Stub Mandrel

OK... on my desktop, the compatible version stopped it working in RAW16 mode, but the three 8-bit modes were OK. I've gone to the standard firmware and it works in all three modes. I will have to see which version works best with the laptop I use. Thanks!

The current links on the website are to a Windows .EXE and I couldn't find any iic files in the current linux or Mac zip folders. I'll try yours and see what happens!

Can anyone help with a copy of the ASI120MC-compatible.iic file? It doesn't seem to be on the ZWO website and the firmware updater just opens a folder on my computer.

Hmmm... I have the firmware updater. It seems I need ASI120MC-compatible.iic But I can't find it on the ZWO website or anywhere else. Lots of mentions of it, but no download.

It is the USB2 version, quite possibly this is the result of a helpful windows update. The laptop does have a USB3 port, I run my ASI1600MM off it. I didn't realise ZWO had a support forum, I will check there.

Direct to a good spec Windows 10 laptop.

Back from a break 🙂 A productive evening was the 22 November. I have a strange field of view at home, so along session means I get data on several targets, and at this time of year I often can't revisit for more data. This means these images need to be seen as 'works in progress' that will need more subs adding in the future. Also, I've used Jpegs because my broadband is playing up some of the subtleties are lost (he claimed!) 😞 All Baader narrowband filters, except the Plieades, ZWO RGB. 130P-DS, ASI1600MM-pro and HEQ5 The Tadpoles NGC1983 in Hubble Palette: The California Nebula HSO, with the S from an evening a few weeks later. No Oiii under my skies. The FOV is a bit limiting with this setup: Which do you prefer? Pacman in Hubble (SHO) and HSO, in contrast these are crops from a larger frame: Finally, the Pleiades in RGB, knocked off at the end of along evening so just 75-second subs and not very deep: All in all, a worthwhile evening, even if my Witch Head was a complete fail and these do need more data next year 🤞

Hi Ken! Looks like a pig that way up... 🙂

Lovely! Loads of detail.

As good as we expect from you!

I prefer the SHO version. You have got very deep with that nebulosity. Personally I also prefer stars to have a gentler fade toward the centre, even if this bloats them a bit. In RGB they can look over-processed, like boiled sweets, if treated too harshly, but not as extreme in these images. I'm found that these targets look best in HSO, strong Sii regions showing up as gold and the Ha ranging from deep red to orange depending on how much Sii is present. The O filter passes enough blue for strong reflection nebulas to have some presence. I use 7nm filters, narrower ones may give different outcomes.

I prefer the SHO version. You have got very deep with that nebulosity. Personally I also prefer stars to have a gentler fade toward the centre, even if this bloats them a bit. In RGB they can look over-processed, like boiled sweets, if treated too harshly, but not as extreme in these images. I'm found that these targets look best in HSO, strong Sii regions showing up as gold and the Ha ranging from deep red to orange depending on how much Sii is present. The O filter passes enough blue for strong reflection nebulas to have some presence. I use 7nm filters, narrower ones may give different outcomes.

I have a problem with my ASI120MC, which I use chiefly as a guide camera in PHD2 but also for planetary imaging and polar alignment in Sharpcap. Sorry for the long list of symptoms... When used for longer exposures (typically about 0.2 seconds or less) it starts losing frames. Sometimes it will run fine for a whole evening. Usually it will periodically stop generating frames, this mostly happens in PHD2. When it (rarely) happens in Sharpcap ensuring auto Turbo USB is enabled usually restores order. Sometimes it starts generating split frames, so the guide star is in the wrong place. Sometimes disconnecting the camera in software will solve it. Sometimes physically disconnecting the camera is needed. Sometimes closing the program and re-opening will help. Sometimes opening the camera in Sharpcap will allow it to work when I go back to PHD2. Occasionally a full computer restart is needed. Switching between 8 and 16 bit doesn't seem to do anything. I have reinstalled the drivers. Recently I reinstalled PHD2 (I already was using the latest version) after nothing else could get the camera to work (it was working in Sharpcap). This seems to have improved things, but the camera still occasionally starts dropping frames for a few minutes, then recovers, resulting in guiding going AWOL. Sorry for the lengthy description, my guess is the problem is related to PHD2 getting out of synch with the data flow from the camera - suggested by the split frames and Sharpcap's ability to work it more reliably with its more sophisticated controls. It may also be an ASCOM issue as a few times ASCOM has thrown a wobbly (I have tried reinstalling it) and loses my mount (HEQ5). What is weird is it all used to work OK and rock solid reliability - in August I did about five nights in a week each of 5-7 hours imaging without a problem, same equipment. Since then I haven't had more than one or two sessions without a problem with the camera. Can anyone suggest something that I could have changed unwittingly? Is the 'best' solution a new camera at the risk of no improvement?

