Woke up last night ....

[Earl]

Blurry eyed at 2am i looked at the cloud sensor readout on the obsy laptop via teamviewer to be reward with Green all clear!

Well that is worth waking up for i guess. I start clicking buttons, everything comes to life, slew to target, run the autofocus routine, which didnt work last night, to be presented with a fine v cuve and good focus, excellent i thought,

OK plate solve and centre my target.... nadda it just would not solve much to my surprise as the fit it was solving had plenty of good stars on it...

oh well i manually aligned it via some small slews and was pretty close to what i wanted and set it off gathering subs.

600s later... sub downloads.... clouds roll in.....

PFFT !

serosuly glad i didnt have to leave the warmth of my bed to do all that for a single sub, which ill now trash as ill do a solve next run and get it pixel perfect.

[VikkiFord]

That's just laz.... I want!

Sounds typical, I bet you looked at the sensor as a nice hole in the cloud went by, just the way. As you say (grinds teeth) you didn't have to get out of (gnash-gnash) bed to do it.

Talking of grinding teeth I awoke at 5am to bad jaw pain. I'd been grinding and compressing my teeth in my sleep!!! Flippin' hurt it did, oh, and it was bright as day outside. Hmmm, perhaps it was an omen of going to be hearing of a certain someone running their telescope from their - BED!!! LOL!     

[Earl]

Its not as lazy as I want mind, ACP when i get ready for it,

It will do all that itself without me needed to do a thing.

Well that's the plan anyway,.

Wake up check folder to see if anything happened over night.

[VikkiFord]

"Wake up check folder to see if anything happened over night."

LOL! You made my day   

[Astroboffin]

Well to be quite honest, I am sorry for saying this, but that is not astro imaging as I see it, to be able to image from the comfort of your bed is, just to wake up in the middle of the night and look at a laptop for me just cheating, if you have the sort of money to be able to do this, with automated cloud sensors and all that, ok they have there place in this hobby, but spend it on a better camera or mount or something at least, rather than just being plain lazy and not bothered to get out of bed.......

Surely it takes all the fun out of it, well it would for me....!!

Sorry To be so blunt, but just my opinion, that is not what this hobby is about.....

AB

[Earl]

Well to be quite honest, I am sorry for saying this, but that is not astro imaging as I see it, to be able to image from the comfort of your bed is, just to wake up in the middle of the night and look at a laptop for me just cheating, if you have the sort of money to be able to do this, with automated cloud sensors and all that, ok they have there place in this hobby, but spend it on a better camera or mount or something at least, rather than just being plain lazy and not bothered to get out of bed.......

Surely it takes all the fun out of it, well it would for me....!!

Sorry To be so blunt, but just my opinion, that is not what this hobby is about.....

AB

 could you back that up with an example how i would benefit from a mount upgrade or ccd? examples and data to back up that conclusion, would be appreciated real world experiance also would be very usefull with images to back up those conclusions?

a clound sensor is around 350-400 ish, so that would be the budget.

[admin]

Well to be quite honest, I am sorry for saying this, but that is not astro imaging as I see it, to be able to image from the comfort of your bed is, just to wake up in the middle of the night and look at a laptop for me just cheating, if you have the sort of money to be able to do this, with automated cloud sensors and all that, ok they have there place in this hobby, but spend it on a better camera or mount or something at least, rather than just being plain lazy and not bothered to get out of bed.......

Surely it takes all the fun out of it, well it would for me....!!

Sorry To be so blunt, but just my opinion, that is not what this hobby is about.....

AB

AstroBoffin - please don't be abusive to other members of SGL - this is against our code of conduct and frankly, is downright rude. It is not up to you, me or anybody else to judge what is or isn't astro imaging and what constitutes 'being plain lazy'.

You have every right to your opinion but it could have been phrased in a way that wasn't rude or abusive towards anybody else and also, within the rules of our Code of Conduct.

[NickMorris]

Well said that Admin type person.......each to their own.......

