Davesellars

Many thanks, Martin. That's a little clearer! I've now connected the camera and set gain and offset with an exposure of 2 seconds with the cap open on the telescope (testing during the day...) and clicking on the camera icon which then goes green but nothing is being displayed... I've used APT to ensure that something would be displayed and it's fine there... What could be the issue?

Hi Martin, I've installed it without any errors occuring (afaik!) and it opens OK. I saw in the installation instruction that it only supported up to Python 3.9. I'm not sure how to connect the camera (ZWO ASI178) - nothing seems to be enabled for connection (I've gone through the QuickStart but nothing is appearing like in your images... Here I've just clicked on the camera button directly and it turns green but that's it... Nothing else is enabled unless I'm missing something....

Interested in this but currently only seems to be supporting up to Python 3.9? Any chance of support for Python v3.10 soon?

Many thanks Mike! Nice to know I'm going in the right direction... I'm wondering if perhaps my 120ST may be actually more beneficial to put to use for EAA. Its extra light capture and resolution plus at f/5 I think may actually do a better job than the 80ED for galaxies and nebulae at least. Now I've got a good reference with NGC7331 taken last night, I shall have to compare...

This is quite a project! I've had time to see through one of your videos so far (in the UK so unlikely to get to join in on one realtime - but you never know!), and impressed by your videos - it's a nice setup you've got! I'm just getting into EAA myself so it's a bit of a journey although I've been a visual observer for many years - it's nice to be able to see more and deeper. Well done and kudos for doing all this in realtime in Youtube! Keep going - it's inspirational work!

3rd Session! 13th October. Approx 9 - 10:30pm Scope used: SW 80ED. Other: AS178MM & SharpCap stacking. So, another short session... Clouds yet again stopping play and transparency was mixed with lots of haze in areas. However, progress I think has been made... Around 6:30pm I had the scope out and pointed it at the dimming blue sky to take flats. After a bit of experimentation and the light dropping fast, I managed to get the signal bang in the centre of the histogram using 3 second exposures. Flats now taken - the camera is staying where it is now for the next session... . I did have to move the focus a touch, but this made no effect on the suitability of the flats. Using flats this time seems to have made a difference to the overall image being stacked in Sharpcap. First up what M13 again to test out the darks & flats working together. I had the exposure to 8 seconds and gain to 150. Transparency/seeing was definitely not as good tonight as the FHWM was averaging around 4-5. After around 10 frames this was excellent already, but I let it run some more to 37 frames as seen here (Taken as seen in SharpCap with histogram stretching only). Next up was NGC 7331 in Pegasus. This is a good size galaxy with prominent spiral structure and a fascinating for the multitude of galaxies in its group which I was hoping to capture more than NGC 7331 itself. NGC 7331 is a nice easy target with my 12" dob for the relative brightness of the core but the structure is very difficult and needs excellent transparency to see any structure at all. After a while, I think I got more much more than I expected as several other galaxies popped into view the lowest being a mag 15.9 with PGC 69281 (up and right from NGC 7331). The galaxy structure was showing quite nicely after 5 minutes of live stacking with the other galaxies evident also. I'm sure on a better night this would be improved (The transparency in this area of the sky was getting quite bad). The above image is from 40 frames @ 30 seconds exposure with gain set to 150. 20 minutes and the structure is really showing very well indeed (much more than I expected from 80mm aperture). Last up Stephans Quintet (just a very short hop from NGC 7331). With the failing transparency and haze getting thicker I didn't expect that much and the below image is from 11 minutes integration (30 second exposures with 150 gain) before clouds swamped the sky entirely... It came out better than I expected at least with clear splits of all the galaxies in the group! I don't think I'm going to get any more detail from this group though with this small scope! That was it for this evening! Hopefully next time it won't be cut quite so short (again)!

Great report Paul! Quite a haul of objects for the night!

