Episode 70 - The C8

SVBONY Filter Drawer w/Extra Drawer

We have a new Amazon Affiliate account! The SVBONY Filter Drawer discussed on todays episode can be purchased through this link for the same normal price, and you'll help the show a little with your purchase! Thanks!!.

ZWO Off-Axis Guider

You can always use our affiliate links to High Point Scientific and Agena Astro as well! I am working on getting more affiliates setup, such as First Light Optics in Europe - please stay tuned! We DO now have an Amazon Affiliate link for all of your little bits and bobs/odds and ends! 

High Point Scientific

Agena Astro

Amazon Affiliate Link

This week on the show, Roo discusses the trials and tribulations of getting his first Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope setup, and everything that it entails! We also discuss why it's so important to insure your scopes, and what your home insurance doesn't cover. Thank you to EVERYONE who has been listening to the show, and I really want to thank all the folks that have been engaging with the Astrocast Facebook Page (even though there's a capital C in Astrocast and it drives me NUTS!) as of late. I have posted many of the images of the C8 there - please go have a look and leave a comment/say hi! 

Thanks for tuning in this week, see ya soon! 

*Please note - links posted are affiliate links - and a small percentage of the profits from any purchases made using said links will go to support the show. Thank you so much!*

Transcript

00;00;22;08 - 00;00;40;28
Roo
You are listening to...The Astrocast!

00;00;41;00 - 00;01;09;27
Roo
Oh. Oh oh. Welcome back to the Astrocast. Today is Wednesday, September 10th, 2025.

00;01;09;29 - 00;01;25;04
Roo
We currently sit at 95% of a waning gibbous moon. Go ahead and get out of here, Gibbous!

00;01;25;06 - 00;01;54;01
Roo
I hope you're all doing well. I gotta grab the right fader there. I grabbed the mic instead of the Astrocast music. So how's everybody doing? It's, been quite an exciting week for me since we last spoke. Obviously, we had, very big and special episode last week, which, you know, looking back on it, it might have made a little bit more sense, to save that episode, for episode 70.

00;01;54;01 - 00;02;18;19
Roo
But, you know, that's not how we do things here at the, the astro cast. We like to keep it live as much as possible. And today will be no different. So, Well, let's see. Milky way season is starting to wrap up. Cygnus is past the meridian now. When you walk outside at night. We've been very lucky here in Charlotte this last week.

00;02;18;19 - 00;02;50;28
Roo
We've had quite a few clear nights. And even though the moon has been very, very bright, I don't care because it's been so long since we've had clear skies here in Charlotte. I will gladly take it. And I need it, because I have been working on building another new rig. So, as I mentioned on the show a few weeks back, when I went to Florida in July, listener and friend of the show, Chris, I got to meet you.

00;02;51;00 - 00;03;18;10
Roo
And, he gifted me his late father's C8 telescope as a, a donation to the show, if you will. And I have been very busy, with that c8, since I got back from Wisconsin. So, I've had a lot of success so far. I'll say I'm still. I'm not perfectly set up yet, but I try to get, like, one thing working properly each night.

00;03;18;12 - 00;03;41;18
Roo
And, you know, that's a suggestion that I could really give to all beginners in this hobby or anyone, even if you're an experienced person, you know, going out with, like, me, it's a brand new type of telescope to me. I've never used a, Schmidt Cassegrain telescope. That's so fun to say. By the way. Schmidt Cassegrain. Schmidt's already too fun already.

00;03;41;21 - 00;04;05;06
Roo
Already to fun already. Fun to say. And then you had Cassegrain on the back. And it's just even better. But, yeah, take your time when you're setting up new gear and, you know, really get familiar with it as much as possible because, you know, on something like a C8, there's a lot of little things that you just don't really have to consider on a refractor.

00;04;05;06 - 00;04;29;17
Roo
Not the least of which is it's significantly larger than know, any of the telescopes that I have, although I will say, you know, overall weight wise, I don't think it's that far off from my, 78 millimeter doublet, because when I, when I lift up the whole thing with the imaging train on, it's very back heavy, obviously, with that big eight inch mirror in the back.

00;04;29;20 - 00;05;00;12
Roo
But it's, not as heavy as I would have thought. I suppose you could say, I've got it resting on the CMM 26 currently. And, you know, I don't know if I'm asking too much of my I option on CM 26. We're going to find out, one way or another. I haven't quite gotten to auto guide yet, though I might get a chance to do that tonight if I can wrap up this episode, early enough.

00;05;00;14 - 00;05;22;17
Roo
I, I have learned a lot of things, off off axis guiding for one. So I was not really sure about off axis guides because I've, you know, I've never had one. I've never really, I have, you know, obviously known people who have OGs, but I've never had one myself and I've never really gotten hands on with one.

00;05;22;17 - 00;05;57;13
Roo
So they're really cool, pieces of, you know, old and new technology combined. If you don't know, an off axis guider is different from your typical guide scope and that it's not a separate telescope with a separate, optical path going directly to it. Instead, you, vertically insert if you can picture a telescope, picture, small guide scope camera and the back going vertically down into it.

00;05;57;20 - 00;06;24;25
Roo
And I say vertically because it's easier to picture, but really it could be at any angle. And basically there is a prism that picks off some of the light at the bottom of that tube. So you screw it on to the back of your imaging train and once you do that, basically, the light is going to be captured on its way to your main imaging camera and then bounced up to that sensor.

00;06;24;28 - 00;07;02;21
Roo
So I had shared some, photos early on of the guide sensor and, how I oag and how I had it set up and, a member in our discord, Chris had mentioned to me that he thought the affects the sky. There needed to be a little bit further back in the imaging train, and I was confused because a lot of the stuff that I had read, had you putting it on, you know, right after the focal reducer, and I started thinking about this and logically, you just need basically the same distance from where that light is.

