The Admiral

I'm wondering, with Petzval type arrangements, is it possible to have a focuser between components? Isn't the distance between objective and corrector required to be fixed? Any optics specialists here? Ian

Surely 2" filters would be adequate. That's what I use with my ASI533. Ian

Beautiful! Some really engaging shots and timelapse. Thanks for posting. Ian

If that picture of the bird is with your main scope, you can't be far off. For more distant objects, like the Moon, the focus will be further in. For stars you are likely to need seconds exposure. I suggest that you slowly wind your focuser in, bit by bit, taking an image after each adjustment, until stars become visible and sharp. Ian

Lucky you! I like Akureyri as a town too. Ian

When did you last do a meridian flip, and did it work then? Ian

Hard to say, as without a scope it's difficult to know what light the camera is seeing. In any event you might expect a green tint because there are 2 green pixels for every red and blue pixel. On its own though that wouldn't explain the large difference in intensities. At least the exposure isn't so far off. I'd be inclined to attach it to a scope though, because ultimately you'll need to focus it. But failing that, do you have a guide, or other small, scope that you can temporarily connect it to? At least you wouldn't need to use your mount, just lay it down where it can see something outside. Ian

What version of the AAP software are you running? The 'upgrade' to v2 appeared to muck everything up (see https://bbs.astronomy-imaging-camera.com/d/15898-asiair-v21-has-been-released), and PA difficulties have been one of the criticisms. The latest upgrade to v2.1 may have sorted it, may be not. I haven't checked myself. It also seems to be different if you downloaded from the Playstore or the Apple store, or direct from the ZWO site. Ian

More importantly, if you aren't even in the region of focus when you come to the night sky, you won't see anything. I found it useful to get a focus on a distant object during the day, and lock the focus there. That way, when you come to look at the night sky you shouldn't be far away from getting the stars resolved. You can then close in on the focus point. Useful for the guide scope too. Ian

Very nice 👍. How bright were they to the naked eye? Whereabouts in Iceland were they taken? Ian

Thanks TLA. The RGB compositing tool doesn't appear to offer a way of varying the contributions of components, like APP does, or at least, I haven't discovered it. Probably need to use pixel math(s), which is currently beyond my pay grade 😉. Ian

I'm just starting to investigate SiriL, and I used the files of the Horsehead I obtained earlier in the year, and had ago at processing with Ha blending. Here's the resultant image. It may be a bit OTT, but I'm quite pleased with the end result, lots of lovely detail visible compared to my earlier attempt posted here. As before, I stacked in APP, but this time did the principal processing in SiriL, followed by a bit of finishing in Lightroom. I was quite impressed with the effect of the Contrast Limited Adaptive Histogram Equalization filter, as it enabled me to easily get the detail in the Ha. Thanks for looking. Ian

I'm in at the deep end 😉. For simplicity, and other reasons, I'm all ZWO, as I have the AM5 too. It was just fine. I think the real culprit here is the ASIAir, they just need to get that right, though I agree that ZWO have got themselves in an unnecessary mess with it right now. If they don't get it running well soon they'll have customers abandoning the device. I wonder if it's all because they've introduced the Mini and they're trying to to make the app a jack of all trades (I'm assuming that the Mini device shares the same app). Ian

I don't use it but I can't see why not. For Apple products yes. I don't know if the product available from the Play Store is quite the same as from Apple. From what I've read I get the impression that the two have different issues. Difficult to get to the bottom of. Ian

Indeed it has been a joy to use, but the updating of the app from v1.9.1 to v2 seems to have broken a lot of things, as a read of the ZWO forum will reveal. v2.1 has been released but I gather that there are still issues. I've been absent from imaging for a while so personal experience is lacking, though the last time (January) things didn't seem right. PA was a nightmare and I had to give up with alignment well out, when the mount went to home at the end of the session it ploughed straight past and fortunately I was there to prevent it causing damage, the mount wouldn't stay in tracking mode, and images seemed to take longer to appear on the screen. I suggest that you download from the ZWO site rather than the Play Store, and if that fails, roll back to v1.9.1. Ian

Yes, the XAPK contains all the additional data as well as the APK, and as I noted it is not recognised by Google. I gather that the file type has to be changed and then decompressed to give the APK and the subsidiary data file. I imagine most APK hosts have their own app for making this easy. But APKPure does also provide just the APK. Of course, until, and if, ZWO decides to make available the v1.9.1 version on their site, I think APKPure is as good as any other APK service. It appears to be reasonably well regarded. Not only that, it actually has the ZWO file listed! Incidentally, when you copy the APK to the mobile device, where do you put it? Ian

