Andy274

Hi guys, I've 2 scopes - a 70mm triplet apo & a 110mm apo from altair. I have the zwo 533 on the triplet & an atik 383L + mono on the 110mm. After finding the suitability scale, it seems that my atik 383L is way off with my triplet giving significant under - sampling & I wouldn't mind doing some mono through the 70mm & putting the 533 on the 110mm Would you guys recommend I chop in my atik & get a better matched camera for my setup or am I way over-thinking this? Confused Cheers Andy

given me plenty to think of there guys. My main thing is to be able to control all my gear remotely - that way I can sit in the warm & remote desktop from the PC in the observatory to the iMac in the house & control everything from there... So whatever I have needs to be ASCOM compatible.

Hey Lee that's perfect thanks bud Andy

Making your own is awesome

Hmmm OK, I've never seen a belt driven motor focuser before.

Not weighed it to be fair but its definitely an upgrade over the skywatcher. A friend of mine has an early paramount & the rms error on my 60 is half that of his paramount. He was quite upset by that. If id have known what it meant I probably would have felt really smug. All I can say is I love mine & would go ioptron over skywatcher anyday

Hi guys am considering moving to electric focusers for my altair 110 & 70mm apo's as I'm now a complete convert to APT. Does anyone have any suggestions? Cheers Andy

This is my setup & it pisses that load (110 & 70mm apo's with cameras, filter wheel etc) on the CEM60. I moved from the HEQ5 & never looked back

Hi Lee, How did you set the gain in APT? Are you using the ASCOM driver or native ZWO one? If it's the ZWO - where did you set the gain? Cheers Andy

Yeah I can imagine that the setup ive used (following the guide) wont be as straight forward as im hoping it will be, but then again, what in this game is? lol. just got everything connected & am doing to cap on tests to make sure everything connects & I can at least download simultaneous images from both imaging systems

that's great David - thanks. Am outside in my observatory now running everything on a single laptop through SG Pro - never even considered the effect that dithering on the Atik would have on the 533...Am going to repeat my process now using APT & set the cameras up in the way you suggested. So far so good though. Cheers Andy

Hi guys, Apolgies if this is the wrong forum category for this my setup consists of a 110mm starwave with an Atik 383L mono & an Atik 16IC on an OAG with a 70mm triplet & a zwo 533. Im worried about whether im asking far too much of a single PC to run guiding, mount control & large data transfer over USB with 2 cameras. Im running win 10 pro on an i5 processor with 8Gb ram. Ive had problems with getting images downloading from the 533 so was wondering whether i should consider splitting the setup over 2 separate PCs so the ZWO 533 is on one PC & the remainder of the work is run on another PC. Any advice would be welcome on that. I also am torn between what software is capable of running multiple imaging cameras - so any advice would be greatly appreciated. Cheers Andy

Thanks for that update Lee - sounds similar to issues I was having with software not downloading images - it'd complete a test shot of 5mins exp but not download onto the laptop. Driving me insane as I've tried every program known to man. I'll give those SDK drivers a bash.

Cooling is fine - I think I had a dicky connection on the 12v cig lighter - now fixed as SG pro is cooling it brilliantly - which is a relief as I couldn't be arsed with the hassle of sending it back for there to be nothing wrong. RIght now im in the process of trying to do a test run where im capturing images from my 383L+ mono, my ASI 553, running my mount & auto guiding simultaneously to see what is & isn't going to fail... Wish me luck lol Im also having driver issues with my Atik 16C guider - only artemis capture has managed to pick it up as a device in its own right so far which is a concern (win 10 64bit, i5 processor with 8Gb RAM) The pain continues lol

Im just about to head outside too. I'll check it out & let you know how I got on. FLO said to try it in SG pro again & if the chip doesn't start to cool they need it back to test it Fingers crossed

fan is definitely spinning Adam

Cheers for that Lee I'll have a look at it - im also downloading APT as I type this response... Cheers Andy

Thanks for the reply Dave - ive not heard of that, i also have maxim 5 but will give that Astro art a bash too. Cheers Andy

Hi guys, Ive just bought one of these cameras from FLO - im having a hell of a time trying to get some software to work with it. My setup is a 110 starwave mated to an Atik 383L + mono for luminence/NB & an Atik 16c with a homemade OAG for guiding. Sat on top of that is a 70mm Altair triplet mated to my 553. I use the Atik software to guide & image with but im trying to find a piece of software that can control the 553. So far, ive tried SG pro & found it annoying as it thinks of itself as an evil genius & wants to control absolutely everything. I also tried sharpcap & the generic ZWO software - both of them only (as far as i discovered) allowed the capture of video & not a FIT file. I also tried to use NINA but have struggled with it for the following reasons: Unsure which driver to use - Ascom or actual ASI 553 driver I cant get the chip to cool down at all. The cooling gets to 100% but will not reduce the chip temp at all. Ive tried various settings etc & got nowhere with it. Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas that would be helpful? Any advice would be greatly appreciated Cheers Andy

On my setup i use the 533 pro for colour & i have 2 atik CCDs - 1 for narrowband/luminance & a guider run through the atik software. Your image is pretty good considering you were imaging with clouds rolling in Ive just got this camera & cant wait to get imaging with it. Ive been struggling to get any images off it using NINA. So ive downloaded SG pro instead, fingers crossed.

Story there - I did order the WO 72mm triplet, but after ordering i found out its not available until sometime in Jan, so i cancelled & got the Altair 70mm triplet instead. Which arrived today - so cant wait to get them both mounted & for the clouds to disappear

It's going to fit onto my shiny new triplet from FLO that I ordered last night

I managed to blag the dual band filter in with the cost of the camera 👍

Mine arrived this morning. Cannot wait to get this on my setup (just ordered a 70mm triplet)

Mines ordered from FLO