00;07;02;21 - 00;07;28;10
Roo
Hitting the actual sensor on the guide camera needs to be the same distance, to the actual focal plane, if that makes sense. I don't know if I'm explaining that properly, but it doesn't need to be 105mm. From the reducer, like the imaging train does. It just needs to be pair of focal, with the sensor, essentially.

00;07;28;12 - 00;07;59;19
Roo
And what that means, in practice is that after the reducer, I've got the off axis guider directly connected, and I have an AC, mini 120. Right. And I did get a small extension to put on the AC 120 because I had moved it all the way out of the off axis guider. And by the way, I'm using the, zwo regular sized off axis guider.

00;07;59;21 - 00;08;23;08
Roo
And I could tell last night when I was trying to get the guiding set up that basically just passed, the end of where I could comfortably fit the mini and actually keep it, you know, screwed in on the OAG, was where the stars started showing up. So I knew I was going to need a, one, 1.25in extension tube of sorts.

00;08;23;08 - 00;08;46;06
Roo
And, you know, turns out I was able to 3D print one. So I found a, like a I think it was a ten, ten or a 30 millimeter extension online, but it was enough for me. What should be enough for me to get the guide stars and focus after adding it on to the, the, guide cam tube, whatever you call it for the OAG.

00;08;46;06 - 00;09;10;23
Roo
So hopefully that will go well. I know I'm going to be asking a lot out of the guiding on this rig, considering the the effective focal lengths that I might be imaging at, and that's why I'm using an off axis guider, because for my understanding, they work a lot better for getting is accurate of guiding as possible.

00;09;10;26 - 00;09;40;16
Roo
And what's what's really cool about having, a C8 now is that it opens up a lot of those longer focal length, images that I've wanted to take for, you know, as long as I've been into astrophotography. So, for example, galaxy season, you know, the spring time. I mean, you guys probably can remember last spring, I was, I was really reaching for something to do.

00;09;40;19 - 00;10;14;10
Roo
That was somewhat interesting. And, you know, spring's a tough time if if all you have is, a wide field refractor. And don't get me wrong, there are there are definitely cool things that you can image in the spring. I'm a huge fan of doing wide field shots that have thousands upon thousands of galaxies within them. Like, you know, if you put a Redcat 51 or in Sky 55, at the hind legs of Leo in the middle of the spring, I promise you you will be happy with the results.

00;10;14;12 - 00;10;38;04
Roo
But it can be fun to be able to, you know, really zoom in on some of the smaller galaxies and, you know, planetary nebula are kind of notoriously small. And this is going to open up the opportunity for me to really do that finally. And, you know, right now I've got the five, eight, five MK Pro on the back.

00;10;38;07 - 00;11;05;06
Roo
And I knew, you know, obviously it's a very cropped sensor smaller than a micro 4/3. You know, I think it's one of those half point two inch. I never know how you say that. The one small 1.2in, sensors. And my apologies, guys. I just realized I had the mic way too close to me. So if I sound a little aggro there at the beginning, my bad.

00;11;05;08 - 00;11;40;15
Roo
But, yeah, with the five, eight, five, it's got a three, 3.3 or 3.4 x crop factor. So it really does bring it in. So just between like the 294 and the 585, you're talking about a nearly 2000 millimeter effective focal distance differential. So if you were to run the 585 with the reducer, the effective focal length is 4330mm.

00;11;40;17 - 00;12;13;10
Roo
So, you know, absurdly zoomed in basically like you can get the pillars at a size similar to the Hubble. I, I don't know if I will realistically be able to do that or not. I'm certainly going to try, because why wouldn't I try? But if I put the 294 MK Pro on there, it becomes a much more reasonable 1.8 x crop factor, and we get, 2385mm, which I think is going to be, you know, a lot easier to make do with.

00;12;13;10 - 00;12;50;11
Roo
I think it requires like 0.58, arc second tracking, which, you know, with the CM 26. That might be asking a lot. I have obviously gotten it there before, and I didn't have an off axis guider, so I'm hoping that I'll be able to make it work. But, you know, time will tell. But the good news is, even if I have trouble with that, I've got my R5 and my R7, so I can basically get the entire 1280mm focal length that the C8 is natively rated at.

00;12;50;13 - 00;13;11;05
Roo
If I put on my R5 and then obviously the, Aps-c sensor R7, would give it a 1.6 x crop factor, which is going to, you know, bring it in. You know, two thirds more of the way, probably around 2000 million, honestly, but I'll probably get it up to where it would be without having the reducer on.

00;13;11;05 - 00;13;36;11
Roo
So that'll be an interesting test to, I guess. Yeah. Because you could test it without the reducer with the R7, and then you could also test it. Well, I'm trying to think because I think between the R5 and the R7, with and without the reducer, you can basically do both focal lengths on both cameras, depending on what attachment you have on.

00;13;36;13 - 00;14;01;11
Roo
Anyway, I'm not going to think all the way through that right now, but but these are the kind of things that you really do consider, whenever you're building a new rig, particularly one that's a little bit more unique, than what you're accustomed to with the wide focal length. You know, the 150 to 600 millimeter type scopes that we generally work with and reflectors and lenses and what have you.

00;14;01;13 - 00;14;30;28
Roo
I think it's going to be super cool. I also got a, a new piece of gear to go on my optical train, and this is something that I was really surprised by. So, I am not a filter wheel guy yet. I probably will be one day, but I don't shoot mono yet. And I really feel like a filter wheel is kind of overkill if you don't shoot mono.

00;14;31;01 - 00;14;58;23
Roo
Don't get me wrong, I definitely can see the advantages, especially like I know that some people will put a dark circle inside their filter wheels so they can take their darks right on the wheel, which is a pretty cool idea. And then obviously being able to hold, you know, 5 to 7 filters is really great, but they are also $300, and $300 is a lot of money that could go towards, you know, gear to do other things with your rig.

