Likwid

Yup! my whole process is this: Type NGC 6992 into Sky Atlas, click Set as Framing Assistant, then in Framing Assistant, I click Determine Angle, and it updates the angle of the preview window to correctly show the framing that my telescope "sees". If I move the rectangle in the preview window, the coordinates update. I click "Load Image" once I have what I want framed whether it is just one frame or a mosaic so it will correctly fill the preview area. (I have done it with and without this step with the same results) I click on Slew and Center and it works its Plate Solving magic. When I look at the image that it took when Plate Solving was successful, the target is not nearly where I placed it in the frame in the Framing Assistant window even though it says that it was successful.

I am using the Sky-Watcher app for my PC and have the mount connected directly to my PC via USB. I can't use EQMod for the Star Adventurer GTi. In the app, I manually set the Latitude and Longitude based on what I have on my main scope that has worked for years. The one odd thing about the Sky-Watcher app is that I have no place to enter altitude. When I try to sync it with the inputted data in NINA it says that it can't sync. My mount thinks I am at 0 meters, and I have NINA set to 550 meters. From my understanding of Plate Solving though, it takes an image and analyzes the star patterns to figure out where to aim the mount. Could my altitude throw off the Plate Solving process like that?

Yes, when I pick a single target and plate solve, everything works flawlessly. If I got into Sky Atlas, pick a target and put it in the sequencer, then plate solve, everything is fine. If I try to change the framing at all in NINA it doesn't frame the target correctly. Whether I want to make a target offset in the frame, or create a mosaic it fails in the same way. That is what is confusing to me, it works on a single default target perfectly. When I try to edit the framing, even slightly, it fails.

If I frame, and reload the image so it is centered in the framing screen and then hit slew and center, it will "successfully" plate solve. When I look at the image it took to plate solve, my target is half off the frame. For example, last night I wanted to do a 2 frame mosaic of NGC 6960 and NGC 6992. I had it perfectly framed and angled in the framing screen, but in the plate solving image, NGC 6992 was in the top right of the screen, and only half of it was showing. I verified the coordinates in the bottom left were changing with me moving the window around as well.

Thanks for the reply! I will change it back to 5 seconds and see if that helps.

Thanks for the reply! NINA defaults to 5 seconds, but I figured that a little more was better when it was trying to plate solve. Do you think having too many stars visible might be throwing it off?

Hello Everyone, I just built a portable rig with an Astro-Tech AT72EDII and ASI294MC Pro on a Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer GTi. Everything works great currently after ironing out a lot of small issues, except for one large issue with framing in NINA. I can Plate Solve normally with any single target, and NINA will center the target in the image with no issues. When I search for a target, load it into Framing and try to either create a mosaic, or even just try to move a target somewhere other than perfectly center of the frame, NINA has no idea what to do and usually places the target mostly out of frame. Oddly, it thinks it plate solved correctly. I have tried using different sources, and once I have my mosaic or new frame lined up where I want it, I hit "Load Image" to refresh. All the coordinates are fine and I am able to determine my camera angle accurately. I thought maybe my focal length or pixel size was wrong, but everything was triple checked. Another odd thing, is that every once in a while NINA freaks out and when I am plate solving it will send my scope way off course. I am using 10 second exposures and usually whatever DSO I am trying to image is shown in the frame so I can verify the positioning. I also completely rebuilt the PC that was running NINA with all fresh drivers and settings in case there was something outdated and still had the same symptoms after. Has anyone else had this issue, or have any ideas on how I might go about resolving it? Thank you in advance!

Thank you all for the replies! I have actually been messing with dso-browser.com to get an idea of the aspect ratios and differences in apparent focal length between the sensors. I still can't get used to the 1:1 aspect ratio, but they are very close in terms of field of view. Actually, the bigger sensor on the 183MC is almost a good advantage because of the slightly wider field of view. Another big thing to consider for me, is that I generally crop my images to 16x9 to use them as wallpaper. With the 533, I would lose a lot of data and I would have to make sure I framed everything perfectly to allow for that crop, or essentially every image would have to be a mosaic. Seriously, this decision would be so much easier if the 533 didn't have a square sensor. I think I am leaning more towards cancelling the order on the 183 and get the 533 instead. I think the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Thank you everyone, very much for the replies!

