Dazzyt66

As others have said, a tracking mount will give you the opportunity to take longer exposures (and therefore more information). One thing I found useful when looking at astrophotography was this: What is the best ISO for your DSLR for astrophotography? | DSLR Astrophotography (dslr-astrophotography.com) Every camera has its own 'sweet spot' where you get best information v low(er) noise. In my case its 1600iso. Check your camera in the link above. Hope that helps. Daz

Not your fault at all. I think I will revisit it at some point as the tips you've provided have already helped - plus its in my nature to find out how to get it to work 😊

Well, I'm giving up on the Waveshare driver (again). It still crashes on startup (which is weird cos it didn't do that before). At some point I may do a full reinstall and read through everything but for now, Ive got a working focuser and thats good enough for me... 😀

😂 I feel ya! Same here. So, I've just tried the Waveshare driver again and whilst I can now select it from the dropdown I get a 'driver has crashed' error - I'm just rebooting the Pi to see if that fixes it. I did read through A LOT of the thread on the indi forum before I started to lose the will to live! 😂

I definitely going to give it a try again then. And then I might have to create a 'dummies guide' for others as reading through some of the install/build stuff needed a degree in engineering to understand - and I actually DO have a degree in engineering and still didn't always understand! 😂

Hey Jon this is interesting - the install location was indeed wrong which I figured may have been causing me the issues I had - I may revisit it now that I know its all working OK - and I'll try the symbolic link. I'm using a 4gb Pi4 - I haven't had any power issues yet so I'll keep that in mind. I am only using my Canon 1100D and the mount from the Pi and I dont believe either need much power in that respect? If needed though I assume all I would need to do is turn the Pi power off on the HAT and then just power the pi as usual (as well as the HAT at 12v obvs)? I know little to nothing about the Pi, although I am pretty computer savvy, so everything is a learning curve for me in that respect. Cheers Daz

Thanks Andy. This was indeed the driver I started with - I just couldn't get it to work with my stepper. I do think that was probably me though as I learned a lot as I went along. The main thing I couldn't do with it was to see it in the dropdown unless I used the indi web server (which I guess is because the driver is not in the right directory for Ekos to see it). The Astroberry driver however was already there and is working great. I am really pleased with how its turned out and how its working! 😀

No, its the Waveshare HAT for the Pi. I run 12v to the HAT though which powers the Pi too. I couldn't get the indi_wmh_driver to work with it though (although thats probably just me and my knowledge of the Pi) - I was beginning to think it wouldn't ever work, but on a whim I updated the Astroberry software and on then tried the Astroberry Focus Driver - apart from me changing the pin numbers on the setup it worked first time. I'm really pleased with it - even using a Bahtinov I couldn't get my stars as pin sharp as they are now! Really pleased!

Hey all, We've just upgraded our caravan and are looking to do some travelling to warmer climates over the winter. Currently I have my HEQ5 semi permanent in back garden. This is too heavy to travel with anyway. So, my question is: I'd like to take my DSLR setup using Ekos/Kstars with me. I'd like to keep using autofocus and the scheduling/capturing element but I realize the plate solving and slew to target may not be an option. What is a good, light and super portable mount I could use (only for camera and 200mm lens and possibly ST80)? I've been looking at Star Adventurer as I already have a decent lightweight tripod. Does anyone have any advice before I spend another couple of hundred quid? Cheers Daz

Building was easy - a few hours start to finished product. Getting it to work with Ekos drivers probably half a day due to rubbish instructions for the Waveshare board and the stepper motor combined - there was A LOT of trial and error. In the end it worked with the Astroberry Focus Driver - so all in all about a day and a bit to get it fined tuned... and a LOT of swearing lol!

Actually, I'm wrong, they are not in the final image - what I thought were the bunnies are in the wrong place to be them - if that makes sense - so maybe I'm not doing anything wrong after all...

Final build done - looks good if I do say so myself and it works a treat!!

(air blow bulb / air bulb / rubber dedusting ball / etc ...) Thanks guys. I figured it was dust. The thing is, it stays in my final image after stacking - is that normal or am I doing something wrong. I don't use darks just processed flats and bias? Thanks again. Daz

On my flats. And how do I get rid of them? I think they may be on my sensor as they appear on all images regardless of what lens I'm using...

Thanks for this - just set it up and its working perfectly!!! Thanks!!! Thanks for this although Filezilla seems to have done the trick.