I've been reading around the subject of APKs on t'internet, and a few things have caught my eye which I think might be worth sharing. Note that when it comes to Android, I know nothing! There are two versions of the v1.9.1 residing on APKPure, APK file, 79.2MB, and XAPK OBB file, 643.2MB. I gather that XAPK is a compressed file containing both the app and supporting data (such as the sky chart data). Android doesn't recognise this type of file, so getting it to load isn't straight forward. If you download the APK, then once installed, the device will be directed to download the supporting data separately. So the APK file would be the one to go for. Another interesting fact is that Google have capped the APK files on its Play Store to 100MB. So, v1.9.1, at 79.2MB, should be OK. Looking at the APKs for v2 and v2.1 on the APKPure site, they are in the region of 160MB, above the Google limit. Hmm! I have read on the ZWO discussion forum that the Android version was delayed, and I've also seen it written that using the Play Store version wasnt't working properly, whereas downloading directly from ZWO the app performed as it should. Unfortunately, unless you stop the updating of the app on the Play Store site, you will automatically receive the Google version of the latest updates. Now I don't know whether the imposed Google limit has been the cause of the issue, and I can't vouch for any claims made on the discussion forum, but I thought that this information might be of use to those folk who are having difficulty with the latest updates. It would interesting to hear if anyone has downloaded the latest updates from the ZWO site, and whether that experience has been better. Worth a try though. Ian

The recent debacle over the latest ASIAir firmware with the introduction of the very buggy v2.0 and v2.1, which have, by all accounts, seriously disrupted the smooth and simple operation of earlier versions, leaving a number unable to image, or at the very least, wasting a lot of time trying to get the device to work properly. Indeed, the last time I used mine, which had been automatically updated to v2.0, odd things were occurring. Has v2.1 corrected all the ills? Personally I haven't had the opportunity to test, but postings would suggest not. Other than issuing v2.1, ZWO don't really seem to be addressing individuals' problems. There also seems to be some sort of concern over the adequacy of Android's Play Store offering, some finding these not working properly whereas files downloaded from the ZWO site do. A very confusing situation indeed. Unfortunately, ZWO have not made available v1.9.1, the last stable version, so as to allow easy roll-back. Incidentally, you need to be aware that the minimum system requirements from October 1, 2022 have been raised, for iOS from v11 to v12, and for Android, from v7 to v8. I have found the APKPure site which lists a whole range of earlier versions. Is anyone familiar with this site? Is it trustworthy? Has anyone used the site? There are two versions of v1.9.1, one with OBB, and the other without. I assume one would need the version with OBB. As a complete noob on Android, I need the method involved for rolling back. I've found this on the ASIAir Forum (https://bbs.astronomy-imaging-camera.com/d/15898-asiair-v21-has-been-released/39) "But you gotta have the 1.9.1 apk firmware which unfortunatelly ZWO doesn't display on it's site. I don't know why are they doing this...but I always download the apk package every time they release a new version...and store it on my pc. Version 1.9.1 apk is the one you need. I think someone on this forum gave a link to download it. After you get the apk, you're copying it to your phone/tablet.Then you start asiair plus and the actual app(v2.1), connect to asiair device and reset firmware to version 8. Then you turn off the asiair plus device. After that you go on your phone and remove the asiair app. After you do that go where you copied the 1.9.1 apk firmware on the phone and install it from there. If everything goes well you'll get the message that Asiair has been installed. You don't open the app yet. Turn on the Asiair plus device, wait untill the beep. Then start the newly installed app and you follow the steps and it will update the firmware from version 8 (factory version) to version 1.9.1 of the app that you have installed." Anyone got any thoughts? Has anyone tried it? I know some have got their own copies of the v1.9.1 APK from when that version was released, but anyone sourced it from elsewhere? Ian

As tomato said, my goodness there is a lot going on. What do you make of the Ha 'broccoli-like structure' between the Cone Nebula and the Rosette? And is that an outline of a double bubble bottom right? Trouble is, the more you look the more objects you see, 😃 Ian

Not sure what you mean by RT or FT, but folk use a variety of processing tools for astrophotography, and they all have learning curves. Often you might stack in one piece of software, stretch in another, and finish in another. Often they have free trials to allow you to try things out. Have a look at StarTools, Siril, and Affinity Photo. Those are reasonably priced or free. I've not used Gimp, but I guess it's similar to Affinity and Photoshop. Ian

I know little about the Moon, but this set me searching. The Plato craterlets are discussed in this CN post, which I guess you are familiar with. https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/34841-guide-to-plato-craterlets/ Also, the Central Rille in the Alpine Valley is just about there, and from this (https://the-moon.us/wiki/Alpine_Valley_Central_Rille) I see it's about 1km wide max. So you should be able to get some indication of the resolution. Don't know if that helps? I'm sure others more knowledgeable than me can help. Ian

That's worked well! As a 'view', I like the last one best. Natural processing, and not oversharpened. Ian

OK, I see that the manual now says 5 amps 👍. Ian

I must admit I use two 5 amp power bricks, one dedicated to the mount, the other the AAP. The mount's feed-through is supposedly rated, and legended, as 3 amps, so not really enough for cameras etc. But talk on the ZWO mount FB site refers to 5 amp for the feed-through. If you are using a battery I'd have thought using a splitter as the last poster would be a better option. Ian