Are you dead set on putting the reflector on an EQ mount? Manual EQ mount options stop with the EQ5 - which I (personally) wouldn't want to put the weight (and bulk) of an 8" reflector on it. After that - the HEQ5 etc you have to be using connected up to power and using the GOTO or the controls at least. Personally, if you haven't bought the 200p yet then I'd just go for an 8" or 10" dob now for visual and if you have any inclination for imaging later on then get an extra setup for the purpose (a small refractor or the 130PDS on a HEQ5/EQ6/AVX or whatever...

To keep cost down I'd recommend a manual EQ5 or indeed if you have more budget by all means with the GOTO option, however I found it very easy and find objects with a good atlas. I wouldn't recommend a manual mount with such a scope that does not have slow motion controls as imho it's just too difficult for tracking an object at higher magnification. The great thing about the EQ is the tracking is very easy even if only very roughly polar aligned and you can always add on the EQ5 motors or the GOTO afterwards... Alternatively, you could put up a wanted ad. for an SE mount - you may find someone willing to sell an SE mount (have seen various adverts previously) as they've upgraded and kept the scope. +1 on the dew shield - this is definitely not an option with an SCT in the UK!

Many thanks, Rob! Good luck with your ASI290 & looking forward to your first light report with it! It will be interesting to see how difficult it is to actually find objects... I've worked out that the FOV is approximate to looking through a Delos 14mm eyepiece with my 12" dob. Fortunately, my sky is reasonably dark enough to make searching quite accurately with the 60mm finder fairly effective although I'd normally start with the 17.3mm Delos in the dob... Using Liveview in Sharp at least shows up stars very well in near real time to make adjustments manually with the EQ5 and referring to SkySafari to hone-in on the object. I have also setup Cartes du Ciel and using platesolving with ASTAP and so syncing my current position I have the possibility to see how far I am "out" to make an adjustment although I haven't had to use this yet, I tested this first inside using a DSLR capture from the previous week and setting the time correctly (there's nothing worse than trying to get things working for the first time out in the freezing cold!). I then tested it while I was on M13 and after platesolving in Sharpcap the mount position synced perfectly in Cartes du Ciel. This may come in particularly useful for the Virgo/Coma Berenices galaxies!

Many thanks once again Steve!

Ok... I had to download the ASCOM ASI driver as I was just using the native ZWO driver. From this in ASCOM diagnostics when i set either preset high or low gain it gives the value of offset to 340 (in the centre). Does this seem about right?

Many thanks Steve! Yes, amp glow was still showing with darks (but to much less extent). I'm not sure where to find the value for the offset but I'll have a good look and see if I can figure it out! I'll also check out Jocular (I've not heard of this before!).