00;14;58;23 - 00;15;28;15
Roo
And in any case, I am a filter drawer guy for now, and I have had on my field rigs imaging train the, zwo second generation filter drawer, for a couple of years now at least. I've had that filter drawer for quite some time, and it can take one and a quarter or two inch mounted filters.

00;15;28;17 - 00;15;52;23
Roo
But it's not the greatest, filter drawer. Like, the magnets are incredibly weak on it, for one thing. Which drives me nuts because it essentially means I have to put tape on my, filter drawer every time I use it, because they're so weak that it'll literally fall out of you if your, scope gets, you know, tipped up at the wrong angle, it'll just slide right out.

00;15;52;26 - 00;16;17;26
Roo
And what's crazy to me is Zwo said in the second generation that they, they came out with the second generation because people wanted stronger magnets, and yet they still didn't appear to have solved the problem, which is just kind of crazy. But I suppose that's neither here nor there. But the good news is, S.V. Boni has actually came out, with a new filter drawer.

00;16;18;02 - 00;16;33;08
Roo
And I want to tell you guys, by the way, I'm going to be talking about this. I purchased one myself, obviously, but I'm going to have a link in the show notes. We recently got, Amazon affiliate link, which is great because for a lot of the little bits and bobs, that's a good place to go.

00;16;33;12 - 00;16;53;05
Roo
Like I say, I generally wouldn't recommend like optical gear, like, well, maybe a filter, but not like a telescope. I wouldn't recommend, generally speaking, buying a telescope through Amazon, but a filter drawer. Yeah, I can get behind that. And SV Boni doesn't sell at a lot of the shops like High Point. And again, I actually checked first because I'd rather do business through them.

00;16;53;08 - 00;17;09;05
Roo
But if you are interested in this after I kind of tell you all about it, I'm going to have a link in the show notes for it. So check that out if you want. Share with anyone and it helps to show a little bit. Amazon doesn't pay much of an affiliate, commission, but it's something and it helps.

00;17;09;05 - 00;17;38;26
Roo
So, anyway, the the filter drawer by SV Boni is great. And I mean that for, for like many, many, many reasons. So first of all, the zwo filter drawer comes in, what is it currently $79. So by the time you add tax and shipping, you're nearly out of $100. And it includes one filter drawer with really weak magnets.

00;17;38;29 - 00;18;07;28
Roo
It does also have like, you know, all the adapters like M48 female and 42, threads, etc.. So you got everything you need to actually hook it up to your scope, but it still leaves a lot to be desired. The S.V. Boni, it's the SV2, two six is the, the model number telescope filter drawer is 5299, and that's with a 10% coupon.

00;18;07;28 - 00;18;35;08
Roo
It says the regular price is 5599, but it's on sale right now for, 5299. And free one day shipping. The magnets on it are phenomenal. I, I made a little video of me shaking it so you can see what I mean, but you really got to yank on this thing to get the drawer out. It's not going to fall out by accident.

00;18;35;08 - 00;19;03;19
Roo
You can rest assured of that. And and on top of all that, if that wasn't enough, I mean, it's already a better filter drawer for about a third less than what you're paying. You know, I honestly, it's more than a third less $80 versus 52. So, faster shipping. Well, depending on where you live, I mean, if you're, if you're lucky and you live in the northeast or in LA, I suppose you could get a general high point.

00;19;03;21 - 00;19;32;21
Roo
Overnight. But a lot of us don't. But the beauty of this one is it comes with an additional drawer as well. So you get two drawers and it comes in a really nice carrying case. So I was just kind of shocked by it because I didn't realize it came with all this extra stuff. I was just looking for a better filter drawer because the the Z.

00;19;32;23 - 00;19;53;23
Roo
I'm just going to be honest, the zwo one sucks. It's not great. Zwo if you happen to be listening, you need to make a third generation. And it needs to have stronger magnets, and you better add some kind of special size, because I'm telling you, SV Bani has you beat on this one hands down. So yeah, two drawers for the price of one.

00;19;53;23 - 00;20;16;27
Roo
And it comes with a nice plastic case that as foam inserts, so you can actually store your filters while they're in the drawers in the case that way, you know, if you're heading somewhere and you want to bring a couple of filters with you on a dark sky trip, like maybe you want, like an L pro for, you know, shooting, broad band galaxies or maybe the Milky Way.

00;20;17;02 - 00;20;40;02
Roo
And then you also, have a uvi cut filter. You can screw them both in the both drawers and take them with you. And everything will fit neatly in the case. So I was just thrilled to find this. It's it's rare in astrophotography where you find something that's better and cheaper. So shout out to SB Boni for doing things right.

00;20;40;04 - 00;21;06;22
Roo
I'm a big fan of theirs, man. Like, they were my very first telescope, and I, I haven't bought another scope from them, but I have bought a lot of accessories over the years. I'm considering getting one of the, the power boxes that they sell. Just because I'm using the AC Air Mini on the, the C8, and I don't get, direct power for the Do heater shield, which is.

00;21;06;22 - 00;21;30;24
Roo
Well, you do get power, but it's just a straight 12 volt power. And I think that means it runs the Do heater at full power all night long, every night. And and it works like you say. I had it out last night, and it didn't do up at all. But, you know, ultimately, I'd like to be able to turn that down a little bit, particularly if I travel somewhere and I have to use battery power.

00;21;30;27 - 00;21;55;26
Roo
That could be a bad day. But. Yeah, so I got the, the filter drawer today, and I was able to pretty easily install that on my imaging tray. And so now basically it goes reducer followed by the off access guider. And then directly behind that is the filter drawer. And then I've got like a 40 millimeter extension tube.

00;21;55;26 - 00;22;21;29
Roo
And then my camera. And I am at 105mm. And I was able to reach focus last night. So that's wonderful. The stars there, man, they look terrible. I definitely need to call a mate. This scope. There's no doubt about it. They look like out-of-focus, weird blobs right now, but I was able to defocus one enough to get a donut shape.

