StevieO

This is the glory of forums (fora?) like this. I 'm in the process of installing all the drivers and software needed for imaging on a brand new mini pc to be attached to the mount. EQMOD was doing exactly this, randomly stopping tracking every few minutes. I was tearing what's left of my hair out. Then I thought 'This can't be just me, someone else must have been through this, I'll bet it's a settings issue.' So I came on here, as many times before, and found the solution - uncheck the mount limits box, and as if by magic, the problem has gone away. Thanks guys, for posting these, you've saved me a lot of heartache. StevieO

Problem solved - I got up at 6am today and let Cha from QHYCCD in China take over my PC via Teamviewer. He did exactly what I've done numerous times, except that he installed EZCAP and the native driver only first, got that working and only then installed the ASCOM driver so that I can connect with APT. I couldn't see any other differences, but that did the trick. But it's in and working. Thanks to Cha, and Bernard at Modern Astronomy who put me in touch with him. Very impressed with MA! And thanks to Stuart1971 and Teoria_Del_Big_Bang for their input. C'mon clouds, gimme a break! StevieO

Hi Stuart, Thanks for that, I've had the camera completely disconnected and powered down each time I've reinstalled. I have V6.5 ASCOM and have tried both 6.4 and 6.5 drivers, uninstalling each time it's failed. Tonight I've found a possible solution on Cloudy Nights using ASCOM Diagnostics, so I'll try that and report back. Trouble is I'm away from home for a couple of days so it'll have to wait until Wed. Watch this space! StevieO

Hi Steve, Thanks, yes that's exactly what I've done. I've tried installing it with EZCAP and without (EZCAP won't recognise the camera, nor will APT which is my goto capture software) I've tried installing just the ASCOM driver, just the native driver, both drivers, versions 6.4 and 6.5 of the ASCOM Driver, the beta version, many times over. I rang Bernard at the supplier, Modern Astronomy. He was extremely helpful and emailed me another version of the all-in-one package, but that was the same. I don't think it's the camera, I'm sure it's the driver, but if I can't get it to work it's just an expensive doorstop and I can see myself getting an ASI2600 instead. Luckily, the cloud cover has been relentless all week so I haven't lost any actual imaging time, but I was hoping to have started on my darks library by now. All the best StevieO

Hi, Apologies if this has come up before: This week I received my new QHY268M camera. I downloaded and installed the driver package, which contains the ASCOM and native drivers, from the QHY website. The computer won't recognise the camera. In 'Devices and Printers' it displays an icon labelled 'Westbridge' with an exclamation triangle and the words Driver Error and Driver Unavailable. In Device Manager it says 'Unknown USB Device (Device Descriptor Request Failed). I've done this numerous times, each time uninstalling before I try again. At first I thought it was my (fairly) old laptop, which runs Windows 8.1 and which runs all my other image capture software, including my ATIK 383, without problems. So I splashed out on a new Beelink mini PC from FLO, running Windows 10 Pro, and it is still happening. I've now spent several hours on this and am ready to return the QHY if I can't find a solution. I'd be grateful for any tips on how to get this problem sorted. Merry Christmas! StevieO

Thanks, for some reason PCC won't plate solve when I try it, so I use normal colour calibration. I've input the correct focal distance and pixel size but one of the other settings must be wrong. I'm still in my first week with PI but am learning fast. Since posting the pic I've come up with another version using a star mask in PI to prevent oversaturating the star colour, and it seems to have worked well:

Due to weather and other reasons, haven't had my rig out for months. Amazingly just had 2 clear nights and managed to get 11 hours of narrowband on NGC 7822 in Cepheus. This is my best version yet, processed in DSS, Photoshop and Pixinsight. I'd like to get the stars less orange , but am still on the Pixinsight learning curve so maybe the next version, or the next.........

My humble offering. I had to run each data image in FITS format through Deep Sky Stacker to convert it to TIF so that I could open it in Photoshop. This is 'Hubbled' HOO, with Selective Colour adjustments to bring out the gold hues. It was a pleasure to work with such good data, and I can't wait for the next one, as well as being determined to improve my own data capture (with, as it happens, my new identical Stellamira ED104) StevieO

Good thinking, will do. StevieO

Hi, I've just bought an SM ED104 and am wanting to put my Sesto Senso on the focuser. The small 1/10 knob comes off without problems using an Allen key but I can't figure out how to remove the large 1/1 knob, which also has to be removed to gain access to the shaft. Can James or anyone who has done this shed light on the process, please. Cheers StevieO

The video doesn't show the fitting of the field flattener and I can't see it in the image train. How is it fitted please? The reason I ask is that I've just bought the Stellamira and flattener and I'm wondering if it can fit internally inside the focuser and whether that's what's happened here. Regards StevieO

Excellent, I've been looking forward to seeing the data, especially as I have a Stellamira on order from FLO. I use Photoshop for processing and it wouldn't open the FITS files, so I ran each file though Deep Sky Stacker one at a time and 'stacked' it, producing a TIFF file for each filter which can now be processed in PS. I'd be interested to know if there's an easier workaround or if there's any loss of data doing it this way. Cheers StevieO

Hi, I've not been doing much in the way of imaging recently, so I've only just got wind of this project, which seems to me incredibly exciting, it's a serious piece of kit. One question, the 10 Micron mount is AFAIK capable of non-guided long exposure imaging, but there is an off-axis guide camera fitted. What's the reason for this? Looking forward to 'first light' being posted. StevieO

Thanks for that. I think somewhere in there is the answer. Looking at my flats I can readily believe it could be down to internal reflections, and I will try adding a 5mm spacer between ccd and filterwheel. I'd have to think long and hard before trying to paint the inside of the FW matt black, though! Regards StevieO

Hi Wim, thanks for your response, They're Baader 36mm unmounted 8.5nm. I hadn't noticed the borders before either. I've now over-stretched the Ha and Sii filters and they also exhibit the same thing but to a much less noticeable degree. 2 possible causes spring to mind: I'll check that the retaining clips aren't too tight, causing tension in the filters It may be that even 36mm is too small for the 383L chip. Stange that I didn't notice this before my long break from imaging. Cheers StevieO