oymd

I am certainly no expert, but I think it turned out well. Yes, I think the stars are good to the edge of the field. I bought it from a gentleman here on the forums who hadn't used it for a few years.

I recently bought a WO Star 71 5 element scope here on the forums. Yesterday was the first time I had the chance to use it. This is the result of 20 5 minute subs @-5c. I plan on adding more, but could not resist having a go at the data I acquired yesterday. 😄 Flats and dark flats and darks (20 each) Guiding with PHD2 on an AZ-EQ6 Pro Image acquisition was NINA. WBPP and processed in PI.

I encountered a problem a couple of nights ago, and was not entirely sure how to solve it? I was imaging M31, as 300s subs. Late into the night, as M31 was approaching the Zenith, I had a quick look on my PC which is remotely connected to my laptop in the garden beside the scope and mount. I noticed that the subs were showing serious star trailing, and PHD2 was all over the place, reporting errors: CANNOT MAKE DEC CORRECTIONS etc... As I went out to the garden, I heard the mount making a looping sound, like it was trying to do something, but failing. The mount was in a HORIZONTAL orientation, with the scope pointing straight up on the WEST SIDE of the mount. NINA was reporting that the meridian flip was in 10 minutes and was counting down. I waited for 1 5 minute sub hoping that the mount would fix itself, but everything stayed the same. I cancelled the sequence, RESTARTED and plate solved on one of the previous subs. The mount slewed to M31, but this time the scope was on the EAST side of the mount, and everything went well for the following 3 hours. NINA reported that the flip is due in 11:59 hours, and counting down. Why did I experience this behavior? I must have a wrong setting in my MERIDIAN FLIP in NINA & EQMOD. If I had been sleeping, would the mount had SELF CORRECTED after 10 minutes and did the flip on its own, and ALL THIS IS NORMAL AND TO BE EXPECTED BEFORE A MERIDIAN FLIP? Can I ask NINA and EQMOD to do the MF a little EARLIER to avoid this? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I have attached pics of how the mount was oriented and a VIDEO of the sound it was making. https://www.dropbox.com/s/o5cslme6ij5sbxf/IMG_8131.mov?dl=0 Thanks IMG_8131 (1).mov

Camera is the 294MC Pro at -5c. Filter used was IDAS LPS D2

http://[URL=https://astrob.in/full/rxxbrd/0/][IMG]https://astrob.in/rxxbrd/0/rawthumb/gallery/get.jpg?insecure[/IMG][/URL] This one was stacked in DSS rather than WBPP, but had the same processing steps, except I used Photometric color calibration.

This was captured over 3 nights using the Altair Astro Quad EDQ-R 70 apo. I used the IDAS LPS D2 filter, and I struggled a bit with gradients and a bluish hue in PixInsight. 72 x 300s subs. Gues it turned out ok, but again, my processing and colors are an issue. Here I used a script called Autocolor in PI. In other process, I used Photometric Color Calibration, which took the image towards a reddish hue. Hope you like it! http://[URL=https://astrob.in/full/j2qzlw/0/][IMG]https://astrob.in/j2qzlw/0/rawthumb/gallery/get.jpg?insecure[/IMG][/URL]

Many thanks If you don't mind, I'll add it to my astrobin page.

I like it! Can you pls point me in the direction of that video? Thanks

Like it a lot! How do you get the colors to look like that? Is that the hubble palate?

This time I used WBPP in PI, and followed another tutorial on PI processing... Is this any better?

YES!! I ditched APT, and watched some online videos of NINA. I changed ONE thing though. I used a different USB3 cable. The surface Pro has ONE USB3 port only, and it is connected to an UN POWERED 4 port USB hub. AZ-EQ6 Pro mount and 294MC Pro are connected to the hub. Everything worked perfectly the second night. I think the main issue was using the ASCOM ZWO ASI driver. Ever since I switched to the NATIVE driver in NINA, I have had zero issues the following 2 nights. Even the hub surprisingly worked fine, even though I ordered a POWERED USB hub from amazon, just in case, but never used it. Thank you for your comment regarding the image, but I felt that I made it worse. PI is just so deep and I need to do a LOT of processing to get to grips with it. I have the book, but it's not enough really. Please feel free to have a go at the TIFF file. Since it's my very FIRST image with the new Esprit, and also my FIRST attempt at guiding, I am very interested to get some feedback on the quality of the optics of the scope and my guiding Best regards Ossi