00;22;22;02 - 00;22;43;00
Roo
Not a very good looking donut shape, but a donut shape. And I know that that's kind of step one for consummating one of these. I found these, and if any of you own an SCC, like AC8 or 10 or 95, you probably are 11. I should have said, you probably already know about Bobs and Knobs.

00;22;43;02 - 00;23;12;23
Roo
Which is fun to say. And by, but Bob's knobs are basically large plastic, very grippy. Thumbscrews that you can replace the Phillips head, collimation screws that come stock installed on a C8. And I don't know if like an edge HD has a different set up. My just a standard, next star C8 with the, star bright coating.

00;23;12;26 - 00;23;35;07
Roo
So a relatively new C8, but not an edge HD. Yeah, those Bob's knobs will definitely be the, the next purchase, but I think I can manually collimated with just the regular, screwdriver method to start. I mean, everybody else has been doing it for years that way. So I, I suppose I should be able to, to get that done.

00;23;35;09 - 00;23;54;29
Roo
So yeah, I got that all built out. And it's funny, I like I said, I use the CPM 26 and I think I calculated something like 18 pounds fully loaded for the C8, if I'm not mistaken. That's what it felt about. Like what I could definitely tell it was in 20 pounds when I picked it up last night.

00;23;54;29 - 00;24;20;22
Roo
Because 20 pounds, I carried a lot of 20 pound bags whenever I worked harder jobs. When I was younger. And I know what 20 pounds feels like, and that was not it. So, yeah, cable management was something that was going to be very, very important to me on this rig because something that I have yet to do is do like a perfect cable management job.

00;24;20;24 - 00;24;43;00
Roo
And I figured if it was ever going to happen, it would have to be with this, you know, ridiculously large telescope in comparison to my refractor, particularly, since I have an off axis guider. And that kind of tightens everything up on the, the imaging train. I figured there's no reason why I shouldn't be able to get, a nice clean set up.

00;24;43;00 - 00;25;09;09
Roo
And what I did was I initially I, you know, just when I was trying to see if I could get it, you know, to first light, I just grabbed all the cords that I had, damn the lengths and plugged them all in to make sure everything was working, and that's great. But I started running into issues like, for example, that first night I plugged power into my CRM 26.

00;25;09;09 - 00;25;32;14
Roo
So like 12 volt power, and then it has a DC output on the 26 that I can generally power the AC air with, and then the AC air can power the cameras. That's one of the nice little features that the CM 26 has. But I noticed and I'd be really curious if this has happened to any of you guys.

00;25;32;16 - 00;25;52;17
Roo
Because I just can't imagine I'm the only one this happens to. But I if it does happen to you, please let me know, because I am genuinely curious. Email me at rooster cast@gmail.com, or just stop by the Facebook page and leave a comment on one of the, photos that I post and just let me know if this happens to you.

00;25;52;19 - 00;26;28;00
Roo
Whenever I power my rig that way, if I lightly brush up against any of the camera related gear. So not even just the camera, like, I'm talking, like, lightly touch the USB cord, the camera will disconnect and the AC, IR app and then usually immediately reconnect. But that requires you to tap on the camera icon, reselect the five, eight five, or 294 if you're me, and then turn it back on.

00;26;28;02 - 00;27;06;24
Roo
And if it keeps happening like that, it drives you nuts really quick and like the other night, I was having, like, serious trouble with it where it just kept happening. So I'd mention that in the, the discord and, one of my buddies said, hey, have you tried running two separate 12V? And obviously, I know I've been hearing it since the beginning of time, that you should not run, you know, all of your gear off of one 12 volt power source, you know, but I wasn't really asking too much of my 12 volt power source before because it wasn't carrying too much weight.

00;27;06;27 - 00;27;35;09
Roo
And I'm sure that, you know, carrying more weight has an impact on the motors and how much power they're drawing, obviously. So I'm thinking I didn't notice this symptom as often before because if the the mount was at rest, it probably, you know, wasn't drawing excess power and it probably happened. It did still happen, mind you, but just significantly less frequently as it happens now with the C8.

00;27;35;11 - 00;27;57;15
Roo
So I decided right there and then that I would run separate power sources. So I only own two 12 volt, you know, power sources that I can run rigs with. I probably need to get a couple more. Because, you know, now I've got the Am three, the CM 26, GTI, I've got the move, shoot, move.

00;27;57;15 - 00;28;20;01
Roo
And the sky guider. And obviously those last two don't need individual, power strips. But essentially, you know, I've got three rigs, two mounts. If I count four or hatches, man, I'm. You don't realize someone's gearing up until you sit down and start, you know, name it at all. If you guys want to do something one day that'll really, freak you out.

00;28;20;01 - 00;28;41;25
Roo
And you're at a similar, level to me as far as experience is concerned. Sit down one day and with a notebook, write down every piece of gear that you have as far as, like, every lens, every camera, every tripod, etc. and then write down what you paid for it or thereabouts and see what number you get to.

00;28;41;25 - 00;29;03;14
Roo
I'll tell you, if you get to a number higher than $2,500, your homeowner's insurance will not cover it. So do not, be the guy who doesn't insure his gear. And then something terrible happens. You have a catastrophic loss, and it's all gone, and you have no insurance to cover it. Because I used to be an insurance agent.

00;29;03;14 - 00;29;30;27
Roo
I know this is a big tangent that I'm going on, but when I was an insurance agent, we learned that homeowner's insurance, at least in America, and I bet similar in Europe, only covers certain items up to a certain amount, and most policies tend to stay around the same amount. Like for example, camera gear is usually like, you know, 15 to $2500, depending on the policy.

00;29;30;29 - 00;29;51;11
Roo
And anything beyond that, they just straight up won't cover because it it should have been scheduled on your policy. I actually got a camera gear or, I'm sorry, camera insurance policy before I went to Wisconsin. And I think I ended up paying like $22 a month for it or something, and it covers up to $100,000 worth of gear.

