Starflyer

I think it you're using ST4 you need to recalibrate on every target change anyway. Any reason you're not using pulse guiding, it's just set and forget once you have a good calibration?

I'm a long time just of SGP trying to wean myself off it and onto NINA, this year I will make the move. It's unbelievable the pace that NINA is being developed, it's a truly amazing piece of software.

I'm sure you'll love it, over the last ten years I've owned two VX10's and now own a CT10, all with 1/10 wave mirrors all bought secondhand for bargain prices. I've never experienced the collimation problems reportedly caused by the thin tubes on the VX10s, and less frequently reported on CT10s, and I think I hang a fair amount of weight off them, CC, OAG, FW and camera. I've travelled relatively long distances with my scopes, Scotland on many occasions and France a couple of times with only a tweak needed to the primary collimation. The only thing I'd like to improve on the CT10 is the secondary spider, the vanes must be soft or too thin and twist / bend easily. I've had a few mirrors recoated by OO over the years and always had great service from them. That said I do personally know a couple of people who've had a hard time getting what they've ordered and paid for, either within the timeframe agreed or to an acceptable quality.

Sorry if I missed it somewhere in the thread, have you tried flipping the filters over? When I was reading up on Chroma filters the manufacturer was adamant that filter orientation didn't matter, they're plenty of threads on CN that prove otherwise.

By "starlight express v1" do you mean a Lodestar? If so stick with that for your OAG if you can, it's way more sensitive than the 120.

Have you tried reshooting a dark with the camera on in a totally dark place? I get a slight light leak on my QHY268M when shooting darks in a light room, I guess it's at a joint somewhere between the camera, filter wheel, OAG etc.

I've recently done this with a new focuser and I'll try and explain how it's done. There was a great thread here years ago with pics that showed how to do it but I can't find it now. This process assumes the new focuser will be centred in the existing focuser hole. Remove the secondary and focuser. Take a piece of thin card, a couple of inches wide and a couple of inches longer than half of the tube circumference. Hold the card tightly inside the tube with one end on the edge of the focuser hole, ensure it lays flat against the curve of the tube and mark the tube with a pencil at the end of the card. Repeat this on the other side of the focuser hole. You'll end up with two pencil marks opposite the focuser a few inches apart, find the centre of these marks and you have a centre line directly under the focuser. I did this by holding the card next to the two pencil lines, marking the lines on the card, folding the card in half, marking the centre and transfering the line to the tube. That's one dimension, now you have to find the centre of the focuser hole in the up / down direction of the tube. Measure the distance from the tube end to the near side of the focuser hole, call this A. Measure the diameter of the focuser hole, call this B. The distance from the end of the tube to the centre of the hole equals A + (B/2). One you know this, measure down from the tube and mark with a pencil, you should end up with a cross of pencil marks exactly under the centre of the focuser hole, I then marked this with Tipex so it was more visible. Fit your new focuser and use a Cheshire or other sight tube to ensure that your focuser points exactly at this point.

I think I just tamped my concrete down and it was reasonably level, I did set the wooden former level when I built it too.

After years of battling with collimation on Newts; my eyes aren't up to seeing what's going on accurately enough through a Cheshire or a Cat's Eye kit, I now have the best collimation and star shapes I've ever had. I could never tell whether the secondary was perfect until I bought the Ocal, and it was far from it, I even used it to set up a replacement focuser and get it dead square.

Bottom edge at 5 o'clock

Nice images, I can see the soap bubble quite clearly in both images, something I hope to get this season.

You're very welcome, looking forward to your first light, they're great cameras.

QHY also discuss the USB frame corruption problem here, look for this section in the FAQs; USB data corruption can also be caused by voltage/ earth leaks between equipment, this is discussed in the same FAQ, and has the potential (pun intended) to destroy your camera, mount or something else. It's easily tested for and you probably should before just putting the problem down to a USB cable problem. Before you start probing with a meter make sure you take note of their warning to do it with the camera, and probably everything else USB, disconnected first. You do this at your own risk, I've seen a mount mainboard destroyed by earth leakage.

Nice pier.

It's covered here Check what the sync behaviour is set to atm, if it's not "Dialogue Based" then this is your problem. Remember to clear your pointing model in EQMOD too.

I had this happen with platesolving when I started using EQMOD and SGP, I guess platesolving works the same in N.I.N.A. If you use EQMOD then check the sync setting, if it's saving sync points on every solve and adding them to a pointing model you'll end up in a situation where the pointing model fights the platesolving and they'll reach deadlock. For platesolving you don't want any pointing model being built, change the sync setting in EQMOD to Dialogue Based and clear any existing pointing model. This assumes your using EQMOD 😀

What mount are you using?

The moon's around atm, that's a nice easy target to help get good focus on.

Lovely image, good to see you back in the saddle Steve, I hope you're well.

It was just over one metre square and around 700mm deep.

Thanks for opening my eyes to this, I've done some reading and now this makes perfect sense. In the past I was only using the benchmark results and it appears the benchmark doesn't reflect real life use cases. I had super fast undo / redo though 😄 I'll revert to no RAM disk and set up the swap space on my nvme when I next process some images and see what difference it makes.

RAM disk for swap is way faster than nvme, like 10x plus faster.

I think it was ImDisk Toolkit, I'm away from my PC at the moment but that rings a bell. It loads at startup and I'd forgotten about it until you posted, it just works. I run the same nvme disk and it's fast, but a ram disk for PI's swap files is way faster. Screenshot your benchmarks, I'd be interested to see the progress as you tweak things.

A ram disk really helps, I can't remember my exact config but I have 32GB with 16GB dedicated to the ram disk, set as 8 scratch folders in PI, I think, Google will tell you more. There are some settings to make PI use your GPU for certain functions too, this speeds up star removal massively. Then there's the PI benchmark, you can benchmark your system upload the results and compare the results to other machines. Take a benchmark before you start tweaking so you can see how much of an improvement you're getting. Sorry I can't be of more help with the specific setup, but these should point you in the right direction.

You may be able to download a fresh copy of the Windows 10 iso and use your win 8.1 licence key, make sure you install the same version, Home for 8.1 Home, or whatever they called it back then. Or you can purchase a win 10 pro licence key for around £10.