cjdawson

Hiya I've just taken a quick look and think that the Kodak Easy Share is a point and shoot camera. This means that the only option for astro photography open to you is a thing called Eyepiece Projection. How this works is that you place and eyepiece into the telescope and focus, then place the camera behind the eye piece and take a photo through the telescope. It is limited in what you can do, but if done right can be a good way to get started. All that you need to do is hold the camera up to the eyepiece and take the photo. However, that is easier said that done as the alignment of the camera and eyepiece has to be perfect otherwise things will go wrong very very quickly. To help with this, you can get brackets that hold the camera to the eyepiece, it can be a bit fiddly to get these to work. Here's an example of the bracket that I'm thinking of. https://www.telescopehouse.com/astro-imaging/camera-adaptors/revelation-p200-a-universal-digiscoping-adapter-43mm-65mm.html Thing is, that these days brackets like this are few and far between. This is because most people tend to use a camera with a removable lens which can then be attached directly to the telescope.

Great, that's the same setup that I'm using on my astronomy laptop, so I know that it works for sure. The error message is attempting to start the right com object, so I'm not sure what's going wrong. Can you try uninstalling then running the installer with this command please? you'll need to change the path msi filename and the log path to suit. once the install is completed, can you send the .log file that gets created to me so that I can check it and figure out what's going on? msiexec /i "C:\MyPackage\Example.msi" /L*V "C:\log\example.log"

HI. Yep. I will most definatly be picking this up and wanting to get it resolved. First thing that I'd suggest is to perform an uninstall then a reinstall of the driver just to make sure that everything is registered properly. After that, I need more details about your setup. which version of the ASCOM Platform do you have installed? Which version of windows? Are you patched fully up to date? And of course, which version of the driver are you attempting to install? I do hope it's version 0.7.9.198

I just bought the pro pack myself, and have managed to get first light with it I can confirm that everything that you'll need is in the box. You simply mount it on top of your existing tripod. If you are able to remove the pan and tilt, exposing a 1/4 or 3/8 bolt, even better. However, I didn't have that problem as I bought the 3/8 stainless tripod from FLO, and that provides a rock solid based for the Star Adventurer. I'd highly recommend that tripod, well worth the £100, for a non wobbly image, even though I had things loaded up quite a bit. (DSLR with battery grip, ZWO Mini Guide Scope, Red Dot finder and WO SpaceCat51)

Once I'm back in civilisation with some internet I'm going to take a good look into that, and reprocess everything that I've captured.

After 20 years, I've finally had a good view of the MilkyWay. When I saw if before, it was a feint streak across the sky and a bit underwhelming. Last night, I arrived at Kielder forest, and got my first decent view of the Milky way. Having camera gear with me, it was time to put my new Star Adventurer to good use. Setup, Polar aligned using an Asiair, ZWO ASI290MM and Mini Guide scope. Then took off the guider and added my Canon 70D with Sigma 17-50mm lens, shooting at F2.8. 30 frames, stacked, no darks, bias or flats. Integrated with Astro Pixel Processor (learned all about that last year at the SGL Star Party) then some light processing in Photoshop CC (cropping, levels, curves and a few actions)

And here's yet another reason why I've taken to looking towards FLO before other suppliers. No prompting, and doing everything they can to keep the customers happy. FLO are ACE

Oh wow. Sorry to hear, that it's had to be called off Still, I remember last year we spent more time river gazing than star gazing. And the one night that it was clear for any length of time, a woman decided to go into the river after her dog in the dark, which messed everything up. He husband went in after her whilst the emergency services came. Luckily, everyone was pulled out, and carted off by the ambulance crews.

I caved and decided that I wanted an ASIAIR, so bought one, which arrived on saturday. Just had me first go with it. ZWO ASI290MM connected to Mini Guide scope. 3 second exposures. No problem getting stars in the FoV and focusing wasn't hard either. Decided to see if I could point my camera to a star to see if I could achieve focus and immediately hit a problem, couldn't see any stars in the FoV at all, no matter where I put the focus point, and no matter what exposure, I ended up running at ISO3200 and taking 5-10 second exposures. This highlighted a huge problem in my setup - I don't know where it's pointing, so having just dived around on the web, found a possible solution. A red dot finder, and a triple vixen finder bracket. That should mean that I can mount the ZWO guider, a red dot finder and still have a spare shoe. Once setup and aligned, means that I should be able to point the scope to a target easier.

