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Everything posted by adder001
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M45 and California Nebula on Note 9
adder001 replied to Recneps's topic in Imaging - Smartphone / Tablets
Thats impressive for a phone camera. Did you use any zoom? I notice that the note 9 has a 2x optical zoom. I wonder what the results would be like on a really dark cloudless sky, I bet Andromeda would be quite good.- 9 replies
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Wondering about a Huawei P30 Pro
adder001 replied to adder001's topic in Imaging - Smartphone / Tablets
Thanks for your reply, thats really inspiring I am imagining what I could do by using multiple exposures and stacking. definitely looking at getting one although the Samsung S20 ultra looks good as well -
Hi Everyone, Not posted for a long time due to not having any gear but still keep popping in checking whats going on because once you have the bug it never leaves I think. Anyway its almost time for my phone upgrade and I have been looking at the specs of the Huawei P30 pro, the main interesting thing is that it has a lens that can go upto 5 x optical which according to the literature that makes it 125mm focal length equivalent and it also is capable of shooting raw and has a maximum shutter speed of 30 seconds also F3.4. Also the price remains the same on my contract so it feels like a free astronomy tool as well as something that I use anyway. Now I know this is like comparing a Ferrari to a Robin Reliant but I remember when I still had my canon 1300D I got some pretty good images of Andromeda, M42 and all the easy big DSO targets at about 150 to 200mm standard kit lens about F6 as well I think and that was only on a EQ2 mount that was motor driving on RA only, also my polar alignment wasnt brilliant either I just used drift as best as I could because with an EQ2 as there is no polar scope. So I was wondering what would be possible with this tiny phone camera. I realise that the lens is tiny and so is the sensor when compared to the DSLR that I used to have but I have been excited by some of the pics that people have taken of the milky way and constellations etc but I wonder if things like Andromeda and Orion nebula would be possible even if only tiny. I was thinking I moght get a cheap tripod or even a bean bag to rest the phone on and see what I can get using short exposures and stacking
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That is amazing, you have even got the horse head in there. I've been trying to get that for ages. 2 questions is your sky really dark and 2nd can you confirm that your exposure time was multiple 4 second exposures? If it was I am totally inspired to have another go myself when I finally get my gear again.
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Polar Illuminator for Skywatcher Star Adventurer Improvemet
adder001 replied to adder001's topic in DIY Astronomer
Yes you are correct in that if it is too bright then indeed all you see is a bright red light. But once it is dimmed then there is just enough red light to light the markings but not enough to obscure the stars(some do still get drowned out even by that small ammountnof light) but polaris and other bright-ish stars are visible through it. Another thing that I found is that if you have the red lightnon the side then you get an uneven illumination and it ia a little harder to get the balance between lighting the markings and seeing the stars through it -
Minimum exposure needed to capture horsehead Nebula
adder001 replied to Peco4321's topic in Getting Started With Imaging
I would love to get the horsehead even close to that. My biggest problem is to my south are 3 football pitches with lights as well as usual LP. I have been trying to get this target from my back garden since last year, but nothing as good as that. This is my latest attempt and thats with a star adventurer with 200mm lens, 30 second subs x 60. I definitely need to goto a dark site but I cant find anywhere suitable or anywhere that I would be happy/safe with my astro gear out. -
Imaging with a Star Adventurer
adder001 replied to M Astronomy's topic in Getting Started With Imaging
Yep, definitely recommend it. I have a similar setup, canon 1300d, standard kit lens 75-300mm and I have mounted it on my aluminum tripod that my old EQ2 mount used to sit. I use it now as my main mount because my telescope is only a 90mm mak-cass so it can easily take the weight as well, but mostly I just use the camera attached to a ball head adapter on the star adventurer. Only criticism is the polar finder illuminator (see my other thread about that and how I remedied it) I can easily achieve 90 seconds at about 200mm and I reckon that if I really spent a long time polar aligning or maybe drift aligning and getting it absolutely perfect it would probably do much longer. Anyway I have not had it very long but its a massive improvement over the EQ2 mount that I used to use, here are a couple of pics. Both 200mm lens 90 sec ISO 800. (I think I took about 90 subs, 15 darks, 15 bias, no flats. Stacked in DSS and then I adjusted in photoshop to remove gradients and set levels, curves etc.) Andromeda and Pleides(The colours are completely wrong in this one though. I tried to bring out the blue but it caused the stars to turn green :), I think I need to reprocess -
