Dazzyt66

I, like a few that have replied, started out using binoculars to explore the sky many years ago (in Birmingham). You will get to know the sky and your way around. If you decide to go for a telescope my advice for a newcomer it would be: invest in a better telescope rather than the electronics. There’s a good YouTube video here about what might be a good buy for any taste/budget: and I also own the ‘basic’ scope he recommends (skywatcher ST80) which I think I would say is my most used scope (and my favourite if I’m honest) cos it’s so easy to use anywhere. 😊

If like me you are new to Siril you may be interested in this. Gary does a great job of explaining the end to end process and even I managed to get a heartening image from just a few subs of M82 with my Mak!

I miss Astroboot! Got my 150 dob and my Heq5 from there - both brilliant 😊

I feel a right burk now! 😂 I just tried the rubber knob and it came straight off! 😂 I was worried about trying it in case it broke the focuser! I’m also assuming that where you’ve fitted your extra finder shoe is where the two black screws are situated on the back plate? I always assumed they were redundant but again, had trouble finding a confirmation. Thanks again John. I’m actually looking forward to getting it up and running!

Thanks John. I’d looked for something like this but never searched on 180! 😊

That is a cracking job! Not sure mine will be to same standard, but that’s the type of configuration I was thinking of. Thanks for the image - it helps a lot!! 😊

Cool - I thought it might but didnt want to try until I was sure it would! 🤔

That looks amazing to me! 👏

Hi, I'm going to build an RPI autofocus soon and was wondering if anyone knows how the rubber cover comes off the Skymax 150 Pro focuser - I cant decide whether to try and take it off and fit a drive wheel somehow, or just to leave it as is and just run the belt round it as it seems to have good grip. Ive seen on Youtube someone removed the knob from a Mak127 but I dont think the 150 is the same. Any ideas anyone?

Does anyone know where Ekos logs using Astroberry are initially stored? - I tried my first scheduling the other night and one target didn't have any subs (the other was fine) - I just wondered why but when I went to the logs on the RPI running Astroberry it came up with 'directory does not exist' (I've since added the directories manually so it shouldn't happen again). I cant seem to use 'find' on the RPI successfully to check if the logs were created somewhere else because it would be nice to know the reason it failed.

Thanks, this does make perfect sense - I realise I will need to do more subs but just wanted an idea of how many more - I didn't want to waste several hours to no avail. very useful. 🙂

I know this isn't what you should be doing with a Mak, but I'm experimenting using Ekos atm and with my move to Ubuntu on my laptop, my HEQ5 permanently setup outside I'm really enjoying the fast setup and am trying to use what Ive got until I can afford an ED frac. So: I'm using a Canon 1100d unmodded with my 150 pro Mak, Fl 1800. I'm using either ISO 800 or 1600 (I'd read 1600 was optimal for 1100d). I'm unguided so am limiting my exposures to around 60s to be safe (although my polar alignment using Ekos is spot on). Last night I did 40x60s lights of M81 iso1600, with bias, darks and flats. I haven't got much in the way of swirl detail at all (and I'm not expecting miracles) but do I do more subs? Change the ISO? Or just accept that this target isn't achievable? I'm also in bortle 7/8 which I guess isn't helping either? My gut feeling is I should've done more subs at iso800 rather than 1600. I've had a decent image of the ring nebula in the past using the mak and Canon (just using a camera remote), so I know some DSOs are possible - I just don't want to waste precious clear nights trying to do the impossible! I would like to get a nice image of a whirlpool though! Oh, and as you can probably tell, I know nowt about photography in general so its all a learning curve atm! 😂 Any help much appreciated!

For me, my ultimate grab and go is my ST80. It’s light (mine travels all over with me - when we can do that again!), no cool down required, fits on pretty much any tripod (I’ve got a lightweight aluminium camera tripod I travel with), they even come with a small desktop eq1 which can be motorised and it’s field of view makes it easy to move around the sky (although I do use a red dot with it too). If you are only doing visual this works well on moon, planets and DSO - and you can spend your remaining £850 on accessories 😀 Of course, with your budget you could also go for a bigger ST (102 or 120) or the ED80 and still have plenty of change from your £1000 although you’d probably need a more substantial tripod with those. HTH

To get back to the original purpose of this thread, my move to Linux Ubuntu has been pretty painless. Works fine with my RPI Astroberry setup which I had working on my Mac previously. For processing I have Siril and Gimp. Planetarium is Kstars (as I only use it for navigation) with Stellarium also running if I want to do more. I also use SkySafari running with Indi/Kstars if I want. I haven’t gone down the route of expensive processing package purchases because, quite honestly, I do the imaging for fun rather than trying to create a masterpiece 😊. Hope this helps any newbies looking to do same and bringing the thread up to date 😊 So, the total cost for this solution is minimal (in Astro terms) even with the hardware and the eqmod cable - and now I’m comfortably using Astroberry I’ll be making a contribution to that too 😊

