Adreneline

Despite only nautical darkness and a 60%+ moon I was quite pleased with the end result from two short nights of imaging. The 135mm can certainly hoover up photons. All unguided 20 x 180s of Ha and OIII using the ASI1600-MM Pro. Gamma Cygni region (edge cropping only): Veil (cropped somewhat because the trees got in the way!) Adrian

Well I am but I've copted out tonight and I'm using the ASIair and my NB setup as opposed to Astroberry and my osc. Like you I used a NUC at the mount (SGPro/BYEos, CdC, PHD2, ASCOM etc.) controlled by Remote Desktop from a laptop indoors before moving to the ASIair. The ASIair is just amazing and I love the way it works seamlessly with SkySafari and I can control it from my iPad - I can be up and running in minutes. Hopefully that will be the case with Astroberry one day! Good luck and I look forward to following your continued progress and success. Adrian

Thanks for this Steve. I have been following this thread with interest and you are now way ahead of me in the Astroberry stakes. My CEM25-EC refuses to remember where Home is between sessions so I have to remember to set it in the Home Management tab at the beginning of each session. My Atik osc camera works as expected except that the fits header doesn't seem to convey the fact that the files are RGGB; I have to force CFA in APP before pre-processing. Plate solving works a treat albeit quite slowly - that's probably my fault but it would be nice if it was comparable to the ASIair where plate solving typically takes less than 5 seconds. Only used a manual focus systems so far and haven't tried guiding yet because the CEM25-EC is so good, all the more so now I use a PoleMaster to PA. And therein lies my hope - that Astroberry on a Pi4B+ will be every bit as good as ASIair on a Pi3B+ with the bonus that I can use my Atik and/or ZWO imaging camera. Thanks again for promoting a very illuminating thread. Adrian

A quick update - sadly that didn't work either. It would seem that in order to guarantee the mount returns to the Park position I have to go into Site Management and click Current and then Write Data at the beginning of each session, i.e. after shutdown and power down. As long as I know I have to do that each time it's no big problem - I'll just add it to my written Check/Prompt List of things to do - like remembering to switch on the camera cooler! Thanks again for taking the time to help. Adrian

Thanks for all the advice and help. Maybe this is where I am going wrong - I've been using Current and not Default. I shall give that a go! I was only using CdC/CCDCeil to see if I had the same problems with INDI - as it turned out I had a slightly different problem. My goal is to get Astroberry working. I'm nearly there thanks to the help from everyone whose contributed on this forum. Thanks again. Adrian

Thank you Roger. Once set up the Samyang works really well but getting the spacing right is absolutely critical. Now I've got mine sorted I may never ever take it apart again! Good luck with yours. Adrian

Thanks for the kind comments everyone. The binning has worked well and seems to have given more colour depth than I achieved with the same data but without binning the OIII. The Baader OIII filter is an 8nm whereas my Ha filter is a 4nm Astronomik. I'm hoping to treat myself to the 2", 4nm Astronomik OIII before the next nebula season comes round - and the matching SII maybe? Thanks again. Adrian

Hi Stuart, Just another thing to throw into the mix. I tried using CCDCeil and CdC running on my PC and communicating with the mount using the Pi as an INDI server. That resulted in the mount parking with the DEC axis aligned as expected and the RA axis at 45 degrees! Ummm???? Adrian

Yes, the crosshairs are on the NCP with weights down - just like it is when I use the mount with Sky Safari and the ASIair; polar aligned with a PoleMaster. There is a lot of similarity between the two systems and they are both INDI based which is why I can't get my head around what is happening. Everything works just fine until I come to Park. I was wondering if it was an encoder related issue which the ASIair is handling correctly and the Astroberry is getting confused over. I should also add that if I use the mount with iOptron Commander and my PC/SGPro/CdC setup it all works fine; sending it to Park in CdC works every time. Thanks again for your help. Adrian

Thanks for this advice. Just one thing I'd like to check before taking this step. The mount all works fine when I use it with my 135mm/ZWO-ASI1600 combination driven by the ASIair. What I am aiming to do with Astroberry is to have a similar setup in terms of working processes but using my 85mm/Atik414ex-osc combination on the CEM25-EC. If I follow your advice will it still be ok with the ASIair or might that now be 90 degrees out? Thanks again. Adrian

Hi Radek. Can I just clarify this point - do I need to / should I have to do this at the start of every imaging session, i.e. as soon as I power up the system and connect all devices. If I don't then I am finding that when I Park the mount it consistently parks with the DEC axis correctly positioned but the RA axis is always 90 degress out, i.e. the counterweight bar is horizontal. It's almost like the above step does not save the data to a file, or if it does I lose it each time I shut down. I am also finding that when I Park with Kstars/Ekos and then check with the hand controller on the mount there is more often than not a slight movement of the mount when I ask it to go to the Park position whereas I would expect no movement at all. Sorry if I am missing something obvious. On the plus side everything else I've tried (GoTo, plate solving, image collection/sequencing) is now working perfectly, (I do manual focusing and filter changing) it's just this slight problem with Parking I've not been able to sort. Thanks for your help and a great piece of software. Adrian

