I use the Baader Neodymium Moon and Skyglow filter on Orion and only use 30 seconds max with my AZ Pro at the most. That Neodymium filter was so good I bought a 1.25" one as well as the 2". I have an AZ Pro as well and bought a CW20 Series for 20mm shaft Vixen/Losmandy dual saddle by ADM so instead of that too small accessory Vixen saddle for dinky scopes. The Pleiades is what I use my 82° fov 19mm Luminos eyepiece for, fits the whole Pleiades in at 37x in my ES 102mm f/7 triplet. I have a 100° fov 9mm Explore Scientific EP at 79x that fits it too and at a high enough magnification that an averted vision view shows some slight nebulosity. The secondary saddle I bought will hold my 102mm Apo with 2" diagonal and 1 lb EPs weighs around 13 lbs and saddle is 2 lbs, Plus the right side will hold the C9 1/4 SCT by Celestron I intend to buy that will weigh 20 lbs and max out at 25 lbs with accessories. It can hold 43 lbs as long as it's evenly distributed. I spoke to iOptron tech support and they said because of its construction it should be fine for outreach viewing and will be even fine for photography because it can only take 20 to 30 second exposures. Big thing was not to have long tubes on it bigger than the 102mm f/7 as wind will be an issue. My 6" Newtonian with refigured mirror at 1/12th wave I can't use if it's a little windy. Luckily where I live nights with good viewing are usually calm here in the New Mexico desert. It is only a 5 minute drive to Bortle 4 at my daughter's house and 30 minutes or so to Bortle two next to WSMR White Sands Missile Range on a dead end gravel road, just don't park too close to the gate (no fence) if you don't want a visit and lose your night vision from all the spotlights.
Thank you for your video. I purchased a used AZ Mount Pro several months back from a friend and it's been a bit of a learning curve but the goto function is pretty amazing once the mount and scope are properly leveled and balanced. I ended up replacing the battery and made adjustments to the azimuth gear drive to resolve tracking and slewing issues, downloading PDF instructions from iOptron. Your ability to take such striking astrophotos of deep space objects is amazing, considering you have to account for tube rotation and having to limit your exposure time. I enjoyed the demonstration of exposure and stacking on M42, the Horsehead Nebula, and lastly, of M45 (the Pleiades, of course!). My current scopes for visual observation with this mount are a Celestron C8, a Takahashi FS-102, and a Meade 4" SCT(mostly for solar). Using this mount is certainly a different mindset since I've been star hopping with a home made 8" Dobson since the mid 90s. While astrophotography is probably not in my immediate future, I have done manually guided piggy back 35mm photos of comets and some deep sky objects using an Olympus OM-1. This was accomplished with a Celestron Polaris equatorial mount with RA and declination motors and the Meade with an illuminated recticle eyepiece as a guide scope. Comet Hale-Bopp comes to mind. Your work is certainly inspiring. We have many club members who have ventured deeply into this field as well. Thanks again. Phil
This is the best video bar none for using the ioptron AZPro mount with ASIAir. Unfortunately no one else has done a video like this or seem to have a setup like this. Both ioptron and ZWO do an extremely poor job of explaining how to connect this, the exact cables needed etc. RS232 port in 2024 is a joke…
Hi Johnny, can you please provide the exact make and model of the serial to USB cable you used? Mine does not work, while the ASIair Plus recognizes it but disconnects within seconds. Not sure if it is a mount issue, AAP issue, but very frustrating
Hi, same mount, same setup, but with the USB to serial connection to the 4pin RS232 on the mount, the ASIair doesn’t connect to the mount, it consistently throws up a connection failure message. Have tried all sorts like direct USB to RJ9, but still doesn’t work. Any idea
Weight limit is given as 33 lb / 15 kg for main side -- Representative weights of f/5 Carbon-fiber tube reflectors are 12 kg for 10" and 8 kg for 8". So yeah, *maybe* for visual use a 10" would be OK, depending on magnification.
I use the Baader Neodymium Moon and Skyglow filter on Orion and only use 30 seconds max with my AZ Pro at the most. That Neodymium filter was so good I bought a 1.25" one as well as the 2". I have an AZ Pro as well and bought a CW20 Series for 20mm shaft Vixen/Losmandy dual saddle by ADM so instead of that too small accessory Vixen saddle for dinky scopes.