Hi, Just make sure the weight is concentrated near the rollers. I had to superglue the rubber tube onto the rollers to stop them slipping, but once that was done it worked fine. I took it along to a club observing session and also used it for some planetary imaging, even with only a rough polar alignment it was great for these uses. I don't think you could use it for long-exposure imaging without more sophisticated alignment and control. This is true, by making an 'all force straight down' sector makes them unsuitable for easily being a rack, but it would be easy to print a suitable sector of a circular rack and fit it between the roller sectors.

Hi, Just make sure the weight is concentrated near the rollers I had to superglue the rubber tube onto the rollers to stop them slipping, but once that was done it worked fine. I took it along to a club observing session and also used it for some planetary imaging, even with only a rough polar alignment it was great for these uses. I don't think you could use it for long-exposure imaging without more sophisticated alignment and control.

Yep, plenty of detail to be found in those bands;

I really don't think that's the case.

No! It's meant to look like that, IMHO 🙂 Nice pic, by the way!

Silly question... but does anyone know if the Baader CCD filters are complemented by a set of CMOS ones?

DPI for printing is much more complex than the 'use 300dpi' usually offered. 300dpi is the general rule for books and magazines etc. that will be viewed at a comfortable reading distance. At A4 that's an image about 3600 x 2400 pixels (~8Mp). This effectively gives you what Apple calls a 'retinal display' - that is the resolution is roughly that the eye can perceive so you don't see any artefacts and maximum usable detail is presented. In practice, we often interpolate images to get this resolution (one of my roles is a magazine editor) and it's surprising what you can get away with. Photographers are often astounded that 8 megapixels is plenty for the cover of a normal UK magazine (perhaps not Vogue or National Geographic...) For images to be viewed at greater distances lower DPI can be fine, for example a typical pullup display may be printed at 300dpi but the pre-interpolated image may well below 100dpi and still look fabulous at a normal viewing distance. On the other hand I have produced artwork for interpretation boards and used ~600dpi for the component images and downsampled to 300dpi for the final artwork, as it would be viewed close up. Ideally I would aim for about 150dpi multiplied by the viewing distance in metres, but you can go lower than this. For example, many desktop computer screens used to be 90 dpi but images looked fine on them at about 1 metre distance. The problem with most astro images is that they are often oversampled already with the finest detail being 2 or 3 pixels. They normally look fine as they are lightly blurred rather than pixellated, but it does mean they can look mushy and soft when blown up. One trick we often use in the magazine is to resample an image with interpolation and then apply a judicious amount of sharpening (usually just unsharp mask, but sometimes deconvolution) to bring definition to the sharp edges in the image which creates the illusion of higher resolution. This suits the sort of images we have which are typically machines etc. but may not work as well with 'organic' shapes like people or nebulas! Another tip is to view your image at 100% on your computer screen i.e. one pixel per screen pixel. This allows you to 'lean in' a bit and make a fair judgement of how sharp it really is.

Very nice! Do you use WinJuPos to derotate video?

Looks like spacex got scrubbed.

Thanks Colin.

Could be, I will try and find it. But at the time it had been guiding as well as 0.52", ticking away every 2 seconds then .... it just fell over, sometimes a minute or more before getting a frame, and some split frames.

I'm using a 1.5m quality cable 😞 I've always had best results in Sharpcap allowing it to auto-set the USB speed. But PHD2 doesn't have such a feature.