swag72

I have a dual rig running with SGP..... I basically use one of the scopes / camera's as a slave, so one does all the plate solving etc and the other just takes pictures all night. It can be tricky to try to coordinate the two when it comes to targets and naming them. I've ended up with the slave having wrongly names images as it was still taking them on the previous target, but the main scope had moved by then! You can't dither as it stands at the moment and also for guiding you have to use a separate guide scope other wise you can't auto focus. 

If I had to do it again, I would actually run two rigs..... it would be a whole lot easier in my mind. There would be no aligning to do between the two scopes (mine are the same FOV). You could chose whether to image one target or different ones. You do lose a couple of subs when the main scope passes the meridian as the slave is merrily clicking away with no idea what the main scope is doing. 

When they are running I have 2 instances of SGP running on the PC. There's no conflict between them on the same PC. 

It's a great way to collects loads of data

10 minutes ago, Gina said:

I did have PI working for me a couple of years ago it seems from my posts but feels like I'm starting again!  I used some excellent tutorials then - must find them again.  I do have the book though.

Good luck!!! LOL!!!

16 hours ago, Gina said:

But you can use images instead apparently.  I seem to remember removing stars in PI that would have used layers in Photoshop.  The machine that had PS on died and I lost it.  GIMP does layers though.

I don't have a long enough life to try to even begin to use PI 🤣

5 minutes ago, Gina said:

OIC - though that was what you used - my mistake - sorry...

Heavens no!!!

7 hours ago, Gina said:

.....I like Pixel Math in PI.

I most certainly don't and can't work it for a moment!!!! There's not much in PI that I do like to be honest.

21 hours ago, Gina said:

Don't know how I missed this thread before!   That is absolutely wonderful Sara.  That's my target for when we get the weather.  But I don't think I'm likely to get anywhere near the beauty of your image!

Thanks Gina - Regarding the colour palette, I just didn't take the green out like normal using the Bob Franke method. 

13 hours ago, knobby said:

@swag72Just came here from your website ... Really beautiful image Sara 👍👍👍

Thanks! Glad that you like it

4 hours ago, Brian Maurer said:

I normally don’t like the odd colors, but this looks amazing!

Many thanks Brian - This was a colour that I was not sure about 

I saw that article when I was giving a couple of talks to the same Dutch astro society............. Sadly I didn't understand ANY of it!!!! 🤣

6 hours ago, Jkulin said:

If you haven't already bought them, have a look at the Chroma, originally they made the filters for Astrodon, they are much cheaper and the quality is every bit as good as Astrodons, they are heavy filters 3mm thick so like Astrodons you'll need to allow 1.0mm for your back focus.

I bought my NB Chroma 3nm direct from Chroma and saved about 50%

I absolutely agree with this..... I have a set of Astrodons and a set of Chroma...... I don't think that the Chroma are inferior in any way at all. If buying them would make a saving, then I'd get them over the Astrodons.

They're a pair of stunning images Olly, I love the close up of NGC1333, it really is a favourite of mine...... Super stuff 👍

Lovely 3D feel...... like the colours and everything about it 👍🏻👍🏻

I used a TeleGizmo for about 8 months in total.... it withstood wind, rain and especially sun. It was very hard wearing..... I would very much recommend them 👍🏻👍🏻

6 hours ago, michael8554 said:

A long time ago I read the PHD2 instructions for AO, I seem to remember that PHD2 would allow the AO to reset when the end stop on the AO was reached. 

Michael 

I don't think when I was using it PHD2 was in existence......

Unfortunately my experience was a while ago , in the earlier days so to speak, and so I have nothing but brief anecdotal evidence as I didn't do any comparisons in those days with data with / without the AO.

I had one of these for a while - I thought it would be the Shangri-la of great data, despite already having a pretty decent mount (Avalon Linear). At the time I was using a long focal length scope...... I think it was when I was playing with a C9.25.  At the time the only software that the SXAO used for guiding was Maxim and the recommendation was that you use very short exposures. I could never find a bright enough guide star to get the short exposures that were supposed to make the difference. Then I found that almost every night without fail it would run out of adjustment and so most of the night would be wasted. 

I found it far more trouble than it was worth. I did my homework and in theory I thought it should make a difference. I was sad to see that there appeared to be no discernible difference in my data quality. I guess it was something that I had to try, but I did not find it worked for me and so gave up with it and moved on.

Very nice indeed....... congratulations 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Superb Olly - I am always surprised by how brown this area looks. Very nice and dusty  It's got a fantastic 3D feel as well.

Hi Carlos and welcome to SGL - Whereabouts in Spain are you? It's good to have you here, I'm sure you'll really enjoy SGL and all that it offers

I've experienced Ball lightening and it was really weird. My husband and I, both sat in different parts of the room, suddenly saw a light blue circular 'thing' in the front room under a window for a couple of seconds. It then disappeared with a 'crack' and we were searching all around for exploded electrical items....... It was a very surreal experience. 

Nice one Francis..... these are great. I'm thrilled to see you back at it 👍🏻👍🏻

The Kodak 8300 is a very god sensor in my experience. I run two of them, a Moravian G2-8300 and a QSI 683. Both have built in filter wheels which I love (but I am using 1.25" filters - Not sure how it works space wise for 2") If I had to call one out as better, I'd go for the QSI. It has a better feel with regards to build quality and also it holds its temperature better. That's not to say the Moravian is bad...... it goes between +/- 0.1 degree whereas the QSI stays bang on temperature all night. I also like the built in OAG that the QSI has.

Having chanced upon this thread I decided to install Starnet myself and give it a go. I downloaded the zip file, then put all of the individual files from the folder into the PI bin folder. Then go to processes > Modules > Install modules then hit search. Mine installed from there straightaway.

Hope that helps

I've got it all sussed now and the Asteroid videos are rolling out! Such fun

1 minute ago, PhotoGav said:

Sara, are you going to / have you posted the results?! Would love to see what you’ve been up to...

I shall probably put it somewhere! I'll keep you posted. Meanwhile I've put a video together and just need to convert it to a decent .avi file.

16 minutes ago, fireballxl5 said:

so I've checked how the arguments that my settings use on the site: http://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg.html#Options

 

These work for me:

-y -r 25 -i Blink%05d.png Blink.avi

which are:

-y (global) Overwrite output files without asking.

-r <value> This option is used to set the frame rate, 25 frames/second here.

-i <input> These are the input files, so the PI Blink function converts my JPEGs to .PNG and these are fed into ffmpeg as the individual frames

I guess that the final argument defaults to the output filename, Blink.avi in this case.

 

So, not so sophisticated use of ffmpeg, but it outputs the required animation without any stress (for me at least!)

HTH, Andy

Thanks Andy - I finally made it work how I wanted changing your r value to 2 

But I also did it in Photoshop......... I think PI is quicker now that I have this sorted

Still doesn't work...... I've downloaded the llink that James posted, and then linked to the .exe file in PI and still it doesn't work. Looks like another epic PI fail on my part.....

Different problem now though.......

Have got an .avi, but not a 0,5s frame length between each frame, It's all in one screen.