00;29;51;11 - 00;30;10;11
Roo
So get yourself insurance if you don't have it. I'm not going to recommend one to you. There's some really good, ones on the market. If you really are interested, let me know and I'll let you know who I, who I got mine from if you want to email me, but I'm not advertising for insurance companies or anything like that, is my point.

00;30;10;13 - 00;30;38;18
Roo
But anyway, get get your, your scopes insured. But yeah, the C8, being on the 26, God, where were we? I literally, I had to back up the track to see where what what I was talking about before I went on, the insurance ran power sources. So I ran an individual power source to power the mount and then a secondary power source to power, the AC air.

00;30;38;18 - 00;31;03;12
Roo
And then that, you know, obviously powered everything else. But I think I did a really nice job with it for once. So something I did and I've always wanted to do this, but I've never actually taken the time to sit down and do it. I wanted the cable manage the rig really well. So what I did basically, is I sat down with the C8 fully assembled.

00;31;03;12 - 00;31;25;20
Roo
So I have the electronic autofocus there on there I've got the off axis guider and I've got the five, eight, five MC Pro and I've got the ACA mini, which is mounted to the top of the C8. I bought a little, dovetail holder that I was able to use to, Phillips screws that are pre-installed on the C8, to mount it.

00;31;25;22 - 00;31;46;19
Roo
And then, that puts the ACA, you know, pretty much right on top of the scope, just slightly to the left. And then I got out my tape measure and a length of string. And what I did was I took the string and I ran it, from each port of the AC air to the port that it was going to.

00;31;46;21 - 00;32;19;08
Roo
And then I would basically just pinch off the string with my, thumb and pointer finger wherever, you know, it ended. And then I would measure it with the tape measure. So I did, you know, the length of the off axis guider cable, the length of the 585 Macpro data cable, the length of the 5.5, power cable, etc. until I had the length of every wire that was going to be on the imaging train, except for, the power cable to the AC air, because obviously that's coming from the ground up.

00;32;19;11 - 00;32;49;06
Roo
And the, the USB cable coming from my mount. From there, it was mostly, I'll tell you, with the C8, even have 100 having a 105mm of back focus. It's mostly 12 to 18 inch cords that you need, so significantly shorter, than, you know what Zwo generally includes, I think I think they include some one foot cables.

00;32;49;06 - 00;33;13;28
Roo
I could be wrong about that. Maybe power cables that are one foot. I know they'll give you a couple of those with, with a camera. But, yeah, it worked out great. And I was able to significantly reduce the wire clutter on my scope. And now I want to do it for my refractor. And I bet it's going to be similar for my refractor.

00;33;14;00 - 00;33;39;04
Roo
In terms of 12 inch, you know, style USB cables. One thing you do want to pay attention to, if you do that, is making sure that you get your USB 3.0 cables where appropriate, like if you were using a planetary camera. Those need to be able to transfer data a lot faster. So you want to make sure you get a 3.0, I think I think my photo.

00;33;39;05 - 00;33;57;26
Roo
Yeah, yeah. So my camera cable is a 3.0. And I think the rest are 2.0. But that's okay. Except for the, the ACA to the well ASI or to the mount can be to one two as well. So that doesn't matter. But anyway, just something to consider, because it, you know, to me, this is the nicest looking rig I've ever had.

00;33;57;26 - 00;34;20;10
Roo
I also, I knew I needed to run power up to the AC air, and then that USB cable, for the CCM 26, the IOP tron mount. It's it's a little bit of an older mount. It still has a hand controller. And you basically plug a type B, as in boy USB cable into the bottom of it.

00;34;20;17 - 00;34;45;21
Roo
And then that goes out to a Type-A cable, which you then plug in to the AC air. So essentially that left me with two cables that needed to go up to the scope. And those are the two really that are like dangling between the imaging train and the, you know, declination and right ascension axes that are going to give you trouble during a meridian flip, especially if you have got, you know, everything nice and tidy on the scope itself.

00;34;45;23 - 00;35;07;19
Roo
Those aren't going to give you any trouble if they're not dangling, but, the power in the USB from the mount certainly could. So I, I had this, I don't even know what this stuff is called. It's soft, and it wraps around, wires to basically allow you to combine multiple wires into one large loomed wire.

00;35;07;22 - 00;35;25;17
Roo
And it came out great. So I popped both of them in there, and it got really tight around it, but it essentially just gave me, you know, one big wire going up to the scope instead of two dangly ones of different length. And I was able to run them in such a way that they, you know, appear to start from the same length.

00;35;25;17 - 00;35;46;06
Roo
So it's not uneven at all. They both come out with their USB plugs, at the perfect length to plug into the AC. Yeah. And give it, you know, power. So, it worked out great. And I couldn't be more happy with the results. If you'd like to see a photo of it, I did post it on the, Astro Cast Facebook page.

00;35;46;06 - 00;36;12;18
Roo
You can just go to, Facebook and search for the Astro cast, and you'll see our logo there. Feel free to leave a comment. Say hello. We've had a lot more, activity on the Facebook page as of late. In fact, the, the photograph of the Shark Nebula, the dark shark that I took on my Wisconsin trip, it got like, a whole lot of, new people that I have not heard from yet, liking it or commenting on it.

00;36;12;18 - 00;36;31;01
Roo
And I just wanted to say thank you to all of you guys for stopping by and seeing that photo. That means a lot to me. And, feel free to join us over in the discord. If you've ever liked to. We'd love to have you. So. Yeah, the the C8 man. It's, it's been a trip, and I, like I say, I still got a ways to go.

00;36;31;01 - 00;36;53;13
Roo
I got super close last night. Got to get that auto guiding sorted out. I hope that the 26 can pull it off. I don't know, real. I mean, I'm sure with the R5 it can pull it off. You know, if we go to 1280mm, that won't be a problem. But, you know. Well, the 294 be too much.

