malftobe

Same answer as Clarkey above. I use the smaller wheel without issues - I am very new to filter wheels and dedicated cameras though. Just to add that in Asiair (and I assume in other software) you can select the filter wheel to only rotate one way. I read somewhere that this was best way to reproduce filter position . (I haven’t experimented with rotating both ways to see if it’s better - I just blindly follow others with my limited imaging time !!).

Using the same rings - can't think where I got that idea! Looking forward to getting the callipers out and rummaging around to find something suitably sized to pack the height difference out.... Hoping to achieve similar, I already have the 49mm ring from my reading on here, may eventually end up with something around 43mm stepped down as I already suffer a bit of vignette as my filters are undersized for my camera! So hoping to find a good compromise on that front. Just a quick question - to work out your f ratio above, rather than the "advertised 135mm", do you use 129mm from the plate solving to calculate your f2.6?

Thanks for everyone's help on this great thread, it is a fantastic resource. And an extra shout out to spacing expert @Adreneline! After my third night of testing with the Samyang, I think I'm getting closer! Last night with the new m42 adaptor, a 3mm extension and 2x 0.1mm spacers I got much nicer stars across the frame and focus is about 1mm before the end of the focus travel at L. Should all add up to 44.7mm backfocus (I think). This is with the lens stopped down using the aperture ring to f4. The night before yielded this effect when I attempted to get to f2.8 using a 49mm step down ring on the front of the lens with the aperture ring set wide open at f2. This with nearly the same spacing setup as most recent above, but with an additional 0.1mm spacer, so my focus was much better than the first night using the m48 adaptor. I assumed the crescent star shapes at the left side of image was due to droop as it is a heavy camera, and the short extension only threads in to about 2.5mm of the 4.8mm thread on the camera, so I have ordered a zwo camera holder as many others on this thread use - hopefully this combination of holder and step down ring will get me right where I want to be. Hopefully further tests tonight!

Good evening, I’ve finally in the samyang 135 club (but not quite imaging just yet!). I was lucky to get one second hand with the m48 adaptor. I’m having a problem with backspacing. After a quick test on Thursday at f2.8 I can’t quite achieve critical focus or go past infinity focus with my setup. Will going (quite a way) under the backfocus distance of 44mm still achieve infinity focus, but simply result in infinity being somewhere else on the focus ring? @Adreneline talks of his focus being 3mm before the L with one of his spacings. From front side of filter wheel back to sensor I have 39.5mm. To get to the 44mm backfocus, This should leave 4.5mm (or 5.5mm as I use 3mm thick filters). I have tried an m48-m42 adaptor, which has an external size of 4mm, but when added to the thread on the camera side adaptor the total extension is 5.8mm. This puts the total back focus at 45.3mm which I think is where my problem with focus lies. I’ve been in touch with The seller of the 42mm samyang bayonet replacement, which should solve my problem. Threading it directly into the filter wheel would give me back focus of 39.5mm. I have a 3mm and 5mm m42 extension and shims. But I may be in same position as before if I try to add an extension piece as the minimum length will be defined by the thread length on the bayonet replacement (4.8mm). Will going with a backfocus distance of 39.5mm still achieve infinity focus?

@alacant Do you happen to know if the focus tube would need cutting on the GSO version when adding a coma corrector?

@Adam J I'm in a similar position to @scotty38, with the 294mm camera tempting me - although it would be my first dedicated astro cam. The new camera 533mm has piqued my interest / thrown yet another spanner in the works! I have an Esprit 100 and have looked at the astronomy tools field of view calculator and the ccd suitability. I think the field of view would be more to my liking with the 294 than the 533, but as scotty said I suppose I could do mosaics. What advantages do you think the 533mm would have over the 294mm?

Very Helpful @Adreneline. I've been window shopping filters for a while and noticed the Astronomik filters are thinner than most. Really interesting about the spacers for the different thickness for the filters and achieving focus. May have to rethink using different brands for LRGB and narrowband. This thread had led me down an interesting path this morning and I learnt a lot from @Phillyo's M42 widefield thread too.