The Pleiades is what I use my 82° fov 19mm Luminos eyepiece for, fits the whole Pleiades in at 37x in my ES 102mm f/7 triplet. I have a 100° fov 9mm Explore Scientific EP at 79x that fits it too and at a high enough magnification that an averted vision view shows some slight nebulosity.
The secondary saddle I bought will hold my 102mm Apo with 2" diagonal and 1 lb EPs weighs around 13 lbs and saddle is 2 lbs, Plus the right side will hold the C9 1/4 SCT by Celestron I intend to buy that will weigh 20 lbs and max out at 25 lbs with accessories. It can hold 43 lbs as long as it's evenly distributed. I spoke to iOptron tech support and they said because of its construction it should be fine for outreach viewing and will be even fine for photography because it can only take 20 to 30 second exposures. Big thing was not to have long tubes on it bigger than the 102mm f/7 as wind will be an issue.
My 6" Newtonian with refigured mirror at 1/12th wave I can't use if it's a little windy. Luckily where I live nights with good viewing are usually calm here in the New Mexico desert. It is only a 5 minute drive to Bortle 4 at my daughter's house and 30 minutes or so to Bortle two next to WSMR White Sands Missile Range on a dead end gravel road, just don't park too close to the gate (no fence) if you don't want a visit and lose your night vision from all the spotlights.
Thank you for your video. I purchased a used AZ Mount Pro several months back from a friend and it's been a bit of a learning curve but the goto function is pretty amazing once the mount and scope are properly leveled and balanced. I ended up replacing the battery and made adjustments to the azimuth gear drive to resolve tracking and slewing issues, downloading PDF instructions from iOptron.
Your ability to take such striking astrophotos of deep space objects is amazing, considering you have to account for tube rotation and having to limit your exposure time. I enjoyed the demonstration of exposure and stacking on M42, the Horsehead Nebula, and lastly, of M45 (the Pleiades, of course!).
My current scopes for visual observation with this mount are a Celestron C8, a Takahashi FS-102, and a Meade 4" SCT(mostly for solar). Using this mount is certainly a different mindset since I've been star hopping with a home made 8" Dobson since the mid 90s.
While astrophotography is probably not in my immediate future, I have done manually guided piggy back 35mm photos of comets and some deep sky objects using an Olympus OM-1. This was accomplished with a Celestron Polaris equatorial mount with RA and declination motors and the Meade with an illuminated recticle eyepiece as a guide scope. Comet Hale-Bopp comes to mind. Your work is certainly inspiring. We have many club members who have ventured deeply into this field as well. Thanks again.
Phil
The Pleiades cluster - aka the seven sisters?
There's an interesting post by Graham on Cloudy Nights about how to level the mount. Deserves its own video...
You can type in your own exposure time. Just scroll down to the bottom of the exposures list.
This is the best video bar none for using the ioptron AZPro mount with ASIAir. Unfortunately no one else has done a video like this or seem to have a setup like this. Both ioptron and ZWO do an extremely poor job of explaining how to connect this, the exact cables needed etc. RS232 port in 2024 is a joke…
Hi Johnny, can you please provide the exact make and model of the serial to USB cable you used? Mine does not work, while the ASIair Plus recognizes it but disconnects within seconds. Not sure if it is a mount issue, AAP issue, but very frustrating
Hi, same mount, same setup, but with the USB to serial connection to the 4pin RS232 on the mount, the ASIair doesn’t connect to the mount, it consistently throws up a connection failure message. Have tried all sorts like direct USB to RJ9, but still doesn’t work. Any idea
Wow you need more subscribers bro. Awesome
HI, great video, ! I have a question? you are using an ipad? is that stellarium? you are controlling the mount with the app in the tablet? thks
The tablet is a Samsung S7+, the planetarium is contained within the ZWO ASIAIR APP and the APP does control the mount, camera, guiding and focuser.
Keep in mind the ZWO ASIAIR will only work with ZWO products and most DSLRs
@@outtherewithjohnny thanks man!
Big Dipper?
Thank you for this information!
Will this mount handle a 10 inch reflector.
Under 30 lbs?
@@MountainFisher Might handle an 8 inch but a 10 inch is to heavy for it.
@@FranklinNewhart have to be short
Weight limit is given as 33 lb / 15 kg for main side -- Representative weights of f/5 Carbon-fiber tube reflectors are 12 kg for 10" and 8 kg for 8". So yeah, *maybe* for visual use a 10" would be OK, depending on magnification.
Ummmmmmmmmmm