Phillyo

I power my AAP and my 533MC Pro from a standard leisure battery. Seperate connections going into each of them. The 120mm mini is plugged into the 533 and it takes power from the usb port of that. No issues at all. My mount is powered via an AC adapter to mains power (so far, I'm working on changing it so that I can use the same battery too).

I'm not normally a fan of clusters but this is beautiful. Well done.

So, it turns out it is in fact the GX-12. Maybe a different laptop running EQmod.

Could be? It's outside at the moment and it's cold, dark and wet so I will take a look tomorrow and see Thanks for the heads up.

Yeah but it's not quite the same size. It's a TINY bit smaller.

That's interesting as my mount has had the power supply changed to a screw in type one similar to the EQ6 R mount, I just don't know what cable to get because I bought that cable and it doesn't fit so I can't connect it to a battery until I figure that out.

Tried it last night, still doing it. Next test is maybe to try a completely different laptop with the same software to see how that goes.

Absolutely gorgeous!

Just had a look and 'On battery' and 'Plugged in' were both set to 'Enabled' so I have disabled them yes?

How do I check that?

No handset, it's plugged directly into the usb port. I'll have a fiddle with it next time I'm out to see if it's causing any issues. The cable and mount work perfectly well when using the ASIair Pro with no drop out so I don't think it's the cable.

Hi guys, So with it being a big bright moon I thought I would try and get EQMod set up on the laptop to enable me to do install and play with NINA, PHD2 etc as I'm thinking of buying a small PC to control everything in the future. However, I'm having some random issues. NINA will just disconnect from the telescope for no reason. Cartes Du Ciel will do the same. Then when I just connect the mount (HEQ5 Pro) to PHD2 via EQMod I get lots of CommErr:MSR errors as seen in the screen shots attached. I'm trying to just do a Guiding Assistant and it will just randomly slew off to a different part of the sky every couple of minutes. Completely at a loss here!! Any help would be very much appreciated. Mount is connected to laptop via Lynx Astro EQDir cable. No hubs etc. Thanks.

You should be able to get nebula images yes, what you might find is that longer exposures are harder to do. If you stick to shorter exposures (1-2min?) and a higher ISO you should be fine.

I might revisit it again and try another process.

If you'd like to have a go with the data feel free! https://www.dropbox.com/s/eq8xqtkh9yaigdq/masterLight-BINNING_1-FILTER_NoFilter-EXPTIME_300.xisf?dl=0

I added another 61 x 5min of data to this last night and I expected to get more from it but I'm struggling to edit this one. The noise is much much better, and there's more detail and nebula but I expected a bit more? Maybe I'm expecting too much for only 6 hours of data? 73 x 5 min with IDAS NBX filter through the samyang 135 at about F2.4 (stop down rings used). HEQ5 pro with rowan belt and the ASI533 at gain 100 offset 15. Edited in PI (badly). Moon is rising again and there aren't any clear nights coming up so this might have to be it for now. Try something else. Thanks for looking, Phil

Lovely M45. I love seeing the whispy details around the bright stars. Just my personal opinion but I feel you've taken the background a little too dark. If you use photoshop to edit the image then aim to get your background somewhere around 30/30/30 ish. Space isn't black Phil

Well now, this is rather nice Göran! I had a very quick look at this a couple of nights ago, just a single 10min sub to see if I could even see anything and it was there...though very faint. I'm very tempted to give this a go with my ASI533 and Samyang at 2.4 to see what I can get. I'm also using the NBX, which I think it's doing REALLY well, so I'm very quietly optimistic that I might get something...if I get another clear night. I think it would need to be without a moon though as it is fainter than a faint thing so I need all the help I can get in capturing the detail. Great image! I too prefer the slightly desaturated reds image. Phil

Interesting. I'm in Bortle 5 and only a short drive to bortle 4. This could be a great target at some point in the future (when the clouds have moved on!)

I'm not sure it's so much a transition to people WANTING OSC over mono, rather than there being more OSC camera's available than mono at a cheaper price. I have a OSC camera (ASI533) and it was £900. That's all I need to get very good, clean data. There's no mono version even available for this sensor (yet) but if there is it is likely to cost around the £1500 mark. Add to that the filter wheel and filters required then you're adding perhaps a thousand pounds or more to go mono. Will the images be better? Subjectively yes, of course. Higher QE etc etc. However, when you stop pixel peeping and just enjoy the images coming from the camera is it worth spending that extra £1000 to get marginally better images? To some, sure. To others, I would suggest not.

Thank you both.

It was unexpectedly clear for a couple of hours last night so I managed to grab about 2 hours (22x5min) of data on NGC1499. Hopefully I can add more to it as it rises in the sky over winter. It's a little noisy on close inspection but I think that's to be expected with only 2 hours of data. Captured with the Samyang 135 @ f2.8, asi533, no calibration frames, using the IDAS NBX filter. Comments/criticism always welcome! Phil

Wow!! Absolutely spectacular. I love seeing these dark dusty clouds, just beautiful. What sky conditions are you imaging under please?

Lovely image. I think your background is a little bit dark perhaps? If you raised it slightly you might be able to see a little more of the nebula too

Ah man that sucks. Lucky you have a back up you can use! I have 6 hours total now and I'm probably leaving it there for this year. I'll move onto a new target whenever it's next clear. Either M45 or M42 I think. The classics! I've updated my post on here (1 hour of NGC7000) with the 6 hour version if you wanted to take a look. And yeah, the weather is garbage. I need to move to Spain I think.