Hello Everyone, Last year, I got an AT72EDII as a secondary scope for more widefield images than my ED80. I have always had this idea that I wanted to have a second more portable rig to work on a large mosaic of the Milky Way while my main rig is on "autopilot", or when I am able to get to darker skies. Now that the Star Adventurer GTi is coming out, I am able to do just that! I am currently imaging with an ASI294MM Pro on my main rig and I just want to have an OSC camera on the AT7EDII simply for the ease of use. I don't want to have to keep changing filters and tweaking focus on multiple rigs throughout the night, and mosaics will be MUCH easier when I don't have to worry about processing all that narrowband data. I am well aware of the amp glow on the 183MC, but I am used to dealing with it on my 294MM so it doesn't bother me. I also know the image quality is not going to be the same with OSC vs. mono so I am not concerned with that. I know there is a lot of discussion on pixel scaling and I have been reading through threads for the last 2 days. I have the 183MC on Backorder but now I am second guessing my choice. I know that the 183MC is better in lower focal lengths than the 533MC, and I would also like to hook it up to my EF 70-200 to experiment with or maybe even put it on the ED80 if I want to get something without having to use R G and B filters, like an eclipse or a comet for example. I really am only between the 183MC and the 533MC based on budget. I like the 183MC because of the price, 20 megapixels, the aspect ratio, and I have seen a lot of good images taken with it. I don't like the 533MC because of the aspect ratio, and it is only 9MP so there is less to work with for cropping etc especially on a square sensor, and it is $100 more. Sorry for the long-winded thread, but I just want to make sure I am making the right choice. Thank you all in advance!

Interesting, thanks!

Hello everyone, So I just got an ASI294MM Pro in the mail today, and I have been learning about back focus. I have my appropriate 55mm from my focal reducer with the correct adapters, but it got me thinking and now I am confused. Before I got this camera, I never thought about back focus and I had my DSLR Adapter threaded right into the Focal Reducer. Things have been pretty good, and I can get focused fine with my bahtinov mask I have even gotten lucky and managed to get to 0.00 with the BackyardEOS Bahtinov Tool once or twice. So my questions are: What happens if you are not at the appropriate distance of back focus with a DSLR? Also, is there something inherent about a DSLR that doesn't require the same back focus? I attached what I captured last night with the minimum distance possible between the focal reducer and DSLR sensor. Could I improve on that with my DSLR if I get the correct back focus? Thank you!

Hello everyone, I am looking to upgrade my DSLR to an OSC camera very soon. I have mostly decided to go with the ASI294MC Pro, but something keeps drawing me to the Orion Starshoot G21. It might be the 20MP resolution There is almost no information about it, or reviews anywhere. From the description, it might be more geared toward planetary than deep space, which is a drawback for me. Does anyone have any experience with this camera? The IMX269 sensor in the Orion G21 is a year newer and about 10MP higher resolution. The IMX294 sensor in the 294MC Pro is older, but there is a lot more information, reviews and image examples to look at. I shoot Deep Space currently, with my Orion ED80 and I have a Astro-Tech AT72ED II on the way for more wide field. Would the G21 be a good fit, or should I stick with the 294MC Pro? https://www.telescope.com/Orion-StarShoot-G21-Deep-Space-Color-Imaging-Camera/p/132455.uts https://astronomy-imaging-camera.com/product/asi294mc-pro-color Thank you!

