RayWUK

21 minutes ago, Elp said:

This comes back to the query posted above I think. Are you using the LHS or RHS alt az/EQ mode firmware? (Ie if using in alt az mode only do you put the scope on the left or right pointing north, by default the azgti usually comes with the former firmware).

Also I haven't got it connected ATM but the Synscan Pro app has a setting under "settings > advanced > flipping mode" is there something there which relates to it. The mount certainly shouldn't be turning "underneath" in RA, the other suspect might be your location, is it correct?

Ah, didn't know the was a LHS/RHS Eq firmware option. There was not choice when i installed the EQMod firmware over a year ago. But i am using the mount in EQ mount mode. 

Ive looked at the flip setting settings but it only give Auto, off (once) and Forced (once) whatever that means. None of them seemed to make any difference. There's also a 'Trail Point Meridian Flip' whatever that is.

Theres also an 'Altitude Limit' in the settings, never touched this so no idea what that is. Upper Go To limit =75, Lower Go To = 0.

Location is correct.

Been trying to use my AZGTi in EQMod without the aid of my ASIAIR but having a problem.

I manage to do a polar align ok but when doing a two or three star align with stars on either side of the meridian stage things happen.

Start off in the home position, weight down, telescope pointing up towards Polaris. Set Betelgeuse as first star and Caph as second. When i start align procedure the RA turns through approx 270degress through the bottom of the mount and eventually ends up with the scope pointing near Betelguese. Then when going to Caph it goes back about 230 degrees through the bottom of the mount again. Surely it should go over the top of the mount. I've tried end to ending the scope on the Dec axis but it makes no difference. Anyone else had this?

Should add, it works perfectly with the ASIAIR.

Can anyone recommend a telescope for this mount for Galaxy hunting. My Redcat51 doesn't have the reach once you go beyond M33. I have tried M51 and M81 but I'm really cropping into get a decent sized image

50 minutes ago, fwm891 said:

I think there’s a polar alignment routine in eq mode under settings and advanced…

Thanks, I’ll check that out.

Is it possible to Polar Align the AzGti in EQ mode without the aid of a computer/ASIAIR just using the SynScan app say?

Hi All, not been here for some time due to lack of interest over the summer months with al the light evenings.

Thought it was time to get back into doing some imaging so powered up the rig this afternoon just to make sure it was still working and the first thing that happened was the ASI Air decided to update itself to version 2. Ahhhhhh another learning curve.

Added to that i purchased a ZWO mini filter wheel and a few filters back in the summer so that has to be fitted as well. We've had a few nice clear nights recently but its been much too windy for imaging.

Watch this space.

Ray.

1 hour ago, LaurenceT said:

You would think that would work but mine works the other way, it's easier to start off with a lower latitude and raise it, lowering is impossible.

That's very odd, you haven't got it set for lower latitudes? The peg that the two thumbscrews act against has two positions, one for low latitudes the other for high. In the UK you need it set for high latitudes. It's easy to change, just remove the latitude clamp bolt, move the peg to the other position and reassemble. I think its held in place with a set screw.

2 hours ago, LaurenceT said:

A short time ago I reported that I was having problems in polar alignment/plate solving with my William Optics wedge and my Asiair. I thought I'd overcome this problem so last night I thought the gods were with me and I could get actually get first light with my rig. Not so!

I stalled at exactly the same point as last time, adjusting the wedge in latitude. So this morning I did some further tests on the wedge and essentially found it was reasonable to adjust the latitude with zero load but became increasingly stiff the more it was loaded until it became jammed with my full rig, this rig being very light at 2.4kg.

I have contacted the vendor, I bought the wedge 10 months ago to use on my Skyguider Pro and had no problems. I searched the web for any other problems and found one identical to mine in a review of the wedge. It works just about OK using an M6 bolt from my collection and an Allen key, not ideal so I've sourced some M6 bolts with a large knurled head which may avoid the blistered finger from last night!

