Adreneline

7 minutes ago, Adam J said:

some vignetting

This is my Ha master flat using 135mm + ZWO-EoS adapter + ZWO-EFW + ASI1600

It's the same for OIII and SII.

I'm surprised it's not symmetrical but I've not noticed any issues on the finished images.

Maybe I need to recalibrate the ZWO-EFW.

Adrian

Hi Alan,

I may well be way off the mark here (excuse the pun) but I have had very similar if not identical problems in the past which drove me nuts. Careful and methodical polar alignment using SharpCap, drift alignment and just a plain old eyeball approach failed to solve the problem.

One session I decided to make sure my imaging scope (ED80) was actually pointing in exactly the same direction as my polar scope and my guide scope (SW 9x50 sitting in tube rings on the top of the ED80), taking the polar scope as the reference. I positioned polaris smack in the middle of the polar scope and checked the guide scope and imaging scope only to discover that the imaging scope was no where near aligned to the polar scope - polaris was no where in sight.

To cut a long story short my NEQ6 saddle was twisting the vixen bar as I tightened it up; the twist was sufficient to throw the scope out of alignment. A new (GeOptik) saddle later and now all three are perfectly aligned and all is well. Slewing to a target always results in it being in view, albeit not necessarily smack in the middle but at least visible for the last manual nudge so that I can sync with CdC.

I then progressed to a parallel setup with both imaging scope/lens and guide scope mounted in tube rings. I now nearly always check that everything is aligned before I start - it might add five minutes to the setup process but in the long run it saves me time.

I hope this is not a red herring but it certainly solved my problem at the time.

Adrian

1 hour ago, Dr_Ju_ju said:

if you install the IndiLib package with Kstars etc. (https://indilib.org/),  its only 32bit.....

Thanks Julian. I'll give it a go and see how well it works out.

Thanks again for all your help and advice.

Adrian

Well @Dr_Ju_ju and @JamesF I've finally made some progress.

I managed to get the 32 bit Mint Linux to run from a bootable DVD but not from a bootable thumb drive; there really seems to be a problem with the usb ports on the old MacBook not being initialised at boot up.

Anyway the problem seems to be it has to be a 32 bit version and Astro Ubuntu seems to be 64 bit only - there is no option on the web site to download a 32 bit version that I can see. Once installed it all seemed to work but the touchpad was almost unusable so it made it very difficult to select menu options.

No worries. I think the 13 year old MacBook has had it's day to be fair - 32 bit dual core processors seem to be a thing of the past these days. Maybe it is time to strip out the battery for safe disposal and remove the hard drive and say a fond farewell.

Thanks both for taking the time to provide all the help and advice.

Adrian

6 minutes ago, JamesF said:

Another thing to check, whilst I remember.  This is a 32-bit machine, isn't it?  And you are installing a 32-bit version of Ubuntu?  Apologies if I'm educating my parents' mothers on the nature of orally-induced ovarian pressure reduction at this point

Haha! What an excellent way of putting it! I might be getting old but I'm never too old to learn or to be prompted onto the paths of rightousness and self-fullfilment! It is indeed 32 bit and I am about to follow Julian's advice and try to install a 32 bit version of Mint.

I've always tended to think I've got a pretty good idea on PCs and Macs but this one has got me stumped because everything I try dosn't work!

The really odd thing is that if I create a bootable thumb drive in my MacBook Pro using balenaEtcher and follow all the instructions it all goes to plan until the very end when it happily tells me the drive it has just created is not readable in this machine! What?! Same end result with two different thumb drives. If I create the drive in balenaEtcher on a PC it says it is readable and everything is fine except it won't boot from that drive. Same thing with Rufus.

Maybe watching the grass grow is the way forward after all.

Thanks again for all your help and suggestions.

Adrian

15 minutes ago, JamesF said:

it may be worth trying a DVD

Hi James,

I've tried the DVD and that won't work either. Holding down the alt key at power on results in the option to boot from the hard drive or the DVD - all seems good at this stage. Selecting the DVD results in a menu on the screen offering 1. and 2. with no further text highlighting the difference between them, and an instruction to select 1 or 2 to proceed. Well it doesn't matter whether you press 1 or 2 because nothing else happens other than the fact that the machine is now locked up and you have to force a shut down with the power button.