00;36;53;13 - 00;37;14;22
Roo
Well, the five and five be too much. Stay tuned, and we will certainly find out. I got a feeling I'm going to be able to make it work a lot better. Than I expect. Because, you know, a lot of times I will say in astrophotography, you hear things over and over and over again, and you assume you can't do it because everyone has always told you that.

00;37;14;24 - 00;37;38;25
Roo
And what always shocks me is I'll go out and try these things and they'll end up working perfectly fine for me. So, you know, obviously your mileage may vary, but I have I found a lot of the, the rumors, if you will, around astrophotography to not always be, valid. And if you guys have any tips for me on the C8, I would certainly love to hear them.

00;37;38;25 - 00;38;03;28
Roo
If you have any suggestions or tips. I'm really looking for, like, a collimation guide. Because I had it in my head that you could use a laser to call him a Schmidt, but you can't. I think the donut method is pretty much all you can do. Maybe you guys can tell me if I'm wrong. I also, I forgot to mention installing the dew heater on the C8.

00;38;03;28 - 00;38;28;21
Roo
That was interesting. So it's got a ring around the lens itself on the front of the telescope. And you remove six screws from it, and basically that ring just pops right out, and then you replace it with a new ring, that has electronics running through it, and then it has two cables at the bottom, basically a 12 volt input and output.

00;38;28;23 - 00;38;59;06
Roo
And the scope is cut in such a way that those two, wires can come straight out. I think I paid like 40 bucks maybe for the, Celestron do heater ring. It's for the C8 specifically. Anyway, it seems to work really, really good. And that was just one thing. Again, that was a little bit different from what I'm accustomed to on a wide field rig where you would just wrap, you know, do heater, wraps around the end of the ones there and, turn them on.

00;38;59;10 - 00;39;29;28
Roo
I've also, you know, I've only used USB power so far with my Do heaters, which I found out kind of later on, kind of stinks a little bit because you have to have USB power and that ends up taking up ports on your AC, IR that you might not necessarily have. I do want to remind everybody that all the AC as well, all the newer models, since the, you know, one without terrible Wi-Fi came out, the pro, they all have, you know, micro SD card slots.

00;39;29;28 - 00;39;51;19
Roo
I think a lot of people forget that. But you can indeed use that card slot to save photos. You got three different methods with the ACA you can wirelessly transfer or wire transfer. So I guess 3.1 technically, and then USB, stick, obviously you can plug in the thumb drive, and then the micro SD card as well.

00;39;51;23 - 00;40;10;08
Roo
Anytime I'm on my, network connection and I connect directly to the AC here, which, by the way, if you don't know how to do, put your AC air in station mode, just, from the app itself, click on, you know, the settings for the AC air, and then you want to go in and connect station mode.

00;40;10;08 - 00;40;30;21
Roo
And basically that just involves connecting to your home router. It'll have to restart the connection. And then you will have to connect instead directly to your AC air. You'll want to connect to your home router on your phone. Right. And then you're going to get on your computer at home and make sure it's connected to the same wireless router.

00;40;30;23 - 00;40;53;26
Roo
Open up your file Explorer. And then in the address bar just put if this is for Windows Manila I'm not a mac guy. Just put backslash backslash AC air backslash and press enter. And it'll bring up all of your various methods that you have, you know, trans flash and USB, if you have one plugged in, including internal memory.

00;40;53;26 - 00;41;12;20
Roo
So just something to think about. But yeah, those, those USB ports, they get scarce really quick. When you start plugging in a couple of do heaters, you know, I, I wonder if you have to use a Do heater on an off access guider. I mean, I'm trying to think what a prism fog up. I don't really know.

00;41;12;20 - 00;41;32;14
Roo
I guess that's something I'll have to research to see. I can't really say whether or not that would happen. I also, I wanted to mention, I can't remember if I. Yeah, I did mention it on last week's show. The desiccant, container that Parrish recommended. While we sit down and talked. It's working really, really great.

00;41;32;14 - 00;41;52;28
Roo
I ended up buying one of those. And it does a phenomenal job, because before, when I would go outside to MCM 26 and take the Tela gizmos cover off, I would pretty much always find a little bit of dampness, you know, just droplets of water basically on the open metal surfaces of the, mount. And I would just have a towel there and wipe it down.

00;41;52;28 - 00;42;07;22
Roo
And I don't think it was really hurting anything as long as I didn't leave it for weeks at a time. But yeah, that dissident man, it's doing a really, really good job and I haven't had to plug it in yet. I hope I didn't break it because I did drop it once, because I set it on top of the mountain that I put a rubber band on there.

00;42;07;22 - 00;42;28;08
Roo
But I had, like the whole seat on the mount last night, and I it was like 1239. I was completely exhausted and I was like, there's no way I'm carrying this telescope in the night. And that's why you have a pair, right? So you don't gotta always bring everything in. But I did obviously check the weather report because I tell it gizmos cover, that I was so happy to get.

00;42;28;08 - 00;42;54;01
Roo
When I finally got it, that was you know, waterproof is nowhere near big enough for the C8, so. And, you know, the way things are looking, I think the C8 will live most of the time on, that mount, because it just kind of makes sense now that I have an Am three with, you know, the tripod that's or Zwo sells.

00;42;54;04 - 00;43;11;14
Roo
It kind of makes sense. Like, you know, why mess with the C8 if I get it in a place where it's working really good? With that mount, I can always just set up my, Sky 55 right behind it in the backyard. And it's so lightweight, I can just literally carry it outside. So hopefully that'll work out.

00;43;11;14 - 00;43;27;27
Roo
Well, I'm very, very happy, like I say, with how it turned out, I did, put a tarp on top of it after I kind of finagled the, tele gizmos cover over the top of it. It was big enough to actually cover it, but it just didn't go down far enough to leave you any sense of comfort.

