adyj1

There is, but it's a slightly steep but worthwhile learning curve; control your mount with the laptop, and use astro capture software that supports semi-auto PA. For windows, an EQMOD cable attached to your mount, ascom, eqascom and nina software (nina 1.11 nightly build) and the 'three point polar alignment' plugin. (I'm assuming you don't use Linux or you'd have mentioned it.Probably a couple of times 😂 ) Ady Edit: three people typing at the same time 😂

Have you done any post-processing in an image editing software package? That's where you really get to make the milky way pop. The iso does seem high - what camera do you have? Also, 10 seconds with an 11mm lens seems low - did you get eggy stars when you tried longer? Id be hoping for at least 20s. Are you using a remote shutter release, or the built-in delayed release? But regardless of that, definitely taking multiple exposures as @mcrowlesuggests and then a stacking them is the right way to go. I'd be looking at many 10's of exposures.

Switching to astap in APT produced a dramatic increase in speed and reliability of plate solving for me. I think it should be the default install now

Hmm, this is 3-yr old thread, with the OP first buying his runners 4 yrs ago - rather than patenting it, you may end up having to pay royalties on yours! (which I like a lot, as it happens and will hopefully be copying when I can finance my own...)

I've had a quick look at asi studio stacking and was reasonably impressed. It did get rid of satellite trails and although does a certain amount of auto processing (which was good enough for me to show round at the star party) I do believe you may be able to just get the stacked image. It's on my 'to-do' and list to dig deeper...

although I notice you have more electronic components than on that mod, which I assume is also an improvement?

Dave, I'm part-way through doing the blackwaterskies mod to a tracing panel and would appreciate a copy of your code, if you wouldn't mind?

On my mobile phone screen, A

Spectacular...

I don't think it is Juan's main job, so don't expect a FLO-like lightning email response 😉

I've been trying to work out which one to plump for... When do you use the l-enhance over the l-extreme?

Appreciate you don't like that version any more, but I say keep uploading anyway - it was a stage you were at. I'm now interested to see you do a different version 👍

Both astronomiser and cheapastrophotography have very good reputations on these forums.

😉

Nice obsy. Thanks for sharing your experience - it is a challenge to try make the roof supports aesthetically pleasing, but your story shows their importance!

Dave, do you have an Eqdir cable to allow your computer to connect to and control your mount? This answer applies If you do. Ideally you will use your capture tool to do your alignment. APT is the one I have used out of your list, and the feature is called plate-solving (under the Pointcraft menu). From the home position, you use APT slew to your desired object, then tell the Pointcraft feature to take a picture with your imaging camera and platesolve it with its internal database to figure out *exactly* where your mount is pointing, and synchronise the mount with that location. This won't be exactly where your object is (because the mount's internal location wasn't accurately synchronised at that point), but your mount is now synchronised for that part of the sky, and another goto for the same target will get you really close. Once you've got APT set up properly you can use the feature called Goto++ to tell APT to keep slewing and plate-solving automatically until it is *exactly* on target and you are ready to start imaging a point that is repeatable between sessions. When you slew to a target in a different part of the sky it is always worth doing another platesolve (or use goto++) to ensure that your mount still accurately knows where it is pointing. I would say that getting this all set up when you're starting out can be a daunting task (we've all been there), so if this does seem a bit of a leap from what you are currently able to do, then just say - there are more basic ways of achieving a 'good enough' alignment to keep you going until the more advanced stuff falls into place. HTH Ady

I have the 120mc, which is the same. There aren't two holes, so it isn't easy to use a tool. Grasping the barrel below the lens focus ring bit does it for me - @Craney's picture shows you what you're trying to achieve.

As a follow-up question, would this change if your NB data was collected with an l-enhance filter, it being triband? Thanks

Welcome Dave, As you'll come to learn in astronomy, there 'taking photos' and 'astrophography'. Level of expenditure separates the two.... 🙂 (well, to be fair there are different expenditure levels of AP, its just I don't have the self control to stay at the budget level 😂) Don't hesitate to ask questions as you come across them - starting out on your own can be a bit of a challenge... Ady

Hehehehe - you said you understood client/server and then said that they have 'handicapped' the client by not updating the server. They went from being linux client /linux server, to windows-or-linux client/linux server. There are plenty of people who are happy with this new option, so a big thumbs-up to the devs 🙂 I can't see how this is a handicap. It can read that you're saying they shouldn't have because it's of no use to you... (I already covered the 'us windows users tend to expect' earlier... 😉 )

I agree with what you've said and can see where you're coming from - apart from this last bit... We've 're-established' the baseline that Kstars/Ekos is separate from (but requires) an indi server. Kstars/Ekos is a client/server application in the finest tradition of unix client/server applications, in that the two are developed independently. You can run kstars/Ekos on a unix machine in the house, and the Indi server on a unix machine at the mount. When the kstars/Ekos team ported their application to windows, it caused a bit of confusion for those unfamiliar with this architecture (usually traditional windows users), who expected it all to work on windows. So to someone familiar with this sort of setup it is completely acceptable for the current situation to exist - kstars/Ekos runs on unix or windows, and it relies on an indi server which runs only on unix.

Ahhhh - I didn't get that from your post 😉 In which case - who knows?!? All I know is that I'm firmly in the (100% - his percentage) 😁 Some good advice on your dob being given in this thread tho 👍

Eek! You said 'yes it works in windows', then 'the simplicity of Linux', then 'Virtual machine' appeared in your answer... There are many discussions about the different ways to set up kstars/Ekos (I am running it at the mount on an rpi4), but I think the question being asked at the moment is "can I connect my windows laptop to my astronomy gear (let's say at the mount to keep it simple) and *just* run windows with kstars/Ekos to control everything.?" Running the indi server on a Linux VM doesn't count as an answer to this question... Hope I'm not making things worse 😉 Ady

And just in case Rory is ever giving away freebies in the future when he becomes an 'influencer' - yes, and subscribe to his channel 😂

So I guess if your question is "I've seen this guy on the Internet who says he's an amateur astronomer and his YouTube vids looks really good - does he seem to actually know what he's talking about?" Yes.