Bignose13

Just a quick question, if I set the gain of this camera to 250 my darks are white out at 2 mins but if I drop the gain to 0 I get black frames 

I plan on shooting tonight on 250 gain so is it ok to have darks at 0 or have they got to be the same gain as the lights ? 
cheers 

6 minutes ago, Adam J said:

At f6 I would shoot 60second subs at 300gain. 

Thanks, I’ll give it a go next time out on the same target 👍

3 minutes ago, geeks said:

No worries. The initial learning curve can be a bit steep but once you have the basics down you are good to go. Have a watch of some youtube guides to get your flats sorted properly for when you do need them, fortunately your field is quite flat and your optics clean so I was able to run without them for you. In terms of your darks, no idea what would cause it but here is a comparison for you, top one is Dark 1, Bottom is Dark 8. You can clearly see the light leak top right. Even in Dark 8 you can see it there unless that is amp glow maybe. Also you need to make sure darks are shot at or as close to as you can get the same temperature as your lights. Light leak usually comes from focusers so make sure everything is covered and that you are in a darkened space when doing them, good news is they can be reused once you have a series of master darks at various temps etc.

 

What scope are you using? Do you have a bahtinov mask? This will allow you to get your focus just right and then you can lock the focuser off to stop it moving during imaging.

Scope is a SW72ED plus using a mask to focus, this was the first time I used the camera as I usually use a 600D astro modded and found fousing a bit of a pain compared to live view of the Cannon, I did rush a bit, 

14 minutes ago, geeks said:

You're welcome. I've uploaded the stacks etc for you and included a quick readme to cover which file is which plus the original pngs of the output I put on here for you.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!Aqjp7A3ixBHurck112KKBTFAJyke1w?e=CjHpg1

Thanks

This is all a bit new to me tbh

Cant understand why the darks had light leak, I had the cover on the scope with a towel over it as well, 

10 minutes ago, geeks said:

@Bignose13

A couple of things, first things first, you appear to either two sets of data there or you have drifted off target in your lights. Also you have quite a few that had to be excluded because the stars drifted in frame, also I would drop down from 5 minute subs to 3 minutes tops (you have massive star bloat) lastly your focus is ever so slightly out. Second, your darks have light leak bar darks 7,8,9,10 so I only used those. Your flats weren't right either, don't bother bias but use dark flats which are frames the same length and gain as flats but with the scope etc covered. 

That said I was able to get this out of it for you using 27 of your lights the four dark frames (flats in this instance weren't needed luckily). You can see there is a bit of cropping needed still. I ran a very quick process of them there is a little more you could pull out and play with the colours etc. I will upload the stacks etc for you to have a look at.

With stars:

Without:

Hope you like them!

Thats awesome mate, thnk you very much

Gonna use that as my wallpaper 

Just realised I havent updated this topic,

Rother valley agreed the complete kit was duff, after sending back to the supplier (Vision optical)who said not once but twice that they had fixed it and was exactly the same as when I sent it back to Vision optical, Alex at Rother valley said he'd replace it, had to wait about 6 weeks but when it arrived I fitted it and worked a charm, nearly 7 months of pulling my hair out was soon forgotten when I asked the mount to go to Deneb and when I took a shot, Deneb in the middle of the frame and no grinding noise from the motors, I'm well happy 

37 minutes ago, geeks said:

Google Drive? Drop Box? Onedrive? Or I can set one up where you can upload the files to if you like?

Hi Mate

I had to do Google as dropbox crapped out on me

Heres the link

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1c6Z0cXieu0C2Cpdxu4wUdph1QipYs8J3?usp=sharing

Thanks for this, appreciate it

Simon

3 minutes ago, geeks said:

Google Drive? Drop Box? Onedrive? Or I can set one up where you can upload the files to if you like?

Give me 5 mins, and I'll set up a dropbox link

Cheers

28 minutes ago, geeks said:

Walking noise aside, its possible you have a better image there than is being shown. If you are willing to make the subs and calibration frames available I would like to have a run at it to see if I can get anything better out of it for you.

Yeah sure, not sure how though tbh 

Yeah sure, not sure how though tbh 

I bought one of these ASI585 from FLO this week, tried last night on the Cygnus wall,  tbh I was a bit disappointed, maybe it was my settings I had in it through the asi air plus 🤷🏻‍♂️ or my processing skills in Photoshop
i shot 60 lights at 300 sec with 10 darks 50 flats and bias frames

the gain was set to 150 

Well it's official, It's knackered, 

Skywatcher asking for everything back, mount, motors etc  to investigate the problem, fair play to Adam at Rother Valley, 1st class service

I'll keep the thread updated, thanks for all the suggestions

9 hours ago, bosun21 said:

I also just bought the Synscan upgrade kit for my EQ5 and so far it’s working fine for me. I got much better accuracy once I centered my polar scope reticle as it was moving a lot when I rotated the RA axis. I don’t think that two of the upgrade kits will be faulty in succession and would be looking closer to home 

I'll double check mine, I'm pretty sure it's centered, I did it a few weeks back when the weather was rubbish and was bored

9 hours ago, malc-c said:

It's very doubtful that the firmware in the motorboard is corrupted, however as you stated the synscan unit is one of the new units, and thus should have a USB socket you could try and upload the current firmware from the skywatcher web site (just google "skywatcher firmware").  The main reasons for  gotos being slightly out are poor polar alignment (as mentioned, ensure the polar scope is aligned with the RA axis - no app or utility will be any use if the polarscope is out of alignment) or incorrect settings in the handset, which tend to be either the wrong date format or daylight savings are enabled when not required, or the wrong time zone is entered.

I was going to say that the only other possibility is that you were supplied with the EQ3 upgrade kit rather than the EQ5, but then that cant be the case as I'm sure the motors and gearing are different so it wouldn't physically fit, and there are too many variables from manufacture to posting it to you for that to be the case.

Does the scope sound OK when slewing, or does it sound as if gears are binding or jumping ? - Have you tried removing the motors and refitting them ( you still haven't answered Peter's question).

The motors sound fine tbh, but being the first goto mount I've owned I dont know if it's wrong or not, I can take a vid of it slewing if you like so you can hear the motors working, but everything sounds fine to me

23 hours ago, Cornelius Varley said:

Did you install the upgrade kit yourself? It could possibly be that you accidently installed the RA gear wheels the wrong way round. This would cause the mount to behave in the way you have described. A couple of photos showing the RA drive might help diagnose the problem.

Yeah I installed it myself, I'll get some pics uploaded today, 

Thanks 

Well I've just spent the last 3 hours trying to get this thing to do what I've paid it to do and still way off, I'm beginning to think the MCB or Hand controller is faulty, I had a faulty MCB when I bought the kit and this is a new one, so maybe this one id duff as well 

Yeah its the EQ5 upgrade kit, I use an app on my phone to see where Polaris is on the polar scope and move the mount to the same position, PA Align pro, Also when sending the mount to the home position the weights are down and the scope is pointing towards Polaris, the date is correct also, I inputted last night dates as 03/19/2022

I've even used NINA to polar align making sure the scope is pointing north to give NINA an easier job and get within 1 arcsecond, but even NINA is way off when I slew to a target, doesn't even track 😠

Hi

I have the EQ5 with upgrade kit and just cant get the mount to point in the object I'm seeking, I cant even get the 1,2 or 3 star alignment to work correctly, If I start the alignment process and set Rigel as the star then the mount slews in the general direction but is still way off the mark, I have polar aligned correctly and all the info has been put into the hand controller correctly, I triple checked everything

Any ideas before I sell up, this has been a few weeks now and I'm starting to get really frustrated, 

Cheers