edjrgibbs

Hi Phil

A few things jump out. The first is the type of mount you have. The mount is the most important part. The second is the camera itself and its suitability for DSO imaging. I'll deal with them in order:

> Mount. Do you have an AltAz or Equatorial mount? If not an equatorial then tracking DSO's will be problematic due to field rotation. That being said, its possible.

> Camera: the ASI120MC-S has a pretty small chip which might be more suited to planetary imaging. I'm not sure how it will fair on large DSO's like Orion but I guess only trying will tell. You'll need some software to run it either in DSO mode or planetary. Planetary you tend to take video in a programme like sharpcap then stack the individual frames with software like registax (both pieces are free). If doing DSO imaging you're into longer exposure territory but depending on the mount your exposure times will be limited (i.e. no Eq tracking will mean much shorter exposures, especially with the size of the imaging chip). I use APT (Astrophotography Tool) with my DSO camera's and find it a decent piece of software. You can then stack using something like Deep Sky Stacker. 

Another issue you'll likely encounter is focus. A bahtinov mask (available from most astro shops) is the best way i've found to focus. You might need spacers etc to achieve focus. 

It might be worth trying to find a local astro group or alternatively trial and error. Over the years I've found searching these forums provide a wealth of info. AP can be frustrating but don't give up!

Hope this helps. 

Ed

Just a follow up to this, make sure to delete all three ini files I.e. game pad, align etc. they can be found in c/users/app data/roaming.

I don't have 50 posts but....

Bought an EQ Direct module with an HEQ5 from FLO in January, arrived next day but that's not what this is about. Wednesday night, had a problem with it (first night since Jan that I've got out), dropped FLO an e-mail Thursday and had a reply from Martin at 12.43 to say that there are many things that could go wrong including the PC, software etc. but the only way to be sure is to test with a new EQDirect module that they would send, next day it arrived before 12.00 with a pre-paid envelope to return either the old or new pending testing. I mean, where else can you get this sort of service, its brilliant, amazing.... unbelievable.... Suffice to say that in future for all my astro purchases if I can get it at FLO I'll be buying from FLO.

Thanks and sorry for posting where I shouldn't...