alacant

Hi You've a nice new mount but are using only a bit of it's capability. Try connecting the mount directly to your computer, install ASCOM and EQASCOM, set the RA and DEC guide speeds to 0.9x and get both the guide telescope and the lens on the same dovetail without anything else in the way. Now make a new phd2 profile using the wizard, taking the default values but this time not forgetting to enter the guide telescope focal length. Recalibrate and take it from there. I think you're gonna be pleasantly surprised;) Mechanical stuff: RA: PE: use the PPEC algorithm DEC: Adjust the backlash HTH

Ah. I thought you needed a slightly defocused star at high magnification for that (?). But anyway, don't forget the collimation myths. HTH

Hi. Ah, so that's the main telescope. I wondered what it was. It looks like a (very) out of focus star though. An easy way (don't look at the stars of the screen) is to twist focus whilst looking at the star HFD value. Leave it a few seconds to stabilise after each tweak. Get that value as low as you can (without going overboard). Cheers and good luck next clear night. It's gotta be close now;)

Make sure it's checked. Set them both to 0.9 and recalibrate.

Ok. In PHD2, click on the brain -> algorithms and in the first column, click hysteresis. In the menu which emerges, choose PPEC. That's it. Come back for some further settings when you've got that going. HTH.

Hi. It helped in making the stars less distorted. It gave you a wider field of view which is not really what you want for this target. It didn't make the telescope any faster though; to do that, you'd need to collect more light using a bigger telescope, so don't adjust the number of frames because of this. In fact keep taking frames until you just get fed up! Cheers and HTH.

Hi. VSPEC is part of eqmod. But try phd2 before spending too much time on it HTH

The night of the supermoon, so perfect conditions for faint targets. In attempt to minimise gradient, I dusted off the 6" f8 and fired away 3 minute frames. Here are 40 of them. There's the bar but little else. Still, got me out of the house for a while:) Stay safe everyone and thanks for looking.

Hi If you guide RA using PHD2's PPEC with an initial preriod of,say 120s, it should flatten the sine after a few minutes. Before the days of the PPEC algorithm, I wasted a lot of time trying to PEC train my eq6;) HTH

Hi ES pn208 , 208mm f3.9 here. Build quality a notch and a bit above anything sw offer. Aluminium alloy or carbon fiber tube. I have the Al version. 85mm secondary eliminates vignetting and will cover the 294 sensor easily. Specify a big dovetail and it will hold collimation all night. For galaxies and smaller dsos I'd go for the f5. Cheers

Hi Do you have a cable to connect the mount directly to your computer? If so, lose the st4 cable and choose EQASCOM EQ5/6 as the mount in a new profile. st4 cables are known for their flakiness plus they give us little information to be able to help. If you are going with on camera anyway, increase the mount guide rate to 0.9x. It doesn't look as if you're starting with a successful calibration. We'd need to see the logs from that too; your last two attempts didn't work... Cheers

The camera is not connected or it is faulty. Hopefully something simple e.g. a usb cable, wrong driver... Start from zero by making a profile using the new profile wizard. If you still can't get it going, post a -link to- the logs. Cheers

Hi Bias and dark frames are not dependent on optics. Take say 50 bias frames -minimum exposure in the dark- stack them and use the resultant master bias. For ever... Flat frames: necessary only if you rotate the camera or -in my experience seldom- find that there are new dust particles on the sensor. You'll need an A3 light pad to cover a 10". Just go for the t-shirt for now? Any colour is fine so long as the colour is even. Unless you use a program with a decent optimisation algorithm, I think dark frames with your camera will introduce more noise. Try it with and without? HTH

Hi. OK, to help us, next I'd suggest posting a flat frame.

Hi again. @Mr niall. Just to clarify... On this thread, there are now two clean images of the data. One of those has details of how it can be processed. Are we perhaps now more concerned about doing better next time? IOW we're not now trying to rescue the original? Cheers

That's strange. Apart from the wipe preview, you should be working with luminance only until you force colour after initial development. Maybe you initially selected Linear rather than Linear OSC? Your roi for the second AutoDev should be restricted to a very small rectangle on the fat star only. It's something simple! But as you say, tomorrow is another...

menu - system settings - Display Perhaps? I'm not a xfce user I'm afraid. You've done the hardest part though. Well done.

Hi No problem: https://askubuntu.com/questions/484434/install-ubuntu-without-cd-and-usb-how HTH

Hi Yes, that's correct. That's what I got. That's just a big hammer stretch which frightens away most new users. But you're not finished yet... The magic comes next... In this case I think you forgot the 'banding' module before the wipe with 'vignetting' selected. Then call wipe again at around 90% with a mask to select only the band on the top part of the image. The milder bands will by now been removed as a result of the first call to banding. Finally call AutoDev a second time and adjust the 'ignore fine detail' slider with a roi over the fat star on the right of frame. Use the gamma slider to make it look realistic. From there I used decon and colour before switching off database tracking and denoise. Then made it look nice in DarkTable. It sounds a lot but takes less than 5 minutes. Or significantly longer using other software... (...takes cover!) HTH

Sorry. Missed this bit. Which bit of it? The banding maybe? I'll try to help if I can. Cheers

Linux: StarTools and DarkTable.

Currently Ubuntu, but as @JamesF mentions, Mint has good support too. If you have a problem with either of those, you'll get help rapidly; large user base. Cheers, keep safe, HTH and thanks for the bump. <shame>I I must admit I'd forgotten about it:( </shame>

Hi None really. Some nice star shapes and colours. You could improve by taking flat frames and use a stacking method which includes the intersection of all frames. HTH

Hi. Most modern guide cameras work fine with oags; you'll always be able to find stars where older less sensitive models struggled. It doesn't matter if the guide star is distorted. Oags give tight stars. Oags weigh less than guide telescopes. Mount the guide camera in a helical focuser and they are just as easy to set up as a guide telescope. Works with all types of telescope, regardless of focal length. Without the helical focuser they are well nigh impossible which IMHO is from where their bad reputation derives. Just my oag biased €0.02, but HTH anyway. Cheers.

Ah, ok. The stellarmate is the commercial version. Ready to go. Just connect your stuff. Uses the same software with which you're already familiar. HTH