Martyn87

Is there such a thing as an idiots guide to guiding with PHD2/NINA? I've got the physical side of the setup done, OAG is in the image train, guide camera and main camera are in focus (roughly, on terrestrial objects), OAG is aligned with the long edge of the sensor and the back focus is set correctly at 105mm from the Celestron x0.63 reducer, but I've no idea how to use the thing, and I don't want to waste a whole night trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong, so I'm hoping someone can point me to a good guide? A few things I'm struggling with at the moment: The mount; do I have this connected in PHD2 or NINA? I'm thinking it must be NINA otherwise I can't control it, and connect PHD2 as the guider? Calibration; Do I just set this off and let it do it's thing? I'm assuming it'll need to be polar aligned first? Focus; how perfect does this need to be? I'm assuming I can't use a bahtinov mask as I will be getting the edge of the light on the scope. Do I need to configure anything to say how often to guide? or does it just guide continuously? Sorry for all the questions!

I really need to uninstall AliExpress from my phone... Nice little dovetail mount bought and installed last week, AngelEyes 355mm losmandy style. Then today, my first guide cam arrived, Toupteks IMX 290M model.

Had a bit of a busy night tonight, knocked up some spacers/radius blocks to help me fit a new dovetail on the C6, and an adapter to get my DSLR onto an ASI OAG-L. Got to use the printer, dremel and soldering iron on the same job! Both designed in fusion and printed on my FlashForge Adventurer 3.

Thanks @ONIKKINEN, I guess it's time to get a guide camera ordered!

So I've tried stacking again without the darks, and now I'm seeing this weird noise across the image. What would cause this?

Taken last night, M27, 82 x 30 secs, C6 with F6.3 reducer, stock Canon 550D DSLR on an EQ6R Pro

Absolutely stunning!

Thanks @carastro, I used the NINA flats wizard which let's you set a target for adu, but I didn't really know what I was aiming for so just left it at default values. I can check later and take these again if needed.

Thanks @ONIKKINEN! I'd totally missed the arrow on the right hand side... there were the missing tabs. Told you it would be me! I was indeed using the script. I'll give it a go manually later today and see how it goes. I managed to get the script to work by moving to another drive, Managed to use 89Gb in 7 minutes which is quite an achievement

I'm not seeing any of those tabs to be honest. Is this part of the stacking process? I'd stacked in DSS but I've tried doing it again in Siril but it's asking for SO much disk space!

@alacant This is what I'm missing. I'm sure it's just under a sub-menu somewhere, I've just not found it yet

Thanks for this! I'm not seeing those settings in Siril but I'm sure I'm just missing it, but I was using ISO1600 which may have introduced some noise. Back on it tonight at 800!

I'm using NINA for setting captures rather than an intervalometer, but I guess it's basically the same thing! Once I'm guiding, I'll definitely enable dithering. Looking at my subs, there's a clear difference in background brightness between the first and last, quite looking forward to astronomical darkness coming back! I'm already getting the itch to buy a better camera, even though last night was the first time I used this DSLR 😂

Sorry, I did indeed mean flats! I'll get my head around these calibration frames eventually! 😂 I'm thinking I might grab one of the celestron heater rings and aluminium dew shield. I think I have a power supply that will do the job already. Ah I'm glad those days are behind me now 😂 fingers crossed for tonight!

Thanks @WolfieGlos, dark frames were done immediately after my lights last night / this morning, so should be OK. I've taken some flats and bias this morning but they don't seem to have made a noticeable difference, maybe I did something wrong, or just have no idea what I'm looking at 😂 Guiding is definitely on the cards, just as soon as I make a decision on a guide camera! After last night though, I think I might have to sort some dew prevention first, I lost a good half of the frames I'd taken because the corrector was covered... How did your image come out?

Thanks @Hals! Am I right in thinking I need to be guiding to dither? If so, I'm not quite there yet, I have an OAG waiting to go but no guide cam to put in it. @Vroobel I haven't added flats or bias frames. Looks like I should be able to do some flats today but I might have missed the boat on bias frames as they have to be done at the same temperature as lights...?

Evening/Morning all, managed to get my very first DSO tonight, after much faffing with polar alignment, I managed to get a good bit of time on M27, but unfortunately lost a good few exposures to dew rookie error! It's far from perfect and I have work to do on gear and processing, but this is where I'm at: C6 SCT @ F6.3 Unmodified Canon 550D approx. 90 x 30 second exposures @ ISO 1600, 20 darks, no light added yet.

Currently taking my first ever photo of a DSO...

Are we talking DSLR or astro-specific cameras? The former might be a bit more difficult, as some of them don't support cumputer control at all. The latter should be able to be made to work in most cases. Edit: apologies, saw that you mentioned a couple of astro specific brands at the end of your post. I'd be surprised if you couldn't find usable drivers for those, but definitely worth checking before buying anything. Sbig - https://diffractionlimited.com/legacy-product-support/ QSI - https://qsimaging.com/drivers-software/

First step into guiding thanks to @cosmos!

What about doing some Solar photography maybe? We seem to have clear skies during the day much more often than at night

When I first bought my telescope, I had a good few nice nights where I sat out looking at stars, the moon etc for a few hours, but I didn't have the gear to do any proper astrophotography. Now I have most of the gear, those nice nights seem to have vanished completely. I'm hopeful it'll clear up soon but I'm also a realist, I like in the UK, the weather is crap. The way I look at it though, once my rig is built, it costs me nothing. I've bought most parts used so they're unlikely to lose too much more value, so if I only get enjoyment out of it a few nights a year, I need to make the most of it.

Not the postman, but @CloudMagnet kindly dropped this beast off for me today, EQ6R-Pro which makes my scope look TINY!

Well, huge thanks to @CloudMagnetas I now have a working mount that is likely to never need replacing! The "budget" bit went out the window though!

I'm out, just loaded the file up in my slicer and it won't fit on the print bed 😂 sorry! I see why you're wanting them in aluminium now though, they're way bigger than I was imagining.