A bit of background: I'm a visual observer and greatly enjoy using my 12" dob but since July I've mainly turned to using the 4" refractor for most sessions as I've had a few issues with my back. My main interest are deep sky objects, but I've been really enjoying planetary viewing with binoviewers the last couple of months and no EAA would replace that. After putting an RA motor on my EQ5 I decided to delve back into a bit of AP (sold my NEQ6 and imaging stuff back in 2017) with the DSLR but decided quite quickly that wasn't really my thing and got bored quickly without a real result until you stack them all and process (far too time consuming too!). Still, I wanted to see deeper and further than my visual instruments will let me and also be able to share the night sky somewhat easier with my family (have 3 daughters, two of which are really interested and the other is too young atm). my wife also loves looking at the DSOs and planets etc but doesn't like the freezing cold so much that comes with it... So, I bought a ZWO ASI178MM mono camera. Pixel size seemed to match well with the focal length of my refractors 600 and 714. Why mono? It's considerably faster and I'm not that bothered about colour and first priority is speed of getting a good image on the screen. I've had a couple of short opportunities now to use my newly acquired camera using SharpCap with my 80ED. 1st night was with M13 (starting on something easy!) and then moved to the nearby galaxy NGC 6207. M13 was amazing. Within a few seconds it had surpassed with the 80mm aperture what I could see visually with my 12" dob. The core was intense - the camera was certainly one hell of a lot more sensitive than my DSLR. NGC 6207 is a small but relatively bright galaxy measuring only 3.45' x 1.6' and this I would generally have no problem seeing with the 12" dob but with the 80ED would need very good transparency to be able to "easily" see it. With the camera and using 8 second exposures (gain I think was around 150), the galaxy was immediately visible and then started to show quite nice shape and further clarity after a few minutes. Much more was immediately visible than with the 12" dob for sure being able to make out the shape of the galaxy extending further than its bright core. I realised after this that stars were bloating quite easily due to the lack of an IR filter in the camera - so I purchased an Astronomik IR-Block for use in the second session. While I was at it, I also purchased an Astronomik 12nm Ha filter as this would help considerably see some of the nebulae that are otherwise invisible in Bortle 5 skies. Session 2 was on 10th October - Full moonlight! I could make out Cassiopeia naked eye and using the 60mm finder found the position for NGC281 (Pacman Nebula) and started initially with liveview on 30 seconds which brought up nebula reasonably well. This is where my knowledge of my camera started to lack regarding Gain and Brightness (offset) in Sharpcap... Initially I was struggling to get the histogram peak sufficiently off the left-hand side and in the end boosted the gain to 300 and 60 second exposures with the brightness set to 0 (still no idea what I really should be setting this to...). I fired of a set of 10 darks to apply first (I haven't got the hang of how to do flats yet). I think the darks worked reasonably well although didn't seem perfect but certainly improved the live stacking process. This is a big learning curve. Anyway, the Pacman appeared really quite nicely after 3 or 4 frames and continued to improve. I'd say after 15 frames the difference wasn't quite so significant from 15 to 30 frames - but that's when I stopped at 30 frames and saved the image as is... So, I'm quite impressed with this little camera... I'm looking forward to picking up much more small-medium size Ha targets as well as galaxies, globs and planetary nebulae. Here starts the journey - hopefully I will append to this thread as a "journal" as I continue...

Astronomik Ha 12nm CCD filter and also an Astronomik IR-Block (both 1.25") for using with the newly acquired ZWO ASI178MM

New toys.... A ZWO ASI 178MM mono camera together with a 4" dewshield and Lynx dew strip for the 102ED or the 80ED.

Ok, so gone for the ASI 178MM. Sample size seems to be very well matched for the 714mm focal length and also with a barlow in very good seeing for planetary/lunar. Unfortunately, a much larger mono sensor is a very big price step up - this will certainly do though and is a good enough size for the majority of objects..

Many thanks. I'm wondering if I even need to get the reducer right away and just run with what I have with the 178MM. I have 3 refractor options and perhaps the 120ST will even work very well with a mono camera and a Ha filter since it's f/5 and has the extra aperture.

Many thanks. I'm not looking directly to use filters although I already have OIII and UHC visual Astronomik filters which I could use on certain targets perhaps and perhaps add a Ha 12nM filter in future... I'm definitely not looking to do full RGB etc AP - I just don't have the time nor real interest for this; however, I'm really not bothered about colour images for EAA / lunar imaging. I think most important is getting more data to the sensor quickly.

