Skipper Billy

I use one of these - its not USB but it works very well. I have it trigger a flashing blue light in the house.

https://cpc.farnell.com/kemo-electronic/m152/module-rain-sensor-12vdc/dp/HK01173?mckv=sUdlkZf5r_dc|pcrid|224646539664|kword||match||plid||slid||product|HK01173|pgrid|49734053271|ptaid|pla-925784216154|&CMP=KNC-GUK-CPC-SHOPPING&gclid=Cj0KCQjwzbv7BRDIARIsAM-A6-2ddHPrlfbGg0awewrkySDpxdmgxrq23IA4cNWJ4fHpn9MwtXAWlsMaAkYXEALw_wcB

5 minutes ago, tomato said:

Great summary, did all your kit in your signature connect OK with no issues?
 

The reason I ask is I just couldn’t make my Atik EFW2 connect to NINA back in 2019, but I’m certainly going to give it another go.

Yes - everything. The only issue I had was that my camera was slow to connect and download using the ASCOM camera driver but installing the native driver sorted that out.

I installed the latest Atik Core software and everything hooked up virtually instantly.

6 hours ago, iwols said:

Thats great billy after reading a post yesterday i also installed nina but couldnt test for clouds but must admit it looked very impressive,also going to try astap for the first time ,be prepared🤔,where did you post your questions billy as i finished up on a forum i didnt know how to use?discord??

I installed the 'Discord' prog and posted in the beginners section - it was answered very rapidly and followed up this morning with a request from the developer for the log of my session so he could fix the issue!

I was livid to see how SGP had handled the change in their business model - someone suggested trying NINA - I had heard of it but never used it.

Prompted by my disappointment with SGP I downloaded NINA and spent an afternoon setting it up and generally playing about with it in the daylight.

All seemed very impressive - well thought out and everything I needed it to do was relatively easily found.

Last night was an unexpected relatively clear night so I gave NINA a whirl under real imaging conditions.

I had to spend a small amount of time setting up the step size and number of steps in the autofocus routine to get nice shaped V curves but once done it worked flawlessly and refocussed as requested on every filter change and every 1º temp change and a nice addition is the ability to request a refocus if the HFR value changes by more than x% - very clever. 

The big revelation was ASTAP plate solving - it was so fast I didn't notice that it had done it. I really hammered it requesting blind solves and solves from miles away from where it thought it was pointing and on every occasion it was almost instant.

The framing section was a delight to use and very easy to figure out. I don't do mosaics but did set one up and its very easy to do.

In short everything worked first time and whilst it took a little longer to use as am not familiar with the layout I am seriously impressed with it.

I haven't hit the 'uninstall' button on SGP just yet but its certainly on the cards,

The Help files are really well written and make complete sense.

The main screens are easily to customise and you can get rid of things that don't interest you and add things that do as well as resize the windows and alter their position just by dragging and dropping - you can also nest them for a less cluttered screen. There is also a reset screen layout button if you make a mess of it.

It doesn't feel 'geeky' it feels like a slick, polished and professional product that I would have happily paid for.

The support is also first class. I asked a question about which driver to use for my camera and  a helpful answer was forthcoming in under 4 mins.

Things I still need to do - alter the file naming convention - the default results in a really long file name - easy to adjust by dragging and dropping items between two lines. Also need to set up filter offsets for narrowband filters but no big deal as I always use autofocus before starting a sequence.

The only niggle I have so far is that once a sequence is running it doesn't seem possible to add, remove, alter anything in the sequence without stopping it whereas in SGP you can. May be my mistake but I was getting very tired by that time!

Very impressed.

1 hour ago, iwols said:

thanks Billy wheres the option in astroplanner to export and in nina to import which im just about to try,looks great ??

Cant remember - I am at work at the moment.

I think this thread is wandering way off topic now - its supposed to be about SGP and value for money but it seems to be turning into a NINA support group!

Maybe somebody should start a new thread about NINA.

1 hour ago, iwols said:

can you import objects from astroplanner into nina like you can sgp before i give it a go please

Yes.

