RugbyRene

Hi all, I will soon have a permanent pier in the garden and I’m starting to think about how best to protect it and the mount. The scope will be stored inside the house when not in use, so I need a solution to cover and protect the pier and mount head. I know I can use a Telegizmo or Geoptik cover but that looks messy. I’ll need something a bit more aesthetically pleasing than an upturned garbage bin as it is situated in the front yard and will be visible from the street (also the wife would not be pleased if I had an upturned bin in the front yard). The height of the pier mount is 1100mm and is sitting on a concrete base that is 0.5m x 0.5 m and don’t have anymore room. I’m thinking I might need to go down the custom build route but was looking for some inspiration from the group. Rene

Hi all, I'm looking for ideas for a weatherproof enclosure for a pier/mount combo that is not an observatory. The pier will be 1.2m tall with a SW AZEQ6 mount on top. The scope will be kept inside. Space is limited so the foot-print cannot be much larger than the scope footing (200-300mm). It would need to be weatherproof and easily opened and closed (manual is fine). The reason I'm looking for an enclosure rather than an obs is down to the availability (or lack of) room to build a full obs. So, I'm wondering if anyone has built a similar type of enclosure or has any ideas that could help me. Cheers in advance Rene

Hi all, I have a question about guiding and guide calibration. So here’s my problem. During an imaging session, I will go through guide calibration, start guiding and have a pretty good night (RMS - 0.5 to 0.7). On other nights I will use the exact same set-up, do a guide calibration again, only this time the dec and ra plot graphs will fly wildly off the chart and I have to stop the session as I can’t recover it. Sometimes this will happen during the same session if I slew to another target and do calibration again (should I be doing this?). My set-up doesn’t change from night to night. My polar alignment is within 7 arc sec. My settings don’t change. My calibration pulse is set to 500. Not sure if this is the correct value but I read on this forum somewhere that’s the value I should use. Can I re-use a previous nights calibration say from a week ago when I know everything was working? Should I be calibrating when I set-up again? Is the calibration plot meant to be orthogonal? The one last night wasn’t. It was straight up and down. What would cause this? My mount is a SW AZEQ6GT. When it works I all works, I get really good guiding. I did read on this forum to ensure my guide calibration has been done properly but it was never explained what “properly” was. So any advice would be appreciated. Thanks in advance. I know there’s a lot to unpack but this is the last piece of the puzzle in getting my imaging sessions to run error free. Rene

I do like the Avalon M-Uno. It looks really nice and removing the need for a meridian flip is a big draw. I've had so many imaging nights ruined because the flip failed for any number of reasons.. Did you do any tuning to get such a low RMS? Say a PEMPRO session or adjusting the belts etc.

Hi all, Well it finally happened. My pain in the ar*e SW AZEQ6GT mount finally died. I will be holding a funeral ceremony while gleefully dancing around it’s burning ashes. You can probably tell from that last sentence that I did not like this mount. It was a constant battle to control the rampant periodic error and huge random, inexplicable spikes in the guide graph. Anyway, I’m now in the market for a new mount (even Sky Watcher). While I’m happy to spend the money I’m not going to go crazy (so no Planewave mounts). I’m open to any and all suggestions. It will be carrying about 15kg of gear and must have good guiding performance and low periodic error. Portability is not really an issue as I mainly image from my front yard. I’d be very interested to hear from people who have the following mounts but am open to others. Avalon (Linear or M-UNO) SW EQ8RH Rainbow Astro Cheers in advance Rene

I use ST4 guiding and always calibrate on or near the target. I’ve never heard of guiding in another part of the sky and then going to your target. I’ve not been able to image for a while due to the bad weather here in Sydney. I’ve heard about pulse guiding but don’t understand how it works. Could someone explain it simply? If it’s more accurate then I’d like to give it a go. Rene

The RA clutch has never tightened properly and I've always had play (not much but it's noticeable). I'm taking my mount to my local astronomy store to have it serviced.

1. I do normally start calibration where I image so I'll try this suggestion next time 2. I normally expose at 1-1.5 sec. If I go any longer guiding just gets worse, not better. 3. RA isn't stiff (that I can tell). It swings freely when the clutch is released. Though when I tighten the clutch it does nothing as I can still move the mount. I also have some very slight play in RA. No cable snags. Everything is nicely tucked away. It doesn't matter where in the sky I'm imaging, I get the same issues. Your suggestions are good and I will try then but it doesn't explain why the RA will suddenly fly off and never recover. Rene

