Vroobel

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.

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.

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)

😊

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. 😕

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.

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.

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... 🤔

Only with the 2.5mm ring attached you can have the proper 55mm back focus. I can only conclude that it's attachable/detachable to get a longer back focus if you need to add device(s) needing a longer optical path. I also didn't use the spacer in the beginning, but I had bad coma in corners/edges. Recently, after some break, I used my Netonian again with the MPCC Mk III together with the spacer and with my ASI2600MC and I had nice and flat field.

A back focus of the 26C is 17.5mm. I can recommend a ZWO Filter Drawer v2 as I think you will want to use filters. It's 21mm long, so you need any 16.5mm spacer which I believe the AA provides together with the camera, like ZWO does. 17.5 + 21 + 16.5 = 55 which is exactly what the Baader MPCC Mk III needs. Please remember about a 2.5mm ring provided with the MPCC.

Thanks. The effort put in the cable management gives back twice in form of a piece of mind. I have 3 ZWO EAFs, but this time I didn't decide to buy another one. I designed and printed a Bahtinov mask which isn't as convenient as the EAF but I can perform the focusing in around 5 moves. Another EAF would be just an overkill. It would be even more complex, as I can replace the Canon and Sigma lens set with an ASI2600MC and e.g. Carl Zeiss Jena 135mm lens which I recently bought from the SGL fellow, another set of cables is already there.

That's another clever solution, I have to look how it works.

I also use the ASIAir (Plus v1) and I experienced an odd behaviour of the main camera. The ASIAir is based on a Raspberry Pi computer, simply saying, the newer ASIAir, the newer RPi board. In case of the RPi 4 with 2xUSB3 and 2xUSB2 there is a known problem of using the USB3 ports when a WiFi 5GHz is working. You can try to switch the WiFi to 2.4GHz mode which I did. I also found that the main camera (ASI2600MC-Pro) works flawlessly when it's connected to an upper USB3 port, which is in fact a bottom USB3 port of the RPi board installed there up side down.