A tad frustrating!

Thanks again.

Adrian

P.S. Just about to follow Julians advice and use balenaetcher on a PC to create a bootable drive - I'm also going to try a different usb stick. Fingers crossed!

48 minutes ago, Dr_Ju_ju said:

Also try Balena Etcher on the PC

Hi Julian,

Sorry - missed this point - I'll give it a go and let you know.

Thanks.

Adrian

2 minutes ago, JamesF said:

Can you get a photo of the options you get when it starts up?

Hi James,

With the usb I don't get any options. I hold down the alt key whilst powering up and the only option that presents itself is the inbuilt hard drive with MacOS.

I then get a message saying the usb drive is not readable and offering to initialize it - even though the bootable drive was made in a Mac using GUID and MS-DOS (Fat 32) as recommended on both the Etcher and Rufus websites.

40 minutes ago, Dr_Ju_ju said:

Can you install Virtual Machines??

Hi Julian,

Well I have tried Parallels and VM-Fusion in the past and it is unbelievably slow on the MacBook - the current versions won't even load as the loaded MacOS is too old (Leopard). I have tried more recent versions of MacOS and they won't work either. I've created both the USB and DVD boot discs on my MacBook Pro and that won't read the usb disc once created and neither will it boot the DVD!

At the end of the day neither Rufus or Etcher care what operating system you are using - they just create a bootable drive from the provided iso image.

The MacBook runs quite happily providing it is only running the MacOS - anything after Lion and it starts to have problems or won't run at all. At the end of the day it is 13 years old and the rate at which Apple update their hardware and OS's it is perhaps hardly surprising I am having problems.

13 minutes ago, JamesF said:

go for the Xfce version of Linux Mint

Not heard of this one so it is certainly worth a shot.

Fingers crossed!

Thanks both for all your input and advice.

Adrian

Hi!

Has anyone had any success getting Ubuntu (Astronomy) to run on a MacBook 2006 running a 2 GHz Intel Core Duo with 1GB of DDR2 SDRAM? - it's one of those nice, solidly made white ones Apple use to make.

My old MacBook is pretty much useless for anything else as it cannot be upgraded/updated to run the more recent OS or Apps so I thought this would be a good use for it rather than consigning it to the scrap bin.

I have tried making a bootable USB using both Etcher (Mac) and Rufus (PC) and neither will boot, in fact the USB boot drive created by Etcher results in a drive that is not readable at all - on any machine! I've tried using an external powered USB hub just in case the onboard USB sockets are not initialised properly/fully at boot up but that didn't work either.

I've tried creating a bootable DVD containing the iso image using a MacBook Pro and after some delay that presents me with a strange menu with two items 1. and 2. but with no description as to what either does; it make no matter because pressing 1 or 2 results in nothing happening!

I'm not going to die in a ditch over this - it's just something I fancy having a go at but so far it's looking like the MacBook will be on a one way trip to the local refuse site, small electrical items skip! - once I've removed the hard drive  

Thanks in anticipation of any help/ideas. I'm quite happy to be told I'm wasting my time and I should make better use of my time by going to watch the grass grow.

Adrian

On 16/08/2019 at 13:55, Uranium235 said:

Im currently working on a fix to completely eliminate the droop issue with the EOS bayonet connection

Hi. I would also be interested in one of these please. Excellent idea if it solves the droop problem.

Thank you.

Adrian

Go to your Account settings and select Signature

24 minutes ago, Adam J said:

I see a large number of people supporting both the lens and the camera as opposed to clamping only the lens or only the camera to the mount, is this strictly required or are people just doing it because droop / flex is an issue with the canon connector?

I am on my third EoS adapter.

The first came from a well known German supplier and suffers from droop.

The second came from a well known UK supplier (not FLO) and suffers from droop and is almost impossible to demount as the release catch is flimsy and will not release the lens without the help of some pliers and some considerable manipulation.