I thought I was upgrading in quality and performance when I purchased this WO premium mount. for $220.00
I was using a Sky-Watcher latitude EQ Base that was only $70.00. I noticed that on the first use that it was very difficult to raise the elevation of the mount when doing polar alignment using the small thumb screw because you are pushing 

against the weight of the rig. The Skywatcher uses a knob, it is easier to grip and you have more torque, Practically it makes it easier to do polar alignment, I am using an ASIAIr for Polar Alignment, I notice the WO product is the same as far as fine adjustments. The WO base is prettier and seems bouit better but they need to change that screw,It could make your fingers bleed trying to turn it on a freezing night, I am contacting Bob's Knobs or replacing it with a screw using Allen Head to get more torque,

 

Just a tip, start of with the latitude too high, that way you're not trying to lift the weight of the rig with the thumbscrew.

Manage to do a quick process my data of M51 taken during the same period as my M81 photo shown earlier with the new ASI533MC. Only 54mins of data (108x30sec) and again heavily cropped. No filters and Bortle 5 skies.

Nice thing about my Redcat, no Field Flatner required 🤣

55 minutes ago, herne said:

Not strictly related to the AZ Gti I know, however a lot of you use the ASI Air so thought I’d ask here rather than start a fresh thread somewhere.

I have 2 dew heaters - one for the main scope the other for the guide scope - which have USB connections for power.  At present I plug them directly into handy USB ports on my electric extension cable.  What I’d like to do is connect them to the ASI Air Pro via 2 of the 2.1mm power output ports to help my cable management.  I’m also trying to get rid of that extension cable as it’s exposed to the elements.  I found these adapters online in the Raspberry PI shop (there are similar things on Amazon too) which are female usb to 2.1mm jack adapters, and wondered if they might be any good or if anyone could suggest alternatives (short of buying new dew heater straps with sensible connections).  

They’re only a couple of quid each so might try them out anyway but figured I’d ask here first.

I bought 12v Lynx Astro Dew heaters which come fitted with 2.1 plugs and plug straight into the ASIAIR. The leads were much too long for me as my ASIAIR is mounted on the scope so i shortened the leads and re-soldered the plugs on.

34 minutes ago, AstroNebulee said:

 

Once you get into the swing of imaging you can push for longer subs.

Cheers 

Lee 

I've been watching a youtube video 'Deep Sky Astrophotography with CMOS cameras' by Dr Robin Glover of SharpCap fame.

He suggests (if i've interpreted right) that theres not a lot to be gained by long exposure subs beyond the 'ideal' for your 'Bortle and Light Pollution Rate'. Its all a bit techy but if what he says is true and i've got the right numbers in my spreadsheet, for my setup, my ideal sub is somewhere between 20-50 secs (Bortle 4.5) or 10-30 secs (Bortle 5). Hence my 30sec subs. The downside is the longer processing time due to the number of subs to get a decent total exposure time.

12 minutes ago, bomberbaz said:

I think that's a pretty decent effort that, slightly overdone maybe but who am I to talk given I haven't managed anything like that good as yet.

Colours in the stars are lively, well done. 

Thanks Steve, i'm hoping that i've got the image capture side more or less sorted now but being as this is a new game for me i expert there to be a few hurdles down the line. So i need to focus more on the image processing side and work out what turns an average image into a great image (or not so average). I guess i need to look at some 'pro' images to see what i need to aim at and work out how to get there. When you say slightly overdone do you mean over stretched?

5 minutes ago, AstroNebulee said:

Fantastic work Ray. Really pleased you've had your first light now and it's a superb image for your efforts 👍, looking forward to what you will achieve with your setup. 

How did you find your experience from pa through to packing up for the sessions. 

