Starwiz

Just to add, in addition to the good advice given so far - it's a good idea to run all your applications as Administrator. I don't know if it will help or not, but I've had all sorts of weird things happening when I don't. John

Thanks. At the time of imaging it was at about 30 degrees, so less than perfect but obviously not as bad as the UK. The seeing index was reasonable and with a jetstream speed of under 10 m/s, I thought it worth a go. John

Thanks. I wasn't aware of the polar hexagon, so had to look it up. John

Hopefully an improvement on Friday's effort. This was done by adding in a 2x Barlow between the ASI1600mm and the SW200p, so the raw images didn't look pixelated on this one. John

Thanks both, I'll be giving that a try. John

Has anyone experimented with the alternative guiding algorithms that PHD2 provides and were there any benefits found over the defaults? i.e. Lowpass Lowpass2 Predictive PEC ZFilter Thanks John

Like I once did with my Canon. 😀 I hadn't noticed the shadow on the rings, thanks for pointing it out. John

No I haven't yet, but you've tempted me to have a go. John

My first attempt at a planet for 3 years. Captured a few nights ago between breaks in the clouds. This was a bit of an experiment, using my ASI1600mm-Pro and filter wheel mounted directly onto my SW200p. I was impressed with the download speed compared to my ASI120mc which is only USB2. The individual RGB images looked a bit pixelated, so I'm going to try it with the 2x Barlow that I have next time. Still, pleased to have captured the Cassini Division and some surface detail. John

Confirmed, it was the APT 'Run as Administrator' box not ticked. 😀 I can only think it's been reset somehow, perhaps due to one of the updates that's come through in the last couple of weeks. Thanks again. John

Thanks, that could be a good shout. I thought I was running it as Administrator, but have just checked the shortcut and the 'Run as Administrator' tick box has become unchecked. I'll give it a try. Thanks John

Yes. I've tried POTH Hub for APT but it won't connect at all with that for me. I have to use the EQMOD ASCOM HEQ5/6 option.

It's under the GEAR tab - CONNECT SCOPE. It needs to be connected to the mount for Plate Solving as well as dithering. It can also slew to an object using APT. This all happens via the EQMOD software. APT also connects to the PHD2 guiding, but all the mount control goes via EQMOD. (That's the way I think it works 😀)

My setup has been working fine for the last couple of months, but now the mount won't connect to both at the same time. If I connect to APT to the mount first, then CdC won't connect and vice versa. Does anyone have any ideas as to what the problem might be? Thanks John

They look good to me. I especially like the Andromeda. John

Beautiful isn't it. I can still remember when and where I was when I first turned my scope towards it more than 30 years ago.

Beautiful isn't it. I can still remember when and where I was when I first turned my scope towards it more than 30 years ago.

Well done! It looks better than my first M31. John

Very nice. What exposure times and gain did you use? John

Thanks for the advice. I'm now running a full virus scan. John

Here's another to encourage you. Done with a DSLR and SW200p scope during my first year of imaging. You're going to love imaging. Enjoy the ride! John

My virus scanner stopped APT and quarantined the APT.exe file during the warming sequence last night. Has anyone else had issues like this? I've had to restore it from the quarantine location this morning. John

Both excellent images. The second image looks more even and natural for me. The first image has a slight darkness in the background at the edges of the cluster that for me, makes it look more unnatural than the second. John

If you do use flats, you should include dark flats too. I've found flats quite a challenge to get right, but when they are good it really makes a difference. John

Nice image with very round stars. It darkens considerably towards the edges. Did you use flats? John