Flo have been great helping me get my new rig together in time. I broke and decided that I wanted a small rig for large DSO's, like the whole of M42, Andromeda, or the horse head and flame, amongst other targets. Already having a ZWO ASI290MM and a Canon 70D. I decided that I wanted to give them a better home and was looking at lots of things online. My purchase, was split between two orders. It went like this.... 1. William optics SpaceCat 51 2. Star Adventurer Pro Pack 3. Skywatcher stainless steel tripod. Which I ordered and walked down the shops for lunch. When i got back, I'd been thinking and decided that I was going to add a guide scope. So, I ordered a ZWO Mini Guide scope, and the vixen mount to attach it to the top of the SpaceCat51. After speaking with FLO. I was able to add them to the same delivery. The mount for the guide scope was also something I'd asked about, and it fits great. I've now got a new simple to setup mount that should be great for wide field and large deep sky object work. Martin at Flo was very helpful in making sure that I didn't miss any small parts that I needed to get everything up and running.

That's looking good.

Well for my LX-90 8" SCT, I use a 80mm guide scope, and it really does bring things up to another level. It's why I spent the extra, to get the mini guide scope. I already had the camera and the PI, so it was more a case of having the ability to make the extra step. I'm not sure how necessary it is, but once you get start to get beyond 70mm things do start to benefit from some sort of guiding.

Funny you should say that, I just purchased a setup that I think is capable of getting the whole thing in one go! Camera: Canon 70D (though my ZWO ASI1600MM-PRO would also work here) Telescope: William Optics SpaceCat 51 Mount: Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer Pro pack Tripod: Sky-Watcher Stainless steel 3/8" Guide Scope: ZWO Mini guide scope Guide Camera: ZWO ASI290MM (Had this looking for a good use) Guide computer: Raspberry PI 4, running PHD2. (ASIAir looks very interesting for this application as well) The key think here is that the SpaceCat is only a 250mm Focal length, which is what gives the wide field of view. This is much much wider than I could get with my LX-90 and all the most powerful focal reducer that I could get my hands on.

The histogram looks good to me. The important things are 1. the big spike is not a single pixel wide 2. it's away from the left hand edge of the graph - means that you have no pure black which is good, black in AP is actually a dark grey. A pure black means that you've under exposed. 3. it's not touching the right hand edge of the graph - means that you have no pure white. Same thing as pure black, except this time means over exposed. Looking at the histogram, to move it right, expose for longer, or use a higher ISO. The longer the exposure the more light you capture, the better the final image will be as there's more data to work with. At least that's the rule of thumb. Just remember that each time you increase the ISO, you also increase the level of noise in the sub frame. So taking more sub frames will counter that little gremlin.

That is a beautiful image. I have a challenge for you. Try and take images of that quality of Saturn, then you can use them to make a picture story of how the rings shift's in orbit.

Yep. I figured the same thing about EKOS, but I also have PHD2 installed and both work. I'm planning on tricking EKOS by use a simulator for the mount, then moving the mount manually. Though, the more I think about it the more I'm preferring the idea of using the polar drift align tool in PHD2 to get me close enough.

If your build goes as well as mine, it should be really useful. I'm thinking about modifying my build some more by adding the 7" Official touch screen, but that's not 100% decided, it's something that I'll do after an upcoming start party. Currently, I'm using a 15.6" hdmi panel.

