tooth_dr

Thanks for this, really helpful. Unfortunately my newtons rings were much worse than they looked during capture, and now IMPPG wants to align on those rather than the limb. So I've a few frames to manually align here and then decide how to get rid of the rings. I took flats, but they werent effective enough.

I know this is an old topic. I tried this software briefly last year, but cant find my copy now. The website appears to be down? Would anyone share the download with me please, or a link to where I can get it. TIA Adam.

I’ve seen a programme online that claims to guide on a whole solar disc, and I have a finderguider with Baader solar foil attached to my solar scope, but I could not find it again yesterday when I searched for it! When I have my 3x Barlow on it tracks ok, but slowly drifts off course. If you would share your workflow that would be really really appreciated. I’ve 100+ prom videos to stack and align from yesterday

Maybe it was at a different time or a different target and gravity was working differently of the kit. I think you may struggle with this set up as 1000mm focal isn’t the easiest to guide well.

Last night I had a very brief session under a hazy sky. I swapped over the guiding cameras, and used the 120MM as the OAG camera. I then discovered it was out of focus after spending minutes trying to find a star. I got it focused as the clouds thickened, I just managed a (poor) calibration and 30s guiding. I was getting a guiding of 0.24" and 0.32" DEC and RA respectively, 0.4"RMS so I think with more time for it to settle, and running GA, I should be ok. I changed the guiderate to 0.5 @david_taurus83 so that might have helped.

I agreed, I think it could be differential flexure, if you've previously had good results.

Yesterday was the first time where I encountered a problem with my own PC. It refused to run my 178 camera above 600x600 resolution, just said ‘failed to capture’. My 120 was only getting a max of 18FPS. Whilst that PC is fine for deep sky, im going to have to reinvest for any sort of high speed imaging. Will be watching this thread for info.

That’s class. I’ve been trying something similar - how do you track the sun?

First solar session of the year, and the Lunt piggybacked nicely on the mount. The sky was absolutely stunning, blue skies, and no clouds at all. I was on-call today, and got a call out at lunch time so lost a bit of prime imaging time, but I got plenty of data, all at taken with 120MM USB2, 3x barlow, and Lunt 60mm BF1200, captured in FireCapture with flats. I am getting rings on the images, more or less removed with the flats. Here is a composite image of surface and prom, will try to process the rest this week coming. Stacked in AS!3 and processed in PS. Thanks for looking Adam

Nice images, I think I had more luck here with the seeing for at least part of my imaging session. I like your presentation of the proms.

No one is an idiot, except me sometimes. Flats record any blemishes/defects in the optical train. Even if you rotate your camera you likely would need to redo your flats. In your case you DEFINITELY need to do new flats with the reducer in place. Flats should be taken with the camera and reducer and telescope, spacers, etc, in exactly the same orientation and focus position as for your lights. So maybe straight after an imaging session, or if you can lift the kit indoors without dismantling, and take the flats the next day.

The reducer will actually make everything smaller - 85% of the original size.

Hard to know why it's off centre, maybe you had clicked on it on APT, and it was centred in the zoomed-in image? You cant use old flats - you need to take new flats, and that will make a significant improvement to the image and make it much easier to process. The spacing looks ok, there might be a bit of drift going on as the stars are slightly elongated. However it's an excellent start, and looks like a great setup.

Thats really very special indeed! 90k frames !

Very nicely done. I think this is my preferred way to see a comet so you can really appreciate it for what it is!

Funny my first thought it looks a lot like a mesu.

Hi I bought a used QHY EFW 5x2", and it has two inputs for 12v jacks. Can anyone shed any light on this? Don't know the model number, and cant find any info online. I found this picture on google. One for 12V in to power the wheel, and then 12V out to power something else? I'm using it with a QHY9 camera, and have the funny cable with the gold round 2pin plug that goes to an RJ type plug ( between the two 12v sockets) to control the EFW (USB not needed) TIA Adam/.

Thanks David. I don’t know why it failed that calibration. Maybe the wrong profile set up. I’m keen to get out again but the clouds aren’t playing ball. I’m not sure where I can fit a UV IR filter, I’ll have a look shortly. Benefits of CV-19 is time at home to tinker.

Hi David, thats where I noted the rate at 0.33. Should I try it at 0.5? Thanks for posting the photo. Here is another example of guiding below, taken using my 178MC on a SW finder guider. It can guide well, down to 1/5 and 1/6 of a pixel. I think I'll swap back to the SW finderscope used here, and park the Altair Astro guidescope for now. It's a variable that I could do without.

I’m not sure where to set the guide rates at, or how to adjust it. It says guide rate 0.33 in PHD2 calibration wizard.

I had to go back and look through previous threads to work out the camera, think it is the right one.

I getting a PA using sharpcap of <30” but I haven’t my location set so I’m not accounting for refraction. When PHD2 measures my PA using GA it says 2m’ or more, so I’m not sure where the inaccuracies lie. I was going to buy a Polemaster camera, but then I read mixed reviews on it too.

So you need to have a distance of 55mm from the back shoulder to the sensor in your camera. Looks like 6.5mm to the flat red surface of the camera. So you need 55-6.5mm of spacers. The back of the 0.85x FF/FR is M48. Get an M48-M42 adapter https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adapters/astro-essentials-m48-to-t2-adapter.html then measure the spacing and use your existing M42 spacers to make up the remaining. There are different thicknesses is adapters. That one adds 10mm. Using that example: 55-6.5-10=38.5mm So you need an additional 38.5mm of M42 spacers. Baader do a variable spacer. I would get the M48-M42 first, connect it and see what you have and then work our what you need. You might only need a single extension tube of 5, 7.5, or 10mm. HTH Adam

@Laurin Dave @david_taurus83 Ive attached a guidelog from before DST, and from before I changed over my scope to the 10". Would you have look at guiding trace #3 which is 2 hours and 31 minutes long please. ~Screen shots~ whats going on with the PE in the second one? PHD2_DebugLog_2020-03-15_194511.txt PHD2_GuideLog_2020-03-15_194511.txt

Thanks again. I do have separate profiles on PHD2. Ive heard of people using longer to avoid seeing fluctuations so that was my reasoning.