Current setup: EQ5 with RA motor - Using a DSLR with the Canon 70D I've been able to get 1-minute exposures unguided with no real visible trailing using my 80ED and that's not even properly balanced on Dec as the weight of the of the DSLR makes it virtually impossible to balance without putting on a longer dovetail or counterweighting. I am also planning on starting using the Starfield 102ED on the same mount OTA (tube only) weight difference between the two is approx 1.3kg. Since the DSLR is around 1.1kg vs a ZWO camera (150g or less), the real difference between the two isn't going to be massive or extra load for the mount and also much easier to balance on the Dec axis (don't have any difficulty with this anyway with the Starfield). Priorities in imaging: 1. EAA - Although I'm primarily a visual person - there's certain things (well, quite a lot actually) that are out of range in a Bortle 5 sky. Being able to capture some Ha signal in nebulae and greater detail is great to show my family (with 3 young kids) who are all interested in astronomy, and I've included them in numerous sessions this summer. For me4., being able to capture better detail on the faint galaxies would also me great and also being able to observe comets and smaller bodies is a bonus. 2. Lunar, Solar (white light) and Planetary... in that order. I understand that planetary imaging is probably going to need a longer focal length scope and larger aperture than the 4" but I think it will be sufficient to get some reasonable captures. Lunar imaging primarily for the doing taking part in some citizen science. 3. Astrophotography - I've come to the realisation that with using my DSLR that I just generally don't have the time for this... it's just too much of a time sink at the moment and spending hours on the same object is not my thing. Maybe occasionally though I might setup and have it imaging while I have to do other things during the evening, and I can process later so not discounting AP altogether Mono / OSC ? I'm on the fence about this. I think colour is a nice to have option but probably not at the expense of sensitivity and being able capture much more signal in the same exposure time of the mono camera. I think the 585 is rather newer though so not sure if the difference between the two is still a lot? or now considerably less... Cooling not necessary as I'm not doing long exposure AP although I may build a DIY cooler though and have seen an interesting post on using "mobile phone" coolers... Options: 1. ZWO ASI 178MM Mono - While the FOV is smaller than the 585 I can almost make up for it with the purchase of the 0.8x reducer for the Starfield. Without the reducer seems well matched for planetary and lunar especially with the addition of a 1.5 or 2x barlow. The reducer looks like it would probably work fine with the 80ED as well (i'd get the a M63 to 2" nose adapter so I'm not having to faff about switching between visual and camera usage....) I don't really need colour but may do some OIII + Ha in the future (with the purchase of a Ha filter). 2. ZWO ASI 585MC Colour - Larger sensor but also quite a bit more expensive. Hardly any real information about this apart from the numbers look good... Using a reducer though takes me way over budget so would be working at f/7 instead of f/5.6 So that's my research having looked into various cameras etc and options. There's possibly a lot I've missed out! If you've got any suggestions or can recommend either one or the other (or indeed any other option) - particularly interested in the mono vs colour argument especially in relation to EAA use.

Taken last night as nice and transparent night but now visual astronomy for me as still recovering from a bad cold so quickly setup the EQ5 with RA motor only. Polar aligned (not too bad) with the 80ED and DSLR (70D) This is from 30 x 1 min exposures @ ISO1600 (this just about gets me to a good position on the histogram) I did take 15 lights from 2 minute exposures as well however the EQ5 or something else (flexure) was causing too much movement over that time period (no guiding here!) so I didn't use them in the end. Seems that 1 minute exposures is about the limit for this mount unguided anyway... I used flats and bias frames this time. No darks as doesn't seem to make much difference... Processed in StarTools .

Doing a bit of AP taking some pictures of the Veil first with the 80ED. Will then switch over to the 102ED for some visual later on... Lovely and transparent tonight!

It's not perfect but I used Startools Heal feature... Line -> grow blob selection to create the mask - this seems to take care of the majority although it woudn't remove it entirely through M33 itself. I'm sure someone perhaps better versed in Startools would make a better job of it though (I've only just come back to start using it again!!!)

Hi! Many thanks for the suggestion. I always thought that dark frames were necessary - what is the reason for not needing them with the 70D - am I just adding further noise?

Many thanks for the suggestions. I've got a feeling I may be able to just about squeeze 45-60 seconds unguided out of the mount but needs some experimentation. Next time I'll shoot for at least 50+ light frames to get a decent integration time. I've taken some dark frames at near enough the same temperature and also a bias set so once I've got some time, I'll go through it again and figure out StarTools properly...