Good day. It's Dylan O'Donnell here for Star Stuff. I know a real singular theme to today's video. I just want to have a chat about little things that have been going on in my life in astrophotography. How is your astrophotography going? Thank you for tag me in all your photos. I hope you're getting some clear skies and great images. The ones you tag me and are anything to go by, you certainly are. And I know that some of you use the tutorials and the information I post on my videos to help get the best out of your images, which is great. Why do we do this astrophotography stuff? Do I know? Sort of pointless, really. I mean, does it have to have a point? I don't think it does. Life doesn't have a point. And I like life. Now I couldn't talk about the weather, but if there's one thing I hate more than anything else, it's astronomers talking about the weather. Like, we get it. You live on planet Earth, so do I. There's weather here. Sometimes it's bad. Just use the weather as an excuse for your crap photos. I certainly do. My name is Dylan O'Donnell and you're watching Star Stuff. Last Friday night, I really couldn't be bothered. I just went outside with the Star Sense Explorer, chucked on the next YZ adapter for my phone, put my phone in, took a photo of the moon. So easy. Even though I've got lots of expensive equipment and this is an expensive hobby, it doesn't mean you can't enjoy at a really simple level sometimes. Also, happy birthday, Celestron. It's 60 years this year. 60 years of making telescopes. Now I will use all sorts of brands and in this hobby you end up using all kinds of stuff. Your telescope rigs become a mishmash of all sorts of different brands. But I've got to say for me, I've loved using Celestron stuff and I will continue to use Celestron stuff. This is not sponsored or anything. I just really like this stuff. So the last image I took, the image of 104 sombrera galaxy was taken with this setup. Now this isn't going to work. I need an additional spacer here, a helical focuser and I need a more sensitive camera as well than this 120 mm. So I'm still working on the off axis guide I set up for this but it is coming. Also I have the QHY24C directly connected up to a T-ring and spacer that can go back at the rear cell of that C11 and I haven't really done a full image with that just yet. I'm probably going to stick the reducer on first. The reducer has arrived. Haven't taken out of the box yet but that's going to go on the rear cell. Maybe let's do that today. Found a little leak just in here. That was spewing water onto the motor inside. It actually killed my webcam because the webcam got flooded for the water. So I've just still looking it up. The next dome guys wanted to send me a new one but I don't need a new one. This one works fine. It's just a little leak so I'll plug that up. I still love this thing. Even if you don't use it as a safety monitor to close the dome or whatever, just having this in your backyard means instead of having to check the weather report to see if it's clear. You just check the graph on your weather station and then you have to walk outside and actually look up at the sky. Now there's going to be a graphic warning on this next bit. Look away if you're not prepared to see something that may traumatise you for life. There was another ants nest in there. Presumably they liked the heat but the worst of it was in the camera. Now this camera is okay but again look away if graphic images disturb you. I just don't even like thinking about it but I have used that camera since and it is okay it's working. All of that circuitry down the back there is the cooling for the camera. It's mostly a big peltier heat sink so no damage but did freak me out a bit. Here is the image train I've been playing with. I did find that I needed another spacer here which stopped the filters from locking up in the EF filter wheel. This is a ZWA EF filter wheel. That worked really well but two and a half times power mate on a C11 is a lot. I'll put the calculation here it was kind of insane. I did get clavius crater but the seeing is so wobbly at that magnification that really I have to wait for a beautifully clear night to get the most out of such a long focal length. That's what I'll be shooting Jupiter, Saturn and Mars on later on in the season. And this bad boy which I'm pretty sure every astrophotographer has especially the people that shoot Canon. Tearing adapter for your DSLR. In my case Canon DSLR because it's basically Canon and other best. That's good to go for next time. Fresh gear. This whole ring of the back will come off and they'll thicken. Throw a spade under the rear cell here. Then we pull that back on. Make sure it's all tired to none and nasty. And that is the one to go with my camera tonight. But having the reducer on the C11 is sort of the perfect field of view for a moon portrait. Yeah because we're on the moon, I'm going to set the tracking rate to learn off so it doesn't drift out of frame. So easy it could can do it. You shall clean it up the frame there beautifully and then it's just nothing away so it would just. Is this touch free? Yes. Can you put one out for me now? Okay so this next bit might be a bit dark but it's a dark story and it's an astronomy story. In fact it's an astrophotography story for me because it involves the place that I go to regularly to astrophotography. Thanks for sticking around this long anyway and I'll be back soon with another video.