nickp87

I permanent mount is something I am considering, at the moment for a az GTi but I plan on upgrading very soon, though I would be nervous as unfortunately there are number of undesirables around the area, only thing that helps is that they would likey not know what they where looking at and if secured enough would not be worth the hassle ( what a sad thing to have to write ) Thanks both, I have NINA and didn't know this so I will take a look.

Thanks again, I do use a canon as my main imaging camera but an svbony for guiding/alignment, but it is something to think about as I start to upgrade It does and I use it out front, but it needs a view of polaris to work so I can't use it where I want to image.

Thanks Elp. I know it will muck up my initial alignment, but was wondering if it would make a subsequent drift alignment quicker as it should still be fairly close. I have seen the all sky alignment from zwo and celestron but I am not aware of any options that don't require specific equipment brands as I don't use these 2.

Sorry if this isn't the right forum and feel free to move if needed. Anyways, I have always used my mount in alt az mode for ease of use, it gets me usable images and I have been happy so far, however I polar aligned it the other night and that's it I am now hooked lol (field rotation is a big problem with alt az) My problem is my location, my front garden has a excellent view of polaris as it faces directly north, but that is about all I can see due to houses, trees etc, just general poor viewing, my back garden is much better, lots to photograph but no view of polaris. I know you shouldn't touch the mount after polar alignment, but I was wondering if it would help speed up drift alignment if I polar aligned out front and then took the mount out back, it's at the same elevation and a direct straight run. Is this going to be worth doing? I would love a permanent mount but I only have a small space and nowhere really suitable to keep it out of the elements. TIA Nick

Yeah seems a little pointless to me, but I feel the same about remote imaging, the fun and enjoyment for me is physically doing things and mucking it up I astro modded my camera last night, and looks like there could be a few hours of clear skies this evening so going to try and some more data, and use some of what I've learnt here. @Elp, not dithering or guiding yet, have all the necessary stuff ready but as I am using mostly in alt az mode I haven't setup it up yet, is dithering useful in alt az? Thanks all for the help, really great forum.

Very true, I think the image from the video was captured with a pricey canon f2.8 lens Many thanks Gerr. Images where shot at iso 1600, I usually shoot at 800 but was trying to some new settings. Is the noise a symptom of low integration time, iso or something else? I'll have a look into colour banding and blotching and find causes etc. Again many thanks all, it really helps and makes me feel a little less stupid :).

Thank you for the reply This is I think 20 minutes of integration Bortle 4, but in a urban area with close lighting from houses etc, no filters used Darks, flats and bias frames used. Thank you Vlaiv for taking the time, this is similar to what I am getting. I plan on adding more integration, hopefully some clear weather this evening. The reason for this image time is is that i was following a video on Youtube for DSLR astro, they did 1000 1 second exposures (no tracking) and I wanted to see what i could do with the same kind of integration, this is there end result (i know a lot will depend on there location/skies etc.

as per the title 🤣 I'm finding this processing lark rather frustrating. I don't know if it's because I am staring with garbage data, or I am just rubbish at processing it, but i can't seem to get a satisfying image. Bare in mind i am extremely new to this and not working with the best equipment (az gti, canon 550D and 300mm f5.6 lens), target is M31 Anyway, i have a attached my fit file from siril and would greatly appreciate if anyone could have a go at a stretch and see what they can come up with or if there any obvious flaws in the data, i will post my result shortly. Many thanks Nick andromeda forum.fit

Thanks, i hadn't thought about noise. Thanks Martin Storage space isn't a big issue, but your right it is lot more data to store, my camera puts out about 19mb for a typical 10s exposure so would run at around 20GB. Thanks all for the replies. I thought longer was going to capture more/fainter data which appears incorrect, looks like I am going to have to find a good compromise of sub length and minimizing issues, I also have to work within the constraints of my az gti mount

Hi all. Which of the 2 is more important? Are 1000 5 second subs going to give you the same data as 80 60 second subs? It would seem to me that the longer subs could capture fainter image data but I could be wrong. Thanks.

There are push to upgrades available, but I don't know of any full go to ones, you could add an EQ platform for tracking.

Hi all, been reading that the skywatcher wedge has the latitude scale is printed wrong or something and you need to adjust your latitude differently. Mine is 50 degrees, so what would I need to set it at? Thanks.

Just to update incase it helps anyone else, turned out I needed to install the beta version of gss to get it all working over WiFi. Mostly complete now, only thing I can't do is manually slew in APT? Goto and the rest works, just not the n,e,s,w buttons, but I can live with that. @Yoddha I will give this a another try next time and see if that works now, I did have a quick look at ascom device hub but also had issues connecting with that. Anyway, very happy now I can run everything through APT, by far the best program I have found so far.

Thanks happy. Tried but still no luck, all my other programs can connect fine via ascom, just seems to be gsserver having issues.

Hi all. Is there anyone on the forum using a az gti and apt ( astrophotography tool )? It uses GS server/ascom to connect to mounts and I have the skywatcher drivers etc installed, I select skywatcher from GS server but just get "error axis1 timeout). Nina and other programs connect fine, but I really like apt and would like to use it for all my equipment. Any help greatly appreciated.