I've always been disappointed with the OIII data I collect in terms of signal level and noise so I decided to try binning for the first time. This is 60 x 180s Ha and 30 x 180s OIII binned 2x2, combined as R:G:B = Ha : 0.3*Ha+0.7*OIII : 0.3*Ha+0.7*OIII. Samyang 135mm with ASI1600 (gain 139 : offset 50 : -20 degrees) all unguided on iOptron CEM25-EC. Calibrated and integrated in APP, edge effects cropped, DBE and HistogramStretch in PI followed by final levels and minimal noise reduction in PS. As always C&C welcome. Thanks for looking. Adrian

I too am missing something. The INDI control panel tells me the GPS data is good but it does not seem to use it in any way. Hopefully this is not an iOptron thing; someone with an iOptron mount must be using it successfully. 🤞

Hi Steve, I wish I could help but I feel total empathy with your situation. I'm stuck in Warsaw as well and I'm still struggling to get Astroberry to communicate fully with my iOptron CEM25-EC and feedback GPS information. Despite help on this forum I am still not able to reliably return the mount to Home position either - I am becoming frustrated with it's repeated attempts to crash the OTA into the tripod. I will Follow with interest and if I can help at any stage I will jump back in. Good luck to all of us! Adrian

I still think this series of tutorials is very helpful with a good balance between telling you what to do and why you are doing it. There is also this new book/ebook which I am getting to like a lot. Food for thought. HTH Adrian

Thank you for the clarification and the advice. I'll go through the steps you detail and feed back. Thanks again. Adrian

Amazing! I think that may be the best I've seen, all the more so because the framing includes the Soap Bubble. Adrian

Had to get up to let the cat out this morning at stupid-o'clock and was surprised to see the rising Moon with Saturn and Jupiter in the southern sky. I grabbed the Canon 70D with 70-300mm zoom lens and fired off a few shots. Processed in PS to reduce the glare of the Moon but was really surprised to see you can discern three moons around Jupiter and, it may be wishful thinking, a definite lozenge shaped Saturn. Adrian P.S. Apologies if this is posted in the wrong place - I really wasn't sure where to share the image.

Much to my surprise another clear night (albeit short) let me grab a few more subs to fill in the gaps. Not enough to make a rectangular image but getting there. Each pane taken with Samyang 135mm + ASI1600MM - in total 243 x 180s exposures - all unguided. Calibrated and combined in APP, post processed in PI and noise reduced in PS. The whole thing needs a lot more data and quite a few more panes to produce a pleasing rectangular image. Thanks for looking. Adrian

The differences with WBPP are not that great but best to go with BPP first. A quick search on the web will reveal PI tutorials and help on using WBPP. Dark-Flats can be used in place of Bias - least that is what I do. Bias frames are not recommended for CMOS cameras but Dark_Flats will do the job as the exposure times are likely to be short. Combining different imaging sessions with the same optics/camera should not be a problem, the BPP and WBPP can both cope with that - you will just have to accept cropping the final image. I think it is a case of keeping all this in perspective. DSS is a very capable piece of software and does a very good job of calibrating and integrating images. PI allows for much greater control of the process at every stage along with the likes of cosmetic corrections, etc. I have to confess I now use APP all the time for calibration and integration because it is so very easy to combine different imaging sessions from different nights even with different optics/camera; it also handles mosaics with amazing ease and in my view, with my modest equipment, produces an integrated image that is every bit as good as PI or DSS. Once I've got my calibrated and integrated master light I move straight to PI to post-process the image and then often finish up in PS to do a few minor cosmetics. There are plenty of packages like DSS, PI and APP on the market (e.g. StarTools, Nebulosity, AstroArt) - it is a case of finding the one that suits you and your method of working best. Good luck! Adrian

There's a whole bunch of viewers here that might be of interest. I've used FITS Liberator before; it takes some getting used to but does the job.

As I so rarely use the full process the best thing I can do is refer you to these tutorials which take you methodically through every step of calibrating and stacking your lights, i.e. When I first started with a dslr and the osc(CCD) these tutorials were a godsend to me; hopefully they will help you. Hope you won't see this as a cop-out on my part but the above is a more complete and thorough answer than I will give. It's a little dated inasmuch that WeightedBatchPreprocessing has come along since these tutorials were posted. Adrian

I would keep it simple to start with and use data from one night and use the BatchPreprocessing or the newer WeightedBatchPreprocessing script. Load your light and calibration frames and make sure the CFA images box is ticked. Generally accept the default settings and go from there - as advocated by Rogelio Bernal Andreo in his new Mastering PixInsight book. The purists would take the steps you’ve outlined above but the scripts generally work very well and it’s a good way to get going. Good luck.

Only stack the .fit files - I'd dump the jpg thumbnails - I think they are only there to provide reassurance you have something of an image. Adrian

I bought one of these and it works really well - and it is rechargable.