Xiga

Thanks Carole and Adam. It surprised me too I have to say. I was just messing around really, but decided the end result was worth posting, for whatever it's worth. Ps - I've just jumped onto the cooled Cmos bandwagon. Woo-hoo! I was initially intending on selling the D5300, but in hindsight I just don't think I can bring myself to sell it. It just keeps surprising me, so I think I'll hold onto it ?

Back in early Feb I tried imaging Markarian's Chain, but after 2 subs I encountered guiding issues (a first for me) so had to give up. So just for kicks and giggles, I decided to process them! ? So this is 2 x 10mins. With the D5300, 80ED and HEQ5-Pro. 'Stacked' (if it's even right to use that term!) in APP, and processed in PS. Then reduced to 75% for posting. Why oh why oh why..... I honestly don't even know myself ?

The beauty of Platesolving is, you don't have to do ANY star alignments. EVER. You just tell it to go to the target, it misses, then corrects (mostly once, sometimes twice, rarely three times) and you're done. It's the quickest method of getting on target. With my HEQ5-Pro it usually only takes about 2 mins, and that's including the big initial slew. I know you want to walk before you can run, but my advice would be to jump straight to Platesolving. It's not as hard as you might think. APT must have a section in its Guide on how to install it. I used it myself a few years back and iirc it was pretty straightforward. A quick Eqmod tip - there's a button to 'Re sync the encoders'. I always make sure I click this, just before I try and go to the target (when the mount is in the Home position). Just in case I've done something silly like unlocked the clutched and manually moved the mount back to Home, as Eqmod would not know i had done that.

When mine melted it killed the USB3 socket it was plugged into. Thankfully I still have plenty of USB sockets to choose from as I use a docking station with my thinkpad. Are you still using the same cable? If you still notice it being hot on removal, i would seriously consider getting one of the newer ones from FLO, just to be on the safe side. I've never noticed my new one feeling hot to touch.

Tbh I'm not sure exactly when they came in, but I know i ordered mine from FLO in October 2017. The reason for which was because my old one literally melted one night! I remember freaking out when I got the burning smell and immediately switched everything off. Took me a while to find out where the problem was!

Hi Alan You'll get the most help by uploading a PhD log file. You'd think it would be enabled by default but iirc it's not so you will need to go into the settings and turn Logging on. Then once you've had your next guiding session you can upload the log file and the experts on the forums can analyse it for you. As for the session itself, it doesn't need to be super long, 30 mins to an hour should be enough to help identify anything major.

Carole, I presume you are using an Eqmod cable that is not too recent? The beauty of the newer cables (the ones that use the FTDI chipset) is that it doesn't matter what port you plug into. The COM port never changes so you don't have to worry about any of this malarkey. Alan, if you have one of these cables then you shouldn't have any COM port woes: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/sky-watcher-mount-accessories/lynx-astro-ftdi-eqdir-usb-adapter-for-sky-watcher-eq5-pro-heq5-syntrek-pro-az-eq5-gt-az-eq6-gt-and-eq8-mounts.html

Hi Henry Are you asking me to post the the raw stack? I don't mind sharing it (it's certainly not not anything special, lol). I'm currently away for Easter though so it would have to wait to tomorrow night

I think you've done a great job here Adam. The colour looks great to me and has really made the image. It could perhaps do with a smidge more saturation, but just as equally perhaps not! And in any case we're now into personal taste territory anyways. If i open the Levels tool in PS, select the White Point marker, and then hold the ALT key while the eyedropper icon is hovered over the image, it shows that very little has been clipped at the top end. This is a great result, and one i aspire to stick to myself as much as possible these days. If there's one area i think it could be improved on, slightly, would be just a tad more subtle NR in the areas outside the IRIS nebula itself (mainly the far RHS of the image).

I get you mean dude, and there's no good reason why ST4 guiding shouldn't be working, but pulse guiding via Eqmod is not only better, its actually much, much simpler too. It doesn't add complexity, it actually reduces it. Phd2 can then calculate the no. of calibration steps itself automatically for you, as it knows where in the sky the mount is pointing. Fewer variables to get wrong. If I already had an APO and an EQ6, I would spend the extra £35 to make my life simpler. Louise's idea of screen shots of Phd2 setup is a great idea. @alan potts sorry to ask an obvious question, but I presume you are able to get an image on screen ok during daytime, with the guide cam on the scope?

Ditch ST4. Get yourself an FTDI EQDIR cable (£35) and do pulse guiding instead via Eqmod. With the gear you've got this is a no-brainer. Don't get too downhearted. Just look at the response this thread has had in such a short time span. The SGL community will sort this for you, believe me!

Are you doing pulse guiding in Phd2? I assume you are using Eqmod? If so (and you should!) then check your Guide Speed multipliers. This error is known to happen when they are set too low, like x0.1. You should set them to x0.5

Nice! ?

Hi Mark I wish you well with this, as it's one of the most amazing objects to image in the night sky (imho) and i would love to shoot it myself. I too have a 135mm lens and a crop sensor DSLR. However, and i don't mean to be a wet blanket here, but i think this is going to be a tough one. I don't know what your latitude is in Wales, but here in N.I i am at 54 degrees N. Which means R.O never gets above 8 degrees altitude. To make things worse, it's a late Spring target, when dark skies are at a minimum (in fact there is no astro dark then, just astronomical twilight). I've done a bit of research into this, and the only time that's even feasible for us here in N.I is the beginning of June. At that time, there will be no moon, and there is just about 2 hrs of Astronomical Twilight around the time when the object transits. So if you have a very clear view of the Southern horizon, and the weather plays ball, then this is your best time to try and catch this. FWIW i'm not even sure i can see 8 degrees altitude to the South, the neighbour's house is probably in the way ☹️ Here is a great website for checking how much darkness there is on any day of the year. The link is for Belfast, so you'll just need to alter it to your nearest location. https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/uk/belfast Good luck. Hope you get it!

