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mikeyj1

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Everything posted by mikeyj1

  1. I'll Start by saying i've never stacked Afocal DSO images... but i think there's a fundamental problem with the image stacking when you have such a large non- image area...everything surrounding the 'eyepiece area' Also not sure how you took bias and flats on a camera phone, but maybe all manual settings? the only Afocal images i ever had any success with were of the moon, a deep sky object is always going to be really difficult. Dont bother thinking about cooling the phone, thats a red herring in this case, same thought about changing the scope.. if you want to do deep sky astro on a budget, plenty of 'webcam' cameras that will get you started. If you have a DSLR you can attach that and get MUCH better images... even without cooling. Siril is great, and the youtube Deep Space Astro is a great resource for learning all things Siril, especially with a DSLR. If you do manage to stack and stretch successfully with the camera phone, well done! i decided that was a dead end road, only useful for capturing what you can see through the eyepiece, even Jupiter is problematic with afocal in my view. Sorry if that comes across as a bit negative, but my afocal images only got me started on the long road of astro-imaging...got me really excited, and wanting more...good luck 😉 Mike
  2. I suggest you start the focusing part a bit more simply than that... do it in daylight? if you can see a distant object or position your scope and camera to see something about a km or more away, then use the finder to roughly point at it ( trees on a hillside are good), and if you have some software that allows auto exposure (like Sharpcap free version), just set it looping and try to focus. when you get in focus, make a note of the scale measurement for reference. then go back out at night and give alignment and platesolving a better go (I'm sure you are already starting from pointing north weights down position..?) Edit if you dont have autoexposure, start on 1/250 second or less (also the moon will need this shortness of exposure if near full) Mike
  3. I'm surprised nobody has mentioned SGP so far. I also started with APT, moved to SGP and loved it, (Autofocus, meridian flip, auto centering, plate solving framing, scheduling targets, etc), but I'm stuck on version 3.2 now as I refuse to pay for the annualized latest version. I've also tried NINA, I want to stick with it, as I see many of the features in SGP have found their way into NINA. The Interface is less intuitive than SGP in my view, and, although I can still quite happily run all my kit through SGP, I see NiNa being actively developed, especially the plug-ins as Ady says, so I do need to persevere through the learning curve (and stop thinking 'SGP does that'...). Learning curves seem to get harder as time goes on ..
  4. I started guiding on my 250pds with the SW finder and a guider adapter, this arrangement commonly called the 'finder guider' with a QHY5ii colour camera. it worked well, and was easy to set up. I've also changed to an OAG now and a 250 Quattro, with mixed results. I agree with @RolandKol that the OAG is more difficult to set up, for not much improvement in guiding performance. It also affects the back focus, so the Baader Quick lock that I was using doesnt fit in the image train any more, which has led to a bit of Tilt in the images i think. In summary, the finder guider and big pixel colour QHY worked very well, is cheap to start and easier to set up. I would start this way again if I had to do it over. Mike
  5. Very nice gesture on your part for sure! I'll throw in Bishops Cleeve Comp in Gloucestershire. I have done some outreach there with the STEM club, and that would support them nicely!
  6. Dave, no amp glow on the 071, or 2600, none at all... but you should mention the difference in megapixels and pixel size and bit depth.. QE ratio between the 2600 colour and 071 is very similar ~80%
  7. I think you are better slewing to either east or west depending on your available sky, and then start from there..
  8. I had the same error. Make sure the setting 'start from current position' is selected ON (assuming you have slewed to some area of clear sky)
  9. Looking at your picture, i see the 5" of back focus is done with an adapter. Its a similar setup to mine, with the filter drawer, i just have the OAG in front of that, so could potentially use the OAG arrangement. Any details on the adapters used? Also, I'm not sure how your guide scope is attached, can you explain? thanks Mike
  10. Hi, I want to try to image a few things with the C8 SCT, and was wondering about guiding it. My ASi-071mcpro has an OAG, which I guess would be the best option, but its a 2" nosepiece, a it bigger than the visual back on the scope. Does anyone mount the normal 'finder guider' on an SCT, and if so, how do you go about it...? thanks Mike
  11. Beautiful image, done with (I hope you don't mind me saying this..), 'normal' equipment, congratulations! Mike
  12. Welcome Dave, both Ady and I are just north of Cheltenham, and there is also an astronomy Club (CAS Cotswold Astronomy Club) which (in the normal past times!) ran monthly meetings in Shurdington hall. cheers Mike
  13. that really is excellent, something to remember for many years as a family!
  14. try the 'toolbox' in eqascom - it has a network port finder, 'driver setup; i use that every time before connect, just in case i swapped a cable over! If that doesn't see the port as 'COM'X', then look in the device manager and check what com ports are active.. PS: the mount shows as heq5 for me also.. with my AZEQ6-GT ...sorry i jumped in a bit fast there...looks like you've already tried that out now i've read the full post
  15. lovely detail in that, congrats! How many panes in the mosaic?
