dodgerroger

Thanks Martin, in my latest image the amp glow is not evident to my eyes. Same settings in Wbpp. Darks matched and optimise darks unchecked. It’s only evident in the Sii image of the bubble neb. 

6 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

Like you, I think this is normal. It arises from slight eccentricity and explains why some mounts use a spring mechanism to maintain constant pressure in the mesh. Is the backlash in the RA drive or the Dec? If it's RA just run the east side slightly heavy to keep the worm pushing against the wheel.

Olly

The play is in the dec axis, I literally spent hours adjusting it until I got it the best I could. It guides very well so I’m not going to fiddle anymore. Part of the axis has no play and part has a just noticeable amount. I can live with it and can get reliable 5 minute subs from it. 

Should be good for a field test now👍

It’s got to be smooth if it’s tight it will feel rough, try it by hand and then use the hand controller to rotate. Listen for changes in motor pitch but if you turn it by hand with little resistance it should be good

3 hours ago, Anthony1979 said:

I will have another look when i take the motors off.... I dont really want to strip it down as im not that confident 

You don’t have to strip it down. My point is , even with new bearings and grease i couldn’t eliminate all the back lash. Don’t assume that you will be able to get it totally backlash free. A smooth rotation with slight backlash is better than it running with tight spots and binding 

I recently stripped the dec axis on my HEQ5 as it had developed quite a lot of backlash. Bearings where replaced with quality items, cleaned and greased. It is much better but I was unable to fully remove the backlash entirely. I found it had a tight spot so I had to reach a compromise. It has the belt mod and guides very well but I am well under the recommended weight. It’s a mass produced item and I think it’s hit and miss on the quality of the machining. Get it the best you can a small amount of backlash is better than tight spots on axis 

1 hour ago, Mr Thingy said:

Which generic flattener/reducer do you use? I notice that FLO have a 40-60 working day wait on the dedicated reducer for the 72ED. My HEQ5 had the same estimate when I ordered in mid-August and that's not here yet, so it's not looking good for the reducer 😓.

 

I use the Stella flattener from flo. Altair Astro sell one, they look exactly the same. Just unscrew the thumbscrew holder out of the focus cube on the 72 and the rotator screws in its place. My friend is after a flattener they seem hard to get hold of at the minute 

FLO do a camera rotator for the 72 then a field flattener can be screwed to it. I use a generic 2” flattener and some small spacers to achieve back focus and round stars to the edge

Hi folks, well this is my pretty much my first  foray into Narrowband imaging, NGC7635 HOO integration.  Having left the world of Facebook I thought I would give some time to this forum of which I have been a member of for a few years now. Any constructive criticism is more than welcome. There is slight amp glow on the right hand side which I struggled to remove as well.

AA183MM 

SW72ED

60x 300s Ha

60x300s Oiii

HEQ5

processed in pixinsight

Hi, your first image has more promise, less noise and more detail but the second is more colourful. I have been in your position before and its no easy task. I started with dss and photoshop. I struggled with photoshop and gave APP a go, its very processor heavy and although the latest release is far quicker it is still slow. For stacking I like APP but found the processing side again very difficult, loads of sliders to play with but no real instructions. There are other processing programmes to try and my advice is to make use of the free trials and find one you feel comfortable with from the start and stick with it. 

Great advice. This is a bit of learning curve compared to my old canon 600D

Yeah that does make sense, good job I have pixinsight then. Thanks for the info. So if I can summarise in my laymen terms shoot 1x1 in APT and then follow your earlier explanation in pixinsight to get 2x2👍. All good fun eh thanks again. 

7 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

1.18"/px is on the edge to be over sampling. You need really good seeing / guiding / larger aperture to fully exploit high sampling rate.

What software are you using? If you are using PixInsight for example - calibrate your subs normally, and then prior to stacking - use Integer resample tool with average method (that will bin). Reduce subs that you want by x2 (for example color, although you might do both luminance and color).

Afterwards - proceed normally as if you captured particular set of subs with hardware binning.

I am using pixinsight at the minute, something else to get my head around. I thought the 183 was a good match for a short focal length scope

So out of interest, if I wanted to bin colour it wouldn’t be in APT but at what point would it be done? I’ll keep it at 1x1 for now while I get my head around it all

50 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

I wouldn't over-estimate the number of people who bin colour. I never do and I'm certainly not alone. Since you're using a CMOS camera I gather the advantage from binning is not what it is with CCD but I've yet to use a CMOS first hand. What is your pixel scale? There's a calculator here: http://www.12dstring.me.uk/fovcalc.php

I can't help on the software problem, not using APT.

Olly

My pixel scale is 1.18 I think

Hi there folks, I have just taken a big leap from dslr to mono cmos,A hyper cam 183.

i had the filter and camera all set up on my desk I thought I’d try a quick image plan in APT just to see how it all works. Anyway I set my RGB filters to 2x2 bin as people seem to use that for colour and 1x1 for luminance. Set it all going and APT came up with “ 2x2 binning not supported changing to 1x1?? 
I am I missing something??

Well I think he now has it working but is unable to test due to the constant cloud cover we are suffering from in Hull at the minute. 

21 hours ago, WanderingEye said:

Also you don’t really need to use the ST4 port, just use pulse guiding with the serial cable from handset to PC, and USB cable from the camera to PC, that works even better and one less cable...just choose the telescope Ascom  drive in PHD, for the mount, and the camera driver for the camera, instead of choosing “on camera” which is for ST4 guiding... 

Thanks for the info, he has tried what you suggest and it appears to connect just need to star test now. One of our Astro friends suggested that his guide scope is to small for the lx90 gearing but I don’t get the logic behind his suggestion

In this day and age it shouldn’t be so hard, should it

Thanks, we have read that post but not sure if these drivers work with audio star. He had tried that I believe and lost his rag with ascom😂

Hi there he has a ZWO guide camera connected to the dongle/st4 port and cable from hand set to pc. Thing is at the minute he isn't bothered about remote control of scope just guiding so he can get some longer exposures from his wedge

Hi there I am asking for a friend but in simple terms he is trying to connect his LX90 Audiostar mount to PHD. I popped round to his house briefly tonight to have a  look but couldn't get any joy. He has bought the Meade dongle and it is connected to the PC and he has the necessary drivers for the dongle installed. Totally fried my brain that it should be so difficult. Any help greatly received.

Roger

Hi there folks, I have a quick and easy question to ask regarding phd.

When in the routine do you let phd calibrate the mount for backlash etc? 

Currently I get my target framed in my dslr then I start guiding which initiates phd to calibrate the mount. Is this the correct sequence?

thanks