Like every summer, I packed the telescope, mount, camera and many accessories and flew to Greece. This time we went to Karpathos, the island not spoiled by massive tourism and light pollution. Long story short, the skies were amazing, but every single night, except one, was extremely windy. It was a torture – to see millions of stars and not be able to photograph them. There is no surprise that Karpathos is beloved by windsurfers and kite surfers. In the end I captured only the Iris Nebula and the Double Cluster. I talked to locals and they told me that the wind should stop at the end of September, so probably I picked the wrong time.
On the other hand I was able to do a wide angle astrophotography of the Milky Way. SQM reached 21.5, galactic core was so bright and I think the photos of the Milky Way are quite decent. This time I changed the setup and purchased Canon EOS 6D, which is one of the best cameras for this purpose. Moreover, there are many second hand 6Ds, because mirrorless mania arrived. 6D combined with Samyang 14 mm f2.8 offers excellent performance for this purpose.
Karpathos offers other beauties, for example very beautiful beaches, mountains, delicious food friendly people and many more.
Hi Jakub,
Your pictures are really beautiful.
I am trying to build a new reduced setup to be able to travel with my rig.
I sold my TS ONTC 8’’ to purchase a TS UNC 6’’, and sold also my AZEQ-6, and was thinking about an Avalon M-Zero. 44kg to 18kg.
I saw you are one of the few persons posting that are using exactly this setup nad for the same reason. That seems to me the perfect combination.
May I ask you about the guiding performance of that mount in arcsec, and why have you chosen the HD version ?
I was also curious about the counterweights needed to carry a 6’’ newton, and if it can be used without meridian flip.
I would be so grateful if you could publish or send me some pictures of your rig (Avalon + newton 150).
Sorry for this demand, but it would reassure me that I am moving in the right direction for a travel.
My Mail is
Stevanjonklaas@hotmail.com
Astrobin profile is SJK
Kindest Regards from Switzerland,
Stevan Klaas
Dear Stevan,
Avalon M-Zero is my second portable mount. The first one was iOptron CEM25p, which was also very good and had sufficient payload for 6“ f4 Newtonian, but it had little backlash in declination axis and as all equatorial mounts – the meridian flip was annoying. Therefore I sold iOptron and purchased Avalon and I am very happy and I don’t regret a single Euro I invested. I was told that the difference between standard and HQ variant is the stepper motor that has a higher resolution that improve the tracking accuracy and the guiding performance, therefore more suitable for astrophotography. The price difference was not that big, so I decided for HQ.
I haven’t measured the guiding performance of the mount, but if it’s not extremely windy, the number of bad pictures caused by tracking/guiding error is basically zero. In case of iOptron it was approximately 10%. So from this point of view you will not make a mistake.
I placed one photo of the rig on the blog. For the perfect balance on the RA axis I need the smallest counter weight, because the camera is turned towards the RA axis. Balancing the telescope on DEC axis still allows not to do the meridian flip and the telescope can freely turn 360° around the RA axis at any DEC position.
What surprised me a bit was the weight of the mount. I think the specification from Avalon are bit exceeded and the mount is heavier than they claim. When I travel with this mount I simply order additional suit case, where I have only the mount, cables and same accessories and the suit case has 23 kg.
If you need more info, feel free to ask.
Jakub
Dear Jakub,
Thank you so much for taking time to give such a nice answer.
I am now fully convinced to get one. I’ll for the HD too.
What a beautiful place you are shooting from i Greece !!
Clear skies and all the Best,
Stevan