I like that Adam. I love these widefield shots with the main stars accentuated so you can more easily see the outline of the constellations. Betelgeuse is looking lovely too! Just one small bit of feedback - the stars look a little green on my monitor. I'd maybe try a quick pass of HLVG on a colour layer to see if it helps. ps - Is that a meteor you captured as well, just above Betelgeuse?

Thanks Barry! ?

Thanks Richard ? I find it amazing though that I've somehow managed to image for the last 2 years without realising this, and my guiding has always been great (0.6" - 0.9" on most nights). It's only been the last 2 sessions where I had trouble. I guess I've just been lucky!

Lol, thanks Adam ☺️ I do love my wee D5300. Good luck with your D800e. You'll have a cracking widefield setup once you get the Samyang 135 all set up.

Thanks Adam ? Cheers Michael Thanks Martin. I know what you mean about the core. I too usually prefer the bright bits up there to, well, look bright! Another example is M31. I prefer a nice big core for it, rather than a small point of light. But M42 is just so darned bright that it has to be tamed. I could have gone brighter on this tbh, but it was late and I was in a hurry to just get something thrown together quick. Hopefully I can get a chance to get some proper data on this soon before it's too late.

Like the lunatic that I am, I decided to get the scope out last week during that storm that was passing through. The skies were clear and there was no moon about, so I figured why not! Only problem was the 17-20 mph winds, lol. I got 2 hrs of subs but had to throw away half of them due to guiding problems more so than the wind, amazingly. This was the 2nd time in a row i'd had Dec guiding problems, and that's after about 2 years of not having a single problem guiding. After the 1st hr of wasted subs, I turned off Fast Switching in Dec and chose to only Dither in RA, and the Dec problems mostly went away, at least to allow me to capture 1 hr of 'still dodgy but just about useable' subs. Once M42 disappeared behind the neighbour's roof, I then re-calibrated on the Celestial Equator (Dec 0) and when I switched to the Pinwheel Galaxy I was able to guide as normal again (with Fast Switching and Dithering in both RA and Dec both turned on again) and didn't lose any subs, despite the wind, so I've decided that from now on I won't be calibrating at the target itself, i'm always going to do it at Dec 0. I decided to throw this in with another 1 hr of subs (plus 10 x 30s for the core) that I took back in Jan 2017 (has it really been that long?!). That hr also had issues, with some weird streaking in the lower left that I could never work out what caused it. The D5300 hadn't been modified at that stage either. So I fired it all in to APP and decided to stack it anyway, and give it a quick process. Then chose to crank it up to 11 on the colour front, just for laughs. It won't be going on the wall anytime soon, lol, but I suppose it came out a bit better than I was expecting, all things considered. 20 x 360s with an IDAS-D1 D5300, 80ED, HEQ5-Pro. Stacked in APP, processed in PS. CS! edit - I forgot to downscale it - so no pixel peeping allowed ?

Amazing. So much detail, with just the right amount of saturation, and the stars are as good as perfect too. Very good indeed!

Did you use APT for all of the subs? Lights and calibration files? It sounds like Gain is a recent addition to the Fits header info. Clutching at straws a bit here, but you could maybe check your APT Log file with a fine tooth (no pun intended! lol) comb. Look specifically for Gain and Offset values for all the calibration files and Lights and make sure they match. Or if you'd like i'd be happy to take a look at the data for you, just to see if i get the same outcome. Even just a subset of the full data should suffice. Say 10 subs of each would do.

Not being a CCD user, i'm not sure if any of this is material or not, but i notice in the Fits header info that the Gain for the Darks is 0, but it's -1 for the Flats and Dark Flats. Also, the temp of the Flat is about -1 degree C colder than the other two. Could either of these be the culprit i wonder? I would at least try and get the temp of the Flats a bit closer, just in case that's it. I don't see any info regarding Offset. Are you absolutely sure all of the files (both calibration and lights) have been taken with the same Offset? Weirdly, only the Dark has an entry for 'Telescope' in the fits header info. The other two are missing this option entirely. It's a strange one alright. But right now my hunch is that there's nothing wrong with your optical train or gear, and that the most likely reason is just something silly that's gone wrong during acquisition of some of the subs.

That's a good point Adam. APP is now 'smart', so it is supposed to handle the files automatically for you. I still manually select mine one batch at a time (just because I've been doing it that way since the earlier versions, and, well, I'm on old dog, lol) so I don't know how well this functionality works. If you throw it files it doesn't actually need, will it ignore them? Or does it just know how to handle all the myriad calibration files, assuming you've selected all the right ones to begin with? Not sure tbh. Another tip for you regarding APP - you don't need to finish a stack to know if calibration is working or not. As soon as you've finished Step 2 (Calibration) you can select any Light sub from the list at the bottom, and change the drop-down box at the top of the screen from 'Linear' to 'l-calibrated'. This will show you what the Calibrated Light sub looks like, and it should be obvious if it's working or not. If the Bias files don't solve the problem for you - thinking outside the box here - you definitely haven't mixed up your Atik and QHY flats by any chance?

Hi Adam I think @vlaiv is right about the Bias files. I don't use Darks myself with my DSLR (although I keep meaning to run some more tests on that) however, it is my understanding that if you are using Dark Calibration files, then you should not also use Bias files, as I think it will remove the dark current twice. So it's probably over-correcting at the moment. Try without the Bias files and see how it goes.