symmetal

Yes, that seems to be a bigger problem. 😬 Hope the new one works OK.

Alan

There will be a 'camera properties' or 'camera setup' option in whatever capture programme you use which will bring up the Ascom driver setup dialog, (if you're using the Ascom driver) similar to this

You likely need to select 'Advanced' in order to display the Camera Setting section where the USB Limit can be set. It is usually default at 40% which is the safe lowest setting but this may have been changed without knowing by other means. For small to medium size sensors cameras I can usually set it to 100% (full speed) but with APS-C or larger I need to set it at 70 to 80% maximum to avoid error messages or the program hanging when downloading an image.

As you last reported that using the camera USB ports it also fails on your main PC, it does suggest that the USB traffic is overloading the system, so hopefully the above will help. 🙂

Likely not related to your problem, but it's best to inhibit the host PC from turning off the power to USB ports to save power if it thinks they aren't being used. You can set this in Device Manager and expanding the 'Universal Serial Bus controllers' section. Right clicking on any entry ending in 'Hub' and selecting 'Properties' and then 'Power Management', untick the 'Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power' on each entry.

Alan

Check the 'USB Traffic' setting in the camera driver setup. For the Ascom driver you need to tick the 'Advanced' checkbox to see it. If set too high the camera fails when downloading images. Plugged into your computer directly there is no separate USB hub in the way, so can likely work at a higher USB Traffic setting compared to when it's plugged into the USB hub in the Powerbox.

Alan

The focal ratio with the reducer will be 5.9 x 0.8 = f4.7

The reducer actually reduces the focal length by 0.8 so giving a wider FOV at the same aperture so it's now 344mm focal length at 73mm aperture. As the aperture hasn't changed the number of photons from your target which fitted in the original 430mm scope FOV haven't changed, so the scope isn't actually faster with the focal reducer. The photons are just spread over a smaller number of pixels with a reducer so the wells will fill up quicker, at the expense of a smaller target image.

You get extra photons from the wider FOV but these don't add anything to the target which fitted in the FOV of the original scope. 🙂

Alan

2 hours ago, gorann said:

Actually, I found that the "dark ring" is a visual illusion from the bright centre. I used the eyedropper tool in PS and measured the brightness in the dark ring and in the surrounding sky and they are the same.

Interesting. When I said some other features in the image had dark rings too, this was likely an illusion as well. 🙂

Alan

There is a dark ring surrounding it, with a hint of a brighter ring outside on this simple heavy PS stretch, so I apologise for my scepticism Göran. 

My RASA 11 is all ready to go but there is cloud for the foreseeable future here so haven't been able to try it out. 😟

Alan

The galaxy is not face on to us, but the 'ring' appears to be which seems unusual. Some other small galaxies and bright stars are also surrounded by dark halos, suggesting the dark rings are artifacts so the brighter ring outside the dark ring may be an artifact too. 😉

If you post just the stack output and a simple stretch without any other processing it might settle the argument. 😊 

Alan

I did notice this on your original image and thought it mught have been an artifact of star removal so didn't mention it. 🙂 The dark circle surrounding it doesn't appear on other images. It's just classed as a lenticular galaxy.

Alan

It's much cheaper to make your own if you can solder. GX12 connectors and DC power extension leads are cheap on ebay or Amazon and you can make 4 cables or more yourself for the price of 1 ready made lead. 🙂

Alan

I'm sure you got it ok ninjageezer, but one statement I said may have been a bit confusing. 🤔

When I said you need to add a spacer distance from 48.7 to 33.7, I meant to say that the fixed spacing distance you need to add, can be anywhere between 48.7 and 33.7mm, and any spacing below 48.7mm you then make up on the FF adjustment. 😊

Alan

With the flattener adjustment at the zero mark the back focus for the Z73 flattener is 66.2mm. The DSLR and canon T adapter has a distance of 55mm from the front of the T adapter to the camera sensor, (commonly also called back focus just to add to the confusion).

Therefore the extra FF backfocus required is 66.2 - 55 = 11.2mm. This is the distance you set on the FF adjustable scale.

11.4mm is quoted which is possibly due to the DSLR T adapters  varying slightly in thickness.

Your ASI533 MC has a sensor to flange distance of 17.5mm, (called back focus in the manual) so you need to make up the extra spacing of 66.2 - 17.5mm = 48.7mm.

The FF adjustment can be set from 0 to 15mm so you need to add a spacer distance from 48.7 to 33.7mm and make up the difference to 48.7 on the FF adjustment.

If you left the FF adjustment at 11.4 you would need to add 48.7 - 11.4 = 37.3mm spacing. Much easier to use common spacer lengths like a 20mm plus a 15mm and set the FF adjustment to 13.7.

Hope that makes sense. 🙂

ALan

What's your exposure yelzac? It needs to be around 5mS to help freeze the seeing conditions and to allow a high framerate. 5mS should give a framerate of 200fps at your ROI, ( 1 / 0.005) assuming your camera and capture computer can cope with that. Increase the camera gain to achieve around 60-70% on the histogram. The gain may end up being quite high, such that the preview is very noisy but that doesn't matter much as stacking a few thousand frames will remove that noise.

