jiberjaber

Cracking captures, I'm in the middle of a 4 part mosaic of similar but slightly less FoV, I do like the better context your FoV gives ! 👍

How did it go Jez? 

25 minutes ago, si717 said:

Thanks all i think i have done it or should i say you have all helped do it ,i was trying to connect synscaninit1 that wouldnt work

and then tried synscaninit2 like above pictures and inputted the details and it seems now to be slewing to the appropriate areas

alot of frustration and a night of clear skys missed but i think its now in working order

or i am hoping im more confident its heading in the right direction so many thanks to all hopefully now to test on clear skys many thanks again

been a great help 👍

If you haven't already I would be worth marking up the park position and polar alignment position using a ruler and fine sharpie (you can rub it off later if you get it wrong or don't like the look ) 

Also worth checking your Alt/Az 90 degrees corresponds to being actually at 90 degrees and using the clutch to ensure it does plus resetting the park to that known position.  There's a guide to doing so here: https://worcspaul.wordpress.com/2011/06/14/accurately-setting-the-“home”-or-“park”-position-on-a-skywatcher-eq5-pro-mount/

4 hours ago, Jezphil said:

Thanks Jason. Really useful information. I'm just tracking, not guiding. Camera is a Canon EOS Ra. I've checked the FoV on SkySafairi and realise I won't get all the nebula but this is fine by me. I'm planning darks, flats, bias and I've done these once before... am slightly fearful though that I only understand the basics of Pixisight so combining Ha and RGB might will be a challenge but I've got to try to nail it. 

600s is a lot more than I was going to try, but will give it a go and see how it looks so thanks for the advice. Cheers.

I'm not familiar with that camera, but if you are not guiding 600s might be a step too far! It's such a long time ago since I did imaging just tracked with the scope.  I have recently been doing 2min subs on an iOptron SkyGuider without a guide camera. Best some test exposures and see how far you can stretch the exposure time before you suffer from star elongation - you can do these tests from a Bortel 8 location I expect as its just about the exposure time and stars rather than capturing actual content which might save you a trip. 

In PI the sub frame selector process is quite good for seeing how the eccentricity of the stars in an image is.....

You'll only need the one set of bias frames I'd expect and you can reuse them - I think there's probably a trick here about maximising imaging time and avoiding using it up with the calibration frames

Wow - a lot to unpack in that!

Have you looked at the NAN in any software relative to your FoV ? I know on my 80ED it's a 4 panel mosaic to fit it all in, 120 will be less FoV

You don't mention if you are guided or not, if you are guided you might be able to try for a longer exposure time but if 300s is working for you with the filter already then just take lots of exposures  Best best is to try it out and see what it looks like I tend to run 600s subs others a successful with 900s subs.

Key thing is to remember you will benefit greatly from a suitable master dark and flats when it comes to processing them.  You can do the Darks later but don't forget to do the flats at the same focus and camera orientation - so often easier to do either straight after the imaging run or before if you are happy with focus and camera orientation. 

Your assumption about how to combine in PI is correct, stack the two sets of image types separately then combine  

You don't mention which camera but I am guessing it might be a DSLR? This might be worth a look to confirm FoV:

http://astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view/?fov[]=136||104||0.8|1|0&messier=20

(You'll need to search for NGC7000 in the objects to add it as it wouldn't share the URL with it in )

Hope you get clear skies  

How many frames make up the bias you are comparing with the super-bias? I think I made my super-bias out of about 300 frames and I don't recall there being much difference other than progression of what could already be seen.

29 minutes ago, Skyballer said:

Should the Long exposure NR and High ISO NR be on and if yes what setting for high iso nr?

Also say I want to take 30 x 6 second long exposures. I set the shutter speed to 6" then in the settings, interval timer shooting the interval time, do I set that to 6 or does it need to be higher? 

 

**Just tested the interval time and although I selected a shutter speed of 6 seconds on manual mode, when I went into the interval timer shooting in the settings, 6 or 7 seconds with 3 pictures as a test resulted in it only taking 2 pictures? Had to bump that to 8 seconds to get 3 photos. 

