Andyb90

Have you tried the focus aid:

https://ideiki.com/astro/usersguide/focusing_aid.htm

Looks like it's similar to what I use in SGP. You get a number for the star size and need to get it as small as you can by adjusting the focuser.

I'm thinking of going for Ha 5nm 1.25 and 3nm OIII. I have the funds for the Ha filter from the sale of other astro items. For the OIII I'd fund it by selling my Delos EPs. As when I do a session it's almost always imaging now. So I can't really justify keeping the Delos EPs.

Having just seen this I'm now very concerned about my bank balance ! 😉

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/astrodon-filters.html

Hi all,

I just got the Actions for Photoshop CC. I'm processing a Ha image (around 6 hours of data) and did some basic curves, levels, noise reduction and high pass filter.

I then ran the Local Contrast Enhancement Action (applied to whole image), but the end result seemed a bit 'overcooked'. Looked to have pushed the data too far.

Could anyone advise on when you'd normally use the Local Contrast Enhancement in your processing workflow? Also do you have to ease off on the initial curves and level adjustments when using this action.

Would the action normally be applied to the whole image. Or is it generally better to apply it selectively using a layer mask?

Is there a way to see what the action actually does in Photoshop? I can see some layers getting created and deleted when the action runs, but I'm not sure which functions it uses in Photoshop.

Andy.

I have an Esprit 80, which I'm very happy with. Its weight is very manageable being a smaller scope. That's important for me as I setup and tear down each session.

Also the field flattener is optically matched to the scope too, which I really like.

The flattener is screwed to the focuser and also has a thread for attaching spacers, camera filter wheel etc. So you don't need a push fit connection at all.

If you prefer tube rings it is possible to remove the foot. I've done it for mine. I have it mounted in rings with a guide scope on top. I posted a topic about doing this a while back. Here it is:

Hi all,

I was trying to do some darks last night. My lights were taken on Saturday at -20, but I struggled to cool to -20 last night as my rig was in doors due to rain. The best I could get was -18.

Is it ok to have a 2 degree difference between lights and darks or do I really need to ensure the darks are exactly the same temperature as lights to get the best out of calibration?

Andy.

After further testing it appears playing a video while the Polemaster software is working prevents the image freeze. It’s very odd. I hope qhyccd can issue a proper fix for the issue as this type of workaround is not ideal. If PHD2 can do a constant image refresh I don’t see why the Polemaster software can’t do that without playing a video in the background.

I just had the mount and polemaster connected. Normally it works fine. I saw a couple of posts mentioning playing a video to get it working. So I tried playing a video on YouTube. Then the polemaster video seemed to start working and I managed to complete the polar alignment. I’m not sure if the playing the video actually helped. I’ll have to do more testing.

Hi all,

I'm trying to start my first imaging session in a long time and seems I'm stuck straight away. I've opened the polemaster software and can connect to the camera. I get an image with polaris in the middle as normal, but after a few seconds it freezes.

I've not had this issue before, Up until now it has been fine. I'm on a Windows 10 laptop.

I've just tried uninstalling and re-installing the software, but the same thing is happening.

If anyone can help I'd be very grateful as I can't see what the issue could be.

Thanks,

Andy,

That's a beautiful image. I'd also be interested to know what exposure times and gain setting you used. I've tried high gain previously, but have moved to unity with exposures between 180 and 240 seconds for narrowband.

Edit: I see the exposure and gain settings are on the Astrobin technical card.

As others have said I would advise keeping exposures to several minutes. I tried 30s exposures with my asi1600 and found the time between exposures for image download and dithering cut into my overall imaging time too much. With exposures of several minutes there is no issue.

On 28/07/2019 at 10:06, Prolifics said:

Hi Andy

 

I got one of these last month. I got fed up going out all the time to refocus for my filters.

Comes with many springy metal adapters to fit your scope took me about 30 minutes to install it.

Smooth as silk and can get better fine focus than by hand. Works flawlessly with APT. Make sure you downlaod the driver from their ZWO website and alter the ascom driver settings not on APT or SGP as driver overides it for me.

You do not get a PSU with it! Any positive centre 12v power supply will do with 1.5A rating or above.

If you want to go the extra mile go and fill in the backlash boxes you can determine backlash by movng the focuser until you see movement of your focus knobs one way then lower the amount from 10 to 1 and move the other way and record the Focus number just before it moves. This is your backlash. Mine is set to 8 units.

My HWFM and HDR values are just around 1.3 wasn't acheivable before by hand. 