There are some absolutely stunning images on this thread. A question for the mono camera users - with the lens being f2, are you using regular (for want of a better word) filters or do you use filters for high speed systems? https://www.firstlightoptics.com/baader-filters/baader-high-speed-65nm-narrow-band-filter-cmos-optimised.html

I could have written your first post @deanchapman2705! It would be my first dedicated astro camera, so I would also need things as simple as possible. I am already in way over my head with the equipment I am using at the moment! I think ZWO have a good ecosystem (and good marketing) to be able to command a higher price for a very similar product using the same sensor, but ultimately I think that I will go down the ZWO route too and pay the premium for perceived ease of use! Just with regard to controlling the QHY camera ASIAIR style, there is astroberry and stellarmate which support a wide variety of manufacturers. I initially ran a QHY polemaster on stellarmate, so the drivers for the QHY 294m may be supported - or could be in future.

Also weighing up differences between the qhy and zwo 294. @SamAndrewI think the astrograph prices are excluding VAT, but still a big price difference between zwo and qhy version.

Cheers for the update Jon, really interesting and amusing insights. You sound similar to myself, I know my way round the basics in photoshop from general photography - I have much to learn on the astro side and PI does look complex! For some reason I thought it was a 7 day trial for PI, but I had a look after I posted and it’s 45 days, so a bit more relaxed timeframe to get head around the software before the trial would expire! The complex tutorials gave me pause for thought hence the question. I like your idea of the separation of the science phase and artistic phase. Your investigation into what packages do well at what has certainly opened some different software options up that I was not aware of before you started the thread, so thank you Jon.

@Stuart1971 and @Tomatobro interesting to know about the 12v power for the nuc’s. Hoping to get things over to a dark site at some point, running off battery, so really useful information. I have a buck converter for the pi but am yet to use it. I have little clue on the electric / power side of things, so really appreciate the insight in case I go down the nuc route.

@7170 I’ll have a look into realvnc and ultra vnc. The vnc bundled in with stellarmate is ok, but I do struggle a bit on the ipad with the screen not quite fitting (I assume I’ve set the resolution incorrectly somewhere), so if you can use reavnc on a smaller screen on your phone it seems worth a try. Very interesting about the meridian flip issue. I’ll have a look at clearing the model and sync points. That’s very helpful. I’ll see if I can navigate to the status window also.

Thanks for all the specs on the NUC’s and your thoughts on different software. When you mention the 12v - Are you connecting it directly to a 12v battery or do you use a step up converter to 19v?

Great idea, it can add to the frustration with the little icons on the iPad! Ultimately I’d like to ditch the laptop entirely. My laptop is too old for the latest kstars, but I can try to borrow a newer laptop for a few evenings to learn my way around.

Very good to know alacant. That is a strong recommendation from yourself for the reliability for kstars and Ekos on multiple systems. I think my first course of action before I upgrade the hardware is to get more familiar with using kstars / EKOS through vnc rather than using the stellarmate app itself.

@Tomatobro I’m probably going to persist with stellarmate a while longer, but I have had my head turned looking at mini pcs after reading other threads. Are you running apt / Nina or something similar on the NUC? Are you able to Remote Desktop into it and control it easily through a tablet?

Cheers teoria, the app for me is definitely extremely sensitive. It can crash when pressing any button. I’m used to it crashing and closing back to the iPad Home Screen on my first click on preset or edit in the Ekos alignment module and hangs quite often. I wonder if there is a way to clear the cache for the app somehow - or I may reinstall it entirely. Unfortunately I don’t know any way to roll back an app to an earlier version on iOS, so will have to wait for the next update. Unless of course my next session proves fruitful - in which case I’ll never update!!

Hi teoria, how do you find the stellarmate app on the iPad? I too am hoping the crashes will be behind me once the set up is done properly - I’m tempted to experiment with a fresh install on a new sd card without all the pentax drivers to see if that was conflicting with some other things. Running stellarmate OS on a pi4b 4gb using the official 3 pin power supply plug.

