alacant

Hi everyone Followed this from astro dark up to the meridian before switching to m3. Managed 29 non clouded frames -corresponding to the dry westerlies- on the galaxy before airflow changed and the easterlies brought haze, damp and finally, cloud. m3? Nada. Can't win 'em all. Thanks for looking and do please post your dslr 101s. Oh, and a call-out for Siril, which reached the milestone of version 1.0.0 recently. Calibration and stacking which just works. Nice job. 700d + gso203 siril 1.0.0 StarTools 1.8.525

No obligation to do so except that unless you do, you lose prime imaging time the other side of the meridian when the object is at its highest. I'd say flip say 10 minutes after the meridian, and keep going until the target gets too low. If you've decent polar alignment and your telescope is reasonably aligned with DEC on the dovetail, you'll lose precious little of the field of view by performing a flip. Set the mount to park at sunrise and you also get more sleep:) HTH

So, increase the gain and/or exposure until you can see it clearly.

? Doesn't the live stream on the capture tab work? HTH

No bands. Well done. If the dust isn't controlled by the flats then it may have settled after the session. Or the flats have the wrong exposure. Oval stars in one corner. Tilt? Try with your HH too? You'd almost certainly find it would be even better. Dark frames on EOSs introduce artefacts and noise which make them unecesserily difficult to process. Cheers

Best to omit both types of dark frame for the current issue.

Hi 600d, so to troubleshoot... -include flat frames -include bias frames -lose the dark frames -stack using a clipping algorithm -stretch each frame before processing looking for cloud/haze/condensation and discard as necessary Cheers and HTH

Hi Yes, but lovely shot. You can correct the stars easily in software. Sorry, not much we can do with a.jpg, we lost a few stars, but you'll get the idea: Cheers

Hi TBH, we're not convinced by the current duoband craze. We use a UHC, which is available as a clip and doesn't cost... Separate the channels and away you go. Looks pretty much the same. If you want to stay with it, just remove the glass and support it on 3 blobs of blu tac. Or use a separate guide telescope. Cheers

Thanks for the heads up. A bit of a waste not to include both, so finally remembered to turn the camera ~90º. Looking at the field of view, there are two other quite large galaxies, but it's going to need a wider field. This is kstars' viewpoint: +90º rotation gso203 and -45º rotation with a 130pds @ 585mm respectively. Looks promising. Cheers 700d + gso203 36 x 5 min @ ISO800 siril 1.0.0 StarTools 1.8.585

Hi Yes, an eq mount would be better. I'd be inclined to include ALL the images, trails or not. Dither between each frame and stack using a clipping algorithm. There's a choice of them in Siril. You'll find that the trails will be removed. HTH

+1. Unless you're going to pull the mouut apart and clean, lubricate and adjust tolerances and as pretty and colourful as the lines on the graph may be, look at the images. Not the lines! One thing you may want to try is -belt or no belt-, go RA east heavy. Cheers

Hi Select a star before attempting to calibrate? Tools -> autoselect star Then hit the guide button. HTH 23:17:45.880 03.006 6520 Exposure complete 23:17:45.917 00.037 6520 worker thread done servicing request 23:17:45.917 00.000 5908 OnExposeComplete: enter 23:17:45.917 00.000 5908 UpdateGuideState(): m_state=1 23:17:45.917 00.000 5908 UpdateCurrentPosition: no star selected 23:17:45.917 00.000 5908 Throw from C:\cygwin\home\agalasso\projects\phd2\guider.cpp:1345->unable to update current position 23:17:45.917 00.000 5908 Status Line: No star selected

Hi everyone Forgot about the moon rising, so had a bit of gradient to deal with. But anyway, no excuses. Disappointed with the colour. The seeing was good and the sky clear so no idea why it's so colourless and lacking in detail, especially as this is over 3 1/2 hours. Maybe another 3 1/2 hours? Thanks for looking and do post your dslr galaxies, especially if you've had a go at this. 700d + gso203 - siril 1.0.0 StarTools 1.5.525

Hi We -and other indi users- couldn't connect a qhy5 a while back so I thought it maybe worth checking. Particularly relevant for the OP's model. The values which are used are stored in the db. One hack is to enter the correct size -or anything else you like- and make the db read only. Here is an example of the simulator on a remote machine. I think it would look the same for local too. HTH

Hi The 72ed is bottom of the range material and you may just have a poor example. Perhaps go along to an astro club and do a side by side with an example which is known to work ok? Anyway, setup the imaging train vertically so the the components sit under gravity. Give a final tighten whilst shaking the assembly. Have you drilled and tapped a third thumbscrew in the focuser collar yet? You're very nearly there. Your 5mm idea may just do it. Post a frame from the camera if you like. Then we may be able to advise better. Cheers

Fit the filter on the camera side.

? Any zwo will reach focus out of the box. Cheers **edit the planetary zwos include this adapter which fits directly to the 1.25" focuser on the 130.

Drill this for two conventional bm screws and hang it over the lens hood?

Hi What are you trying to adapt? To what? Cheers

There are many methods for polar alignment you can use. As you'll already be using it, rather than add yet another app, we'd recommend using PHD2 We have always found multiple stars. The worst case we ever witnessed was at 1200mm whilst imaging m106 with a 6" f8. Then there were only two stars available for guiding. Drop that to 650mm with a proper cc and you'll have plenty of stars. The minimum requirement for guiding is one. Bear in mind also that we use indi to control our hardware which includes an eq6 mount. If you have any doubts, perhaps the best advice we can give is to go along to an astro club and try it.

Hi We can't tell because we don't know what camera you have nor your budget. I'll assume a Canon dslr. Here are three of the many possible solutions. 1. minimal a m48 t ring a 30mm extension tube Screw the extension into the t ring. 2. optimal a m48 t ring a 4 element gpu coma corrector (cc) Screw the cc into the t ring. 3. Many other possibilities depending upon your skill level and budget. Remember the pds is bottom of the range material so you'll need to pull it apart a few times to get the most out of it. For example: drill and tap a third thumbscrew in the focuser collar, remove part of the protruding focuser barrel... etc... etc... We would not recommend a pds for visual observing. Cheers and HTH

Hi everyone Bits and pieces over the last week practising our moon dodging skills. 1/2-hour here and there. Noise and more noise, despite over 3 hour's worth of frames. It never seems as good when taken over multiple nights. Anyone else having a go this month? Thanks for looking. 700d + gso203 / siril 1.0.0 rc3 startools 1.8.525

Very wise:) The gpu (the second one to which you linked) leaves the focus position unchanged, and is by far the better of the two you cite. It simply screws to the m48 thread of either oag available to you. No calculations or spacers necessary. In fact, it works better at 650 focal length at just under 55mm. Perfect.

Hi Yes, any 120mm will work with the ts9. We prefer the t7m however. Example setup attached. Note the use of a make-life-easier focuser;) You can also see here that the old zwo120 will clear the imaging dslr. This is with a 130pds par-focal and ready to go with the 4 element GPU coma corrector. Hands on experience tells us it's a good solution for what you aiming for. Cheers.