Yup - I’d like to stay with Voyager. One reason is: THERE’RE SO MANY FRICKIN’ THINGS TO REDO IN NINA!! Focus after meridian flip? Sure, I think I did that. Time sync? Not on my 10Micron, thank you very much! IT’S ENDLESS! But what else am I doing with my life? I mean, I’m a writer; I make my own schedule. Sheesh!
I whinge, but it’s all in good fun. Sorta. Sometimes. Maybe. GOD SAVE ME FROM ALL THESE SETTINGS!!!!
mzaslove · Oct 31, 2025 at 06:54 PM
Yup - I’d like to stay with Voyager. One reason is: THERE’RE SO MANY FRICKIN’ THINGS TO REDO IN NINA!! Focus after meridian flip? Sure, I think I did that. Time sync? Not on my 10Micron, thank you very much! IT’S ENDLESS! But what else am I doing with my life? I mean, I’m a writer; I make my own schedule. Sheesh!
I whinge, but it’s all in good fun. Sorta. Sometimes. Maybe. GOD SAVE ME FROM ALL THESE SETTINGS!!!!
Tell me which settings you’re working through. I can send you screen shots of mine. All the meridian flip stuff is in the sequence I sent you.
And the good news is, if you end up using NINA you can pretty much let it run and check it 10 days later. No babysitting. No crashing. And the only reason it stops after 10 days is because it’s programmed to do so. Otherwise, hands off. It’s almost made astrophotography boring. I might go back to Voyager just to spice things up.
menelmacar · Nov 3, 2025 at 04:25 PM
What are the challenges taking flat frames with the e160. I’ve got my scope setup ready, just wait for for my new-to-me Mach2. I have the deep sky dad flat panel that I have mounted to my Rouz dew shield. I’ve read on this thread that panel flat do not work well and suggested sky flats. A few questions for the experts.
Has anyone had success with panel flats? It’s so what are the best practices?
if I need to use sky flats, I would image you don’t uses a consistent exposure period that would require a large library of “darks for flats”.
I use sgp now and would like to avoid learning another software like Nina.
thanks
Can’t help you with the flat panel, but to answer your question on sky flats, you calibrate with bias, not flat-darks. No dark library needed. Both NINA and Voyager automate the exposures to hit the desired histogram, making sky flats both easy and free. Haven’t looked at SGP in years, so no idea how you’d do sky flats there.
So, an update: redid my Voyager profile and cleaned stuff up (not really much of anything), and Voyager has been working great (the occasional hiccup in syncing a rotator plate solve at the beginning of the night, but then it retries and gets it. It always gets it on the retry. No reason why). I personally believe this is because of the threat of my going over to NINA. It knows!
Thanks to everyone for help, and I am still setting up NINA, but I don’t want to use it. It’s still less efficient to get from point A to point B in my head. But I will keep threatening Voyager with it.
Thanks all!
Hi guys,
Thank you all for the contribution, I have just started with the Epsilon madness and with the stock focuser I cannot get passed the 15% tilt with my heavy mono setup and the ETA and also it seems whenever I collimate it with either the Tak tools or the Ocal there is always a bad corner with half moon shaped stars, then I adjust the tilt with the ETA ..manually .. but when I refocus with my Oasis focuser I have to redo the tilt apparently 🥴
I am based in Italy and I was wandering if any of you is testing the Esatto 3.5” LP with the Epsilon 160ed adapter, Optec here especially after the tariffs is out of market.
Thanks
Hi,
Antonio Parisi · Feb 23, 2026, 03:24 PM
I am based in Italy and I was wandering if any of you is testing the Esatto 3.5” LP with the Epsilon 160ed adapter, Optec here especially after the tariffs is out of market.
I'm based in Germany.
It's really hard to find Optec equipment here, and if you do find something, it's so expensive that you usually don't buy it.
The PLL Esatto 3.5” LP seems to be the perfect replacement for the Optec focusers.
I'm currently considering buying an Epsilon 160ED with the PLL Esatto. I don't want to deal with the problems that the original focuser can cause.
Two things to keep in mind:
When you are using an OAG in front of a filter wheel or slider, it can get complicated to fit it in, because it may collide with the PLL focuser.
Adding a rotator to the imaging system can also be complicated. Rotators with larger motor housings, like the Wanderer or ZWO ones, cannot fit because they will collide with the PLL focuser.
The 2” PLL Arco can fit, but at 20 mm thickness it is quite thick, and in my case (ZWO wheel + ToupTek 571 mono) it won’t work. You would need a thinner filter wheel, such as the Wanderer Snowflake series.
However, only the 2” versions are thin enough. For full frame you need the 3” version, which is 23 mm thick, and that becomes difficult to use because you will also need additional adapters.
The PLL Esatto adapter kit for the focuser has three grub screws. When you loosen these screws, you can rotate the imaging train. But personally, I would prefer an automatic rotator.
Greetings from Germany
Brian
Hi, Brian thanks for the feedback, a friend in the UK discouraged me from using it.
