CKP

Thanks M40, The software I'm using is sharpcap. I tried asilive last night and it was just white noise. I had to turn the brightness right down to get a darker background but then got lost trying to work it out. I will have to have a look for the sock, when I played with the finished image I could see light creeping in, maybe from a nearby streetlight.

I know I make alot of posts on the most basic things but I hope it helps others the same as it's helping me. I guess I got hung up on the amount of frames I used compared to the amount some people are using in the videos. I haven't got sharpcap pro yet, I thought I'd ust get used to the basics first.

Firstly, I think this sub forum should be called the CKP forum 😆 Is there a general settings guide on what to use for different targets. I'm guessing the settings for galaxies would be different to nebula and probably clusters too? I've done some reading and watched some videos on galaxy eaa and quickly realised m51 is the goto galaxy for tutorials, is it the easiest? These people make it look easy! I went out last night and tried to get an image of m51 with its spiral arms, not for photo quality but just to watch the image get clearer on each stacked frame. I got m51 centered and played with the exposure and gain. Everything went out the window and I settled on 10 second exposure and 200 gain. It looked the best settings on screen. After 20 frames, there were no arms visible, the image looked the same as when I first started the stack. I saved the image to see if I could play with it more. Once I loaded it onto my phone, I could see a little of the structure of the arms, not much but I couldn't see this while it was stacking? Is there something wrong I'm doing wrong? I've attached a photo which amazes me. I know it's basic to most so I want to learn and understand how to get better. 20 x 10 seconds exposure and 200 gain.

I tried for andromeda last night. I don't know what happened but I couldn't get any sight of it and sharpcap kept dropping frames rather than stacking. I could see 4 stars, one of which looked out of focus and I presumed it was andromeda.

Thanks Steve, I'd never heard of them. I have to collapse the truss a little to get focus with the camera, I wonder if the parfocal method would still work?

I'll have a look at that software, I did download it a few days ago.

Thanks happy-kat, I also use averted vision to see it, but without much detail, especially the hole in the middle. Last night blew me away when it appeared on the screen of my laptop! The sky is the limit from now on 😆

Thanks Mike, I would love to say that teasing out the central star was intentional, but it was just a case of beginners luck!

Most of the week I've been learning about my mount and how to use and align it. Firstly, I'd like to thank everyone for their advice on helping me get through this. I didn't have much time last night, but I really wanted to get the camera out. M57 is a target that eludes me in the eyepiece, I know where it is and I think I can see it, but I can never make out the hole in the middle to give it the overall ring shape. After doing a north alignment (I bought a cheap compass from gooutdoors to see if it's different to the phone app) I went straight to m57. Instead of putting the eyepiece in, I put the camera in. It was a blank screen. I set a 5 second exposure and straight away I could see the ghostly ring! The feeling was like looking at the moon through a telescope for the very first time! I tweeked the gain and then hit live stack. After 3 or 4 frames it was as clear as could be. I was happy but tired, I didn't want to push it anymore so called it a night and went to bed a happy chappy. Here is the original image I captured I also had a play in snapseed for the first time and have no experience in processing and was happy with how many extra stars I managed to pull out of the image aswell as making M57 a little clearer.

Last night it just seemed to click. I done a one star alignment on Polaris, starting from the home position. This time I used an app, thanks @AstroNebulee to find north. I then manually centred it. I then did it with Arcturus and Mizar. After I'd done these 3 single alignments, I typed in Polaris and hit goto. Once it slewed, it was just off centre in the eyepiece. I tried it doing a 3 star alignment and by doing the north alignment too. The target was inside the eyepiece everytime! I think finding true North using a compass instead of using Polaris as a guide is what made it more accurate. One thing I've learnt with goto is that if it's just visual your doing, using technology takes the fun out it. Starhopping is part of finding your target. Now I need to learn how to use the camera and start doing some EAA. Thanks for everybody's help.

That makes sense. Is it best just to use polaris as north. If I was to go for true north, I would be using a phone compass app. I'm not sure a phone acting as a compass would be accurate?

I'll try doing this on a few of the stars i have available.

I have to admit some of this goes straight over my head, in time though I'm sure I'll understand 😆

Thanks, I will try the different alignment options, it may be that one might be more accurate. I will have to check the firmware as I haven't updated it yet.

What is pae? I haven't seen many dso's so was hoping to get a little more accuracy, especially as I want to put my camera on them for eaa. Obviously, its still early days yet though.

Thanks, I never thought of using the 10mm for fine tuning. Hopefully I'll get my head round it at some point 😆

I use the synscan app on my phone and it automatically connects using the phones settings I think? I do hope it gets easier 😆 I learnt more last night than I did a couple of nights before, I could really do with a few clear nights now!

How can I tweek the accuracy that final bit more? I went out last night fighting with the clouds and started to understand this mount better. I made sure the bubbles were level on both the tripod and the mount. I was using synscan on my phone so I knew the time, date and coordinates were accurate. I found Polaris in the 25mm eyepiece and then lowered the telescope to the horizontal position. I connected to synscan and chose the North alignment. Polaris and Arcturus were the best stars to use given the situation with the clouds. When slewing to Polaris it stopped short so I had to finish aligning it manually. By doing this I learnt you have to do it via the buttons and not push it for better accuracy. When it slewed to Arcturus, it was just outside the field of view. I manually aligned it and then went to mizar with the same result. This is the most accurate I can get, can it be better? Thanks.

It's always the simplest thing that get overlooked 😆

Hi Happy-kat, I found the emulator button in the app. When I click on it and then try to slew the scope, nothing happens. I've tried searching the Internet about the emulator but there ain't much information out there.

Thanks Lee, I shall do this and I think the key is one step at a time.

Thanks Lee, I shall watch this later. The camera i have is a zwo asi178mc.

Thanks Pixies, I never had this manual, I shall have a read of this later. Hopefully its what I've been missing.

Hi Steve, I think I definitely bit of more than I can chew last night, I will definitely go one step at a time. The manual supplied with the mount doesn't actually talk about the use of the mount, it only really shows how to set it up and turn it on.

Hi Zermelo, Looking at it now, that makes perfect sense. Thanks.