Adreneline

Hi Everyone, I'm looking to see how far I can push my new iOptron CEM25-EC taking unguided subs using my Samyang 135mm + ASI1600MM-Pro. This is NGC1499 - 80 minutes of Ha and OIII all 300s subs, gain 139, offset 56, unguided following a manual polar alignment using only the built in polarscope. Conditions were far from ideal as there was a 97% moon spoiling the OIII, nevertheless, the star shapes don't look too bad considering there is no guiding. Pre-processed in APP, post-processed in PI with a final tweak to the colour in PS. Thanks for looking and as ever all comments good or bad are welcome. Adrian

This might be a good place to start. https://www.firstlightoptics.com/books/dark-art-or-magic-bullet-steve-richards.html

I agree entirely. There are indeed some excellent and inspiring images presented on this forum from which we should all be able to learn. I don't wish to divert this thread but it would also be nice to have an insight into what equipment was used (not always in the signature) and where the image was taken from (some don't even indicate the country where they or their imaging gear are located). Some contributors to this forum just seem to feel their name or pseudonym is sufficient for us all to know what they've got and where they are.

There are far worse ways to part with cash - and at my age you can't take it with you! Enjoy while you can!

I agree entirely with the above - AP's hard enough without doing battle with a Mac - and that's from a committed MBP user! I bought one of these and it has been great. Works a treat and comes with Win10 Pro installed. I replaced the removable DVD with a carrier (£8.50 off eBay) to take an additional large capacity hard disk.

!!!!!!!!! Well I envy you so much Alan. The most I've ever managed since taking up AP is four consecutive nights - clear and with no moon! I need to repeat the test with the mount using my WO-ZS71+ASI1600 and maybe the ED80DS-Pro. If I can image without guiding then in theory I can stay within the payload limit for the mount, although to be fair I rarely use the ED80 these days. The 60 and 120 look great to me but with what I use I don't need that sort of payload capacity or weight. Good luck! Adrian

After five weeks of waiting I was rewarded with a nice new iOptron CEM25-EC from @FLO last Friday. I can confirm there was no "may" about the possibility of enclosed clouds in the packaging - five weeks of patience was rewarded with 100% cloud cover. After a rather frustrating 24 hours with the mount refusing to see the PC (I think a dodgy LynxAstro lead is to blame - an Amazon StarTech FTDI UART has sorted it) and a dinner commitment with friends that meant I didn't start to set up until midnight I was finally able to get 10 x 120s of Ha, OIII and SII of Sh2-129 - the Squid - not that there is any real evidence of said feature in this image. Clearly lots more data is required. The main objective of the session was to try out the performance of the mount unguided using my Samyang 135mm and ASI1600MM-Pro. Accepting there is some distortion in the extreme corners of the image (this image only has edge effects cropped off) I am pretty pleased with the star shapes. I took a lot of care to ensure the mount was perfectly balanced. PA was eyeball method through the polarscope - no check with PHD2 of SharpCap, I just went for it. So far I am very impressed with the CEM25-EC. Getting your eye on the end of the polarscope is not easy but it is possible. I would rather not have to connect to the PC via the handset but I'm sure I will get used to it. I love the fact it is no where near as heavy as my old NEQ6 so my ageing hands and back are much more comfortable lifting and positioning the tripod and mount assembly (less camera) when setting up. It is beautifully made and the feel and finish are excellent. iOptron Commander will take a bit of getting used to but it seems to integrate well with CdC and SGPro. All in all this was a fairly minimalist first session in terms of software, equipment and wires - and data collected. Once again, as we have come to expect, outstanding service from @FLO. Thanks for looking. Adrian P.S. Hopefully I used all the enclosed clouds on the first night.

APP is a complete pre and post processing package and is almost unrivalled with the way it deals with mosaics. DSS is preprocessing only and exceptional value if used alongside something like or equivalent to Photoshop. I ‘rent’ my APP and use it for nearly every preprocessing task - I think it is excellent. I post process in PixInsight and then colour tweak in PS.

I'll follow with interest because I am sure the two mounts have much in common and I too have much to learn. iOptron Commander is very different to the familiar EQMOD and using it alongside SGPro and CdC has had me scratching my head this afternoon and tonight. My first few slews were, I thought, no where near the target star and then I decided to slew to M31 and it was almost spot on. After that one alignment everything started to fall into place. I am anxious to see my star shpaes for my 2, 3 and 5 minute unguided exposures but I will contain my enthusiasm until I've had some sleep! I really hope you get things sorted. I am very impressed with the quality so far of the mount - I just need to get my head around a whole new set of problems! Good luck. Adrian