Good evening everyone Have been on a hiatus from imaging for over a year, having started the hobby in March last year, so pretty much a nebie. On receiving my Esprit last month, I decided to start using NINA. Here is IC 1396 imaged over 2 nights. I reframed on the same area the following night using NINA's framing assistant. NINA is REALLY intuitive!! I also watched Cuiv's Flats video about NINA. Today I took all the calibration files, and stacked in DSS. Followed a PixInsight online tutorial by Cuiv, but I think my processing skills are WAY lacking. Please feel free to have a look at the actual RAW data, and please feel free to have a go at processing it properly. I feel it could be processed much much better than what I did. I think I BLOATED the stars badly. Attached is the calibrated stacked file, before doing anything to in in PI. https://www.dropbox....tosave.tif?dl=0 294MC Pro L Enhance filter Lights: 90 x 300s -5c Darks: 50 x 300s -5c Flats: 50 Darkflats: 50 Attached Thumbnails Autosave.tif

yes, once you change anything in the layout, its almost impossible to figure out what's where, and how to arrange the windows. I found the reset layout button which helped. Can I please ask about DITHERING? How often should I dither? Every single sub, or every 2 subs etc?

Thanks for your input. No, just APT & Stellarium, or NINA & Stellarium

Here's a DSS stack of the 13 usable subs from yesterday. NO FLATS. Can someone have a look and advise if, besides all the problems I had, the image is OK? Autosave001.tif

By the way, since this is my first time ever guiding, how was my guiding yesterday? Are those figures and graphs OK?

It's a new Surface Pro 7, so yes, USB3. But I am connecting the 120MM Mini to the hub on the 294MC Pro. I think I will try today WITHOUT guiding, and see if that solves the issues. If APT behaves well, then it must be USB traffic issues. By the way, when using an external USB3 hub, does it matter if its POWERED or UN POWERED?

Had a look, looks like APT 3.88.2 beta needs a key?

Sorry to see that you have had trouble as well, but glad to see others with the same problems, as yesterday I was pulling my hair in anger, and started to feel like a total IDIOT. Glad its not just me. I will try the new beta version of APT, but I was hoping to avoid APT altogether, and USE NINA.