Cheers 

Lee 

Thanks Lee, yes quite pleased with the first image from this camera. I don't strip down my rig so it sits in the dining room by the patio doors so when i get the chance of a clear night its just a case of picking up the whole rig , through the patio door and onto the patio. I have some marks where to put the legs of the tripod so PA is just a final tweak which is a breeze with the ASIAIR and the WO wedge. Because of the light evenings now its about 10:30 before i venture out which only gives me about an hour of imaging before i call it a night, hence the three nights to get 2.5 hours of imaging. And the ASIAIR takes all the heart ache out of targeting an object. The nice thing with a portable rig like the AZ-GTI, its 'pick up and go'.

First light with my new ASI533MC Pro and the AZ-GTI, M81/M82 (Bodes Galaxy). 320x30sec subs taken over three nights, guiding mostly around 1-1.5 arcsec. Quite a small target for my focal length (247mm) so cropped in to about 1/3. Just a quick process with APP and StarTools to get something out, im sure it'll clean up a bit with some more work.

13 hours ago, AstroNebulee said:

Hope everyone else is having fun tonight. 

Cloudy here last tonight but i did manage 3x1 hour sessions on M81/M82 and a 1 hour session on M51 all with the new camera (ASI533MCPro) over the last few days. They're a bit small for my focal length but hopefully should get something worthwhile out of the data.  All need processing now.

1 hour ago, LaurenceT said:

I was worried it might be the expensive one 😅, I think I'd get away with the next one down as I'm still able to run the mount from another Talentcell power bank.

I have the Celestron PowerTank LT which is the smaller version, when i used the Canon 600D i would get about 4 hours running two 12V dew straps, AZ-GTI, Guide camera and ASI AIR Pro. Now i have the ASI533 MC Pro i suspect that will be reduced to about 2-3 hours as the cooling takes an additional 0.5 amps at -10deg. Having said that now the evenings are warmer i'm not using the dew straps so might still get 4 hours. 

BTW i've advertised the Canon 600D (Astro Modified) in the Sell/Swap section if anyones interested.

17 minutes ago, Olli said:

I am looking at a Eq wedge for the mount and have seen the star adventurer or the wo mount which is nearly double the price. What mount would you recommend out the two? 

If you can afford it, get the WO wedge. I've used both, the SA wedge is ok with a light setup, but a pain to use compared to the WO wedge when loading up with a few kg of imaging equipment. 

6 hours ago, AstroNebulee said:

Hi Ray

If you download the PHD2 log viewer here
PHD2 Log Viewer - PHD2 Guide Log viewing tool (adgsoftware.com)
 you can open the logs from the AAP into this and view your guide graph, calibration , check out all sorts of your settings used. I don't understand much of them to be fair but may prove useful. They have a total rms value for the whole imaging session and whilst I regularly guide around 1-2 rms or so I thought it works out to 3 rms normally even thought the RA and DEC get under 1 rms.  Just a bit of fun for me and we know the az gti cant be comapred to other big boys rms.  I'm not saying mine is right (which it most definitely isn't haha) but I like to look at it every now and again. I'd like to check mine out wurh the new meshing alterations I've done, when clear skies allow and sensible imaging nights without work. 😁

I presume that a Windows PC application. I'm a Mac user myself so i'll see if i can find something similar for the Mac. If not i have an old Windows laptop i could probably get it onto.

I think a lot of people get hung up on guiding accuracy and the need to spend all your money on a decent mount, as far as i'm concerned (and i'm no expert on the subject) if your guiding is less than the image scale of your imaging equipment then it should be possible to do reasonable length exposures (1-2min) without running into problems. My image scale with the Redcat and DLSR was 3.54 arcsec and now with the ASI533MC Pro its 3.1 arcsec. So as long as my guiding is less i should be ok. Thats my theory anyway which seems to be borne out by the images i'm currently getting. 

28 minutes ago, George Sinanis said:

Morning.

I am debating with myself the need to buy a full go-to portable mount and replace my Star Adventurer. Probably I will be getting the new SW Adventurer GTi when it will be available later this year.

