Mick J

34 minutes ago, callisto said:

Just purchased the deal....I'm learning from scratch, wish me luck 🤞

I found this helped with some basics :  https://affinityrevolution.com/affinity-photo-for-beginners-tutorial/

and Dave Eagle repeated via youtube :

Welcome Mohamed,  quite a long thread here:

What's on the other end of the top cable and what's the connector on the EQ6R.  Be careful with polarity, I would have thought a suitable cable would be supplied with one of the items but........ 

Picture heavy thread here may help 

EDIT:   perhaps something like this ? 

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/astronomy-cables-leads-accessories/lynx-astro-silicone-power-cable-21mm-dc-jack-to-gx12-2-dc-jack.html

Your welcome @rohanpai, and welcome to SGL.   Looks a great project do keep us posted with your progress. 

A very compressive and possibly more than you are looking for, mac/windows/linux and free;   DaVinci Resolve

Near the bottom of the page for downloads,  runs on my i5 laptop, had to add a card to my i5 desktop........

Some guides under the training tab.

Arun's last login was October 2018, earlier posts of his reference http://wondroussky.blogspot.com/  that may be helpful ?

Did find this an this    ain't the internet wonderful..............

As I have a Sony A6000 camera and a Windows 10pro 64bit laptop, have played with Ascom and APT in the past, am in lockdown and it’s damp out…….  Why not give it a go eh.

Download the latest versions of Ascom, APT and Doug Henderson’s Ascom driver for Sony.  Install Ascom with the few extras it needs, had to adjust my virus software to allow the install.    Install APT and install the camera driver.

On the camera set to Manual and bulb mode (I seem to have a menu option in camera settings to turn long exposure noise reduction and high ISO noise reduction to OFF in manual mode) and set picture quality, set iso, set aperture and set usb mode to PC Remote.

USB cable twix camera and laptop, open APT, click connect to camera, Ascom camera and Sony mirrorless chosen. Click Properties and chose target APT and set output mode.

I can now set number of frames, length and interval in APT and picture shows in frame after exposure, I am unable to zoom. 

I set up 4 x 300 second shots with 10 second intervals and that works,  Raw & jpg saved to laptop, run 3 x 700 second with 10 second intervals and that works,  used 80% of  battery so that wants looking at.

Conclusion is the driver works for me with APT and my A6000.

Some links:  Wiki    GitHub    Supported Cameras

That's good news,  available here,  I also noticed the books are 30% off as well plus £2.99 postage.

Until 6th December,  Black Friday deal.

1 hour ago, Karen Johnson said:

Mick, can you tell me which chapter in the book refers to that?  On another note, I picked up a Canon 450d on eBay today for £105, already astromodded and it comes with a t ring!  At least that gives me something to get going with, of course, I still need a the telescope which I will be picking up once lockdown ends.

Not in the book Karen,  APT forum and GitHub  possibly This      Don't know if this is helpful or a diversion.

Canon 450D modified is good, my lad & I modified one a few years ago strangely he has just started using it again with a 135mm Samyang.

On 21/11/2020 at 14:38, Karen Johnson said:

I purchased a great book by David Busch.  He has written a series of guides for using Sony A series right from out of the box through and set up to working through every menu option.  

Thanks Karen, I now have that.

I have seen references to a Sony Ascom driver that may work with APT and Sharpcap, may be worth a search.

Nice thread, thanks to all.

I picked up a used A6000 on eBay, still coming to terms with it.  Far to many options and buttons, I updated the camera to V3.21 and can confirm using imaging edge no long exposure NR.  Quite impressed with imaging edge but have not used the camera for any astro, lens or telescope. 

There is an old thread on the A5000, 

The last few posts on page 3 may be helpful, it may depend on model and having the latest software on the camera.

Wonderful picture and description Gorann (enjoy your supper - you have earned it), I cannot add to any of the above comments, I can only enjoy looking again at that squid.  It's becoming a fishy thread.

hi Ryan and welcome - have you tried loading sharpcap software and trying it - long shot I know, should be a free version.

Also HLVG may be useful   😉

Many thanks Grant & Dave, was waiting for this.  😃

Clear skies in Norwich, not sure about the hills. super nice, great idea.

Great find @Quatermass 

Hi Madhura and welcome,  the pole star can be found in the north sky, try this link https://pwg.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/Spolaris.htm

Here we call the big dipper the plough, the pole star, Polaris will stay in the same position in the sky all other stars appear to revolve around it. You may find a phone app that helps, if you are to far south in India it may be difficult to find.

The red star may be Mars, looking really nice and closer and bigger than usual.

They are listed here Rob

https://stargazerslounge.com/forum/295-stargazine/

If the presenter allows then youtube, Grant may have a private link for others.

1 hour ago, pedromreis said:

does it needs a glass inside after removing the IR?

Complicated question, removing the IR filter will allow more 'red' light to the sensor, this may be what you want for some astrophotography, without a replacement using the camera for normal photography focus will be different.

You may need some IR filtering, common replacement was a filter with a different cut off point, kept focus and allowed more red.

I see Gary Honis replaced with clear glass on his 300D mod.  Good luck with it.

That's my understanding, this old thread will be worth a read, the 350D is not worth a lot these days so........    and yes a 450D may be a good place to start.

A lot also depends on the surface, we had an Acrylic and Aluminium 12"x12"  print from photobox (I think) the gloss of the Acrylic was much preferred over the almost matt/semisheen Aluminium. 

Interesting idea, I see eBay has a China supplier of bulbs and UK supplier of the full kit half the price of Amazon, could not resist 😊