How do I know the correct interval time to set relating to my shutter speed? As when I get a samyang 14mm lens i'd be able to bump shutter speed up to 20 sec. 

No - turn them off else you'll be there for ages whilst the camera duplicates the exposure to try and make a dark frame and internally process that.  Better to do that where you have more control on a PC

Wow - puts my 5 panel to shame! That's some dedication  Well done.

The ESP has a storage drive on it which you can use and reference in your web pages, you could store an icon on there or reference a png on the net somewhere in the html?

Well earned!

re: Software interrupt:

I just use millis and a variable to store them in, then compare with a fixed time and if try, do what's needed and reset the variable to the current millis() 

It's basically the foundation of my wxstn code, eg:

// 5 Second task interval
 if ( (millis() - count5sec) >= 5000)
    {
    Tasks5s();        
    count5sec = millis();
    }

(dont forget to init count5sec in the setup() and also define it, eg: unsigned long count5sec; )

Using these I have a 5s, 60s, 30m and 60m 'interrupt' in which I do things - I use a function to wrap them up and put them in a tab in the Arduino IDE to make it a bit more neater, but that's just personal preference... 

1 minute ago, Gina said:

Don't know but it works when typed as String.

Yep - it's a Object type in the rtclib - I'd avoid it incase you do decide to use an RTC later as it will clash

(it's sort of the same as type time_t within time.h iirc)

3 hours ago, Delboy_Hog said:

Hi folks,

Yes, I'm behind the times - I gather the new (pro) version is out now, and people may have switched out the old ASIair for the new, but was wondering if anyone had experience with the older model?

I have the opportunity to pick one up second hand to help with guiding (with an ASI120mm mini) of either a Star Adventurer or the HEQ5.  I’ve had a look around online, but can't find the answer to a couple of questions…

1)      Does the old version of the ASIair power your DSLR?  I’m assuming the DSLR still needs a battery as usual, but it would be a bonus if the ‘air’ powered it!

2)      I gather there were updates to the ‘air’ since it came out, so that you can now polar align with it too.  Have people found this feature to be reliable?

3)      Finally, I gather there’s an auto-stretch feature.  Does that work with DSLRs (if attached by the appropriate cable, presumably) or just ZWO ASI cameras?

 Many thanks for any information you can offer!

Derek

You could probably do all that with a Raspberry PI and Ekos/Indi (which is almost what the ASIAir is anyway!).  If you've got a Raspberry PI kicking around it's quite easy to try it out.

Take a look at Astroberry as a starter.  https://www.astroberry.io/

I used to run my mount, guide cam and DSLR (Nikon) on mine and now its running most of the same but the DSLR is replaced with a focuser, filter wheel and ASI1600 

Isn't DateTime an already defined class?? , to put it another way, are you trying to use a variable that already exists as a reserved for an object definition in Arduino?

2 hours ago, Gina said:

ESP32 and DS3231 RTC example

I think I found with my RTC I also needed to run a software clock as there isn't an actual RTC exposed in the ESP (their version of an RTC is just a timer), this may have changed over time as the ESP libs improved within Arduino.

I sync the RTC with NTP on every boot which has an aggressive start then backs off to only sync every 'few' hours (you don't always get a NTP reply on the first attempt, few = log time but I forget how long lol )

I use the Adafruit RTCLib.h with a DS3231 which I think is the same as the example you've got.

Dave, it the intervalometer is like that in my D7500 you will not have a bulb mode and be limited to 30s max exposure ? Worth checking - other handy thing is the intervalometer can act as a remote wired trigger so you can take a shot without touching the camera and avoiding shake.

If I were buying now I would look for one that at least gives a battery gauge on it and also has a rapid incremental function, holding down a button to get from 100 to 10 takes quite a while on mine (eg changing from 100 shots to 10 shots)  Though I don't think I've seen these features on a quick recent search.