Currently, I do have a SW Staradventurer with a WO Wedge which I’m using with WO Redcat51, Mini120 guider and Asiair Plus, combined with an ASI533MC.  My question is, which one would you consider best option for DSO astrophotography - for 2mins to 4 mins subs? Is the AZ-GTi superior to the the SA?

I am asking as I will be flying to Greece this summer and I am preparing a portable rig that I will take with me. To be honest, the one thing that always frustrated me with the SW SA is the need to frame correctly the target but, after that I could easily do 3mins subs with 1”-2” PE.

I think most of us on here started out with the Star Adventure and progressed to the AZ-GTI. I would say the AZ-GTI is every bit as good as the SA performance wise (if not better) but with the added go-to ability. My imaging equipment is the same as yours so you shouldn’t have any problems there although I am pushing the load limits. Still others here push it even further and still get good results.

As for the Star Adventurer GTI, if you can wait and can get over the double price tag of the AZ-GTI then I’d go for it. For me it doesn’t offer anything more than I already have so I’ll be sticking with the AZ-GTI until I feel the need for a bigger scope. But then the SA GTI wouldn’t forfill that requirement anyway.

1 hour ago, AstroNebulee said:

I've always set mine to 0.9x too. 

 

Nice guiding again Ray, do you have the total rms guiding figure that's in the guidelig on AAP. I usually have my guide stability 4" and 3 secs as I dither (but that's just my set up and not a suggestion to you 😊) I can't remember what scooe you have again? I'd go for longer subs now 2 - 3 mins should be a breeze. Nice work though Ray for your second time with it 👍

I started out with the guiding rate at 0.9 but found that I was getting a lot over overshoot in the corrections, reducing it to 0.5 seems to have smoothed it out a bit. I guess it’s one of them things you can fiddle around with and still get reasonable results whichever rate you choose.

Ill be downloading all my images and calibration files for the last two nights from the AAP this evening so will have a look at the guiding log. I’ve never opened a log so don’t know what I’m looking for, any pointers?

15 hours ago, bomberbaz said:

well done ray, can you screen shot your guide settings and also what were your subbing times please? Look like 30 seconds and did you dither?

OK Baz (Steve), here's some screen shots of my guiding settings, hope this helps.

11 hours ago, bomberbaz said:

well done ray, can you screen shot your guide settings and also what were your subbing times please? Look like 30 seconds and did you dither?

I'm hoping to get out again this evening so will do a screenshot of my guiding settings for you. Subs were 30 seconds, no dithering as yet. Last time i tried it took too long to settle between dithers so gave up but i didn't really know what i was doing then so will give it another try in the coming weeks. Theres just so much to learn with all this new kit but its all fun 😀

Another addition today. I was never happy with the SW vixen clamp on the AZ-GTI so i've substituted it for a Williams Optics clamp, another eBay purchase.

A few updates to my rig in the last week or so. Firstly the ASI AIR firmware updated to the latest Version (1.9), Secondly I sold my Star Adventurer so had to find a substitute for the 1kg counterbalance weight i was using on the the AZ-GTI in the form of a 32mm length of 40mm Dia. steel bar with a 6mm hole in the centre to bolt on the end of the counterbalance rod. Lastly and most excitingly a new ASI533MC Pro camera to replace the Canon 600D.

I had to re-balance the RA and Dec axis using the method shown on here a few pages back.

First night out with the new rig to night, polar aligned, focused and guiding on M81 within 15mins, the ASIAIR is brilliant and a real game changer in this respect. Managed and hour of imaging before i had to call it a night as i have an early start in the morning. Guiding was below 1.0" for most of the session and the previews of the images look promising. 

Here's a sample 30sec sub from the ASIAIR. Hoping to find time to process them tomorrow. 

27 minutes ago, AstroNebulee said:

The only difference I can see from my set up is the larger ra gear. So for this reason I shan't be investing  and save up for an eq5 pro 

If the dollar price equates to pounds as usual then I think there are other options to look at especially as it doesn’t offer any higher payload capacity than the AZ-GTI.