Looks great on my scope (white). Would look great on black scope too, but not sure about bright red on blue or orange (Old Celestron).

 

A worthy addition to my setup that now I can not live without. Go for it! I left you some pictures...

 

Kindest regards David
 

 

Thanks very much for the info and pics. I think I'll order one. I've contacted FLO and they've said I could return the unit if I have any compatibility issues. Though hopefully I won't.

Andy.

6 hours ago, stash_old said:

It is a good piece of software(Platesolve2) but ASPS is better,IMo, when you dont know where you are and far from where you thought you were!

I use SGP and setup each session. I've also found with Platesolve2 you need to be reasonably close to the target for it to work. I normally do 'Solve and Sync Blind' first using Astrometry.net local. Then center on the target with Platesolve2. I find Platesolve2 always works then and is very fast 🙂

Hi Everyone,

I'm interested in the ZWO EAF. I have a FeatherTouch focuser so I think it should be compatible.

I will be using SGPro for auto focus.

If anyone has used the EAF I'd be really grateful if you could share your experiences so far.

Andy.

16 hours ago, Astro Buer said:

Is there anything else I should be aware of/risks of this mod?

You need to be a bit careful when unscrewing nut 2 shown in the photo below. It is the inner nut and is behind an inner ring (highlighted in Blue on the photo). You wouldn't want to knock that ring as any damage could affect star shape. It's not high risk you just need to ease the nut loose. I used this Draper socket set to get over that ring and loosen the bolt.

https://www.drapertools.com/product/16442/1-4inch-Sq-Dr-Metric-Socket-Set-(20-Piece)

The ratchet is just the right size. Any similar set would work.

You've probably seen in the earlier posts, but just in case you missed it the mounting foot has rubber stuck to it. That peels off to reveal 4 screws. Undo them and you can get to the 2 screw heads to hold them in place whilst you undo the nuts within the OTA.

One other thing. I tilted the OTA to one side and this helped the inner nut stay within the ratchet head once released from the screw. Just avoids any risk of the nut falling into the OTA.

Andy.

40 minutes ago, kens said:

Should be ok to post in that thread unless you have more general questions about Indi. 

I posted a new thread as I have some beginner questions about compiling and installing the driver. This one:

https://www.indilib.org/forum/mounts/4193-avalon-driver-setup.html

Andy.

38 minutes ago, kens said:

The Avalon driver is under development. You would need to build the driver from source. You can find a link to the source code on the Indi forum at https://indilib.org/forum/mounts/2411-avalon-mzero-stargo-with-lx200-protocol.html You also need to edit the drivers.xml file

I use it all the time now with no issues and any problems I can help out.

That's great. I'm wondering if it's best to create a new thread on the INDI forum Mount's section as I have some beginner questions about building and installing the driver. Rather than post into the above thread.

Andy.

I got some clear skies on Sunday, so setup for some testing. Again connections to asi1600 (imaging cam), asi290 (guide cam), EFW and HEQ5 were fine.

I skipped polar alignment as I didn't actually realise there was an assistant in Ekos. Normally I use a Polemaster.

So I slewed to Capella and went straight to alignment. I tried an offline solve to begin with, but that didn't work. So tried online and it worked. I then had a look at the index files in options. It appeared I had some missing that were required, so downloaded them. I also thought it best to download the recommended files too, but got an error after the 3rd download. The error is documented on the INDI forum and adding the missing files manually is provided as a workaround.

Before downloading further files manually I tried the local solve again and it worked this time so I think the previous errors were probably due to missing required index files. I'll continue testing next session to see how I get on.

Next I went to the capture tab to focus the 1600. I used the preview button for that. It took me a while before I realised that I had to mark the stars on the preview image before I could get a HFR value. Once that was sorted focusing was straight forward.

Next up was guiding and this is where I came unstuck. A silly mistake really, but I didn't see it. I had the Guider set to asi290 correctly, but the Via option was set to the 1600. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out why the star wasn't moving during calibration. Then finally realised the Via option should be set to EQ MOD for my setup. Oh dear!

After that calibration worked and guiding was up and running pretty quickly. Unfortunately by this point the wind was starting to pick up quite a lot and I was a bit concerned so decided to pack up. The initial guiding results were pretty good though considering the wind, just under 1 arcsec.

Next session I'll see if I can get an imaging run going and then try to use VNC Viewer on my tablet to remote onto the laptop. I've tested the connection already so hopefully it should work. Will also be trying to Polar Alignment Assistant too.

