wimvb

Processed in PixInsight, with only mild noise reduction. In my opinion the best noise reduction is, and probably always will be, to collect more data. The integration time needed to reach a certain SNR level increases with light pollution. It is said that for every magnitude you lose due to light pollution, you need to multiply your integration time by 2.5 in order to reach a certain SNR. In this image I applied just enough noise reduction to reveal structures in some of the fainter dust. I then used a masked stretch to enhance the weak stuff even more. I think that to do this target justice, under your skies, you need to spend at least 20 hours on it.

Great image, Rodd. I like crop 1 better, but maybe a dose of SCNR green on the second version would give that an edge.

It's difficult to analyse any problem based on processed images. If you are willing to share your stacked master images (tiff/fits format), with no processes applied whatsoever, then someone here might have a go at it and come up with a suggestion or two.

If you leave the mini PC on for most of the time, it will be warm enough so that dew won't be a problem. Same should be for cold, unless you live in the arctic. I have my Raspberry Pi on 24x7, and also a Rock64 Pro that runs a web server for my all sky camera. Both just keep on going.

Yes. I have the traditional non-StellarMate, non-AstroBerry installation of INDI + Kstars/Ekos on a Raspberry Pi 4 and connect to it through MicroSoft RDP, running XRDP on the Pi. Both the Pi and my laptop are connected to my home network through an ethernet cable, no WiFi. This setup is stable and has been this whole season. But I have learned the hard way in the past to never ever update the Pi during astro season. (In all fairness, that experience was from the days when there was no distinction between stable and nightly builds of Kstars.) I leave updating for summer recess and have a backup micro SD card before I do update. I run Ekos/Kstars on the Pi with the local StellarSolver and internal guiding, and it just works.

I don’t know about the crash, but re the lack of stars: do you know if you are close to focus? On the screen shot i can’t see any stars. (Viewing this on my mobile phone screen) Set the camera to loop exposures while you let the focuser step through its step range. At some point you will start to see stars. That should get you in the proverbial ball park.

My advice: remove the eyepiece and connect the camera directly to the focuser without any extension. This is by far the best way to use the telescope. You should have no problems reaching focus. You don’t need any fancy software to process your images, but you will need to process your images. You can get deep sky stacker and GIMP for free. But you will need to stack multiple RAW images and you will need to use calibration frames (at least flats and bias). There is no shortcut to getting good astro photos.

Are you using eyepiece projection? If so, I would suggest that you use your camera without an eyepiece. Connect it to the focuser without any extension.

That was a fast one. Very nice capture.

I agree with what @davies07 wrote. My experience with remote rigs is that they’re much less remote than you’d want them to. (I host one for a friend.) My advice is, choose a scope that is low maintenance. Run the full setup locally first for at least a few months, to verify that everything runs consistently, before you ship it off to a remote site. Don’t forget that you will also need to remotely control capture of calibration frames.

One more thought on this: tension in the belt. Run guiding with short (1 s) guide exposures. Analyse the guide graph in phd log viewer and do a frequency analysis. A 10 s period is an indication of a belt that is too loose. (You need short guide exposures to see the 10 s period.) Unfortunately I can’t do the analysis, because I too am abroad atm. But only this week. Btw, zip ties can possibly secure the scope, but they can’t fix it in place. And with a scope that isn’t rock solid fixed to the mount, troubleshooting will be almost impossible.

Teleskop Service in Germany may have Geoptik or Farpoint saddles in stock. Mind you, they’re not cheap. If you can feel backlash, you’ve got way too much of it. When I tuned backlash on my mount, I spent an entire night with it. I started by measuring backlash with PHD guiding assistant. (I started with just less than 5000 ms.) Then I adjusted the grub screws less than 1/8 of a turn. Measured backlash; adjusted 1/16 of a turn, etc . This got it down to about 500ms, which is fine. With each adjustment I checked for binding. When binding occured, I backed off and started from the beginning, because there’s backlash in the backlash adjustment. I know it’s frustrating. But you’ll get there.

It seems to me that you need to make an offering to the astro gods. (Or buy a quality saddle from FLO.) I wouldn’t rely on just one bolt either, and if the saddle thread is stripped, replacing the bolt won’t help. I know that most astronomy dealers have saddles. Just make sure that it fits your mount. Btw, does your Esprit have a vixen or a losmandy dovetail bar? For a larger scope, a Losmandy seems more stable. On my 190MN I have replaced the standard vixen for a Losmandy

If the mount slews to any target and tracks that target, then there is nothing mechanically wrong, and any issue is in software. I am not that familiar with eqmod, but I know that you can have several options to set park position. As regarding pointing model, I assumed that this is similar to the eqmod driver in INDI. But you may want to check this.