Automation IMHO is the only way to gather enough data with the weather that we have in this country and also balancing a working life.  Can't wait to see your output once ACP is up and running - Good luck with the project!

all the best

Nick

[ronin]

To me slightly amusing.

AB you have reacted a bit over the top as they say, imaging especially if RGB can be a long old time to get the exposures required. So grabbijng what you can when you can means automating things is a reasonable approach.

Equally there was a post not that long back that was titled something like "Is using a goto cheating?"

No-one stepped in to point out that many astonomers, guess 2/3 on SGL, have goto's so do not imply they are cheating.

[Scott]

sounds brilliant Earl. for me, one the capture software is doing its thing, then ap is .....boring...I'll run and hide now . That is until it comes to the processing. it would be intersting to pick a target and have the rig image it for every available minute over the period of a month. I still think I'd struggle to get 10 hrs of subs

[D4N]

Oh well you can't win every time. At least you got something to show for your troubles though. The only thing I get to see if I get up that early at this time of year is sunrise [emoji53]

Roll on Winter and dark skies!

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Scott]

Oh well you can't win every time. At least you got something to show for your troubles though. The only thing I get to see if I get up that early at this time of year is sunrise [emoji53]

Roll on Winter and dark skies!

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I thought you were going to say the toilet 

[Astroboffin]

Well I wish I had a spare £350 to 400 ish to spend on a "cloud sensor" my eyes were free so I go and check, or is that a bit old fashioned now..... I guess it is

Sorry if people are upset and I have broken some of the rules, it was just my opinion....

I thought this hobby was all about the chase as it were, getting all your kit to work at the same time and then seeimg that first image coming up on the screen, to me that is the buz, as there are so many night when things don't go to plan.

To wake up in bed to the sound of an alarm on a laptop to say the clouds have cleared, I think is a little over the top.....

Well like I say sorry if I upset anyone, but am surely entitled to my opinion....

I won't say another word about it as I don't want to get into trouble.

Regards

AB

[Earl]

I have spent a good 6 months getting this kit to play ball and its been a fight and a half, now its time to reap the rewards.

I still have round two of migrating over to new software also, whch is going to take most of the summer to get right i think.

Lots to do rest assured

[steppenwolf]

A frustrating episode for you, Earl but such is deep sky astrophotography!  This is why we in the UK find all sorts of ways of extracting every last minute of imaging time that we can and automation is just one way of doing this - a very good and logical way at that, though.

Balancing long hours capturing data with a family life and a work-life can be very difficult and using automation to 'cover' for you while you get on with other stuff (even sleeping) has nothing to do with laziness - quite the contrary, the great effort required to gain the funds, design the system, implement it and resolve all the complex issues that automation generates is not for the faint of heart or the lazy.

[Astroboffin]

6 months.......wow

I have spent 4 years trying to get everything working together, what an idiot I must be, and I still am having issues, how to you get it all working so quick, I need some tips please, it's so frustrating.....

Regards

AB

[Physopto]

Hi Earl,

Good luck to your efforts. I completely agree with going auto if possible. The weather is so often against us. I also think as I get older and bits start to fail more often that any way of making my life a bit easier is the way forwards. I am evaluating ACP at present. Hopefully I will get it sorted out as soon as possible. So good luck to you, it is a long haul learning new software, at least for me it is.

Derek

[Earl]

6 months.......wow

I have spent 4 years trying to get everything working together, what an idiot I must be, and I still am having issues, how to you get it all working so quick, I need some tips please, it's so frustrating.....

Regards

AB

6 months with this current configuration, terrible weather slows it unfortunatly. but i have spent several years getting to that point.

[Sp@ce_d]

+1 for ACP

Best investment I've made so far in this frustrating but addictive hobby. It's the only way, in the UK at least, I've found to have any hope of getting those subs. That's if I want to keep the wife, job & have a life not spending daylight hours feeling like a zombie [emoji3]

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[mdstuart]

I am a visual observer...but...

I have set up an email alert on my web server that sends me an email if the sky is clear at my local airport....

However I can turn off my phone!

Mark