Yesterday night was miserable. I had been using APT in the past with some success, but I was always annoyed with the poor layout and the dreaded BUSY hang, where APT would hang after a 10 second live view exposure, or after my first or second actual exposure sub. It was also my first night of trying out guiding, and again, it was very very frustrating. My laptop has 2 USB ports, one port is connected to the mount, and the other port is connected to the camera. Its not very powerful, but relatively new and 1 year old. So, yesterday i decided to use my surface Pro 7 laptop, which is very fast, hoping that the BUSY issue with APT was a USB thing, but it was just the same. I hope someone can guide me through what was the reason of all the issues yesterday night: Gear: AZ-EQ6 Pro connected with EQ Mod. This connection was solid, and never dropped. Cameras: 294 MC Pro and 120MM Mini. The mini NEVER dropped, but the 294 MC Pro was constantly hanging and after 1 or 2 subbs, would go into a BUSY state. I would then DISCONNECT, reconnect using the SHIFT key, and connect using the ASCOM drop box. So, here's how the night started: Fired up EQ MOD, connected scope. Fired up NINA. I had prepared my surface before hand, and input all the details of the scope, mount, ASTAP, Astromnetry API key, weather API, etc. Used IPOLAR to Polar Align. Went to stellarium and slewed to IC 1396. Connected the guider in NINA. NINA connected to the 120MINI as the imaging camera, and was not sure how to fix this. SO I opened ASCOM and forced a connection to the 120 Mini as the guide camera. Opened PHD2 and was met with PHD wizard. Went through the whole steps, but kept getting all sorts of erroros. Dropped the exposure time from 5s to 2s, and was able to complete the dark library. Went through the looping etc, but again all sorts of errors. So I closed PHD2, and disconnected the guider in NINA, just to see how can I get on with NINA and setting up and framing. The IMAGING tab brought up the lots of smaller windows, and in the sequence small box, I tried to start LIVE VIEW by imaging 10 seconds on a loop. I also started the cooler to -5C. Cooling was fine, but the camera never brought up an image. I tried maybe 10 times, but always got a NINA error message that the camera failed for over 30 seconds to acquire an image!! In frustration, I closed NINA, and opened APT. This time, I ONLY connected to the 294MC Pro, and live view worked, so I quickly slewed to VEGA and fine tuned focus on my Esprit. I closed APT, reopened and connected to 120Mini, and again fine tuned focus on my Evoguide. Slewed back to IC 1396. Tried plate solving in APT, and with all the 3 softwares required and downloaded, Plate solve 2 solved the live view image, but was not sure where the TRUNK was on my image? Opened PHD2 and again went through the wizard, and for some reason calibration went fine, and it started guiding. Set up imaging in APT, and started taking subs at 180s -5C. 2 subs in, and APT hangs with the BUSY error. Disconnect and reconnect a few times. This time 15 subs in, and again BUSY, and hangs and stops imaging. I almost smashed the laptop against the tripod!! Sorry, but as you can see, the night was a TOTAL MESS. I think my issues that need sorting are: 1- How to properly connect the cameras in NINA or APT? 2- When I choose the ASCOM camera, why do I have ASCOM camera 1 & ASCOM camera 2 in my drop down, since each 1 & 2 have choices of choosing the 294MC Pro OR 120MM Mini 3- In NINA, the imaging tab on the left brings up the actual live view window on the right. To the right of that is the smaller imaging window, where you choose binning and exposure times. I accidentally closed that, and was not able to retrieve that window? 4- I'm pretty sure my issue are DRIVER and ASCOM related. 5- in APT, I keep seeing that the main imaging camera gets UNP:UGGED and REPLUGGED, and I hear the USB chime. But when its automatically plugged back, it does not work. I need to physically disconnect, and SHIFT reconnect, but then the cooling was interrupted, and sequence lost! 6- in NINA, GAIN was fixed to 200, no matter what I did in ASCOM or in any other setting. APT read my GAIN correctly as 120. Phew....that's it! Yesterday was very very frustrating, and would appreciate some help! The surface Pro had a FRESH install of EVERY software, and was never used before for AP. Drivers installed: ASCOM platform 6.5 ZWO ASCOM driver ZWO camera driver Fresh NINA and APT Fresh PHD2 Fresh stellarium etc I managed over the course of 6 hours to take just 15 180s subs. Attached one, and some screen shots I took of the guiding, which only worked with APT, but not NINA. Why is the 294MC Pro continuously disconnecting? Cable, USB, Camera problem? Many thanks L_2021-08-01_01-39-12_Bin1x1_180s__-5C.fit

i accidentally clicked the X (close) button of the sequence box in the IMAGING tab in NINA, and I am not able to reverse my action? I've tried for an hour yesterday night to return NINA to the way it looked at the start of imaging, but have failed? What am I missing?

That's good to know. Well, I have found the cable, but just in case I loose it again, I can use a standard Cat5e cable I have lying around? Not sure what 1:1 or crossover is? The cable I meant is a standard RJ45 ethernet cable I have running from my switch to my printer? I think its a non crossover. I think ALL regular patch cables we use at home are 1:1 type, except the cross-over types which are RARE, and used to connect 2 PCs together? Can someone confirm this? It would help someone else stuck in the middle of the night looking for their handset cable? Thanks

Thanks guys! Found it!!! btw, why is there a resistor on the cable?

I am about to setup my mount, and for the life of me, I cannot find the handset cable! The manual says its an RJ45, 8 pin. Can I use an Ethernet Patch Cable for now till I can order one? The original had a kind of resistor on it. Will an ethernet patch cable damage anything? This is the one i cannot find! https://www.firstlightoptics.com/sky-watcher-mount-accessories/sky-watcher-heq5-az-eq6-eq6-r-eq8-pro-synscan-handset-cable.html

Are there no forum members who have an EC 120?