00;43;27;27 - 00;43;53;18
Roo
So I put a, like, an eight foot tarp on top of that and then tied bungee cords around it. Shout out the parish bungee cords around the tele gizmos. Always works. Let's see. In other news, let's see. Friday. Yeah. Friday night, me and my wife just got to go to Raleigh, North Carolina and see Nine Inch Nails live.

00;43;53;20 - 00;44;14;02
Roo
It'll be the the fourth time that I've been lucky enough to see Trent Reznor, play live with his band. And, it was a phenomenal show. I don't know if any of you guys are fans. I've been a fan since I was a kid. I think I got, pretty Hate Machine when I was 12 years old.

00;44;14;02 - 00;44;39;21
Roo
It was one of the first CDs I ever bought. I can remember the first three CDs I ever purchased were Pretty Hate Machine, garbage, the pink album with all the feathers on it, and then presidents of the United States of America, those three albums, three CDs for the first. First ones I ever bought. But yeah, Pretty Hate Machine was, was the jam back in, middle school, early high school.

00;44;39;21 - 00;45;08;20
Roo
And I've just been a fan ever since. He had a band or not a band? I'm sorry. A deejay open for him who was, German Iraqi DJ by the name of Boys Noise. That's a stage name. And he's apparently done some, remixes of some of Trent songs, and I guess I don't know how they got to know each other, but he opened up for him and it was an indoor show, which was really cool because I've only seen Nine Inch Nails outdoor so far.

00;45;08;22 - 00;45;36;28
Roo
And if you know anything about the band or if you've been lucky enough to see them live, they put on a really good show. So the the visuals that you see during a Nine Inch Nails show are incredible as far as like the special effects and, you know, the smoke in the air and the colors and the lights and it really is, something else, particularly when they're going into one of their, you know, really fast songs and it's just all working together and it's so kinetic.

00;45;36;28 - 00;46;01;06
Roo
It's it's quite an experience. But anyway, the way that the show started, we were up in Raleigh at the what is it, the Lenovo Center in Raleigh, which is where they play, Wolfpack basketball, which is our state college here, or one of our state colleges, NC State Wolfpack and, the DJ essentially opened the set up.

00;46;01;06 - 00;46;19;07
Roo
It's in an arena. So if you can picture like a, you know, big basketball court on the floor, essentially where they have, you know, the stage set up, but the DJ is on one side and he's like playing his opening set and everything. And then there is, what looks to be like a small stage set up in the very middle of the arena.

00;46;19;10 - 00;46;36;27
Roo
And then the main stage is set up all the way on the left side. From my point of view, we were up in the nosebleeds, by the way. I usually get pretty good seats to shows, but I think I got in late on the Nine Inch Nails tickets. I wasn't able to get great seats, but I was just happy to be in the building, to be honest.

00;46;36;29 - 00;46;56;12
Roo
So anyway, the middle stage had these giant curtains, that were covering it up so you couldn't really see what was happening inside of there. And then obviously the main stage had the curtains drawn as well. But anyway, there was no break at all between the end of the DJ set and the beginning of Nine Inch Nails.

00;46;56;15 - 00;47;20;27
Roo
The basically the DJ finished his song and then the curtains on that middle, stage just fell down. And, there was Trent Reznor playing piano. It was, it was something else, that opening number, he was just acoustic on piano by himself, and he did right where it belongs. I won't give you the whole setlist, but just a couple of highlights.

00;47;20;27 - 00;47;44;10
Roo
He did play The Perfect Drug live, which is always great. And then he did. I'm Afraid of Americans. The song that he did with David Bowie back in the 90s. Great song, by the way. If you haven't heard it, you'll listen to it now and then. He closed the show. The encore last song was hurt, which, Johnny Cash famously covered before he passed away.

00;47;44;13 - 00;48;06;27
Roo
May Mr. Cash rest in peace? One of my all time favorite musicians, without a doubt. So just a really awesome show. We've got a lot going on this week, too. I that's why I'm, like, squeezing this episode in on the recording time. But tomorrow night, we're actually going to, Columbia, to see Adam Sandler live.

00;48;06;27 - 00;48;30;26
Roo
So that should be a lot of fun. Very much looking forward to that. I've never seen him live. I've been a fan of his since way before. He was a, like, famous movie star. If any of you are my age, you might remember that Adam Sandler just had comedy tapes back in the day. That's kind of like what he got famous for was he would do audio skits.

00;48;30;28 - 00;48;59;19
Roo
And they were hilarious. Like, I'm talking about the goat, for example. Anyway, I'm a huge fan of his, so we'll get to see him. Jess is obviously a huge fan, too, and neither of us has seen him live. So we're heading down to Columbia tomorrow night for that. And then, we we knew this week was coming for, like, the last six months, and we knew it was going to be so hectic because we have like five, 4 or 5 things all within a seven day period.

00;48;59;19 - 00;49;21;13
Roo
Or normally we're just sitting at home doing nothing. Friday we have something called, Panda Fest in Charlotte where they're going to have like 200, Asian vendors show up and there's going to be like food and toys and gotcha pond and all kinds of fun stuff. And I get a panda pin, which I'm super excited about because I love pins.

00;49;21;15 - 00;49;46;09
Roo
And then we close the weekend out, with our, I guess you could say our anniversary week because the 11th or. I'm sorry, the 13th is our anniversary. We are going to see Beetlejuice live, so it's a play, for Beetlejuice and that's one of my wife's favorite movies. She's a huge Tim Burton fan. So anything Tim Burton, she's all about.

00;49;46;11 - 00;50;14;05
Roo
And, obviously Beetlejuice is great. We actually had a, debate the other day. Me and one of my coworkers, Matt. We will not really debate, honestly, because we were in agreement, but we both kind of agreed that, Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice. Not very good. Could have been good. Not very good, unfortunately. So I, you know, my my thoughts on the movie are it had three too many subplots.