This is the one I've got

https://www.amazon.co.uk/RGBS-Shutter-Release-Intervalometer-Control-Black/dp/B078ST3XL3/ref=sr_1_3?crid=7H4RTA2UADWO&dchild=1&keywords=intervalometer+nikon&qid=1596384851&sprefix=interval%2Caps%2C135&sr=8-3

1 minute ago, Gina said:

Been thinking about measuring the temperature and humidity in the scope room and initially thought of measuring it at the pier top - nearest imaging rig.  OTOH if the roof is open I doubt there would be much difference between the conditions at the pier head and outside in the Stevenson screen.  With the roof closed it may not matter where these conditions are measured - such as at mount height but near the north wall.  So I'm wondering if there is any point in measuring at the pier head with the extra messing about.

If it's not a pain to do you can add it and if it gives no value, then remove later.

2 minutes ago, Gina said:

So a 5m cable should be no problem then.  Guess it should be screened.

Yep. I think I used cat5 for that and the dew heater cables (which have DS18B20 in them to monitor band temp)

21 minutes ago, Gina said:

Anyone know how long the connection between DHT22 and ESP32 can be?  I guess it depends on the type of cable.

Between 12 and 30 m depending on which google result you use.  I've got one on a long lead of about 2m which I keep meaning to cut down now it's mounted to the side of the scope  

I never found them reliable in the weatherstation but the one that's been on the dew heater has just worked since day 1 so no conclusion there!

27 minutes ago, wimvb said:

Just put the esp in the stevenson screen, no extra enclosure needed. Any extra enclosure will add some shielding which may affect the wifi signal strength. Electronics generally warms up enough not to dew up. Otoh, dew on the screen or rain may very well limit the wifi range. And make sure the antenna can 'see' the wifi source.

As for i2c distance, I've used 0.3 - 0.4 m cat cable between a bme280, mlx ir sensor and an esp, and it worked fine. But I did connect an extra capacitor between + and - of the power leads.

You've got bigger problems if a bit of plastic is blocking the WiFi  The one in my enclosure is the single bar antenna version with external antenna connection which I was going to use but didn't need to in the end.  This I think it about 70m down the garden from the AP separated by a couple of walls etc. and foliage.

Even with conformal coating on the board the connections will succumb to moisture and corrosion, additional small enclosure strongly recommended, see: 

33 minutes ago, JamesF said:

It seems the nunchuks for the Wii console use I2C and they have cables perhaps a metre or so long, so it looks like you should be good.

James

I suspect a bespoke bit of tuning of both circuit components and bus timing to get it to work from Nintendo  

I think I already posted the pics of mine before I started putting the controller and connections in it's own box - worked for a good while before it finally succumbed to the atmosphere... 

If I were you I would put the ESP in a box itself within the screen.

Revised version, I noticed some mess leaking through in the bottom left, and discovered I could use the background eraser tool to get rid of it, doing so also improved the view of the basin, so I carried on and cleaned it all up... 

I took advantage of the clear night on Tuesday to spend some time in a location I had thought might produce a good milky way shot but was thwarted by lights when I got to where I was planning to image from, I turned around and say this view and thought I would give it a go, if nothing other than practise data.

Camera is a Nikon D7500 with Sigma 30mm DC HSM EX f/1.4  @ f/5.6 ISO400 Manual bulb mode with an intervalometer for timer (10s start delay, 45 shutter time, 4 seconds between shots) 

Foreground ISO 400 45s x 12

Sky ISO400 45s x 12 and ISO 1600 45s x 12

Camera was mounted on an iOptron Sky Guider Pro on 1x tracking rate for the sky shots and tracking turned off for the foreground shots.  

I initially tried to do everything in Photoshop following a guide of the net but gave up and resorted to more what I know, so in to Pixinsight to register and stack the sky image (suspect using some darks might have been better!) and then exported the integrated result as a 16 bit TIFF back in to Photoshop where I then gave up trying to do a selection mask (the spikes off the foreground lights and masts were a real pain) plus the miss match close to the horizon of the background light between the foreground and sky images.

In the end I applied a gradient mask of transparency which allowed the two images (foreground and sky) to blend fairly well.  Some of the blurred starts in the foreground image were still showing so deployed the clone stamp to flatten the sky and remove the streaks of stars.

I've added some increased saturation and vibrance as i thought the boats were looking a little grey and washed out...

Love to hear comments and hints for improvement, this is the first composite landscape I've tried - I'm still not sure about the transition between foreground and sky but not experienced to know which tools I can use to neaten it up more...