I wasn’t sure where to post this so hopefully it’s in the right place. I can’t seem to find an easy answer to this via google so hopefully someone here knows the answer, I am using Astroberry for image captures via Ekos. Currently I move the captured images to a usb and then to my Win10 laptop (pro). When I used my Mac I used to be able to access the pi folders directly with SMB - I cant seem to do this on Windows. It doesn’t even see the pi on the network (although it is connected and I can access it via the browser) equally the pi can’t see my shared folder on the pc. I’d like to be able to transfer the images over the network (not during capture though). Can I do this easily? TIA Daz

So today I built my autofocuser for my manual 200mm lens. I cant believe it stayed clear enough for me to test it out but it did! I did 90mins of 60s 1600iso subs after autofocus in Ekos. Used my old bias and flats for the lens - will do some new ones and try it again but here's the result. I have no idea if this is any good cos I've never really looked at the NAN before - but my stars definitely seem in focus!!

Well, finally I did it. Built my DIY Astroberry Focuser using a Nema17 Stepper with Waveshare controller. Obviously this is prototype 1 while I await better brackets etc. But, it works!!! Hoping for a clear night so I can try it with Ekos autofocus!! Oh, and it cost me about £50...

I'm not sure if I've missed something here so forgive me. You are connecting to RPI with Lynx cable with EKOS/INDI running on the Pi? If yes, this is how I connect so unless the Lynx cable is broken it should work (as other have said some cheapo cables may not) - is the cable OK, clean connections etc? You could test this by connecting it directly to your PC/Laptop usb running INDI/Ekos from there (rather than on the Pi). I use it with Windows, Mac and Ubuntu where I VNC into the pi - so operating system will have no bearing on the mount connection if you are using the Pi as the server as everything is handled on the Pi. So, assuming the above all works the issue may be with the USB port on the Pi? Have you tried other ports? I use the USB3 connection for my setup (although this shouldn't matter) and also, is there enough power for the Pi? If you are running other things off the Pi USB it may be not coping with the load. I would start by only trying to connect the mount only to start with. As others have said, if you have it working with BT then at least you have a working solution. This will have no bearing on the functionality re time lags etc so long as the Pi is close to the mount. I used to use a wifi connection the same way before I switched to EQMOD and had no issues at all. Hope this helps. Daz

Thanks Olly - yeah, the dovetail I use atm isn't flat - so I guess thats where to start, although I can improvise a spacer to make it flat against the camera. Thanks Alan - this is the kind of thing I was looking at but didn't want to buy until I'd worked out all options. Thanks guys for the quick response. Daz

Hi guys, Having started to get some decent images with my camera and lens setup I want to look at making a more robust rig to attach to my HEQ5. At the moment I use a small 4” dovetail fixed to the camera using the 1/4 unc but this can often come loose as the mount moves around. What is my best option for: Mounting 1100d 200mm Lens (no additional support atm) Planned RPI stepper focuser for Indi I may also add a small guide scope at some point. Any help appreciated before I start buying mount parts that can soon add up to a tidy sum in their own right! Cheers Daz

I use Siril all the time and have done 600+ 30s subs in around an hour start to finish including all the conversions using an 8gb i5 laptop and a MacBook Pro. Not sure why it would take that long, I guess it all comes down to how you preprocess and stack everything. Great images btw I’d be more than happy with those. There’s a fantastic tutorial on using Siril here - I follow these steps and get the best images I’ve ever done (although that ain’t many 😂)! Daz

Really REALLY great image - I'm struggling to see a major impact of the extra hours though - Looks like I've only got about 9 more hours of data to go with mine then... 😂

I use only Siril and Gimp on my Macbook. I think Siril will stack planetary too but I've never used it for that. Here's Andromeda stacked in Siril and processed in Gimp:

+1 for the RPI suggestion I was in same situation as you last year - only had a Macbook (which I didn't want to use outside) and iPad. The RPI is really easy to set up. I use it with (free but worthy of donation) Astroberry (Kstars and Ekos) and did all the processing on my Macbook using Siril and Gimp. I'm not sure about planetary captures because I haven't done any, but it works brilliantly for me. I now have a dedicated Win10 laptop I use for the processing (I tried linux for a while which also worked fine). The RPI will cost you about £60 and everything is captured to it so you can leave it outside going while you catch some z's. Of course you can use vnc/browser to use it live too and it works on my wireless network or in hotspot mode so no cables apart from those at the mount and its all powered by a £50 Halfords powerpack/starter.