Use 8-bit capture resolution, and if your camera has a high speed mode then select that as it uses a lower bit conversion rate like 10 bits which is fine if you're capturing in 8 bit. Don't enable gamma correction or debayer during capture to maximize fps. Most capture programs by default, do disable debayering during capture, although the screen preview can still be seen debayered.

A two minute video at 200fps will give you 24,000 frames and stacking the best 20 to 30% will give around 5000 frames or more which should be enough to allow a fair amount of processing before it starts looking noisy.

Alan

Most impressive for a full Moon Wim. I like the star colours too. 🙂

Alan

7 hours ago, StarryEyed said:

ARE YOU SURE THEY NOT AFTER YOU TESTING THESE ASWELL !

You could be right.  😛 I've just received an email from Celestron saying a RASA 11 is being delivered tomorrow. FLO are looking into it. 🤔

Alan

An upgrade arrived from Celestron as compensation for the three RASA 8 scopes I had to return as they had bad flaring, which has now led to Celestron halting shipments and returning all their RASA 8 stock to the factory for modification. It's significantly heavier, 19.5kg compared to 7.7kg 😲 so I've had to get a bigger mount which is coming tomorrow. 🙂

Needless to say CO is blanket red for the foreseeable future. 

Alan

@Stuart1971 Glad you got the adjustment working well now Stuart. Now for the image test to confirm it. 😉

I wasn't thinking too much about the reflection position in relation to the laser at the time, and chose a likely candidate which actually worked out fine for me. 😃 As you've noticed on yours, the protect window is not truly parallel to the sensor, which doesn't matter at all. As the protect window usually sits in a silicone moulded frame which squashes as the front cover is tightened to hopefully make it airtight, it's pure luck as to whether it ends up parallel.

As you say, it's most likely the furthest dot from the laser will be the cover slip, though this does rely on the surfaces in front of it being roughly parallel to the sensor in the first place, which should hopefully be the case. 😊

Alan

I like that. 😃 Including several moons makes the animation stand out more giving a better 3D view. 

Alan

4 hours ago, CraigT82 said:

Here is a middle ground, 50/50 blend of the first two in Gimp

Viewed at a distance the new blend looks best, but viewed up close I still prefer the original one. 😛

Alan

That's impressive Geof.  Clean edges and rings. I took a few 2 min videos of Saturn last night before Jupiter too. The processed Jupiter ones were disappointing, so I didn't check the Saturn ones but it may be worth a go.

I didn't think of doing long Saturn videos but there's little to blur compared to Jupiter's rotation so it's worth a go in future. 😃 Your 6000 frames would be a 10% stack I assume.

Alan

@geoflewis, Thanks Geof. 🙂 The following day there was clearish sky after dark and I tried Saturn and Jupiter again but seeing was unstable and it got more hazy as the night wore on so I gave up.

Alan

1 hour ago, Ian McCallum said:

I did a little with the image in RegiStax 6...  I think yours is better and doesn't have a blue border round it.

I like yours too Ian. I wasn't sure what colour to go for, though you've made the southern pole, if the bottom is the south, more white which may be correct. Not sure why the opposite pole is blue though, like in mine, though looking at some other images that area does have a blue tint sometimes. The blue border is an Autostakkert artifact I suspect. I should have cropped it off before posting it.

Alan

@neil phillips, @CraigT82, @Saganite, @Kon Thanks for your kind words. 😊

The stacked image of Mars didn't look all that special and i was very surprised when I just applied a saved heavy process in Registax and everything appeared. Here's the stacked tif if anyone would like a try.

2022-10-09-0100_8-U-RGB-ZWO ASI224MC_Gain=300_Exposure=4.0ms_17_lapl5_ap7.tif

I was disappointed with how Jupiter turned out. I've just restacked them with different percentages so will have another go.

Scopes out tonight for another try, but not sure if the clouds will cooperate.

Alan

Saturn taken as it crossed the Meridian. The scope had been outside for a few hours but the collimation check was boiling quite a bit, so not at it's best.

10" LX200 GPS, 2x Powermate, Zwo ADC, ASI224MC, 4mS exp, 120 sec video,  240 fps.  Best 10% stacked in AS3, Registax and PS. Not great I admit.

Jupiter taken about an hour before it crossed the Meridian. I took some at the Meridian as the red spot was emerging but these are not as sharp as the earlier ones unfortunately. I did recheck the ADC and focus but I'm obviously not got enough. 😟 5mS exp, 2 min video, 200 fps. 20% stack in AS3, Rest as above. Result not as good as others have posted. I did try videos at 4, 3, 2 and 1ms but the 3 and below were very progressively more noisy and couldn't take much processing. The 4mS looked the same as 5mS so I'll likely stick to 5mS from now on.

I didn't fancy staying up to 5am for Mars to cross the Meridian so I took a video at 23:30pm  which was terrible, and another couple at 01:45am when it was higher, and was surprised at how much better these were when I checked them the next day. I did do another collimation check and it was much more steady now.

4mS exp, 120 sec video, 240 fps. Best 10% stack, Rest as above. I'm quite pleased with this one. 😊

Alan

More excellent images there Geof, especially the animation. 😀

Alan

Another cracking image Craig. 😀 I actually prefer the original over the 10% stack personally, it doesn't look as 'processed'. 😉

Alan