Merlin66

I’ve used GSE successfully with my HEQ5.....can’t remember all the tweak settings but certainly worked OK.

Joe,

I get pretty carp seeing down here by the coast, but can always get a crisp edge and surface detail...

Sounds like you may have a problem.

What exactly is your set up? Scope?

Ken

Which camera are you using?

I have the ASI 1600MM which I use for solar, FireCapture has the unity gain at 139, gamma 50 and set exposure to give a 90% full histogram.

Ken

Edit - Rereading...sounds like you were using an ASI 290MM???

The unity gain is correct at 110....just check the histogram.

To ensure there's always good power to my HEQ5pro and the NEQ6pro mounts I added a car voltage convertor 12V to 15V rated at 120W (available from JayCar)

This can be used with your transformer (I use a generic 10A 12V transformer) or when using batteries (I use a 27Ah golf buggy battery)

HTH

Ken

manK,

Glad to hear you found a solution!

Onwards and Upwards.....

Paul,

Well done  mate!

Great outcome.....

I found to get better star images (for plate solving) that I had to fit a UV-IR filter to my ol' DMK cameras when used as an efinder on the 60mm finder.

A couple of exposures will quickly show the difference, if any.

John,

The mount will slew in both RA and Dec to find the target star.

Have you checked out the Synscan manual on the Skywatcher website??

John,

I gave you some misinformation.....

1. The counters on the motors give a Dec position and an RA position based on their "zero" position - usually set at the home position.

2. When in the home position (pointing at SCP c'weights down) the Dec counter shows "-90 deg" and the RA counter "180 deg ( - the azimuth reading for the meridian.)

3. The RA shown is six hours above the LST.

4. When you slew to a target, the RA and Dec increment to the target settings (and agree with CdC)

5. When you re-park to home position - the counters return to the readings as per 2 above and park RA is incremented to LST plus 6 hours.

See the attached images.

Read through the EQMod manual (in the EQMod folder) for details on how it handles GOTO accuracy - based on triangles of known points.

I use EQMOD with Cartes du Ceil. 

The RA Dec of the target always match in EQMOD and CdC.

The home position, is definitely c’weigh straight down scope pointing to the SCP.

I'm pretty sure that the polar home position assumes you have c'weights straight down, which means you're sitting along the meridian line where the RA is equal to the LST.

Think about it, the motors need to know where the starting point is (in RA and DEC directions) to issue subsequent commands to move delta Dec and delta RA during slew.

This should be confirmed when you look at the motor counter position (top left corner of the RA/Dec position display - just click to go through the options)

John,

similar system, but I use Cartes du Ceil.

when you park and unpark the coordinates should match.

Yeah,

The first image is the T2 adaptor and the second a 2" to t thread, should fit your 2" focuser.

A T2 adaptor will allow the DSLR body to be mounted onto the t thread at the end of the focuser??

Ben,

The backfocus distance is driven by the separation of the main and secondary mirror..change the spacing alters the backfocus.

Last words:

Telescope Optics - Rutten & Van Venrooij

Section 9.2 (p87) "Close focusing in the SCT"

The graph (Fig 9.8) shows the typical SCT when focused (using the mirror shift) can focus down to 50m before the Image blur exceeds the Airy Disk; this (table 9.2) equates to a mirror movement of 3.354mm.

Re Plate solving...I found that Astrometry.net handles SA200 images and does a good plate solve - ignores the spectra.....

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/506609-how-critical-is-the-c11-edge-hd-backfocus/

https://www.innovationsforesight.com/support/celestron-edgehd-back-focus-tolerance/

The performance curves indicate some leaway......

16 minutes ago, Ben the Ignorant said:

but when it is a large fraction of a millimeter away from the ideal spot the telescope is no longer diffraction-limited.

Ben,

I think this is a bit exaggerated .......

The tripod legs are lying to the wrong side of the top. You're looking into the bottom of the tripod head (if that makes sense....)

When turned inside out, you'll see there are three tapped holes in the base to which the wedge is mounted. Can't remember the bolt size...sorry.

Check out Solar Chat forum, the largest solar forum on the net...

The Library files area has many useful tutorials and advice.

https://solarchatforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=13884

I use PaintshopPro, and you can follow the PS instructions....

My spectroscopic hardware is sitting on a C11 @ f10/ NEQ6PRO; spectroscope, eFinder, four cameras all up around 17kg.

No issues guiding for as long as you like on a 20 micron slit plate.

works very well for me.

Hmmm, pretty good.

I have to ask why is the right hand side of the solar disk out of focus.

I ended up buying a hot shot gaming computer with 32Gb and an SSD 500Gb drive to handle 400 frames per sec from my ASI 174 for solar imaging.

I use FireCapture to acquire SER videos (ASI 174 and ASI 1600) then process the video with AutoStarkket3 and finally sharpen with impp or Registax6.

your favourite imaging program for colourising.