JSeaman

Oh and I assure you it's pretty damned hard to get the star in the centre!

If you keep going on about finderscopes I might have to put one back on

Sorry the point is obviously still not clear, I know how to set my home position and this has no effect on n-star alignment. The issue is that the FOV is small on the Atik so finding a star is a PITA, plate solving will help with this Oh and I'm not using Artemis, it's Nebulosity

I must have made it sound more complicated than it is This is an NEQ6 Pro running EQMod Normally you park then power down I pulled power accidentally while it was pointing at a target Now I have to set the home position back to zero (very easy to do roughly) and spent ages trying to get it preceisely aligned so the Atik 314L on my ED80 sees a star, the smallest misalignment means no star

Yes indeed, I could plate solve, simple and effective thanks! I'm using EQMod

That's the problem, it isn't just a case of point it at the pole, it takes a long time for the atik 314l to be pinned accurately enough at a star. I was hoping there would be a method of reading the encoder positions or similar to accurately position the scope

I'm not sure quite what you mean by star alignment? When I next power up, it will assume it's in the home position and is pointing towards IC401 at 1:30am! I normally just manually put it back to roughly correct and spend ages chasing my tail trying to hone in on a star. Once that's done I'm all back to normal but it's a painful exercise I'd like to avoid

Thanks very much, it is indeed HOS Really spent a lot of time trying not to burn the core out so I'm pleased you like it!

I know most of us have seen/imaged it a lot of times but here's my latest. It has taken months to finish this due to the poor skies. This is about 2-4 hours of Ha/O3/S2 at 10 minutes and also 30 minutes of 1 minute exposures for the core

I had a small hiccup last night whereby my smart plug pulled power before the 'scope was parked. I've had to deal with this a few times for various reasons and, rather than spend an hour setting it back up each time, is there a way of restoring the home position a bit more scientifically than pushing the scope around unti l have the star in the middle? It feels like I should be able to store encoder positions in the home location or similar, any thoughts? Thanks James

I wasn't in this image but have tried it. The defects are massive, must be marks on the chip. I was expecting something closer to the mono in performance but I guess that is unreasonable. I think osc has probably taken me as far as it can now

A bit disappointed actually, it was my first go with an Atik OSC and I had high hopes, it's not really any better than the QHY8L by the looks of things so I'll stick with the new narrowband world I have discovered for now!

Indeed it is and with good reason I'm hiding a multitude of defects on the sensor which were an unexpected surprise!

After a few minor disasters I have a working rig again with a ZWO120mm Mini as a guide camera (thanks to all who helped with this). I had my first go at combining Ha with RGB from two Atik 314L cameras. I wasn't too impressed with the OSC version and will revert to filters again I think once I have finished my next picture which I'm half way through. That said, it's still the best I have managed on this target and only about 3.5 hours of Ha/RGB each James

Ken, perfect diagnosis! Thanks for your help, pointed over to a more sensible area and guided no problem. I managed to finally complete the drift alignment and the lesson I learnt was that my previous alignment was very good!! I appear to have a DEC backlash problem but, for now at least, I'm able to guide again, sincerely appreciate the help

Thank you for that, I think I did actually because clouds were everywhere else! Hopefully it's that simple, I'll give it a try tonight with ~1000mS, thanks

Apologies, please see attached PHD2_GuideLog_2019-11-28_222336.txt

Hi guys, Tonight I fitted my ZWO 120mm mini in replacement of a QHY5L-IIC. I managed to connect up easily enough and focussed OK too but I struggled with the guiding. I selected a guide star but PHD was unable to move it enough (at all it seemed). I found by increasing the Calibration Step from ~1000mS to ~2000mS it would then do East/West apparently correctly. I thought both cameras had a 3.75 micron pixel size and it's the same focal length scope (ST80) so guess I am missing something? The second problem is that the North/South completed in just three steps! I have attached the guide log, section 6 is the one showing the steps. I only had a short while so that's as far as I got but I'll resume again tomorrow armed with any ideas you might have! James PHD2_DebugLog_2019-11-28_224125.txt

Thanks very much for the comments guys, I feel a lot happier going for a change now

Many thanks indeed that's exactly what I was hoping to hear!

I've had So many issues this evening I've had to walk away from it. Over the past few years I have gone through 3 QHY5L-IIC guide cameras. The failure mode this time is that the LED dimly lights and it won't connect to PHD2. I had all sorts of issues with this initially with drivers only working on certain ports etc. but it has been stable for about a year until now. I'm ready for a change and was looking at the ASI 120mm mini (https://www.firstlightoptics.com/guide-cameras/zwo-asi-120mm-mini-usb-20-mono-camera.html#specifications) but read lots of mixed reviews. So, I'm after first hand experience if anyone has it or alternatives if you can Thanks James

Exactly right, every night is a new lesson! Yes I've labelled the filters in both Artemis and Nebulosity but both seem to forget them for some reason I collected darks on each filter because the focus was slightly different for each so I thought it would have an effect but not sure? With hindsight that doesn't make much sense so maybe wasted a few dozen hours!!

My fourth (I think) narrowband image, more lessons learned on this one First, meridian flips go in two steps! I told EQMod to force a flip then went scurrying out to the dome to see it in action, I found it merrily swinging over as planned and it stopped just a few inches from the mount. All was good until a second later it started moving again! I quickly switched off the power to the mount and (I thought) avoided a catastrophic smashing of telescope into pier. I then went through the very painful process of setting the home position before trying it again, this time I went out with a laptop and VNC’d to the PC inside to try again – lo and behold, we flip to the meridian then stop before finally moving to the target (which was just off the meridian). So if I had just waited 1-2 seconds it would have been perfectly positioned. Another one chalked up to experience! The next lesson was to remember your filter order!! I spent 2 nights imaging in Hb which I didn't want! I thought I was on the OIII filter and wasted two clear nights On the plus side I am now able to get back to the same spot in Cartes Du Ciel when there are no stars to use as a reference and I have a dome which works properly with new infra red sensors rather than a timer The imaging went like this: 5.5 hours of Ha (+6hrs darks + 50 bias) 6 hours of Hb (+8hrs darks + 50 bias) 4.5 hours of OIII (+8hrs darks + 50 bias) 3 hours of SII (+8hrs darks + 50 bias) I really found the benefit of getting several hours of data for noise removal, previous efforts of 1-3 hours were nowhere near as clean. I'll spend a while playing with the image now but fairly happy with it so far

After several time based revisions, I have just finished what I hope to be the final solution to the dome rotation problem! I've taken two Sharp GP2Y0A02YK0F IR sensors and mounted them on extensions either side of the telescope. With a complete Arduino re-write and a move to 5V relays instead of 12V I now have a fairly neat system. Whatever orientation the telescope is in, and whatever speed it travels, as soon as the IR sensor detects the dome, it kicks the motor up and rotates. All that's left to do is try it but sadly the weather's not being kind for the next few days. I'm sure there will be some teething problems but it feels like this is the right solution.

Mine was simply curves and levels in photoshop then a dash of shadows/highlights to tweak. You can also play with vibrance/saturation to boost colours.