Phillyo

Hi Olly, 

I use the Samyang 135mm lens and was having the same issue as you, being unable to get much past infinity to get a good v curve. I did a little bit of surgical work to remove the hard stop and now it works perfectly. There's a video explaining how to do it, it's a really easy 5 min job. I'll see if I can find it and post the link below. 

Hope that helps. 

Phil

Thank you 🙂

This is cropped in quite a bit from my Samyang135 and IMX571 setup. I still struggle to get the colours 'right', but I quite like what I have here. I tried adding about 10h worth of Ha data, but I just couldn't get it to look right. I need to look into how to do it properly!

Phil

Who has told you that you can't power your EQ6-R Pro via the ASIAIR Plus?

On 17/12/2022 at 14:08, wimvb said:

Very nice, despite the planet's appearance. I guess you could always crop the image before processing.

Tried cropping prior to processing and gave it another go. Maybe looks a little better? Meh.

I had a little play yesterday and it made things look better definitely, but you really need to look close to see the difference with my setup (Samyang 135, IMX571 camera). I've attached a before and after (two slightly different processing but very similar other than colours) along with the full size image to show how tight the crop is. I like the result, but I'm not sure if it's worth £100.

Just realised they're different sizes, never mind. You get the idea hopefully!

Thanks Wim,

The problem is that the glow extends quite far into the frame and even if I cropped it the glow would still show up. Never mind! I'll do better next time

Phil

Another image with the SY135. More details can be found in the Deep Sky Imaging page.

About 14 hours of data, Risingcam IMX571, SY135, 60s exposures, EQ6-R Pro, L-Pro UV/IR filter. NINA and Pixinsight for software.

The bright glow is Mars....*facepalm*. I didn't even realise it was there until too late, but it is what it is.

Phil

We've actually had a couple of clear nights here the last few nights, albeit with a moon rising later in the evening. I decided to try and add a bunch more data over two nights of a widefield image around Barnard 10. What I had failed to notice, however, was that Mars was making it's way through that part of the sky. Much to my frustration I didn't notice until I got up the next morning and stacked the data together and saw a huge glow just off frame.

Still, it is what it is and I've learnt a valuable lesson here.

So, I've processed it as best I can (I really don't know how to process dark nebula very well at all) and I have an image I do like, just annoying to have some of it ruined by the glow from Mars.

So this is 784 x 1min exposures (13hours 4min) taken with the Risingcam IMX571 OSC camerea. L-Pro filter, Samyang 135@ F/3.5 using stop down rings. NINA for capture, Pixinsight for editing.

Any advice on how to edit this better would be very greatly appreciated. I can even upload the XSIF files (normal and Drizzle) if anyone wants to have a go.

Thanks for reading and looking, Phil.

I watched most of the video posted by Adam Block last night and it looks fantastic. I'll be giving the free 30 day trial a go and will probably get it. If it works anywhere close to as well as noise and star xterminator then it'll be another fantastic bit of software/coding.

I rarely do a re-calibration. Unless the orthogonal angle has changed, or unless I've moved my mount then there's no point. It doesn't matter where you're pointing in the sky, once you have a good calibration it won't change (except for orthogonal or mount position change).

Guiding varies night to night. Sometimes around 0.5"RMS, sometimes closer to 1"RMS. The seeing is a larger determining factor for me.

The checkerboard artefacts are from using StarXterminator. Give it a try with Starnet and see if it looks any different? I often use both and go with the best one.

Thanks Scotty, I've posted a comment. See if he replies

Good evening,

Whenever I try to run the NSG script, Pixinsight shuts down and the error code "A breakpoint has been reached (Error 0x80000003)" and I have no idea what could be causing the issue. Just running WBPP doesn't have the same issues and I've never seen it anywhere else outside of using NSG within Pixinsight.

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,

Phil.

Only 1h 15min of data...that's about all I've had in weeks. Even then I've had to shoot through some high hazy clouds, hence the slightly fuzzy looking stars but I'm getting desperate now! Definitely need to add about 20x as much data to really do this justice, but we have what we have.