I'm seeing lots of great stuff in your first image. 1. You have good focus 2. You managed to get something fuzzy in the image, which is good news. 3. Looks like you were able to stack the images well, so that means that your tracking/guiding is good too. For next time, I'd recommend turning up the ISO 800/1600 or even 3200 if you can. When capturing your subs try to make sure that the histogram data spike isn't butting up against the left hand end of the graph. A good starting place would be to try and get it to be at least 1/3 of the way from the left, between 1/3 and 1/2 is good. Also, take more photos as well. The more the merrier. You cannot capture too many subs. 😉

Hi everyone. For years, I've been working on and trying to do imaging using my Meade LX-90, over the two decades, I've played with various cameras, a film based SLR, A couple of Canon EOS cameras (30D and 70D), then finally moved on to ZWO ASI1600MM-PRO with filter wheel. I've also switched around guiding gear too, and am using my trusty SkyWatcher ST80, with a Starlight Xpress Superstar as the guide camera. Added dew heater (home made) and myFocuserPro2 and I finally feel like I have a rig that is capable of doing the Smaller object justice. Which is great with a 2 meter focal length scope. However, There are objects out that which are huge. M32, M42 and of course the Horsehead region to name a few. So I just caved an have assembled the following setup.... 1. Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer Pro Pack 2. Sky-Watcher 3/8" Stainless Steel Tripod 3. William Optics SpaceCat 51 4. ZWO Mini Guide Scope 5. ZWO ASI290MM as guiding camera 6. Raspberry PI4 4GB - With Raspbian Buster, Indi, KStars and PHD2 installed. 7. 15.6" LED Display 8. Canon 70D unmodified. 9. 5v USB Dew heater I've got the little adapter so that I cam mount the ZWO stuff on top of the SpaceCat. I've got an M48 to EOS adapter coming so that I can attach my DSLR to the SpaceCat. The plan is for me to run the PI and it's display (And the ZWO Camera) from a USB Battery Pack (30,000mAH) the heater from it's own battery pack and the Star adventurer from it's own pack as well (yes, 3 battery packs) Ultimately, I'll be looking switch over from my PI4, to a PI3 with a touchscreen, so that I can do everything without the need for a keyboard, but for now, I'll stick with what I have working. The idea is that I'll be able to use the ZWO Camera to help me get very accurate PA, also I'll be able to run it as a Guide scope and give the mount a bit of a help to extend the time before trails happen. Today I took delivery of most of the parts, so here's my first impressions.... ZWO Mini Guide scope (already had the ASI290MM) This thing is tiny, with my camera offers a 3° Fov! so that's plenty of opportunity to be able to find a guide star. I don't think I'll have any problems guiding with this setup. ZWO's kit has been good to me so far. William Optics SpaceCat 51. It's a 250mm camera lens, well, that's my first impression, expect that it appears to be extremely well built, made mostly of metal, has all the bits needed to attach to my Star Adventurer or dovetail for that matter. I love that it's got a Bhatinov mask built into the lens cap and that it's also got a dew shield that can be removed and slipped back over the scope for storage. I'm looking forward to giving this a try with my 70D and hopefully grabbing to deep sky objects. The only thing is I didn't realise that the mount isn't a standard T2 mount, it's an M48 thread instead, so had to order an adapter to be able to fit it to my scope, there's always something The Star Adventurer Pro Pack and Tripod. This is a story with many parts. Firstly, I decided to get the Stainless Steel Tripod rather than the aluminium tripod, this simply because I believe that the heavier tripod will be more stable and so should help me get better images in the long run. The Star Adventurer first impressions are a bit of a mixed bag. The wedge feels strong and sturdy, should do the job nicely. The Motor unit should work well and the polar scope may help me with getting setup quickly (I'll have to align that at some point soon) the Dec Plate, counter weight are all good too. I had no problems mounting the SpaceCat, and balancing the setup, there's even plenty of extra wiggle room for when I add the DSLR on to the mix. The there are a couple of parts that feel very cheap and I can see why they've been criticized before by others. The plastic covers for the battery and polar scope feel very cheap, the Battery cover is very easy to slip off. The Polar illuminator is very much an after thought, this thing is really wanting a redesign, it feels flimsy and cheap, there is no proper on/off switch and the brightness wheel is not very sensetive, the difference between full illumination and empty is almost no distance at all. I like that it can be mounted even with the DEC Plate in place. However I feel that it would have been much better to have figured out a way that the LED and brightness parts could have been designed into the motor unit directly without the need have a seperate device. Finally, the Polar scope's lens cover cannot be put on whilst the Dec plate is in use so it's likely to get covered in Dew every time it's used. In my case, I may just do a rough polar alignment using the polar scope, then use the ZWO Camera to do a proper polar alignment so I can put the cover over the polar scope whilst setting everything up. Compared to my Meade LX-90 setup, this is going to be a much lighter piece of kit, much more portable and so should be much much most likely for me to get it out and use. It will be very interesting to find out just how long I can do autoguiding using a battery pack. From my rough measurements, it looks like I'll be able run for about 10 hours before batteries start going flat. That should be plenty for a night's observing. Though, I may also switch employ my tracer battery pack, which should be able to cope with everything for the whole night without breaking a sweat. I'm looking forward to seeing first light on this setup.

