alacant

The OP is I believe addressing that Cheers

? Look at the first screen. See, 'Simulator'?

There's a guide here I think: http://www.astronomyshed.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=623

Even the slightest imbalance should make the axes rotate. For autoguuiding, the mount must be mechanically perfect. It takes only half an hour or so to make it so. Well worth it for the amount of variables you have removed when you need to diagnose any errors. Cheers

Yes. PHD2 has a star simulator.

OK, so you need to slacken the cone bearing at the base of each axis. After you've cleaned and regreased of course;) Both axes need to spin freely. Cheers

Hi - st4 cable from the motor controller box to the st4 port on the guide camera. - usb cable from the guide camera to the computer. Apart from the fact that the st4 jack will fit into the usb socket on the camera, the usb, will not fit into the st4 so you can check you have it right. HTH

Hi A few observations and hints. - Dismatle DEC, clean, grease and take up the backlash. - Balance DEC to perfection: 10-plus kg on an eq5 demands it - Take the guiding box down to its default of 32; in dense star fields there's chance of an adjacent star infiltrating. - Use the guide algorithm SEP-Multistar rather than SEP. - You can use PHD2 with EKOS but with hy's new GPG and multistar, it's become second best. - Try pulses of 400ms EKOS does this for you. The OP already has it checked. HTH

Hi I think that the error may have been not calibrating near the equator. Please tell us what mount you are using and how it is connected to phd2. If you want to know exactly what went wrong, then post -a link to- the phd2 log files. How to post log files. Cheers

Hi The latest asi cameras, one of which is listed by the op, do a pretty convincing bin in camera before it becomes a file on your storage device. It makes my own lowly 120mm super sensitive. Indeed, as if the pixels had been binned. Cheers

Hi If you've a good mount and good atmospheric conditions, that should be fine. We sometimes need 0.75 as/p, so not every night is good enough to do it justice but It's always good to have a go anyway. Look at the images, not the numbers! Cheers

Hi everyone For anyone starting out, one of the questions often asked is what to target at full moon. Corresponding with the long weekend here in Spain, our attempt this month was to use a narrow field of view telescope and targets which didn't have -much- faint wispy stuff. To get as many targets as possible and have a chance of taming the background, each target had 80 minutes. No correctors, no filters. Just reflected light to an eos 700d automated with EKOS under Ubuntu 20.04. Stacking was semi automated under Siril and we allowed no longer that 15 minutes processing under StarTools. Thanks for looking. Exhausted! m103 - m34 m36 m38 - m39 ngc7789 - ngc891 b33 - ngc884.869

Try doing a 5 minute exposure with a 24mm (millimeter!) telescope; e.g. the Takumar 135 @ f5.6. There's not a lot of light gathering capacity, believe me! Cheers

Really? Maybe you missed focus a bit? Faulty examples? Dunno... Granted, with their tiny apertures, they are very (read: painfully!) slow, but if you've a few hours (read: the whole night!) to spare, we find that they really are capable of fine results. This is an example of an area in Auriga taken with a €50 Super Takumar 200/4, and this is the same region with the even cheaper Takumar 135/3.5. No need to remove the lens pins; choose the adapter without the flange. Cheers and HTH.

Hi I don't think we can answer very well apart from, 'It depends'. Filters can only prevent light from reaching the camera, never add to it, so unless you live in a light polluted area or are looking for a specific colouring to your photos, my preference would be no filter. Perhaps best to try without first. Try the same target three times. Compare. Cheers and HTH.

Hi My €0.02... Dismantle, clean, lubricate and adjust the mount. Then nail the polar alignment in readiness for your new modified camera;) Cheers

Hi JTOL. You may want to simplify guiding by using EKOS' internal guider. With SEP, there is no need for dark frames and when used with the latest multistar algorithm, you should see a noticeable improvement in your images. HTH

Hi It's not easy to describe. In StarTools, we manipulate the data where it should be; in a database/tracking engine. We obviate the need to endlessly manipulate piles of windows with lines on graphs or adjust curves, levels, masks and layers. If you're even a bit conversant with IT, you should pick it up quickly. There's a free trial. I'm certain its author, @jager945 could explain far better than I;) Cheers and HTH.

Hi There's some nice wispy stuff. Here's ST's in let's-see-what's-there mode.

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Hi - Set the lens against the infinity stop and loosen the 3 grub screws holding the focus grip to the helicoid. Twist the grip so that after re-tightening the screws, you can now focus beyond infinity. - The Bhatinov will give you focus on the red. The trick is to 'infinity' focus on a bright star until red fringing is seen. Now twist way from infinity so that the red just disappears. If it starts to go blue, you've gone too far. That's the best compromise I get with the 200/4 @ f 5.6. If you have time, f8 and smaller will allow you to focus 'normally' at infinity, but then it's painfully slow. - fit an ir cut filter. HTH.

Hi Lovely shot. The dither has worked well. The impression of noise is the way the site displays images. Zoom in to full size and you'll see that what looks like noise at forum-cropped size shows as stars full size; nice. So that you don't need to process so much, just take more light frames.

Hi everyone OK, so you went for purple instead. Instead of what however, I don't know. An image search throws up colour schemes for all tastes. Maybe a few years ago, it was possible to decide.

Ah, well that explains everything!

Maybe there was a large stockpile of dodgy 72mm department store reflectors with wobbly tripods and high resolution colour pictures of Saturn on the box in a warehouse in Hull. A second had car dealer bought the lot and he's doing a roaring trade knocking 'em out a 300 quid a pop on the black market. Yeah, that must be it.