The third is the ZWO  adapter and so far it works better than any of the other others.

I use a TS ring along with the ZWO mount (see my post of 13th August above) because it makes it easier to remove the whole assembly from the mount at the end of an imaging session and I want the whole assembly to be rigid and well supported.

Adrian

I agree! Nice framing too.

13 minutes ago, philhilo said:

PixInsight at least seems Astro dedicated if still a fair few £

Rest assured IMHO it is money well spent especially when compared with the money spent on hardware in this hobby. I use other software as well but PI is at the root of all my main processing actions.

Good luck!

Adrian

Hi!
I've always found these tutorials helpful; this one covers the type of thing I think you are trying to do.

https://www.photoshopessentials.com/basics/three-ways-to-blend-two-images-together-photoshop/

There's lots of useful stuff on this site that I've used for astro and non-astro images.

HTH

Adrian

4 hours ago, philhilo said:

no sign of M31

Here's your M31 from the single CR2 file. Processed in PixInsight - background extraction, background neutralisation, colour calibration, SCNR to reduce the green cast, inverted Luminance mask applied followed by multiscale noise reduction, and finally multiple incremental histogram stretches.

HTH

I processed the tif in PixInsight and plate solved it with Astrometry.net.

I guess there is no sign of M31 because it's not M31! The image appears to be centred near Delta Cas. However M103 is in the image - the open cluster.

I'm no expert but there appears to be some 'walking-noise' which dithering might sort but others will know better.

HTH

Adrian

65.00mm

48.33mm

43.53mm

I know - M31 again - but this is just 3x60s of R, G and B plus 3x120s of Ha - so 15 minute in total - using the 135mm Samyang with the ASI1600MM-Pro. I had been imaging IC1396 and stopped when it hit the meridian. I noticed M31 was on the way back to Park so thought I'd grab some of that as well but the clouds rolled right on in and that was that!

I know it won't win any prizes but it just goes to show what this remarkable lens can do when used on f2 with a CMOS camera.

I am hoping this image of M31 is finally showing that I've managed to largely solve my odd shaped stars problem by finding a way to mount and support the ASI1600+135mm without getting a droop or misalignment. The ZWO ASI1600 mount and ZWO EoS connector works really well, certainly better than the EoS mounts I've used to date.

I think I may still have a slight spacing issue but hopefully I'm getting there.

Adrian

2 hours ago, daveangie0110 said:

What is the best ZWO Camera to get ?

I use a 1600MM-Pro Cooled with my Samyang 135mm and have been delighted with the results I get using both with the ZWO Mini EFW.

I've also used the 1600 with a TS Optics 2" filter holder on a WO-ZS71 with R/F - giving a focal length of ~320mm.

I've yet to try it with my ED80DS but I'm optimistic it will give equally pleasing results.

HTH

55 minutes ago, kirkster501 said:

spent two hours trying to get the blasted thing to focus

Hi,

I bought (separately) the same combination and it will focus but I find there is a lot of backlash in the focusing system. I've never achieved a really 'tight' focus but certainly adequate for guiding. I hope you've not got a faulty one.

I removed all those little knurled screws and bits cos' I couldn't for the life of me figure out what they did - other than get in the way when trying to fit it in the rings; I taped over the holes with black tape.

Adrian

Amazing! An excellent result to my eyes.

8 hours ago, MarsG76 said:

Since I captured the subs through filters using a OSC or color camera

Thank you - I was being dim - probably because it was late when I read your post.

Thank you for taking the time to explain what you have done - again! 😳

I really like the image.

Adrian

I really like this image, especially the colours, but I'm not sure I follow the channel composition.

Am I correct in assuming this is R-G-B : Ha-HaO-HaO and if that is the case what are the proportions of Ha and O in the G and B channels. Or have I got it completely wrong. Sorry if I'm being a bit dim.

Thanks for sharing.

Adrian

10 hours ago, simmo39 said:

Wow, like that.

Thank you for the kind comment.

Adrian