alacant

Here is the -hopefully provisional- solution... Yes, I've touched the water supply elsewhere in the property, y nada. No LOL please!

Good only if you're using a camera designed for astro-photography, flat frames are however recommended obligatory either way; they'll correct the dark spots and vignetting. Cheers

¡Que lástima! Es que en móviles en este foro, no se ve dónde se vive la gente. On this forum on 'phones, you can't see where folk live.

Hi Just in case anyone else is adjusting, I wonder if that should perhaps read, '... which you can't get to w/ the motor attached'? Oh dear. really? You mentioned a broken bolt (?). Maybe some parts are on order? Dunno. The backlash adjustment only takes around 20 minutes or so. If you don't want/have the time/etc to adjust/fix yourself, this guy es perfectionista. Cheers

Hi everyone I wonder if this example (from the latest batch of eq8-r version 3) holds the record for out-of-the-box backlash? One is out of the box, the other after adjustment. I'll let the graphics speak for themselves!

Hi If it's working for you, stay with it. The Digic circuitry introduces artefacts which makes it more difficult to process, especially the background. Link that with the impossibility of producing temperature matched darks to introduce yet more noise and well... If all that's needed is to lose the offset, then yeah... I'm all for keeping it simple. Cheers and HTH.

Ah, OK. That may explain why when looking at star fields in particular, the Bessel makes the others -apart from perhaps the yellow 8- seem dull by comparison. Also, based purely on words overheard at the eyepìece, the susceptibility to being sensitive to purple fringing seems to be age dependent. Older observers may well benefit financially, filter-wise! Cheers

Hi We hardly ever look through telescopes but reserve that right once a year or so to point our violet fringe special -an ES ar152 f5- toward Sagittarius. We find that if you use a series of filters, one after another, you'll notice any colour they impart. Stick to one (a #8 is good) and after a while, you don't notice. The purest stars we've seen is with a Bessel V. Cheers and HTH

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Any type of dark frame on an eos is bad news. I'd be delighted to help you out with more contributions if necessary.

Sorry, yes. I should have explained:

Hi Nice shot. The galaxies are clearly visible. The 500d doesn't respond well to either dark or in-camera bias frames, the latter being essential to calibrate the flat frames correctly. So... lose the dark and camera bias altogether. Instead, simply subtract the offset. On older Rebels, this is 1024 [1]. You may want to have a look at Siril to do the calibration, the stacking and the processing afterwards. Oh, and just keep adding frames. The more you add, the easier it will be to process. Cheers and HTH [1] A long time since we've seen a T1i so not sure if the 15mp sensor was at the changeover to an offset of 2048. It's just a few moments to try the other value if the first doesn't work.

The OP has chosen to use the ASI driver.. PHD2 is however not limited to that as it is also happy to use INDI or ASCOM camera drivers. We do not know if the OP has the latest version Cheers

Correct. 1s exposures in daylight will overexpose. Now you're roughly in focus, you'll be able to finely adjust on a star. If you really want to test PHD2 in daylight, take the camera gain to zero at the shortest exposure time. Even then, you may have to stop down the aperture of the guide telescope. But perhaps best simply to wait for stars to appear as there's not much you can do with PHD2 otherwise [1] HTH EDIT: [1] Whilst you're waiting don't forget to build a dark library.:

As you can see, PHD2 disconnects. I'd guess because some other app has grabbed the camera. Suggestion: Start again. Make a new profile with only the camera connected and only PHD2 running. Now connect. Post the logs. Cheers

Hi I just thought that as a RT user you'd already be familiar with the interface. That's all. But yes. Absolutely agree. Keep it simple. Go with whatever works for you. Cheers

No. Never run ASIstudio at the same time as PHD2.

Hi If you like the feel and the non-destructive approach of RT, you'll almost certainly like the mask-rather-than-layer approach of DT. Cheers

Hi Nice shot and excellent detail. There's the 294 glow artefact which is easy to eliminate using temperature matched dark frames. You could probably still do this with the existing light frames. Oh, and a small nudge to the telecope and you'd have captured m82 as well. I use StarTools. It has tracking which is held in a database. The big advantage of this is that the next process knows exactly what's happened previously and acts accordingly. You can go back and redo whatever you messed up first time at any stage of the process and Its modern SVDecon and star handling modules obviate the need for extra plug-ins. Its fast and uses the GPU to offload the heavy lifting processes. 5 minutes taking mostly default values. Sorry, I'm hopeless on colour! Cheers and HTH

Hi Assuming you have an adequate mount and seeing to support 1000mm, here is our list of modifications needed to bring a low end f5 to astrograph standard. None are particularly difficult or expensive and will save you hours of frustration down the line. The original 4 element gpu such as this one where you set the backfocus depending upon FL is by far the best of the affordable ones we tried. Cheers and HTH

Hi The stack of the frames looks fine, there is nice detail in the wizard and the star field is spectacular, giving structure and interest to the shot. Not a fan of PI, especially with the latest add-ons. It's easy to make it look over processed. Hardware wise, I think the focuser may need aligning with the optical axis of the lens. most 72s we've seen need this and is easy to do with a laser stuffed in the focuser. My advice would be to keep it simple e.g. this is 5 minutes in StarTools. Even then i think I've overdone it! Cheers and HTH

Thanks. Yeah. I believe Heq5s are ok because they have the power socket mounted in a rubber block. The eq6 in question has its socket mounted in a block resembling anodised aluminium which has zero resistance. The eq8 gives directly to the metal of the mount.

Hi and thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately, this site is on a roof terrace. Why do I only get it with SW mounts though? Cheers and thanks again everyone.

Ah, OK. Of course. I think you've nailed it. The Bresser 12v socket is surrounded by plastic. Even if the cable does pull on the plug, the negative touches plastic. On the eq(x) mounts it seems that even though the socket is set in rubber, even a slight pull on the plug and the negative touches the surrounding metal. The guy was fitting a torno (lathe I think) and was attempting to explain why you can't just plug it into the wall. Translation to technical English is not my forte. Anyway, FWIW, apparently this is what we have at this site:

A few tests with the mounts we have tonight. Cheepo PSU 12v 5a gives tingles with both SW eq8 and eq6 but not with Bresser exos2. Same mains plugs, leads and sockets. The eq8 motor plug alone is fine using a similar 12v 5a (yes, we swapped them around too) It's only when the hub is plugged in do we get the buzz. Does that help us? Cheers Edit: we're in Spain. We have two lives @ around 110v each. No neutral.