared to my 135mm samyang lens. If I want Widefield, I’m always going to want to go wider; if I want reach, I feel like I need more than this. I’m debating selling it in favor of working to tame a fast Newtonian at 600mm focal length

@noom if / when you're buying I really like the Hyperpod 135 on Etsy. Astrodymium is I guess more popular, but if you’re using an EAF, the belt system it has makes it super tough to rotate for framing. The Hyperpod uses a gear ring that you can kind of just slide up to rotate, then when happy slip back down onto the EAF's teeth. Works great on my Roki cine

@jdlbt @walker I’m hopeful that with enough exposure I’ll be able to overcome the much lower QE of the dslr and maybe maybe pick up the Witch’s Head near Rigel too.

@jdlbt as far as this too, star reduction and removal is such a crucial piece of my toolkit. Shooting stars later at a much slower f stop and using starxterminator and blurxterminator saves me a ton of energy from having to have micron level accuracy on the back focus. Such useful software!