00;50;14;08 - 00;50;37;24
Roo
They had like, all these different subplots going. There wasn't enough Michael Keaton on screen time. Catherine O'Hare is a national treasure, but she should not be expected to carry that entire two hour movie. And, that's what they put on her. When all we really wanted to see was Beetlejuice making wisecracks so they could have lost, like, the entire crazy ex-wife coming to get him story.

00;50;37;24 - 00;51;02;28
Roo
And I don't think anybody would have missed it. Lydia was great, too. Winona Ryder, that is. But, yeah, I had too many remakes, man. Too many. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about a really good, well done remake. I have no problem with it, but man, oh, man, they just they regurgitate so much stuff these days, and there's so much good content out there from books that could be taken.

00;51;03;04 - 00;51;25;18
Roo
And they just choose not to because they find that, you know, the old story is a known commodity and they only vote with their dollars. You know, you know, how the movie industry is and music industry for that matter. But I think that's really unfortunate because like we were talking about, X-Men, for example, are not X-Men specifically, but Marvel in the Marvel Universe.

00;51;25;20 - 00;51;49;03
Roo
And, you know, Matt was saying, like, how many times can you know, they do Spider-Man with a different person, yada yada? And I was saying X-Men would be an excellent, story to draw from if you wanted to, you know, do a reboot of Marvel Universe, the whole, Krakoa saga that just ended last year, before this current series that I'm reading, started.

00;51;49;05 - 00;52;07;17
Roo
It's an incredible story, and you could make great Marvel movies out of it. If you really, you know, took the time to do it. But, I don't suspect that they will, because that would be far too cool. Anyway, that's the end of the, the media rant for today. I appreciate you listening. So what do you guys think?

00;52;07;17 - 00;52;27;16
Roo
Will I be okay with the C8? Will I be able to, hook up a five, eight, five MCU pro to it and, off axis guider and just keep it moving? Or am I setting myself up for disaster doing this? I gotta polar align it before I can even get there. And I haven't been all the polar align because the stars look terrible.

00;52;27;23 - 00;52;48;10
Roo
I will say it did plate solve, when I had the 585 MK Pro hooked up last night, it did plate solved. No problem. I had to go in and clear out, but zero by the focal length and it even gave me the warning. It's a, you know, degrees too small, might not, plate solve, but it did end up plate solving and it did it pretty quickly.

00;52;48;10 - 00;53;05;01
Roo
So, you know, hopefully that is a sign of things to come. But I suppose time will tell. So I'm going to, cut it just a little bit early this week, guys, just because I do got a few things that I've got to take care of him. Like I say, going out of town tomorrow night after work, going to be a very late night.

00;53;05;08 - 00;53;22;29
Roo
And I want to make sure I get this episode out on time to you guys. So, that's going to do it for this week. Tune in with us next week. I'm going to keep working on the C8. If you're interested in getting one of those SSB only filter drawers, like I say, I'm going to have the link for that.

00;53;23;02 - 00;53;44;19
Roo
At the very top of the show notes, you'd be doing the show a solid, by giving us, like a 4% or something commission on the profits. So it's not much, but it helps, and I would greatly appreciate it. And I promise you guys, if you're looking for a filter drawer, that is the one to get, and I'll post a little video unboxing of it, on the Facebook page as well.

00;53;44;26 - 00;54;25;00
Roo
And speaking of unboxing things, real quick before we go, I just want to tease something. I actually, received a review sample, from a new, optical engineering company that is coming out on the market soon. And they have actually created a very high and light pollution filter. So it's called the Leviathan Optical Engineering Spectral Pro, and it actually promises a 98% transmission rate, if you can believe that.

00;54;25;07 - 00;54;45;07
Roo
If you don't know what that means, just know that 98% is extremely rare and they actually have the numbers to back it up. And the filter itself is capable of f two optics. So you can put this on a very fast lens like your, you know, Rokinon 135 and it's going to be able to handle it no problem.

00;54;45;09 - 00;55;17;01
Roo
So I have this, two inch mounted version. I want to say, big shout out, and thank you to the owner of the company, James, who has been an absolute champ. We ran into some issues with imports that were a complete nightmare. I just want to say thank you to the US government for making it incredibly difficult for a new business to get a review unit, to somebody who wants to tell the world all about that, that new piece.

00;55;17;01 - 00;55;54;14
Roo
So thank you, James, so much. I am going to be testing this filter, obviously, in the coming weeks, and I'll give you guys a full review of it. I plan on putting it up against my old pro, because that's the other, nice, you know, F2, two inch mounted filter that I have for light pollution. And I really do want to see how the two compare against each other because, you know, obviously living in typical, I would say, night skies that we have in the US these days, you know, bottle seven coming up on an eight, having a good light pollution filter is very, very important to me.

00;55;54;16 - 00;56;15;29
Roo
And I'm going to spend a little bit of money, if it means that I can get significantly better data and a much, shorter time. So stay tuned for that. Again, special thanks to James from Leviathan Optical. I can't tell you how honored I am, man. You are actually the the first company to send me a product to review, and that really means a lot, man.

00;56;15;29 - 00;56;38;08
Roo
So I really do appreciate that. It just shows, you know, the show is continuing to grow and take on new roles. And I can't wait to tell you guys all about this new filter. I wanted to have the, the review ready for this week's episode, but I didn't have time. I'm just being honest. I did have two clear nights, since I got the filter, but I just haven't had time to to use it yet.

00;56;38;08 - 00;56;56;05
Roo
But stay tuned for that. Hopefully with you next week or two. I will have a little bit more to say on that. Obviously, I'll try to take some photos and, post office, because that is going to do it. For this week's episode of the Astro cast. I am your host, drew. Thank you so much for listening.

00;56;56;08 - 00;57;09;07
Roo
And as always, Clear Skies.

00;57;09;09 - 00;57;24;08
Roo
Oh. 001.

00;57;24;11 - 00;57;39;12
Roo
Oh. Oh. Oh.

00;57;39;14 - 00;57;43;15
Roo
Oh.