Hello, everyone. I currently am using an Orion ED80 with an Orion ST80 for a guidescope, on an Orion Sirius Mount. I am a little sick of looking at the sky through my binos, so I figured I would start looking at getting another scope for Visual and Imaging. I am thinking that I want something with a higher focal length, so I could even swap the two out when I want to image with one over the other. With 1370mm, I could get a decent look at the planets and some nice closeups of the moon's surface. I really would like to stay in the $500 range, but there are a lot of options out there, and I am limited by the 30lb max (15lb for imaging) payload on my mount. I have the Orion Mini Deluxe 50mm Guidescope as well, so it should shed a few pounds from the ST80 for something in the 12lb range. The scope listed below is what I am currently looking into, its 12lb, and with the Mini Guidescope, Autoguiding Camera and DSLR, I shouldn't be pushing much over 15lb. Has anyone had any experience with this scope? Looking at Astrobin, it looks like it takes some decent images. Is there anything else I should keep an eye out for, or anything that might suit what I am looking for better? It looks like there is also a TPO 6" F/9 RC that is $100 less that also has some really nice images on Astrobin. Now that I think of it, would that focal length be too much for my mount with Autoguiding? Sorry for the rambling. Orion 6" f/9 Ritchey-Chretien Astrograph Telescope https://www.telescope.com/Orion/Orion-6-f9-Ritchey-Chretien-Astrograph-Telescope/rc/2160/p/113911.uts Thank you!!! Edit: Looking more into it, iOptron and GSO make the RC6, for $100 less. AstroBackyard had an article on the iOptron version of that scope and he seemed to like it. https://astrobackyard.com/ritchey-chretien-telescope/

Perfect, thank you both! I did so much research and for whatever reason, didn't think to contact the manufacturer. I will do that! I would keep it in the garage until it got a little below or around freezing, so nothing too extreme.

Hello, I have been doing a lot of research on this and I am reading a lot of contradictory information. I have an Orion Sirius Mount, with an ED80 and T3i for imaging, and ST80 with ASI120MM for guiding. I am trying to get prepared for the colder weather currently. Now, I have read that everything should be fine, I can keep my whole setup in my garage in freezing temperatures and I won't have much cooldown time when getting set up. I don't use the hand controller anymore, and I have read that the display stops working on it in cold weather anyways. I also have an AC adapter for my camera so I don't have to worry about short battery life. I read that the lube in the Sirius will harden in freezing temperatures and could cause damage to the gears. I was going to take apart my mount and re-lube everything before winter just to be safe, but is that necessary? Also, what lube should I use if that is recommended? Thank you in advance!

All I can say is wow! I manually did a PA today and I have EQMod and Cartes du Ciel controlling my mount now! I thought that getting on ground and doing everything manually, trying to find a star with my finderscope at awkward angles (Sometimes painful) was fun. I didn't know what I was missing! I used to struggle to find stars that my stupid hand controller thought were ok to align to, now I can align to anything! Muahahahaha! This is such a time saver, it is unbelievable. Now I have to figure out AstroTortilla to get platesolving settled, but doing the alignment manually through Cartes du ciel isn't bad at all. Also, I just took a unbelievable (to me) 10 minute exposure of M13. I can't wait to push this mount to the limit! Thank you all so much for your help and I am sure this is just the beginning of all my questions lol. What a hobby!

I completely agree with that! I was able to get consistent 7 minute exposures last night until some unexpected clouds ruined my night. I am really happy with how the mount is performing now. I had to go in before I was able to start working with EQMOD, so that is the next step now that I know my mount is functioning properly. Woohoo!

So I am currently in my backyard and I am still having issues. PHD1 had the same problem after enabling DEC so I installed PHD2 and built a dark library. When PHD2 was doing the initial calibration, it said that it detected little south movement ad to check the mechanics of my mount. I moved to 2 second exposures on PHD2 also. I just did a 120 second exposure and it looked great, so I moved to 240 and it was perfect! The new graphs don't look very good so far, and it is information overload right now lol. I am going to see how far I can push my exposures and then I am going to get EQMOD all set up and go from there. Thanks again everyone for all the help!

Oh, perfect! I followed him on YouTube. Hopefully the videos will make the learning curve easier. Thanks!

That actually makes a lot of sense now that I think about it. I'll definitely start using longer exposures with guiding. I also spent a large chunk of my day reading about platesolving and alignment in EQMOD and it doesn't really seem as bad as I thought it would be. I think next session I am going to start with my normal workflow just to make sure that my guiding issue is fixed and then I'll take the plunge and start figuring out EQMOD. I guess I have a bad case of "I don't know what I don't know". I'll just have to keep posting and learning! Thank you again everyone!

Sorry, I had poor wording in my first post. I am using an Orion Sirius. I was trying to say that because my first mount was a Star Adventurer, I picked up habits like making sure my mount is perfectly level when I know I don't need to do that with the Orion Sirius. I also didn't even know about PHD2, I am going to give that a shot as well. Thanks!