One gap that I didn't account for is with my Hitec Astro Mount Hub Compact. I normally use it for dew heater control and previously for focuser control, but unfortunately it looks like the software is Windows only. So I'd need another option for dew control.

Also it would be really nice if I could use my Avalon mount with INDI. Looking on the forum I think it may be possible, but need to do some further reading.

I do like KStars too. Its nice to have the planetarium functionality, including features like the DSS Overlay when exploring for targets. I also like the 'Whats Up Tonight' option.

Andy.

On 16/11/2018 at 11:01, LightBucket said:

Great...glad you got,it sorted...why did you have to load drivers individually as they all come with INdI..??

The EQ dir can,e will work fine...

As for location, if you put that in during the set up wizard it should remember.... certainly don’t need to set up a config file, never heard of that being needed..

I installed the basic indi library with this command

sudo apt-get install libindi1 indi-bin

I don't think it includes any 3rd party drivers so I then installed the zwo and eqmod ones separately.

Connection to my heq5 worked well. I was able to slew to a couple of targets in kstars and track then park the mount.

I've also saved my location now. Think I must not have saved it correctly before.

I installed Astrometry.net today and the index files.

All in all I'm pleased with how the setup and initial tests have gone. I may get chance to try an imaging run tomorrow ?

Andy

I've got KStars up and running and Ekos too. I'm using an asi1600 camera for imaging and asi290 for guiding. I have a zwo EFW too. So I installed the zwo indi driver. I also installed the eqmod driver for my heq5 pro mount.

Both cameras connected without any problems. I took some test exposures and could see the resulting images. EFW connection was fine too. Just need to check correct filter is being set.

Does anyone know if you can set camera gain for targets or sequence jobs?

I want to connect my mount next. I have a lynx astro eq dir cable. Should that work with the eqmod driver?

Also I added a new 'Home' location in KStars with the co-ordinates entered manually, but when I re-started KStars it had disappeared. Is there a way to permanently save this type of setting? Do I need to setup a config file?

Andy.

16 hours ago, LightBucket said:

Hmmmm, not sure about that, but Jasem is working on it now, so won’t be long before fixed, I would try again in the morning and I bet all will be good...

the problem is it won’t be in the full INdI until the next update, so you will have to use the INdI nightly build, as they are updated almost every day.. 

Will hold off on the full install then and try the nightly build as it would be good to get the full version.

2 hours ago, LightBucket said:

Maybe you will if you have not installed INdI full...

But can’t see what you couldn’t as I did with 18.04.1 no problem...there is an issue with the new INdI update from this morning, with the Altair cams, check out the lates post on the INdI forum...there is info there, I won’t uldate to that till sorted...I have the version of INdI 1.7.4 and all is good with that and no fixes needed...

Will try the fix, but if that doesn't work is there a command to uninstall indi and then a way to install 1.7.4?

Andy.

2 hours ago, Dr_Ju_ju said:

A quick thing to try, assuming you've followed every step on https://www.indilib.org/download/ubuntu.html, is to re-run the full install, but with a 'fix' switch, i.e.

sudo apt-get --fix-missing install indi-full

note double minus sign before fix. This should repair everything. Which version of Ubuntu have you installed? as the latest 18.04.1 has some software missing that stops things running....

Ok I'll try to re-run the full install with the fix switch. I installed the latest version of Ubuntu:

Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS

24 minutes ago, LightBucket said:

just make sure you install Kstars full and INdI full, and set it to “local” in the Ekos set up screen which will come up on first start up...

I got the dual boot working and tried to install Indi and kstars using the below command from the indi website

sudo apt-get install indi-full kstars-bleeding

But got a couple of errors with indi. The errors referred to ssag and altaircam. So I wasn't sure if indi had installed or not. I ended up running this command instead

sudo apt-get install libindi1 indi-bin

This worked and I then ran kstars-bleeding command which also completed.

I think I have to install the drivers for my devices separately as I only have basic indi installed. Is that correct?

Andy.

1 hour ago, Dr_Ju_ju said:

For your setup (as described), you could have Ubuntu running at the mount laptop, with Indi and Indi web manager (not strictly needed, but I find it easier) and then run Kstars (https://edu.kde.org/kstars/#download) on your normal indoors windows laptop.

Another way, this is the way I use it, is to have Indi, Indi Web, Kstars & XRDP running at the mount computer & use normal windows RDP to connect.

This keeps the system isolated from other computers, in case I need to do other work, or even control other rigs...

Ok, thanks will try the XRDP.

Andy.