Trippelforge

Geez, I wonder why they are so loud? I have a dual motor Celestron kit and can't hear it unless I put my ear next to it.

Wow... it's that loud? I wonder if that's normal... did you reach out to AP and ask? Glad to hear it seems well made and easy to use. I contacted him about the Ukraine situation and he said his company was located far away from the chaos.

I ran everything through the AP tool and was pretty shocked at how much FOV I was losing with the Uranus-C. I then tossed on a reducer and saw how much I could get back, although making sure I buy the correct one has been a bit confusing. I asked around and it seems I just need to make sure it matches my scope specifications. Although many of the manufacturers are telling people that they won't work with anything besides their own scopes. Regardless I am solely doing AP, and targeting DSO's. I also am using a refractor (80mm) so it seems I am lined up in regards to a flattener / reducer. I have gotten SO MANY opinions across various forums on if I should or shouldn't pick up a Uranus-C. Obviously though you have been happy with the Uranus-C, I always felt like as a budget option it would be a nice upgrade over my old 500D, but a lot of people are kind of scoffing at the idea. So once again I got stuck... new DSLR, 1k+ AP camera... ugh

What does EEVA mean? Thanks for explaining everything to me, I feel much more educated on the topic now. My main issue at this point is worrying about the FOV. I had no idea how small the Uranus-C was FOV wise until this morning when using the tool. So I have gone out now and started to research focal reducers to see if I can open that up a bit.

OK so I am doing what people normally do. I think what kind hung me up a bit was when comparing two camera's not far apart and thinking "is it worth it?". And then running through the specs and not seeing much difference.

Thank you for explaining that, it makes sense. Quick question, how do people focus in on a particular wavelength? With just starting out my only association with focusing is simply using a bright star. So in your final opinion the Uranus - C hasn't been a bad camera? I planned on using it as a budget DSO for now. My stupid 500D has been having some sketchy problems. But so many people in the other forums keep trashing them and pushing me to start out without something at the 1k price point. I can't afford that though. lol

I have been shopping around and trying to compare various dedicated camera's. Each one on say ZWOs website lists a bunch of specs along with a page of graphs. When I line them up I get a bit stuck when comparing. I understand that low read noise has a strong correlation with desired dynamic range. And when you line them up you find a sweet spot that falls on the gain scale. But that's where things start to get confusing, such as I am not sure if one location on the gain scale is better than the other. Such as if this (sweet spot) point falls around 180 gain, is it better than if it were 100 gain. Man that probably sounds confusing... I hope it sort of makes sense. lol My main curiosity like the title says is how are people comparing the various models? Currently I am trying to find reviews, looking up astrobin examples and scouring forums. But when I have bought anything else (even DSLR) I could just line them up and see pretty easily which was better. Which kind of works for anything you buy in life... however for some reason the CMOS camera's are hard for me to do so. Which is probably due to so many other "specs" listed. Any advice on how to do this?

Thank you that clears it up. Do you have the IMX585 chip? I am now curious if it would have focus issues without a filter.

I just looked at their posted graph and noticed that's where it stopped. I did notice as you said that the red and green were still rising when they had hit the 400 limit though. But I obviously don't really know how that works (figured it was a cut off point). When imaging DSO's what is the reasoning behind blocking the IR band? Is it just not needed for certain targets / causes actually degradation of final images?

I have been digging into spectrum ranges due to learning that modified DSLRs list out various options. I also noticed the IMX585 seems to cut off prior to falling into the UV range (via it's website graph). Another user in a post said: I don't see anything in the player one listing directly addressing that question. Any idea on the answer if the question is important?

While looking through various camera's I am coming across graphs showing the wave lengths of each. The one thing that stands out to me is how some are being listed between 400-1000nm. Which obviously does not allow the capability of gathering UV light. My entire thought process revolved around dedicated camera's having "naked" sensors. Which I based off of the fact that removing filters is one of the reasons people modify their DSLR's, in particular UV/IR. How does it really work, I assume I am completely confused!

I was looking at all of the charts and not extremely educated on what a lot of it means. I know the basics, but something like "high gain cut off point" I do not (which is prob a basic, lol). My intention is to use it for DSO's, emission nebula, galaxies etc. I never considered these price point models as I got a lot of negative feedback on the mere idea of not dropping 1,000 bucks on one. But then I started to come across conversations and videos about how capable they actually are. Anyhow, I only mention all that due to hoping you might be able to tell me a few things to look out for as far as specifications. Like the high gain cut off, what value is the most important for DSOs for instance?

So what is the general consensus on ZWO vs Player-One in regards to the IMX585? I was looking at picking up a Uranus-C , but not so sure now.

That makes more sense, so your capabilities in general have to be pretty damn high in order to even think about the method. That would explain why some of the articles were showing giant hubble sized dobs... LOL

I have been recently coming across this term and had never heard of it before. I looked it up and read an article and my take away was that it pretty much is taking hundreds if not thousands of short exposure images. And then go on to stack them and throw away a lot of frames to avoid atmospheric aberrations for instance. A few of the examples I saw showed very detailed and impressive images. The head scratcher for me is how are people taking 1-2 second frames and pulling in enough data to produce anything, even with a massive stack? I have no be confused on what it means, and the process though.