Sounds good! I'm just looking into Python myself in case I decide to do some stuff of my own. Next on my agenda is to build my own auto focuser using the RPI stepper HAT (which means I wont need to go outside at all) - it seems pretty straightforward apart from the fact I want to use it on my MAK 150 - which may take a bit of thinking about from a purely engineering perspective! 🤔

I'm pretty sure that is the case from watching a couple of tutorials. It doesn't matter to me really as VNC is plenty quick enough even over the wifi - I only want to plate-solve and then start imaging - its not like I'm stacking live or anything - so once the captures are underway I can just leave it going. Its easy enough the next day to move the captures over through wifi even if it does take a bit longer than wired. Suits me fine and I'm loving it all! 😀

Yeah, I'm not sure why I'm having a problem, but it occurred to me that even if I save it only on the rpi the FITS image viewer is still gonna get the feed over the connection - which in my case is wifi - so I think having Kstars on the laptop is not going to make any difference (in fact its probably slower) than just using VNC...

Yeah, its all good! Captured some test images of M81 and M82 the other night no problem - all from the comfort of my kitchen!

Already there fella! Full Ubuntu overwrite. No regrets at all! 😀

Indeed! I am finding it quite easy to use! I easily use Kstars/Ekos using the built in VNC 'Reminna' or via firefox no probs, so its all good there. And its really fast! I am struggling to get kstars to work 'locally' on the laptop but with indi/ekos remotely on the RPI (astroberry) - I can get them to work the mount and navigate fine (so I must've set it up OK), but I want to just capture images only on the rpi for speed (and then move them later for processing), but for some reason I'm struggling with this - it always wants to find a folder on the laptop not the rpi and wont let me direct to a folder on the rpi - so I guess I'll need to do some youtubing over the next day or so. 👍

It may have taken me a while (and I know this thread is a few years old) but having acquired a 2nd laptop solely for Astro I have now installed Ubuntu and am looking forward to integrating it all with my RPI Astroberry setup which I currently use with my MacBook! Hoping that I can do all things Astro on this dedicated laptop 😊🤞

I had an issue with the Synscan app moving mount in wrong direction - I had to reset it. It’s in the alignment menu. Put your mount in home position, go to alignment in the app and hit reset alignment, but I think you said that was greyed out - so I guess it’s not that? I am assuming that your gps is all correct at this point (I never had a problem with the app doing that correctly but it is worth checking) and that you have the app set to EQ mode rather than Alt Az? If you were using it with your other mount you should have changed this? HTH 😊

Gotta say, I'm totally enjoying a more permanent set-up in the garden now. The other night I managed to use Kstars and Ekos for the first time with my ST80 on HEQ5 - used focus module and then checked PA and then decided to do some initial captures of M81. This was 20 x 30s with bias darks and flats (20 of each). My first real attempt at doing a 'proper' image. Processed in Siril and final touches in Gimp. I gotta say, I am more than happy with this from the ST80 under Bortle 8 skies. Yeah, its a bit rough, but I wanted to just see if I could get it all working OK. I'm so buzzed! Gonna go for more images with my Mak, hopefully tonight and then probably have to work harder at my processing! 😀

It works!!! Had a few clear night hours through the week to assist me getting it all set up. Last night was pretty clear all night so tried it out properly. To summarise: RPI 4 (2gb) running Astroberry Heq5 mount connected via my new eqomod cable (thanks flo!!) Canon 1100d unmodded for last night I was using my ST80. It all worked a charm! After start up I got a rough focus through the camera viewfinder and then plate solved vega (offline as I’d downloaded the necessary files in the week) then using the focus in Ekos I got everything set up as good as I would get with the ST80 (manual focus). Back to Polaris to check PA - set that up perfectly using the PA tool in Ekos. Then, just to check it was all working I plate solved and imaged M42, M31 and M81. All taken with 10 x 30s lights and darks (I did flats and bias in the week). I know I’ve got something cos I saw the stretched images were dead centre, so some processing in Siril and Gimp will show me. All this done wirelessly from my kitchen on my Mac! Superb!!! 😊😊😊

The plan has defo changed to RPI 4 running Astroberry. No cables required as I’ve linked it all through WiFi and running the software on the RPI so no transfer issues from where the Mount is located. Got an eqmod cable on the way from flo so I won’t need my SynScan app and iPhone and can do it all from my Mac! Lovely jubbly!