Vroobel

... and the best if it's not surrounded by a fence? 😏

Wood be good if such place exists between Manchester and Liverpool. 🤔

6 minutes ago, Alan White said:

Looks nice.
Out of curiosity, how do you focus this lens as it looks Electronic and the Filter Unit and Camera are not connected electrically?
 

Thanks.  Presently I use a designed and printed Bahtinov mask, but will consider ZWO EAF in future. I know that Astromechanics from Russia makes dedicated ASCOM-compatible EF focusing modules, but they won't work with the ASIair.

There must be a tiny headless allen socket screw which is loose. I don't have this mount, so cannot say where it is. Try to remove the timing belt to find it.

The postman brought a ZWO Canon EF filter drawer today. My alternative to a Canon 6D mobile setup is finished now and finally I can play with wider fields and L-eXtreme filter under Bortle 9. 😊 5kg in total. 

1 minute ago, engstrom said:

I have all of them downloaded on an external usb hdd attached the pi. I am running all the devices from a powered hub and I’m within a few metres of my router (although I might try a powerline adapter to improve the downloads for online solving)

I used nearly the seme: WiFi extender behind a kitchen window, all index files downloaded, all plate solve settings according to YT tutorials but the PA continuously failed. I had to use SharpCap to do it. It was very annoying. 

I also paid $59 for the StellarMate licence then and I still have the RPi 4 8GB with printed case and 5 x 12V distribution, but I have no patience for the INDI. I found out that they have direct support as it's paid product.

3 hours ago, engstrom said:

Going to give this a go. I've just about had it with Astroberry. Another 5 hours wasted trying to get it to work. Frustrating when the first time I used it, it seemed to work pretty well. Not changed a thing and now it's an exercise is frustration.  PA using plate solving took ages to start showing the updated error...then it didn't show the correct updated error (no ,matter how long I left it to capture images)...and then refused to plate solve 9 times out of 10 no matter if I used online or offline (actually it just seemed to hang if I used my local indices). I even tried it native on my Mac but the plate solving didn't work there either. Online plate solving fails instantly, offline just spins and spins and spins....

In 2021-2022 I built a heavy OnStep EQ fork mount from scratch. I tried to believe that the Astroberry can do its job, but gave up due to the same reasons. When I connected an ASIair Plus (v1) to the mount all the above problems disappeared, moreover, a guiding improved 2-3 times. I think, the guys do a good, unpaid job, but nearly everything you can have for free isn't better than the paid ones. Sorry, that's sad but rather true. 

If you need some advanced features like filter offset then think about NINA.

2 minutes ago, WolfieGlos said:

That's a nice one too Vroobel, nice job! Especially with the FMA230, looks like it's working well. I did consider buying that for widefield, but went with a SY135.

I take it you are talking about the star at the centre of the hive? Using a 2600MM, nice, that's a serious piece of kit 👍

Thanks.

Yes, I forgot to mention that they are in middle. 

I'm surprised that the Canon 800D beat the 2600MM cam. 😳 That means the twice bigger aperture is more important than the twice smaller pixel. We both have 3.7um pixel, but the mono is in fact twice smaller that the RGGB. Good job! 👍

That's funny, I also took the M44 as the time gap filler. Even if I spent twice more time on that (total LRGB) your 4" OTA gives a better picture than my 2" Askar FMA230, stacked and post processed with PixInsight. There are two orange stars looking like double, you have them separated while my ones look like a partial eclipse. 🙂 I know, it's about the resolution. 

https://www.astrobin.com/z0xw0f/(

(A mouse hover zooms it twice)

😊

2 minutes ago, alexbb said:

I believe that the fits header should have also information about coordinates. However, you can use the cone nebula for center, 5.8um for pixel size and 100mm for focal length. Image solver with auto catalog should do the job.

I tried the available catalogues in pixinsight already (except the stars only and galaxies only ones), but without success.

I wasn't precise enough. I can easily plate solve the picture, that wasn't a problem. I also didn't take stars and small objects into account. Some databases are so huge that it would take ages to finish searching while the result is overwhelming - labels cover all window. 😕

1 hour ago, Vroobel said:

Well, apparently it's not easy and maybe you asked for help just because of that.  My PI still works, let's wait.

Sorry, I give up. 😭

Well, apparently it's not easy and maybe you asked for help just because of that.  My PI still works, let's wait.

It's doable within the PixInsight if you share an original starry picture.