@7170 and @wimvb Brilliant tip about not updating during the season. Really good to know that you’re finding Ekos and kstars just works and will happily go on for hours. I’m hoping I can get to that stage with it soon. Bypassing the stellarmate app using vnc to access Ekos seems much more stable in my very limited experience. The day after I posted, I ran a simple set up of just guide camera and eqmod mount connected with eqmod cable to start with the basics. I got a good few flawless hours after a few initial hiccups. But then tried to goto the same target after the target had passed the meridian and the plate solver would not re centre on the object - it got somewhere near but would not do further slews / iterations. A reset of the pi worked and plate solving did its job and it re centred then carried on (although I forgot to then restart the guiding) until I packed up, so a good result for me. I’m waiting for the clouds to clear for another go, but could be a good few days here! Hopefully I can get a good configuration and shy away from updating for a good while.

How are you getting on with the Pixinsight trial Jon? Are you finding it easy enough to pick up? I hope to trial it one day when I have some decent data! Interesting to know about Siril and the additional tools! I may give it a whirl.

I know just what you mean Mr niall! teoria, I like the dual purpose clamp for balance and safety. Is it possible that you have an image of the handle on top of your scope, I can’t quite work it out from the images on my phone.

Currently fighting a fair bit with Stellarmate - it's occasionally brilliant, but frequently frustrating. Jasem was extremely helpful helping me initially set it up a few months ago, but not really had much chance to use it since. I'm sure problems are down to user error and my inexperience, but I just wanted to check in with experienced long term users how stable you find it. Do you get a full night of imaging from it? Or a fair few crashes? Find it buggy? Recently dusted off my gear and updated the app and stellarmate operating system to the latest versions (1.61) which caused three full nights of frustration, just when motivation had returned and was high! It just wouldn't plate solve, whatever I tried, so couldn't get past stage one - polar alignment and spent clear moonless nights problem solving. User mistake #1 - no backup before update. The last few nights I have been trying an older version of the operating system which seems to work better (1.58), but is quite finicky. I have developed some workarounds (possibly superstitions!) that get me some of the way toward it doing great things. For example I have to check the correct GPS coordinates have been saved in site management in ekos through vnc and that I'm not in Nova Scotia today! I have to edit an existing preset and save it again on the ipad app (but without making any changes), so it uses the guide scope details for plate solving for polar alignment and plate solving rather than the primary scope if the workaround is not applied. Guiding works very well if it works first time (asi120mm mini with skywatcher 9x50 finder). If calibration fails, it fails again and again. Restart OS and start again after recentering target. Same thing for the camera module with settings not being added to the sequence. Seems to work for a few exposures but then crashes the operating system. I suspect this could be due in part to using a pentax k70 camera. I can get round this when I find my old intervalometer as I don't really need the camera attached to the pi, but the larger previews are great to have along with the sequencer and nicely named files. Dedicated camera is on the distant horizon - ZWO mono model is the eventual dream, but more likely an astro modified canon. I would hope different well supported equipment would iron the imaging issues out. The ipad app itself seems to crash / hangs syncing more than the operating system itself on the pi. Bypassing the app to vnc into ekos / kstars seems a lot more stable, but is less user friendly - however I have become a bit more confident with using it this way since the nights of total frustration a ways back. That turned out a bit longer than I thought it would! Back to the question for experienced users - once you have it nicely set up, do you find it reliable for a full night of imaging?

Thanks Scotty, That’s good to know about the cover. I wish I’d have thought to leave at least my tripod legs still set up outside last night to give me a bit more precious learning time tonight. (Clear nights are spent trying to get my head around stellarmate at the moment).

That’s a great tip using the spare dew strap. I don’t think I’d be brave enough to leave the whole setup out permanently where I live. Did you go for the telegizmo 365 series? How is it? Does it flap around a lot? I ask because I have had two barbecue covers (for barbecues, rather than repurposing them for stargazing). The kettle bbq cover - simple shape- is a great fit (virtually flap free) but the gas bbq cover - a more complex shape in a lighter material can’t be restrained for love, money or gaffa tape!