  16. Hi Ed, well that looks pretty similar to most early attempts at the Whirlpool, including mine TBH you have done well to get the image from 60/60/800 settings, you should be chuffed. It looks like you have cropped in quite along way, so the resolution will go down with that, a longer focal length is better for that. DSLR's have quite big pixels normally, and a short focal length means less pixels covering the image. However..you can do some things to help: Go for 2 hrs integration time, and dither the images, which moves the camera a little so you cover more pixels and smooth the image a bit(although normally early on tracking is unguided so you get some natural dither..or trailing). Software like APT lets you include some dither Stars look nice and round, what was wrong with the ones thrown away? maybe add some more in by adjusting the % used in DSS what about Darks and Bias? easy enough to do on a DSLR, and help alot good luck with it, clear again tonight, so get some more data and process again.. Mike PS: just seen knight of clear skies process...i hadn't downloaded the image file looks very good, and less stretching definitely helps !
  17. It's been awhile since I did it, but those 3 screws effectively sit on the edge of the reticule glass. So it's a combination of loosening 1 or 2 and tightening the 3rd to move it in the direction you want to go (half the error distance from rotating the RA axis 180°). If the reticule has become dislodged through over loosening, you can sometimes reseat it without removal, 1st of all and screw the focusing lens at the front and you should be able to see the reticule. You might need to balance the mount so that the polar scope is looking downwards or upwards (I can't remember which way the reticule sits on the flange), jiggle it so that it re-seats and then gently tighten the screws up evenly. Once you got it all back together you can repeat the polar scope alignment routine but this time only move it in small steps to make sure it does actually move in the direction you want to go. It always used to annoy me that the reticule isn't captive so that the lines point vertical when in the home position, but whilst you're doing this, you can get it close (dont touch the glass with a finger, you'll leave a mark), or just ignore it..it still works but in a different position. If all else fails, you can take it apart, but try not to first of all cheers Mike
  18. Its also pretty much a full moon, so I will be using an Ha filter most probably.. M100 will be close (too close for my liking) to the moon, M109 better... but it's going to be a very bright sky after about 10 pm me thinks.. good luck with it.. Mike
  19. ...But if you change location, your Analemma will also change... so you need to find somewhere nice in Derbyshire, which isn't too hard anyway I've only just decided to have a go at this, although still need to work out where, when and how 😂 Mike
  20. Yes! 21:55 last night, West to East, directly overhead. Brighter than a firework, (brighter and bigger than the moon i would say), split into about 8 separate parts, and you could hear the 'booms' (like a distant firework) about 10-15 secs after. Would that be sonic booms, or just the break up noises? It really was spectacular, just a shame i was imaging in a different direction, would have been very happy to catch that in a frame! Mike
  21. Hi I made a template when making a secondary dew heater, its roughly 80mm by 57mm see the attached image. The Quattro is considerably larger for the reduction in F ratio to F4
  22. Hello All, So I thought i would give you an update now that i have finished the upgrade of the PC. If you just want the bottom line without reading any further, I reduced the processing time by 33% on DSS and over 44% on APP (without overclocking the new processor)! I opted for a Ryzen 5 3600 and a Gigabyte Motherboard with PCI4.0 support. I also installed an M.2 NAND drive for the OS, and 32 GB of DDR4 3200 RAM. This processor is somewhat less than I had planned, as the money saving was considerable over the Intel i5-10700k originally discussed,. However the Mobo will take the latest Gen Ryzen 9, so i have plenty of upgrade options in the future. The benchmark i constructed was based on Deep Sky Stacker 4.2.5 (64bit) and Astro Pixel Processor 1.082. My data was 62 images of NGC3000 a master dark and a master bias, (No flats or original dark files as i couldnt find the originals!). Data sets were copied to separate directories for both the original and upgraded system, on a separate internal 3TB SATA drive. PC was restarted between each run to help clear cache. 2 runs of each setup. These were pretty light benchmarks, but probably typical for general imaging. It seems the more intensive the processing the more time will be saved...see below! DSS: Default settings, 100% image stack, star selection limited to ~60 on both runs. Run until full draw of final picture. 62 CANON CR2 files (Lights). No calibration frames (The master dark and Bias were 1 pixel different, and DSS wouldnt accept them). APP: Default settings and 100% image stack using full cores and threads and 16GB RAM (more on that later!) Run until full draw of final picture. Same light files+master dark and Bias to process. For Ref: Original system: i5-3570k overclocked to 4.1GHz with 16GB RAM and Raid-0 SSD array. Windows 10 64bit Pro current build version 19042 Times in minutes and seconds to process: i5 system DSS: 5'43" Ryzen 3600 system DSS: 3'50" (-33% approx) i5 system APP: 24' 35" Ryzen 3600 system APP: 14'34" (I realised i had left the deafult 2GB RAM setting unchanged, so re-ran the test as follows): Ryzen 3600 system APP: 13'56" (images and working drive changed to M.2 Super fast drive, 16GB RAM Setting) Ryzen 3600 system APP: 13'35" (images and working drive changed to SSD Raid drive, Progs and OS on M.2 drive. I suspect this gives the best result as ther is less 'bottlenecking') (-44.7% appox) These are signifiant improvements, and I'm really pleased with the upgrade. In addition, PC start up time is around 7 secs to password on normal boot option, and games and everything else run maxed out without issue. I have only tried Photoshop once, so can't comment on this yet. I also managed to sell my old Mobo and processor/RAM for a good price, so really happy thanks for all your comments and suggestions! regards Mike
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