Kaliska

Really stunning, what was your equipment, and exposure settings to capture?

23 hours ago, Padraic M said:

Is the new router in the same place as the old one? Does it have external antennae?

Yes, same place as its always been and neither the old router or the new one has/had an antenna.

23 hours ago, Padraic M said:

Does your new router support 5GHz and is that what you're attempting to connect to? 5GHz has higher bandwidth but a shorter range than 2.4GHz.

Yes, but unsure how to tell if the connection I'm using is 5 or 2.4Ghz, or if i can set the router to just 2.4Ghz (but by doing that, would i jeopardise performance of other equipment connected to it?).

Well, for now I've bought a Netgear A6100 wireless adaptor (plugged in to the scope pc) and put one of my mains plug power line wifi extenders as near to the scope as my house allows. It's working for now, but a little iffy as it can lose connection every now and then. This is more like a band aid and certainly something I'm not going to give up on. I really wanted to keep the number of wires and leads coming off the scope to an absolute minimum on this setup, so only have the dc power cable that hangs from it. I'm now considering just pluigging in an eithernet cable from the scope pc in to the wifi plug adaptor (3m away). And now i come to think of it, that's probably cheaper than spending 20 quid on the adaptor... 🙄

I used 2 Relevation Astro 12.9" mounting plates, top and bottom with the ring clamps inbetween. Depending on the size of the components you want to fix to the plate, you might get away with something smaller. I used the longer one because i'm using a Minix PC, but i'm guessing 3yrs on from when i set mine up these pc's are getting smaller? If so, I think Rother Valley Optics sell a 7.9" version losmandy-mounting-plate

I've pretty much got everything attached to my scope, just bought a mounting plate which attached to the rings and cable tied the mini pc, power block and focuser unit.

I have been using a remote(ish) setup with the scope and mini pc in the garden and connecting to it over Wi-Fi (BT router) via Remote Desktop Connection. