Datalord

I'm slowly reading myself into this corner. Essentially, if I want to use the advanced features of the mount, I must use the software it comes with. In this software, you set the catalog, which is then sent to PinPoint, regardless of what is possible to set up in PinPoint. 🤬 Seriously, for all the mechanical wonder that goes into these things, you should think they could hire some developers who understand how to make things at least reasonably user friendly.

well, for the sake of reference, 40*40. I think it is 39.6*31.4 or something like that.

40 arcmin

Probably reasonable to have masters present to aide with troubleshooting, especially if a set has difficult gradients or something similar. Since the intent is going to be amateurs data, we have to assume it won't be perfect.

I'm trying desperately to figure out the best catalog for use with my setup. I have GSC working, but at 2400mm FL it is very unforgiving. I use PinPoint together with the ASA sequence software, but I'll figure out how to make something work if it isn't supported. What I need is someone with more experience to tell me the difference between the different catalogs and what would be a good catalog for my scope. I need something that can find a target even if I'm a few degrees off. GSC only allows for rougly 30" off target, which is very narrow.

Indeed, why not. I shall commence... Good point. My naive mind said to add all of it because I'm used to it, but that makes no sense.

Can you give me a bit more information on this? Are you using PinPoint and/or using an ASA mount and software? Yeah, no lies there. The good news is that I have it set up well enough that it literally would make no difference whether my mount was in my living room, backyard or in Spain. This software is incredibly demanding on the exactly right parameters everywhere and the documentation and forums are virtually dead. I just now read a thread from 2016 where an ASA representative was quoted to say that he didn't understand why users who have used the mounts for years needs better documentation. I now understand why they are leaving the amateur segment... Meanwhile I could just flip the table on the software and just guide it better than I have ever had any mount guide before. 🙄

Mine is running right now. It's not going too great. The plate solving is still giving me grief. Even at "just" 2400mm it is very unforgiving to solve. I probably need to figure out a different catalog than GSC.

Yeah, they even sorted it faster than I could imagine. Last night they had actually already fixed it, but I didn't know, so I was using an old config. This is what I got from a new config tonight: I promised them beer, wine and whisky next time I visit.

I have to agree on this one. Perhaps that's where my limit on this one is. If you can call it your "own" and get an APOD based on Hubble data (pretty picture, but that one also irked me!), I'm not cool with it. I do have a remote obsy now, but I did everything myself.

Yes, from individuals. That's what got me started on this train of thought. These are all quite limited in exposure times and it's not in one repo with the right information tagged. What I'm after is collaboration. We've seen a few on this site where people with different gear and focal lengths collaborate to make truly astounding pieces of work. Or the example of the 200 megapixel mosaic posted earlier this year. Imagine having your own 10 hours that you can add another 25 hours to, maybe you saw some LRGB that you added Ha to or maybe you found long FL data to add to your own widefield. Use it and credit the other author(s) and make a wonder. All of this. Personally I often wonder about the subs people get with their equipment.

Math is hard. That was 40 minutes unguided... Aaaaanyways, Still having severely bad PA issues, since I can't just go into the backyard to fix it. So last night I postponed the fun with the advanced unguided software and plugged in PHD and just guided it. Well. That worked. With the Celestron I used to be lucky to have <1.0" total RMS. Last night I had down to 0.32" total RMS. That's, uhm, good enough. What a glorious mount this is...

That is very far from my first try at processing an image. Very well done indeed.

Olly, I actually understand your argument and I can see why it is true in one way. But I also disagree in that comparing scopes based on FOV is artificial. I went from a 11" f2.2 to a 12" f8. Biggest difference you can imagine. And I would not shoot the same targets, that would be nonsense. But the rc gives me access to more objects, which space is gloriously full of. If I could have Hubble's 54.000mm FL I would use that for fun new targets. I would not go for Orion with it. I propose these recurring discussions take their beginning with: "what targets do you prefer?". Then comes finding the scope/camera combination that suits this best. If I were looking at 12" f4 vs 16" f4, they are in my world virtually the same. The targets you can acquire are virtually the same. What you do get is simply more photons hitting the camera, which does translate to improvement in signal to noise, for the given camera surface. Faster and better pictures. I would not bother. A 16" RC on the other hand would be a completely new world of wonder opening up, alas also incredible pain.

I have a CGX. I also recently replaced the CGX on my main RC 12" with an ASA DDM85 and will use the CGX with my RASA 11". The Celestron C-PWI software is really good, but the mount is just not good enough for my 2361mm focal length. With your 2800mm, you will have even more problems. I would steer clear of the Celestron mounts for these long focal lengths. Maybe I should say that I find it can work to a pixel scale of >1.5-2 arcs/px, then you can make your decision based on that.

I moved my entire setup to E-Eye in Spain, drove there, flew there, paid for it. UK has literally given me months of non-stop clouds, which does nothing good for my temper. Now I set the targets at dusk, set it up for running until dawn. I set the alarm, wake up, shut it all down and go back to bed. Next step is for me to automate the entire procedure and sleep all night.

You can also feel a slight sense relief on your bank account. But, I now have a mount where I can double my instrument weight, so it's somewhat future proof.

Wow, thanks, this is exactly what happened. I managed to get out under control with tuning, so it is very rare now. Yeah, there is quite a few.

Anyone else with opinions?

So, as some will know, I ended up purchasing the last ASA DDM85 they will produce. It arrived at E-Eye in mid May and I managed to go there to set it up in the beginning of June. And what a mount it is. It is beautiful. It is bloody heavy. It is silent. And it has very complicated software. I went so I had two nights, but the only fully clouded night in 2 months happened on one of them, so I effectively only had one night to do my thing. That turned out to be a problem, because the nitty gritty of making the software work is not simple. You need to have 4 different applications work in sync, so you have automated focusing, platesolving, pathing etc.etc. working in one coordinated effort. Fighting that while panicking over losing time well into the 5AM in the morning meant I messed up my polar alignment completely. And I went home on the flight. I considered staying another night, but it turned out to be a good thing I didn't. Well home, I kept fighting the software. Learning, plate solving, automating. Trying settings, failing, retrying. The manual is decent, but not everything is clearly stated. The forums are dead and not many people own one of these. Rupert helped me out on mail and offered to log in to the system, but I managed to get past all the issues. And last night I will declare was proper first light. Now, when I said horrible bad PA, I meant it. I have an error of -48 AZ and 120 Alt. Unusable. Despicable. Ugly. So I hope I can get some help from the the onsite crew to tune it in a bit better. And yet, look at this... Yes, it has all the rotation in the universe right there, caused by the bad PA. But check the stars in the center of that rotation... This is 2400 seconds unguided. 20 bloody minutes and it manages to give me these. On a 300 sec bin2 Ha of M27 I had this: Rotation still present, but 300s unguided is pretty decent with that horror PA. In short, this mount is not for the faint of heart, but I'm already declaring it a success. Until I can either get down there or have a lucky PA by the crew, I can reduce my exposures. I shall update the mount adventures when I get it tuned better.

Yeah, I've actually tried to combine some of my CMOS RASA pictures with my CCD RC and it is definitely not simple. However, I got far enough that I'm certain it can be done with enough tinkering. And if I can do it, computers can. Data storage wise, I think only a Google Cloud Platform or Amazon S3 storage is viable for something like this. It's not outrageously expensive in raw storage. But you have a point about compression. Cost and price wise, it has to be free. I think there has to be a login mechanism and some approval of accounts before submission, but this will only work if the premise is that the upload is free. Maybe there could be some throttling on downloads, but that would be a matter of success showing the way. More to ponder.

I've had a thought for some time about collaborations and data sharing. Lately Astrobackyard started sharing some of his data on his site and while it is a fun social experiment, it's not quite what I had in mind. Imagine this: A site where you can upload you data. A submission on a target would have to include: Target name RA/DEC Scope details (FL, aperture, brand etc) Camera details ( model, pixel size, gain etc) lights, flats, darks and bias, with info on filters and binning etc Capture dates and times for all subs Location of captures Possibly a report on statistics A picture from the author showing their processing of the target. Why? Imagine having 300 hours of data on a target instead of 10. 😮 Reference for your own data to compare both subs etc. With the glory of AI and machine learning some researchers could possibly make something extraordinary out of this. Questions: Would you share? If not, why? Would you use someone else's data, possibly to merge, mosaic etc? If not, why? Is it a good idea? bad? Does it already exist? Any suggestions or things I haven't considered?

I have a WO 72. I'm not impressed with its full field. I'm pretty sure mine has a bit of pinched or misaligned optics. I wouldn't buy a WO again.

Impressive shot of this very faint nebula. Well done.

I don't know the EQ8, but I would stay away from the Celestron.