Polar Illuminator for Skywatcher Star Adventurer Improvemet
adder001 replied to adder001's topic in DIY Astronomer
Yep. Thats my next project ? -
Polar Illuminator for Skywatcher Star Adventurer Improvemet
adder001 replied to adder001's topic in DIY Astronomer
Hi Steve, I thought about that or something similar where I still use the adapter but it was the not being able to switch it off bothered me and because I cant use it as often as I would like I bet the battery would be dead when I came to use it. glad it works though:) -
As the title says I have made a DIY version of the polar scope illuminator for my Skywatcher star adventurer. I have only had it for about 3 weeks and I must say it is fantastic, well made feels solid and is easy to use. However the illuminator is really bad. I can not believe that they made something so good like the star adventurer where you can see that a lot of thought has gone in to designing it for ease of use and functionality but the illuminator appears to be an afterthought. The issues that I had are:- 1. You cant switch it off ! (You can only dim it right down or unscrew the cap so that the battery doesnt contact and then store it upside down) 2. If you use the attachment so that it can be used with the L bracket, the thing is unstable and keeps falling off. 3. hard to adjust when you are crouching down and looking through the polar scope, I just kept knocking it off when trying to turn the brightness dial. So I decided that I would make my own. Anything would be better than the one it came with to be quite honest which is a pity because the star adventurer itself is brilliant and well made. I bought small project box (£1.05 from CPC) and the rest of the bits I already had but all you need is a 1k resistor, 10k variable resistor(Linear), an LED, a switch and a battery(I used a 3v cr2302 but any 3v approx setup would do, eg 2 x AAA batteries) so the total cost would be probably less than a fiver if you had to get everything. I had to make quite a big hole in the box which I initially drilled then made bigger with a knife, thats why it looks a bit scruffy but I'm not too bothered about that so long as it works. Then I attached the whole unit to the L Bracket with Velcro where it will stay but If I need to remove it I will just peel it off. I have attached some pictures and the circuit diagram in case anybody else would like to do something similar. Now I can just leave it in place and switch it on/off as required and I dont keep knocking it off. Hope this is of some help to someone who may be in a similar situation
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Finally gave up on Lin-Guider, I feel that I tried everything. Its like I am just trying to push water uphill, different installs raspbian o/s, Linguider versions and different firmware still no joy. Don't understand what I am doing wrong. I have followed lots of of different setup/installation instructions that people have said they have had it working but still not for me. This programme written in python however appears to work, I get a good camera view and signals to the GPIO although I have only used an LED on the pins at the moment but at least that shows that it is doing something so I thinh that I will go with this for now. So many thanks for all the advise and I will post any developments that I have
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Yeah it is very odd the various options and layouts when it comes to the Gpio configurations. Thanks again for all your advice. If I get anywhere with this I will post more info. Cheers
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Just check and mine is 4.1.1 so there may be some slight differences here, I am going to try and install the older version
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yeah I run it first, followed by lin guider. But something interesting is happening where I have to modify the text in the file from high to 1 or it just errors. I wrote my own script just to confirm that it works and my version only seems to work if I use digits rather than words eg., 1 instead of high. This was tested by connecting an LED to GPIO 22
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Cheers, thats interesting I will have a look at that, Thanks
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Many thanks for your information thats very helpful, I really appreciate it. I am so close, The problem is definitely with Lin Guider somewhere as no matter what I do I still get the guiding error. I decided to go right back to the beginning with a fresh install of raspbian, then reinstalled lin guider then the firmware did all the sudo apt-get updates, ugrades etc. Ran as root, still no joy. The camera works fine though, just still no guiding. I even copied and pasted the modified code into my io cpp file, still no joy. I know that the GPIO's are working because if I use wiring Pi and talk directly through terminal to the GPIO pins or use Python to make a small GPIO blink programme I can get a test LED to light or switch on or off depending on what I programme it to do. Also the guider script works on its own as well (if i modify it I can make the LED connected on GPIO 22 switch on or off) So this is a real puzzle now