Yep. My PI4, didn't to 60°C even when building code and running at 100% cpu usage. I think PHD2 will be enough even without KStars, or anything else. I'll see how that works next time I'm out and it's clear.

Here's the case that I got for mine https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07TVLTMX3/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 It's good enough for what I need..... i.e. stops me zapping the board with static, and the fan stops it hitting the magic 80° throttle. In other news, I figured out that all I need to do is enter the FOV manually, using minutes of arc, which with my ZWO ASI290MM and the Zwo Mini Guide scope, comes out at 161' x 91.2' or 2.68° x 1.52°

That's the PA tool that I saw and was intending to use. However on my setup, as my mount isn't goto, everything is disabled! What's more, when I cheat and put in a simulator, it still thinks that there's 0 x 0 Fov and puts up a warning, even though I think I filled in all the settings. Still figuring that out. Then again, I've now got PHD2 installed as well, so may simply use that instead, as I use that on windows happily. Don't like it's PA alignment tools though, so we will see. My Star adventurer is arriving tomorrow, so it's not like I can test it out at the moment. hehe

Actually, I've been through the script and stolen the parts that I wanted, and modified them as I went.

Getting PHD2 built and installed was painless. It's too late for me to use the AstroPI installer, I've already got KStars installed and working.

Hi everyone. I'm getting a new toy. A Skywatcher Star Adventurer, with a WO Spacecat 51, and a ZWO Mini Guider. The Guider will have my ZWO ASI290-MM attached as a guide camera and I'm planning to use the ST-4 connection to the star adventurer so that I can get really silly long exposures from my DSLR. I alway want to be able to perform Polar alignment using the same guide scope. This will be similar to the technique that I use on my big scope. On my big scope, I use a windows laptop and run Sharpcap Pro to perform the Polar Alignment. It works great. However, I don't want to buy another laptop just to be able to run Sharpcap and PHD2. I have considered getting an ASI Air, however, the cost is rather high, and I'm waiting for a second version of that device. However, the idea of using a Raspberry PI is something that I'm toyed with for a while.... and..... I just happen to have a Raspberry PI 4 (4GB) looking for a good use. Last night, I started off, by flashing up the september edition of Rasbian Buster. Updated and upgraded everything. Then spent the rest of the evening, figuring out how to get INDI, the ASI driver, and KStars built and running. Feeling rather proud of myself as I went to bed with the software all build, installed and configured enough to be able to get the EKOS tool to connect to my ZWO ASI290MM and get an image. I also pressed the button to attempt guiding, and it started the calibration - which is good. However, as there was not a view of the night sky and no scope attached, it wasn't going to work, so I aborted and stopped rather pleased with myself at this stage. Yep. I ended up building everything from source code using Github repositories. Took quite a bit of work as there were lots of librarys that needed to be installed, which the guides that I was following didn't mention. Eventually got everything working though. EKOS does have a Polar Alignment module, which looks like it's in the same style as SharpCap and Polemaster. I'd love to get this working so that I can get accurate PA, without the hassle. My question is..... How do I get the Polar alignment stuff working on EKOS? In addition to this, I'm planning on getting PHD2 installed and built tonight. this will give me the choice of KStars or PHD2, and I might just end up using PHD2 on my PI, but I'm not sure yet. Of course, PHD2 has a PA routine as well, which is something that I'm tempted by.