Old thread but I have been considering the EQStarProEQ3 (for my CG4) as I can't afford a new mount. I currently have the dual motor Celestron kit that looks like it came from wish. So I was curious how everyone is doing with theirs today and if they are still happy with it? Also it's mentioned the guy is shipping out of Ukraine... I wonder how that's currently working out.

OK so there is a point when the exposure times are so long that read noise etc gets out paced by the "good" image data. I always had assumed that it worked the opposite way. Taking that into consideration I REALLY need to upgrade my motor drive system, 30-40 second crap isn't cutting it.

Some people pointed out that when stacking short exposures it increased the signal to noise ratio. So is that simply not true, or does the read noise pile on as well and make things worse unless I extend exposure time? I keep getting a bit confused, obviously I can simply experiment and see though. My simple situation (as I probably mentioned) is that my son and I took a bunch of 30 second images. Our idea was to hit Andromeda for more 30 second exposures each night for additional stacking. Which obviously the thought process that the stacked image would improve over time. Taking into consideration of your explanation it seems signal to noise won't ever build up enough to become detrimental to the process. Sorry I have been getting somewhat confused, as is it seems that I am getting some conflicting information.

I has no idea this forum was UK centric. That explains why so many store links are not based in the US (lol). I came across one, but it's very disorganized in my opinion and hard to nail down exactly what you want. It's extremely active though and things that are decent deals sell instantly. I really like how easy this forum is to navigate and how clean it looks. I wish CN would get an update at some point (I am sure it won't). I use the PC screen so it may not be a huge deal for me? Or is there another reason why an articulating screen would be helpful? So the wifi capability is only to a phone? My old 500 connects directly to my PC.

I believe it is 1600, that is what I have been shooting at. I do have a polar scope and have spent a lot of time calibrating everything. Polaris stays on the circle line pretty dead on when I spin it, so I am hoping it's good enough. I had a hell of a time tweaking it though with those stupid tiny set screws (lol). However I do notice a tiny bit of trailing when I go over 40-45 seconds. It's very slight but obviously builds from there so I am not tracking perfectly. I don't know how to get it aligned any better though, however I can't rule out the motor drive (which I am looking to replace). 60 seconds might be doable though if I don't zoom all the way in on the stars and get critical. Thank you, I will keep that in mind when we start going down the ladder in regards to magnitude. I suppose at one point we will hit a limit due to LP and need darker skies. The best thing I can get to is Bortal 3, which is about 3 hours away. Although I have already been planning a little camping trip with my son in order to do that.

Sorry, I am not sure how to put a signature in my posts here. I noticed the about me section, but nothing else. Barska 80mm ED @ f/7 Celestron CG-4 with tracking (non-connecting) Canon 500D Bortal 5

Shorter exposures = less noise, so a ton of shorter exposures will keep building up the image. If I try take longer exposures the noise will increase to the point of not getting as much "good" data out of each frame. So if I am understanding right it's all about balancing and 2 hours vs 30 minutes will net a better image. So I probably should get more. Sorry just trying to make sure I am understanding. Thanks for the detailed explanation. So "how much time" basically means I probably can keep going until I hit the diminishing return wall. Which I probably will notice eventually when the stacked image because crap. I told my son that we may want to move to Andromeda each night, and snap 15 minutes just because. And eventually after several hours may have a much more detailed result. I just didn't want to keep going into the several hour range if there wasn't much point.

My son and I took 30 x 30 second exposures of Andromeda. Once stacked the image we got was pretty amazing, so the assumption we had was that taking even more images would keep increasing the detail and quality overall. So we went out and took another 30 x 30 and stacked those on top of the others, tet we couldn't discern much in the way of any changes. So back to the title question; is there a limit or massive jump that needs to be taken to really improve the end result? Such as perhaps 30 more exposures isn't going to do much, but for example 90 more exposures should? Hopefully that makes sense, as I always assumed gathering more and more images could increase quality.

Do you think setting a delay between images might help? I am just concerned that live view always being on will run down my battery faster. If I have no choice I guess I will need to go ahead and buy a power adapter. I know this cable is cheap, I found it randomly in my house. I actually kind of want a longer one so I guess it wouldn't hurt to buy a new quality one. Thanks for the suggestion!

Almost positive that it's already set in manual mode, with bulb (but going to re-check). Live view however is not on, just the settings screen. I have not really tweaked a lot of settings in NINA. Just made sure my ISO was correct. I will check the other options you mentioned tonight. So by what your saying there is some kind of conflict with NINA trying to also control mirror lock etc? That might explain why I didn't have problems with Backyard. Thanks for the help, I will mess with it. At the very least it's good to know that I am not the only person with issues.