The moonlite with the adapter to mount its engine further easy from the focuser tube should be the solution for fitting an OAG(maybe the DUO could solve this ) or fitting an ETA like in my case.. but again too expensive.. I have the Oasis adapter on to stabilise the focuser but it's doesn't allow me to fit the ETA 🙈…so I think I will try to stick with it and make my image train lighter …in any case I will wait for someone to leave a full review on this…or new buyers should wait for Takahashi to get their acts together with these focusers.
The Artec with the Pegasus focuser built in is a good bet Luca Bartec reviewed it a couple of months ago on YouTube.
Antonio Parisi · Feb 23, 2026, 03:24 PM
I am based in Italy and I was wandering if any of you is testing the Esatto 3.5” LP with the Epsilon 160ed adapter, Optec here especially after the tariffs is out of market.
I'm based in Germany.
It's really hard to find Optec equipment here, and if you do find something, it's so expensive that you usually don't buy it.The PLL Esatto 3.5” LP seems to be the perfect replacement for the Optec focusers.
I'm currently considering buying an Epsilon 160ED with the PLL Esatto. I don't want to deal with the problems that the original focuser can cause.
Two things to keep in mind:
When you are using an OAG in front of a filter wheel or slider, it can get complicated to fit it in, because it may collide with the PLL focuser.
Adding a rotator to the imaging system can also be complicated. Rotators with larger motor housings, like the Wanderer or ZWO ones, cannot fit because they will collide with the PLL focuser.
The 2” PLL Arco can fit, but at 20 mm thickness it is quite thick, and in my case (ZWO wheel + ToupTek 571 mono) it won’t work. You would need a thinner filter wheel, such as the Wanderer Snowflake series.
However, only the 2” versions are thin enough. For full frame you need the 3” version, which is 23 mm thick, and that becomes difficult to use because you will also need additional adapters.
The PLL Esatto adapter kit for the focuser has three grub screws. When you loosen these screws, you can rotate the imaging train. But personally, I would prefer an automatic rotator.
Greetings from Germany
Brian
menelmacar · Mar 24, 2026 at 09:22 PM
I need input from anyone who has a Hercules rotator on their E-160. I've collimated and adjusted the tilt to, what I believe a good result. However when I rotated the camera my tilt, based on the ASTAP analysis it went all to hell. My plan was to go back to square one and determine if my Hercules saddle is still positioned correctly and then re-colllimate, etc. Any suggestion are welcome
Regardless of what ASTAP says, how are the stars? How are they after BXT?
menelmacar · Mar 24, 2026, 09:22 PM
I need input from anyone who has a Hercules rotator on their E-160. I've collimated and adjusted the tilt to, what I believe a good result. However when I rotated the camera my tilt, based on the ASTAP analysis it went all to hell. My plan was to go back to square one and determine if my Hercules saddle is still positioned correctly and then re-colllimate, etc. Any suggestion are welcome
It’s possible your secondary is tilted a little bit. You are compensating for some of this axial alignment error with your tilt device to cancel it out a little, but then when you rotate, the tilt adjustment conflicts with the alignment. It’s also possible that the rotator is introducing some error. When you collimate, have you verified that it holds collimation with the eyepiece as you rotate the focuser? I’ve found OPTEC rotators to be very reliable though. Most likely it is just a little collimation to work on.
Hello everyone,
Yesterday I received my Epsilon 160ED with the PLL ESATTO 3.5” LP.
Compared to the original focuser, the ESATTO makes an extremely solid impression.
I’m really looking forward to using it for the first time.
So far, I’m very impressed.
📷 1.jpeg
📷 2.jpeg
📷 3.jpeg
📷 unnamed (1).jpg
I was able to add an OAG, rotator, and ETA using the following gear:
Epsilon OTA
Hercules Focuser
Epsilon Corrector
M54 male-to-male adapter: 2 mm
M54 spacer: 6.5 mm
Wanderer ETA: 5 mm
QHY OAG M: 10 mm
QHY Spacer: 7 mm
Wanderer FW: 14 mm
Camera / ASI6200MM: 12.5 mm
Total backfocus: 57 mm
(56.2mm + 3mm filter thickness = 57.2mm)
Without changing collimation, and by using only the ETA, I can already see that my star shapes have improved a lot.
📷 unnamed (2).jpg
📷 unnamed (3).jpg
Does an OAG still get enough light with a fullframe camera?
I’m currently thinking about buying an OAG to replace my guide scope.
I’d like to save some weight.
What are your experiences with this?
Brian · May 29, 2026, 05:54 PM
Does an OAG still get enough light with a fullframe camera?
I’m currently thinking about buying an OAG to replace my guide scope.
I’d like to save some weight.What are your experiences with this?
Yes, with ASI290mm mini, I get enough stars wherever I am pointing at. I am alway able to get multi-star guiding with at least 5-10 stars. Just reminder, OAG field of view is brighter than the corner of the full frame.
📷 full frame.png
Thanks for the explanation!