Hi. Before you fall out totally with the new mount (I took delivery of my new CEM25-EC yesterday) have you tried a fully manual polar alignment? I was very frustrated with my mount last night because the supplied LynxAstro cable would not let me link the mount and PC - now sorted with a StarTech FTDI UART from Amazon in conjunction with the iOptron supplied RS232 cable. I've set up for a first night with my CEM25-EC tonight and, ok it took me quite a while, but I managed a fully manual polar alignment (once I'd got the pole star in view - not the the easiest polar scope to get your eyeball on the end). I found the alt and az adjusters quite tricky to use - it was very much an iterative process to get polaris exactly where it needed to be according to my iPhone App. The mount is now tracking perfectly taking 120s exposures without guiding and I hope I am getting my first SHO of the Squid. I don't know how accurate my polar alignment is but at least I'm getting somewhere - after three years of a NEQ6. It is very different to the NEQ6 but so far I am very impressed so I do hope you get the problem sorted. I'm sorry I have no experience at all of a PoleMaster so I cannot comment or help on whether it is the CEM60 or PM that is causing the problem for you. Hope you get it sorted. Good luck. Adrian

Turned out to be worth trying another - or a different - approach to connecting the CEM25-EC. On the spur of the moment I sent for one of these from Amazon with a delivery set for Sunday - low and behold it turned up today! Mount and PC are now communicating and iOptron Commander is working as it should. I think the LynxAstro cable was the problem after all. Thanks again for your help. Adrian

Hi James I've checked in DM and the device is present and working properly. I've also tried it on my laptop with the same result. Surely it is not the LynxAstro cable but it is starting to look that way. All a tad frustrating. Adrian

Hi Everyone, I'm having trouble getting my NUC Intel PC to see my new iOptron CEM25-EC mount. I've loaded the iOptron Commander software and connected the mount handset to the PC via the LynxAstro ftdi cable but I just keep getting the error message "Cannot find any supported iOptron devices!" I've tried the switch it off/switch it on with no success. I've checked the LynxAstro device driver and it is the most recent release. The 8408 hand controller firmware is 170518. I'm stumped! If anyone can shed any light on where I've gone wrong or what I am doing wrong it would be much appreciated. Fortunately it is cloudy tonight (came in the box) so no great loss. Many thanks in advance. Adrian

I can't do it in less than 50 words but this is a useful guide to read and pages 10 (diagrams) and 11 seem to answer your question. Adrian

These look to me like inverters. You put 12V in and you get 230V out. I would suggest putting 230V into you rmount might be terminal for the mount and worse still it may be terminal to you! Don't do it! I have 150W version of something similar which I use to recharge my laptop when out and about; I plug it into the cigar lighter socket in the car and it provides me with 230V into which I plug the charger unit.

Hey! We were all novices once - I'm at the 'three years of experience' novice level.

Um? Astrometry.net seems to think it is Deneb. A near miss I'm afraid: But I stand to be corrected. HTH Adrian

Sorry, I cannot help with your particular question but may I ask why you need 100 A? At 12V that's 1.2 kW - that's going to need some really chunky wires! I use an old amateur radio 30A supply (designed to cope with 100W of RTTY from a transmitter) and it barely gets warm when running all my astro gear. Adrian

Very nice result Alan. You can now add open cluster IC4996 to your list of imaged targets! - and 36Cyg. Thanks for sharing. Adrian

I've had mixed success with a Bahtinov mask and now regularly use SharpCap focussing aid to achieve focus with my ASI1600 (and I used it with my Atik 428ex mono until I sold it!). SharpCap is free but to get access to the focussing routines you need to pay the £10 per year subscription. I've used the single star FWHM aid and the multi-star FWHM aid and both work really well with the ASI1600 and with my ASI120. I use SharpCap for playing with my all sky camera as well so I consider the £10 well worth the expense. Many on here swear by the ShapCap polar alignment aid as well which you gain access to if you pay the £10 subscription fee. HTH Adrian

Hi Mark, This is the mechanical version I tried - I bought it from here. It worked fine but was tricky to set up initially. I bought one for my 85mm Samyang as well but both are now totally surplus to requirements as I've gone SW focusser route instead. My images also suffer in this respect but more so when I use the lens with an ASI1600. I'm hoping I've largely solved the "droop problem" by switching to a ZWO EoS adapter. As you say, using the lens at F2 has advantages and disadvantages. Adrian

I think you've done a pretty fine job of focussing on this image. I use Live view on my 70D and/or A7. I've tried a mechanical fine focusser (3D printed type) which was ok'ish albeit a bit big. You can get metal versions which are more compact - and more expensive. I've also used a SkyWatcher focusser with toothed belt; better because you can sit inside and get very fine control along with BackyardEoS (for the Canon) providing a measure of FWHM. (I love BYEoS and I presume BYNikon is every bit as good). It's a shame there is no BYSony! Well done! You should be well pleased with the end result. The Samyang 135mm is brilliant for wider field imaging. Adrian

Very nice! - I like it a lot. What mount are you using? Was it guided?

!!!!! - are you on the moon? Hope you get it sorted. I don't disagree that plate solving will sort it - I've tried that too and it works - but I felt it ought to work without recourse to that method. Good luck! Adrian

Yes. I was using 2" filters with a fully manual TS filter holder but decided to start using my 1.25" filters. Not done any imaging for a month cos' I'm awaiting a new mount - having sold the old one! We've had a lot of clear nights over the last month but I'm sure the two are in no way related.