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Baaah, I thought I had it. I changed to root and Lin Guider came on with no error messages. Great I thought, then I noticed it had put the camera to NULL. No matter what I set or change it makes me restart LinGuider and then the next session it still shows NULL as camera even though I changed it to webcam. If I log in as normal and type ./lin_guider then it sees my webcam and I get images shown on the screen but I also get the Pulse driver error message. This is so weird its as if when logged in as root it cant read the usb port or something BTW the way I changed to root was sudo chown root lin_guider sudo chmod +s lin_guider which seemed to work I also tried another way using sudo su to make me a superuser and it also displays root in the prompt area when I do this. Very strange, Im puzzled now
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Thats great, Thanks very much
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Update. I have got Lin Guider working on the Pi now (PI 3) thanks to your information. I am using a webcam that I got off amazon ages ago that fits into a 1.25 eyepiece for astro viewing. It seems to work and I am planning on connecting this to a small refractor for my guide scope. However every time it start it says Pulse driver is not initialized, guiding is not possible. I have installed all the packages in the list and the firmware too. Do you know why I am getting this message and also how do I choose which GPIO pins to have it output signal to. Thanks in advance for your advice
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mmm yes I hadn't thought of that, it does only have 1 micro usb port so maybe not that. I do have an older B+ 512 pi somewhere on an old project that I no longer need that I can use. Thanks for the info on compiling Lin Guider.
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great , thanks. Does this look about right http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/5V-1-2-4-8-Channel-Relay-Board-Module-for-Arduino-Raspberry-Pi-ARM-AVR-DSP-PIC-/252051910091?var=550909188171&hash=item3aaf76edcb:m:mdbiogK3bG3MfWb_sjDpLvw.. I think I will use a raspberry Pi zero as they are under a fiver and have 40 Gpio pins and my existing RA motor and if successful then purchase a DEC motor. At the moment I thought that I would have a look at the software on my PI3 just to get familiar with it so I have downloaded the tar file for Lin Guider and I have extracted it but I cant seem to set it up. The readme file doesn't seem to give complete instructions on setup or I am missing something anyway further investigation needed. I will post pics if I have any success. Thanks for your help
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Thanks for the info, Is the relay board part of the economy motor drive unit or is it something else you have bought or made. cheers
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Hi there, I am really interested in building something like this. Could you give a few more details about how you control the motors from the pi especially the relay board and the gpio outputs etc. I have most of this equipment already so this might make for a cheap project for me. Thanks
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Guiding with Raspberry PI/Lin_guider and Economy RA Drive
adder001 replied to bobro's topic in Getting Started With Imaging
Thanks for that info. See what you mean about the guiding maths, I think I will leave that to the software already written for it, way too complicated for my programming skills. Good to know that the Pi can handle it though. Cheers -
Guiding with Raspberry PI/Lin_guider and Economy RA Drive
adder001 replied to bobro's topic in Getting Started With Imaging
Thanks for sharing that info. That is a very nice idea It never occurred to me to try the Pi as a guider also to drive the dec axis with a motor also. I am mainly using my EQ2 mount now solely for my DSLR I hardly ever put the scope on it as I find the images are far more rewarding and I can see more by using a camera than with my scope. I am definitely going to use some of your techniques there especially driving the dec axis. I am very familiar with using python and the raspberry Pi but I am not not familiar with any guiding software so I would have to learn that first. Just a question though - I am understanding this correctly that the PI is running the guide software not the laptop? I think my version would be probably using stepper motors attached to RA and DEC drives and perhaps use python to control them and some kind of guide camera from the Pi. It would be nice if it could be guided using python but I am not sure how that could be achieved (maybe I am getting ahead of myself here ). I think that I now have another project on the cards even before my current one is finished, The wife is gonna kill me!! Anyway the pictures below are something that I made a while ago using a raspberry Pi B+ and a touchscreen LCD and the Raspberry Pi camera. It gave surprising results, obviously only good enough for Lunar and planets etc but amazing for a cheap basic camera and was good fun to make too.