2 hours ago, sloz1664 said:

Unfortunately, Nina has no Dome control

Steve 

I understand that improvements and requests are taken seriously and acted upon - might be worth asking the question ??

I haven't got a dome 😉 

Just having a play with N.I.N.A. and it appears to be very good. VERY good!

I cant see anything that SGP does that NINA doesnt.

It also feels more slick and polished than SGP

Worth a look at  https://nighttime-imaging.eu/

Oh - and its free and actively supported. 😉 

Have you tried right clicking on the set park button? It gives you various options for park positions.

My procedure is this. I have a custom park position set which is mount horizontal and scope pointing slightly downwards at a flat panel.

Power up

Click park - it slews to the standard park position

Select an object - slew to it and plate solve

Run imaging session.

At end of session click park - slews to standard park position

Right click on park and choose custom park - mount slews to my custom park position ie pointing at flat panel

Power off.

Works every time.

Happy to send you my config file for you to try if you wish??

I think this change has been handled poorly.

I also noted on the download page an option to download V4 which is greyed out and if you click on it it says something like coming soon.

So I guess now that I have opted to not pay the subscription and I am stuck with V3 that very soon a whizzy new version will be available but only if I pay the subscription.

I am not very impressed and will be investigating N.I.N.A etc in slow time (especially as the new season is just starting).

Grump mode \

Thanks Carole - I don't have Registar but I might try the evaluation option and see what happens.

I need a clear night this year to get some data to play with - we haven't had a single clear night yet!

Thanks Viktiste will watch it this evening.

Cheers Adam.

2 hours ago, tooth_dr said:

In Astro Pixel Processor you specify sessions, eg 2019 and 2020, and assign the relevant calibration data to the relevant session. So it produces a set of correctly calibrated lights which you then register and stack.  Is this what you are after?

I think so but I dont use APP just Pixinsight.

I dont think I have kept last years calibration files so it may be a waste of time but thanks for the suggestion.

I don't really think of myself as a newbie but I don't know the answer to this basic question.

I have data from last year inc. all the individual subs, all the calibration files and the masters for each channel as well as the finished image for various targets.

I want to repeat the exercise this year on the same target with exactly the same equipment as last year to give me much more data.

What I don't know is how and at what point to combine the data from last year with this years.

I don't think combining all the subs from both years will work as the calibration files (esp. flats) will be different - the rig has been apart for cleaning.

Any suggestions or links to useful resources??

Samyang 14mm f2.8 Mk II  now ordered - will post a back to back comparison in due course.

9 minutes ago, Davey-T said:

Hi David, I purchased a used Samyang 14mm f/2.8 Mk1 for £230 at the back end of last year, actually boxed and unused.

Here's a random shot from meteor hunt sequence, bit cloudy but wide open, 30secs ISO3200 on Canon 60Da, didn't take a lot of trouble with focus and stars are pretty good, at least no seagulls.

Actually has better corner stars than the Canon 24/105

Cheers Dave - that's convinced me - many thanks.

21 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

Did you try focusing on a star where the thirds intersect or were you more centre focusing? A thirds intersecting star can help even out focus and I wonder if it would help here or whether it is just lens curvature and not a lot that focus can help with.

Yep - tried that and interestingly even stopping down as far as f8 didnt make any difference to the sharpness.

I might try a Samyang 14mm f2.8 MkII - on my Google trawl it seemed to produce the best images without spending silly money.

12 minutes ago, tomato said:

I think Martin has a point, how many landscape photographers zoom into the corners and examine 3 or 4 pixels?

Fair point - well made 😉   Its just that I am used to messing about with spacing etc to get a flat field with scope and camera etc that will stand up to scrutiny / pixel peeping.

I have just had a trawl of milky way images on Google and it seems that almost all have dodgy star shapes esp. in the corners.

11 hours ago, tomato said:

I would have said that it looks like the optical quality of the lens but as you say it does get good reviews for Astrophotography. 

Yep - that's the reason I bought it!

