JSeaman

A surprise few clear nights was used with my OSC Atik314L, only 5 minute exposures but managed to get some detail

We seemed to have a really short spell this time around, those nights that were clear were plagued with issues for me too, I probably lost half my time to fixing problems! Happy to get some images in narrowband finally though through the 19/20 season, just another 4 months and we can start again!

I expect this to be the last one for a few months as the days are getting longer, Ha/OIII/SII using an Atik 314L

Still playing with it ...

I'm afraid it's the only one I have!

Thank you both, my first go at this and it's a nice target although I didn't get too much benefit with the Ha like I have seen on others

Only 2 nights but managed 6 hours of RGB and 3 hours of Ha

Last night I finished an HaRGB image of the crab nebula using Atik 314L OSC/Mono combination. Bad seeing but definitely the best I managed

~0.8" tonight and finished an image

I did the backlash a week or so ago, there was no noticeable movement but I slackened off the hex keys, felt movement then nipped up per the astrobaby guide and it seemed to go completely. Testin N/S swings using EQMod showed no real latency I'll have a look at the counterweight bearing next but I seem to be achieving good enough results to keep going as is for now, maybe I'll do the belt drive in summer when no pictures can be taken!

Looks like I just about have enough data to form an image so I ran the guide assistant, not happy about DEC:

Just got back after leaving it for an hour and a half to find the guide camera had immediately failed in PHD2, I've seen this happen a number of times since moving to the ZWO 120mm mini, just got things back up and running and it's now at 0.8" so I'll try and run like that for a while, if it breaks again I'll run the guide assistant though. I'm running out of time as I'm imaging the cone and it's already past the best time to do it so I'm capturing O3 with the moon up (I know you're not supposed to) just so I can get a final image this year

Well tonight I have very similar results to a few nights ago, 1" of RMS and no real idea why! I guess it's just down to seeing as nothing else is changing but I really thought it was going to do better tonight

Thanks again Michael, the surprise for me was that the PPEC seemed to have immediate improvement, I was expecting to have to wait ~10 minutes or so I'm hoping for a few more hours tonight/tomorrow to evaluate further but it certainly looked like an improvement

Certainly feels like it, no set up, no parameters to set, just change a drop down and voila 0.2" improvement immediately

I tried PPEC just for the sake of it (seeing has gone through the floor) and there is a definite improvement, I just changed the algorithm and kicked it off, is it really that simple?!

So it seems ever so slightly worse, the first picture is pre-PEC, the second pic is post-PEC, no significant change but it certainly doesn't seem better

I did indeed read about that and I believe you can run both so I thought I'd start with the PEC. I've run through the calibration process and it's just looping now so I'll see if there is any effect

Things are looking better tonight so I guess seeing is a factor as I haven't changed anything (see attached) I'm currently letting EQMod automatically assess the PEC, will report back shortly!

Thanks, I spent yesterday making a second motor for the dome and tonight is due to be clear so I'll try things out then I currently don't use PEC at all, do you think it's worth investigating?

Could you explain that, I thought 5 minutes or so would be plenty for polar alignment, why would you wait for the worm cycle to evaluate polar alignment?

I have round stars but they are still bloated, I think that's a feature of the camera (314L not +) Judging by my (limited) experience of O3 and S2 I need to push towards 20 minute subs, I haven't tried one yet but figured I'd try and get my guiding as good as I can first that's all.

Thanks for that feedback, seeing is definitely a factor! It sounds like 1" isn't terrible then? I'll look into PEC now as it is indeed geared

Not complaining, trying to identify how good this is. I found a PHD doc this morning that said 1" and lower is expected for good guiding and a bunch of people saying they have 0.5" and lower, I don't really know what good looks like I read an article yesterday saying not to waste time rotating the camera because you can just move in DEC to find out which is which (I haven't done it before but it sounded logical) I'll tweak that guide camera focus again, I can definitely improve that but was following the defocused methodology to allow a greater number of pixels for a star which potentially improves guiding.

Thanks for the input and Michael you obviously have a better understanding than me! Last night I decided to try a drift align, my approach was as follows: 1. I slewed to Bet Cnc and left the EQMod rate at Sidereal 2. I moved in DEC to know which direction was which and monitored the star for 10 minutes 3. There was no movement at all in DEC or RA, I was zoomed in so I could see the 3 pixels the star illuminated and it didn't change 4. Next I slewed to Omi tau and checked DEC direction again 5. I saw movement this time but only in RA (see picture) so I didn't correct anything My guiding performance (having made no corrections in either direction) was 1.08" (0.56 px) and I could do 10 miuntes subs. I don't have a good feel for how bad this is but I think I was around 0.6" previously, guide snapshot also attached