You aren’t the first to experience problems with usb hubs, and for testing purposes you should try taking it out of the equation. The kink in the backlash graph is probably due to mild ”stiction”. You can probably ignore it, since your backlash is do small.

Just turn the encoders off. They are only needed if you intend to manually move the mount after you’ve done a star alignment. If you use eqmod, you don’t do that anyway. Also reset any mount model in eqmod. What you do want to test now is guiding. You also don’t need the auxilary encoder on RA. This is only used if you use the mount’s PPEC. And PPEC is incompatible with guiding.

Ah, ok. I could only see you image in the original post, as I am reading this on my mobile device.

Dust bunnies, as caused by small particles, tend to be round. What you have is, I suspect, a fibre of sorts in you imaging train. Fibres are larger and move around more. You might want to check the cause and remove it. Calibrating out anything that is likely to move around, is almost impossible.

I just went out to check the RA clutch mechanism. The clutch ring can be unscrewed a few mm, but not completely, which makes sense. This mechanism works as a bolt and a nut. The ring with handle that we see is the nut. Hidden inside the mount is its counter part, the bolt. When you loosen the RA clutch, you turn the ring clockwise and pull the hidden bolt half of the mechanism towards you, away from the RA worm ring. The bolt which pressed against the RA worm ring with its clutch plate, is now lifted from that. Here's a sketch that helps to explain. The mechanism is fixed in place, and you can't remove the chrome clutch ring, unless you loosen the Phillips screws that hold the clutch mechanism in place. There is absolutely no need to do that. For completeness, the DEC clutch is a little simpler. Here, the part that we see and turn itself presses against the DEC worm gear, locking it. You can't unscrew this clutch completely, because it is held in place by the ring that holds the counter weight bar in position. I hope this clarifies things a bit.

The ring with the holes is the RA clutch. For me the difference between engaged and not engaged is only 1/4 turn or less. Leave the clutch released when you put the lock nut (black, with 4 holes) back in. So: RA clutch not tightened, but neither removed. Screw lock nut (black) all the way in and locked in position with grub screws. Then tighten the clutch. I'm not sure that the clutch ring can be completely removed without unscrewing the Phillips screws in the chrome ring on the mount (just visible in my last image behind the clutch ring). At least afaIk, it isn't necessary to remove it completely. When I engage the clutch to lock the RA and DEC, I can still rotate the RA axis when I push against the counter weight bar, with a few kilograms of force (guesstimate). The same for the DEC clutch if I push against my scope, with about the same force.

@ONIKKINEN, I forgot about this; the RA lock nut has a bearing between it and the housing. This means that even if the lock nut is tight, the RA axis should still rotate. But otoh, if you can't remove it even with much force, you can definitely loosen it and then tighten it again (with a smaller tool). But there shouldn't be any play here.

@oymd Btw, I wouldn't put grease on the surface of the RA worm ring. The whole clutch mechanism depends on that the worm ring gets compressed to the DEC housing and the bearing between the ring and this housing. Grease can prevent enough compression. So, on the RA shaft from DEC housing outwards: metal washer, greased bearing, metal washer, (no grease), brass worm ring with only grease around its gear teeth NOT on top or bottom, (no grease), clutch plate.

Have you checked if the RA assembly sits properly in its housing? If so, then the only thing I can think of is that the nut may need to be tightened a little more. The clutches on the AZ-EQ6 press worm ring to the mount head front to back, unlike other EQ6 mounts (including the EQ6-R) which has small brake blocks that press to one side of a brass cylinder. So, unless you would forget to put a washer or bearing back where it should be, something is preventing the compression. I think that Haynes should publish mount manuals. If they can make one for the Millenium Falcon, a SkyWatcher mount shouldn't be much of a challenge

Asteroid 17 Thetis is one of the larger minor planets that orbits the sun between Mars and Jupiter. It takes 1418 days, or almost 4 years to complete one orbit. This video is a time lapse of 180 60 seconds images (3 hours observing time). I collected the data for this image with a 91% moon all too close by. In order to get a dark background I used a red filter on my ASI294MM Telescope: SkyWatcher 190MN on a SkyWatcher AZ-EQ6 mount Processed in PixInsight and Windows MovieMaker

On most skywatcher mounts, the RA lock nut is itself locked in place by three small grub screws around its circumference (you'll need to check this on your mount). These grub screws need to be loosened or removed before the lock nut can be loosened, or you'll strip the thread on the RA shaft. The lock nut probably has two holes on either side of the shaft. The video in the beginning of this thread shows this. You need a tool that can grip the lock nut in these holes, and then you can loosen the nut by no more than a quarte of a turn. Just enough that the RA axis moves a little more freely. The nut shouldn't be so loose as to introduce play in the RA axis. There's a reason for it being where it is, so this is a balancing act. Hope this helps.