10 hours ago, vlaiv said:

In any case - stop it down to F/5.6 if you want good corner performance or just live with it as is, because most people that describe how lens is sharp - don't really shoot test charts at infinity like astronomers do.

Thanks Vlaiv - I repeated the test at 2.8, 3.5, 4.5, 5.6 and 8 - it didnt make any difference

10 hours ago, fireballxl5 said:

focus doesn't look bob on to me tbh - always tricky with wide-angle lens mind

The focus on the processed shot is definietly out of focus which is what prompted me to do the test - the single sub unprocessed is as good as I could get the focus.

3 hours ago, MartinB said:

I have a Tokina 11-16mm lens.  It is for APS cropped sensors rather than full frame.  I didn't know there was a ff version.  Your stars look pretty similar to mine and really aren't too bad for an ultra wide angle lens of this kind.  Anyone reporting stars tack sharp all the way to the edge at f2.8  hasn't looked very closely!  Even my Sigma 14mm f1.8 lens isn't "tack sharp" to the corners at f2.8.

The key thing to look for is off centre optics where you will see much more marked distortion over to one side of the image.  This doesn't appear to be the case here.

I think your lens is OK.

Cheers Martin - I repeated the test with my cropped sensor 70D and it was exactly the same. The 5D gives horrendous vignetting at anything less than 16mm but at 16mm without the lens shade on its pretty good.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions - looks like I will have to live with it.

I dont often use my DSLR for imaging but I recently bought a Star Adventurer as a lightweight mobile rig.

Tried a Milky way shot (in the fog) last night with my full frame Canon 5D and Tokina 11 - 16mm f2.8 lens at 16mm and at f2.8 and every sub had horrible shaped stars around the edges. See below. This processed image has been cropped hard.

Tonight was semi clear so I took some test shots at all apertures and at minutely changed focus settings and with and without lens hood and UV filter.

The results are the same in every frame - horrible star shapes especially around the edges - see image below. This is a single sub from our back garden - unprocessed and uncropped.

On a scope I would say its a spacing issue but I cant adjust this on my DSLR!!

Any suggestions - its supposed to be a good lens and 'tack sharp right to the edges' !

All I have got is horrible shapes especially down the left hand side. Its the same on my 70D crop frame camera.

8 minutes ago, jambouk said:

I think my new idea is to install a custom bought pier onto an existing submerged concrete block. The only issue will be attaching the pier down onto the block, as there are no bolts sticking up from below, so the only option would be to drill into the block and use some dedicated expanding bolts.

I would suggest avoiding using expanding bolts.

A good solution would be to drill slightly oversized holes and install threaded bar studs into the holes using construction epoxy - then tighten down with nuts.

22 minutes ago, Ken82 said:

So you don’t tighten the locking lever at all ? What’s the weight of your camera etc ? 

My focus locking screw is always slack - otherwise the focuser wouldn't be able to move the focuser.

My camera, filter wheel assy. is 2.5kgs / 5.5 lbs.

Is that video taken with the Sesto attached??

1 hour ago, Ken82 said:

@Skipper Billy how tight do you have the  focuser clamp Locked ? I’m a bit reluctant to tighten this any further as I believe it may well be causing some form of tilt. 

Hi Ken

Your scope is one that just keeps on giving !!! 😬

I dont use the Sesto Senso I use a Lakeside which attaches in a completely different way.

I cant really see how tightening the focuser clamp can introduce tilt??

It doesnt help you but the Lakeside has never slipped even with an Atik 16200, EFW3 and a full set of 2" filters handing off it.

Good luck my friend!

10 minutes ago, Philip R said:

Do you sell large ones? - forgive me if this is the wrong place to ask.
My local family run ironmonger/hardware business closed last year. I would rather 
spend my money with someone I trust and give you the custom.  

The largest off the shelf are 120mm internal maximum diameter - if that's not big enough we sell kits with 3m of the strapping and 8 worm drives so you can make your own up to about 850mm internal diameter!!

The 120's are £4.95 and the kits are £24.50 - all are marine grade (316) stainless steel.

Happy to offer free post and packing to all SGL members