So I just set everything up quick in my garage to check PHD Guiding and sure enough, DEC guiding was off. I have no idea how that changed. I feel like an idiot, but I would have never thought to check that! Laurin Dave: I guess that was bad wording. I am using an Orion Sirius, but one of the habits that I got from using my Star Adventurer previously was always making sure my mount is level and getting my alignment spot on. Freddie: I always level my mount even though I know I don't need to. I am using the Hand Controller currently for everything. I built a cable for EQMOD, but I am waiting to add that into the mix until I get more comfortable with everything else. The hand controller tells me where Polaris need to be, I double check it with an app that I have on my phone and make sure that it is dead center in the circle after my mount is perfectly level. I never take shortcuts with my polar alignment. I'm not sure if that is a good or bad thing Cjdawson & Anthonyexmouth: That is exactly the opposite of how my brain was comprehending autoguiding. I figured if I had longer exposures, the mount would be going longer without correcting and the guiding wouldn't be as good. I set it to 1 second so it could update the view and correct sooner. Now that I think about it though, if I am able to take like 60-90 second exposures unguided, then 2 seconds won't make a huge difference. Thank you again everyone, hopefully all I needed to change was the DEC guiding. I will never know how that even changed, very odd. I did learn a lot of other things to look for, so hopefully that will make things much smoother in the future. Thank you all again. I don't post very often but when I do, I always get a lot of support. It makes the process of trying to wrap my head around this incredibly complicated hobby much less painful.

Oh wow, thank you everyone for the quick answers! I will definitely try new cables and look at my settings. It never even occurred to me that I could be trying to guide on a hot pixel, so I will definitely make use of the darks. There are so many things that can go wrong and everything is so complicated that I don't even know where to start troubleshooting after the basics. It looks like it will be about a week or so until the next night of clear skies, so I have plenty to do until then. Thank you all again, it is much appreciated!

Hello, I am getting very frustrated with my setup and I am completely lost. So here is my rig: Rebel T3i Modded on an Orion ED80 for imaging, ZWO ASI120MM on an Orion ST80 for Autoguiding, all on an Orion Siruis Mount. My rig weight is about 15 lbs, which is half the max payload of the Orion Sirius. I spent a lot of time balancing and calibrating everything and I have not had any problems until about 2 weeks ago. I splurged and bought an Astronomik Ha 12mm Clip-In filter for my T3i. I have had no problems getting 5 minute frames consistently, so I figured it was time to upgrade a little bit. That night, something changed and I could not get more than 60 seconds out of anything. I gave up and figured it was some random issue. The next clear night, I had the same thing happen. I realized that my guide scope might be slightly out of focus, so I got my Bahtinov mask out and made sure it was dead on. I pushed my rig and got a 7 minute exposure that night, it was great. By the time I had finished screwing around with everything, it was time to go in. Fast forward to tonight, I thought I had everything figured out. I got the bahtinov mask on both my guide scope and imaging scope, everything was perfectly in focus and I tried a 60 second test exposure. Now, I started out with a Star Adventurer so I am really finicky about my alignment. I always level my mount, assemble it and do a 2 star alignment. Tonight, my 60 second exposure looked like I had a 600mm lens on a normal tripod, it was horrible. After I got all my gear inside, I thought it could be a balance issue, so I rebalanced everything. I went back out, realigned, and same thing. I am at a complete loss and would appreciate any help. My next step is probably going to be completely disassembling my mount and giving everything a good cleaning and lube, to make sure no gears or anything are damaged. The odd thing is that my PHD graph looks great, but the software almost loses sight of my target star. If you look at my screenshot, the square and centered star are not on the crosshair. You can see my horrible 120 second exposure of M13 in the background. Help! Thank you in advance!

Great, thank you! I have actually considered going back to my Rebel XS because the T3i noise is unreal sometimes. Back when I was just using a Star Adventurer, I was getting a lot of subs out of necessity. Now I have started using longer exposures and less subs. I'll have to break that habit, or just focus on one specific target for longer than a night or two. It is hard to do when there is a whole sky to explore