Hi all, Well last nights session was yet another in a long lines of wasted nights of imaging. My guiding has never worked properly. A good nights guiding is getting an RMS of 1.9. I polar align, I balance I tweak settings ad nothing seems to work. I'm at the point where I either find a solution and get my guiding under control or I give the whole thing away. But before I launch into an explanation of my issues I'll describe my equipment & set-up routine: Equipment Mount - SW AZEQ6 Main Scope - SW Esprit 100 Main Camera - ASI1600 or 294 Guide Scope - SW Evoguide 50 (242mm focal length) Guide Camera - ASI120mm mini Software - KStars/Ekos running on a RPI4 Guide Software - Internal guider within KStars (though I have tried PHD2 without success Setup My nightly routine is as follows: Setup tripod and level Load up all of my equipment and balance. I balance in DEC first and then in RA (as per Dylan O'Donnell's advice). I find balancing on the AZEQ6 to be a pain as the clutches are quite stiff. Once balancing is done I fire up KStars and PA using the internal PA routine. I then do a star alignment so the mount knows where it is (don't we have GPS for this?) Then slew to my intended target and plate solve. So far so easy but this is when it starts to all fall apart. I start my guiding calibration using the internal guider in KStars. I've tried PHD2 but can never get it to work and I figure why use yet another piece of software when KStars does it all. Yes I know others swear by PHD but I can't get it to work. After guiding calibration, the mount starts to guide. It's a bit wonky at first so I always let it settle down for a few mins. DEC is never the problem. My DEC RMS is always around 0.5. It's RA that's the problem but overall my guiding graph is horrible and regularly hangs around 1.8-2.5 RMS. Over the last few nights I've seen some weird things happening. Here's a list of some of the weirdness: On a good night I can get 0.8-0.9 RMS...........for about 2 mins. The mount will guide nicely, I'll have a nice smooth graph and then seemingly out of nowhere the RA graph goes crazy and my Total RMS will go to 1, then 2, then 3 then 4 then off the scale and not recover. Guiding will start off bad and never get good. My usual night is starting with and RMS of 2.5 and it never getting any better Guiding will start and the plot graph will be all over the place. Total RMS will be off the chart and the only thing I can do is stop it and do a recalibration. So I'm at my wits end and as I said, I'm at the point of giving it all away as I'm fed up wasting hours (not to mention sleep) trying to fix this. I'm hoping the community can help me diagnose my issues. I'm starting to think it's an issue with RA in the mount. Perhaps the worm gear, belt drive or a combination of those and something else. Yes I realise there's periodic error in RA on most mounts and I've not done PE training yet but will. Though periodic error can't explain some of the weird things I'm seeing like the mount suddenly flying off in RA for no apparently reason or having good guiding then it getting progressively worse and worse. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide. Rene

Cheers.

Hi, Quick question that I can't seem to find the answer for. Is the field flattener supplied with the SW Esprit 100 also a reducer? If so, by what factor? Cheers Rene

Hi all, I have an issue with the install of a Sesto Senso focuser on my SW Esprit 100. I have successfully removed the fine and coarse focus knobs, selected the correct bush (the red one), tightened all grub screws and ensured the collar was tightened. Now, when I move the focus with the remaining coarse focus knob, the whole Sesto Senso unit moves! The other issue I have, is that it feels like to focuser is not aligned properly. When I turn it, the whole unit wobbles. Is there anyone who has experience mounting a Sesto Senso to an esprit 100? Have you encountered any issues? Are there any tips or tricks that I should know about. Regards. Rene

Hi, Recently bought a SW AZ GTI mount and wanted to see if the WO wedge was a better option than the SW wedge from the Star Adventurer. Like most people, I found the dovetail nob gets in the way of the mount. Has anyone had any experience with this wedge on the AZ GTI? Rene

Personally I wouldn't (and don't) use a LP filter. I fix it in post using Carboni's Astronomy Tools in Photoshop. Remember what every filter you use will remove data from your final image. Better to capture everything and remove it in post. https://www.prodigitalsoftware.com/AstronomyToolsActions.html Rene

Hi, I'm struggling with calculating the back-focus for my set-up. I've got he following: Sky-Watcher Evostar ED80 (f=600mm) + ASI294-MC Pro. No filters, reducers or filter wheel (yet). What spacing so I need to achieve proper focus? Rene

Does anyone know if Affinity is compatible with Carboni's action set? I've read that you can use other PS plugins but not sure if an Action set is a plugin or not.

Hi all, Just wondering if Affinity is compatible with Carboni's Action Set for Astrophotography post-processing. I've read that you can use PS plugins but not sure if action sets are classed as a plugin. Cheers Rene

I would be extremely happy with this. I think you're being too hard on yourself.

Amazingly I have a very similar set-up. The only difference is my mount, which is a SW AZEQ6, and a Sesto Senso focusser. With regards Sunshine's post about taking a hour to setup. No. Maybe 20 mins once you get used to how things all fit together. I have mine permanently setup in the spare room (yes I have a very understanding wife), with all wires connected. When I want to image I simply take the OTA off (to save weight as I'm lifting it). Polar alignment takes maybe another 20 mins thanks to an app on my phone and the alignment procedure in Ekos.

I have Stellarmate. It's a RPI loaded with a free, very powerful piece of software called KStars & an astrophotography program called Ekos.

It might be but doesn't look quite right. I'll check it out when I get home. Any other suggestions? Rene

Hi all, Hope someone here can help. I recently came a across a piece of software that helps the astrophotographer plan an imaging session. Of course I can't remember what it's called so was hoping the astro-community could help. The software has the following functionality; Based on location, equipment & target selected, the software would suggest the best time of night to shoot the target and a suggested exposure time. It would also show you how long you could image for & the times between which you could image. I know this vague but was hoping this would trigger something. Rene

Yeah looks like SM 1.4.0 didn't want to play nicely with my cameras. Once I installed 1.4.1 everything worked perfectly.

Hi,latest issue that I hope someone can help with.Whenever I try to take an image with the capture module in Ekos, it times out. I am using the nightly build and KSTARS 3.2.3. My camera is a ZWO ASI290MC. It connects properly but won't capture an image. After 3 mins I get a timeout error message. I have tried with other capture software and there's no issues.I am wirelessly connecting with my Stellarmate (which is on the same network). Have used EKOS on my laptop and directly through Stellarmate (via VNC).If I connect the camera directly to my PCs USB port, I can capture an image. The issue only appears when the camera is connected to the Stellarmate. Could this be a comms issue with the onboard USB port?Thanks in advance.Rene