I don't use the ASIAir (Plus v1) for the planetary imaging, but together with an APS-C colour camera they never produce more than 64GB of data. Single sub is around 54MB or so. I capture 300s subs when I work with dual-narrowband and try to do it during all available (cloudless) night. The LRGB may take more, if I capture e.g. galaxies., but stars take usually 30 x 30s x RGB. 

I use a 128GB USB pendrive, but would consider a microSD card if the USB port becomes needed. 

On 02/02/2024 at 10:24, MartinB said:

This challenge is to capture the night sky and the deep sky objects hiding there.

I took it very seriously, my DSOs are literally hidden between the stars... 😉

Bode's Galaxy (M81) & Cigar Galaxy (M82) - 2024.03.28-29

Carl Zeiss Jena DDR F/3.5 @ F/5.6, IDAS LPS-P2, ASI 2600MC-Pro @ EQ5 OnStep GoTo mod;
6h 28m of integration time; Gain 101, Offset 50, -10°C;
ASIair Plus v1, PixInsight, Affinity Photo;
Liverpool, Bortle 9.

AstroBin combined     : https://www.astrobin.com/di138o/G/
AstroBin starless/crop : https://www.astrobin.com/di138o/G/#r0

I just discovered this interesting vintage lens. The Carl Zeiss Jena factory (located in East Germany) started manufacturing this model in 1976, so it's possible that the one is 48 years old. I bought it in excellent condition from our SGL fellow.

Yes, I had to step it down to F/5.6, and yes, I had to use the BlurXterminator plugin to obtain nearly pinpoint stars in corners, but it's not a modern Sigma or Samyang 135mm F/1.8.  

I really like natural spikes made by OTAs, if they are sharp and clean (I don't like artificial ones), so I was very intrigued when I saw these spikes for the first time:

I think their odd shape is due to a shape of an iris blades inside the lens (respectively F/3.5 and F/5.6) - they don't even try to pretend to make a round hole.  I like this oddity.

Final test before going anywhere. 

Preparation for M81 and M82. The small rig contains an ASI2600MC-Pro and a Carl Zeiss Jena DDR 135mm F/3.5 @ F/5.6. The lens is thanks to @Franklin, while both an ADM clamp and a long Losmandy plate are thanks to @steppenwolf.

Maybe I'm getting old, a modern solution surprised me today.

I'm preparing to work outside my garden, somewhere under a darker sky. It would be convenient to have a laptop, even if I'm going to work with an ASIair Plus, so a 12V powered charger was needed.

I was very sceptical while reading that one of the chargers has "a Self-Regulation Voltage" feature and can work with 16 kinds of sockets/voltages/laptops. I risked, as it was affordable. Indeed, the small charger has convenient replaceable high-quality angled tips including a small chip defining the output voltage and exchanging data with the laptop (recently laptops have 3 wires inside an original charger). One of the tips matches my older Dell Precision M4500. ☺️

I would say I don't want their unexpected Windows Update making everything slow and demanding restart also in extremely bad time. 🙂

That's why I don't like solutions based on clouds. As long as you aren't an IT Pro you have not a full control on that. 

I use an MS account but always refuse all extra MS services. All backups (I have a lot of them) are made locally, some on my network drive, some on an USB drive. 

I can advise making a backup of system drive separately and data (drive) also separately. You can use e.g. AOMEI Backuper which is free unless you want make a very useful differential backup. Do backup of the system after every significant change, then recovering it will be much easier than installing everything again. 

I cannot see any similarity in e.g. the read noise and dynamic range graphs. I use both ASI2600MC-Pro and ASI2600MM-Pro with gain 101. I thought that the cameras using the same sensor should work similarly, but apparently it's more up to the firmware than the sensor. 

What software do you use for processing your data?

I would recommend a combination of Losmandy/Vixen style dovetail bar with an Arca-Swiss L-bracket. You can easily move the L-bracket along an Arca-Swiss clamp to find the balance. Also, it's easy to rotate the camera/body/lens 90 degrees from its horizontal positioning to vertical one and to attach the guider to the second arm of the L-bracket. One bigger clamp should be screwed to the dovetail bar, smaller one to the guider. 

21 minutes ago, fwm891 said:

Not really what the postman delivered but I collected my 2nd Askar 120 APO from PAS on Saturday and now building a framework to support the pair on my CEM60.

One will be fixed the other will have a small amount of adjustment to get them both on the same FoV..,.

Did you think about a 120mm APO binoscope? 😏

The postman didn't bring it, I brought it from a DPD collection point. 😏

But I think I have to give it back. There is 100% in the picture, while my copy has 31% only... 🤔