TiffsAndAstro

Wow ty for all this. I'm avoiding variable zooms. I already have a very nice seeming pentax 50mm f1.7. Mounts are a pain. Which macro did you have that you didn't like? 200mm f2.8l would be super but maybe a tad too expensive and, as a noob, a little too much zoom? Also, I like the idea of using whatever I do get as a guide scope if i ever get a proper telescope

I need a decent lens for my 600d. I'm looking hopefully less than £300 used uk. There are some 150 and 180mm apo seem well regarded. Also maybe up to 300mm focal length. Canon l lens look nice but pricey for me.

Great ty, can wait for 3ppa to work perfectly first time I try it for real

hey ty for this. yeah i tried it using plate solve and it didn't like it. too wide an fov try using g05 database? i was about to give that a go this morning when i say your post. I just tried blind solving and....i think it worked. its showing me an image with annotation that looks correct so my next question is, can i use blind solving during 3ppa or should i go get the g05 database and use that? ok well i just tested 2 subs that didn't work but with g05 now they do do i need to set image source back to a particular setting once im done so its ready to do 3ppa first time ?

Siril seems more than enough at the moment but I like dss quality rating thing

never tried nina before, so i didn't realise it was possible to plate solve with a previously taken image, will google and have a look how ty. also i've set up astap with the first of the new big databases. hopefully that was the correct choice.

Just wondered if a 50mm f1.7 would be the best choice for my first go at nina and its 3ppa plugin? Or perhaps such a wide field might cause issues? 1.6 crop sensor

"as a mac user" i bought my one and only mac ever because it was such a nice object and looks good in a coffee shop. except i don't drink coffee its ok for email/browsing though hopefully also for astro stuff now i have boot camp etc. im sure ill find some issues but its been surprisingly easy so far. If i do ill definately give kstars/ekos a go and have a look. cheers.

i've watched a couple of his videos will go trawl his entire collection, ty. ideally though, i'd like a introduction to nina video that starts with "run this shortcut to open nina"

so i checked my weather forecast and it will be cloudy here for the next 8 months is there anything a frustrated noob can do on a cloudy evening? ive recently set up nina on a laptop, perfectly. im 110% certain it will work perfectly the first time i get to try it under clear skies. in about 8 months is there anything i could do with my nina/setup to practice a bit first? or anything like that? if anyone had a link to a good intro to nina video it would be much appreciated. im watching Cuiv the lazy geeks nina videos and while they're great, they are a little above my paygrade and assumed a basic working knowledge of nina to start with i think. my gear is a sw gti gem (ish) canon 600d and a variety of quite bad vintage lenses. and nina on a macbook running bootcamp ;(

yeah i already installed that. i used another installer from somewhere and fingers crossed its working ty for this. also, because im not a lazy geek i decided to install all this imaging stuff on bootcamp on an old mac and not activate it. For the lulz. well my 600d connects to nina (thought it doesn't autopopular the sensor size x/y but everything else). my sw gti connects to nina and i've parked it. just need clear skies so i can plug it all back together outside and it will work 100% first time

ok ignore this. after updating many many random things syscan app loads on my pc

hi there. struggling to google any answers for this. i've installed ascom, synscan ascom drivers and the synscan app but when i launch the app i get a series of errors starting with VCRUNTIME140_1.dll was not found. i've tried reinstalling i've checked .net frame work is ticket in control panel i've downloaded .net 3.5 and ran it - it seems to do nothing after asking for my pw anyone suggest anything i can search for?

my plan atm is to give nina a try see how polar alignment goes with that. just trying to update my old macbook then plop bootcamp windows on it and see if it works also, i think my stars look so bad they hide some trailing. i've attached (i think) a higher res version. the stars are annoying the nebula is not too bad. I think im going to have to get a nicer lens.

Ty for this

Also I've noticed that before polar alignment I set my lat bolts so the mount dial shows 52.3 (ish), but if I check it after polar alignment it's about 1.5(ish) degrees higher. Does this suggest tripod issues or maybe the mount dial is only roughly accurate? Or something else? I did notice the dial pointer isnt quite perpendicular to the scale itself.

They're both from same data. Cack handed crops plus i might have removed some subs with slight clouds for one. I struggle with curves on star mask before combing back with starless. i seem to lose the running man when i put them back together in siril, but its good practice. The starless version is quite nice (relatively)

stars have more trails than i thought IMG_8881.CR2

50mm f1.7 on a tripod let me fit in orion from betelguese to rigel, but m42 and flame were small. Also wide field of view limited my time due to houses and trees. I am tempted to give it another go now I have a tracker but my lens heater is a bit big and finding stuff at 135mm is no problem. Maybe it might be a good idea to try nina on the 50mm first though. Also balancing with such a light load is...maybe a little vague. Even with both clutches disengaged, there is a little resistance to movement, unless really front or back heavy.

You name them, I have them all 135mm at the moment seems a nice balance for me as a beginner. My plan was to buy a few vintage primes to get a feel for focal lengths before maybe buying a proper lens or scope. 600d is 1.6 crop but my lens native fl are 50, 135, 200 and 500. None of them seem good, so a samyang 135 appeals at the moment. The 500 is a mirror lens and a bit crap. If my skills improve I might be able to do better with it.

Yeah I agree, I wanted some time doing it the traditional way so I'd have more context when doing on a computer. I'm going to try nina with my 600d from videos it seems I should be able to try out polar alignment and plate solving. Attaching even an asiair mini to a DSLR on a maybe 6 inch dovetail bar doesn't seem trivial either. Let alone a guide scope.

My 182/3 sec subs stars looked egg shape, but any trails were small enough to be within those egg shapes. I think. Detail in m42 seemed ok, could see the running man, but my best version so far is a bit blue so still working on it. I will post an example sub and blue m42 when I get home.

Ty all again for all your efforts. I'm not there yet, but I do feel I at last have the ball park in sight. I'm sure I wont need any assistance again in the future

From what I can make out, that's in the very base of the mount which is then screws into more conventional photographic tripod. The gti was apealing because it wasn't much more than a tracker but offered features of grown up mounts and portability. I was getting a bit lost watching videos of people using ra (maybe dec?) Clocks on their mounts but not finding them on mine. I'm hoping the lack of such things wouldn't hold me back in the future. I'm not planning of putting anything huge and expensive on it but tinkering with guiding appeals.

Ty so much. Though I'm beginning to think synscan app has hints of being born of box ticking rather than enthusiasm to make a great tool. I might be being a tad harsh though. Tempted to try an asiair mini.