Risingcam IMX571, Samyang 135 @ f3.5, UV/IR filter, EQ6-r Pro and 75ish x 60s exposures. Not my greatest work, but it's a start.

Phil

Gorgeous image! I don't know what your acquisition details are but you've pulled a lot out from one night. Great job!

Light pollution or not, this is a really lovely capture of M45. Subtle processing to bring out the surround nebulosity is really nice too. Congrats!

This is really nice. I love the detail you've captured and the processing too. I'm trying to gather a LOT of ha data for this to bring out the nebula that can be seen around it but it's turning out to be very hard, especially with the UK weather. 

2 hours ago, FLO said:

Currently we think the teaser photo you saw on Facebook is the 'only' photo of this new model. 

We will post specifications and price when Askar make them available 🙂 

Steve

Thanks Steve, very interested in this little scope as a step up from using the Samyang 135.

Someone else asked that question and the reply from Sharpstar was that it's a completely different optical design? No idea. I'm sure there'll be some reviews from youtube types  

I saw on facebook this morning that Sharpstar are releasing a new ASKAR telescope, the 65PHQ. I can't remember the full spec but it's something like 65mm, 416mm focal length, f6.4 quintuplet scope with full frame sensor coverage. As for price, they've quoted $999 so probably over £1000 after uk tax etc.

I wonder if anyone from @FLO could enlighten us with any further information?

Just want to add a reminder than you don't need to purchase everything brand new. I'm likely selling a ZWO ASI533 soon and I have seen people selling the Samyang135 lens with adapters and mounting for good prices. That's always a good way to get into things rather than buying brand new.

Phil

So from 115 x 60s images, 6 of the them had that strange lines thing going on. Really strange! 

23 hours ago, ONIKKINEN said:

@Phillyo I went through some failed frames of the last few sessions to see what was wrong with them (all but this is some mount hiccup) and found this:

Looks familiar, a bit like yours from a while ago. Weird banding all around, blotches of colours here and there and a weird red to white gradient across the image. There was no external flash of light or anything at the time, the scope was very much doing its own thing in darkness not being disturbed. No clue what happened or why and have definitely not seen anything like this with my camera, the sub before this and after this are perfectly normal with none of this. My mini-pc too is a bit busted as it has been rained on and has crashed a couple of times after that. Also a USB hub in between the camera and PC, so many possible points of failure.

But could of course be something in the camera at fault too. Will look out more carefully if this happens again, usually i just sort my subs based on their statistics and i never really inspect obviously failed subs like this one but just not include them in the calibration run i do after a night.

I'm taking some pictures at the moment and I've just had 1 frame do the exact same thing. Really strange and I have no idea what might be causing it!

1 hour ago, assouptro said:

Thank you for replying to my enquiry 

I can see I am going to have to do a sharpcap sensor analysis and get the valuable information required, I don’t think it’s wise to look for shortcuts with this camera! 

I miss the simplicity of the Atik ccd cameras, the only thing I had to decide on was to bin or not to bin depending on arcseconds per pixel! 
 

I’m not familiar with the risingcam capabilities, I’m aware of the camera as I nearly bought one myself, I have one question….

When you say you leave the gain and offset at default, what is the default on that camera? 
 

Thanks again 

Bryan

 

Ha, yeah I hear ya! I sometimes miss my old QSI583 CCD camera...but I don't miss the 20min exposure times required!!

So, Risingcam have two different drivers for the camera. They have a native driver and an ASCOM driver. The native driver has an offset of 768 and a gain of 100. The ASCOM driver is different, but the actual results of the values remain the same (I can't remember exactly what the ASCOM default values are as I only really use the native drivers in NINA). I *THINK* it's something like gain 0 offset of 50, but don't quote me on that. However like I say, just because the gain of one of them is 100 and the other is 0 doesn't mean there's any actual difference in gain, it's just how the drivers display it. Same with offset.

With my 533MC Pro, I also just left the gain and offset at default and just adjusted the exposure length to the target/conditions/filter etc.

Hope that makes sense!

Phil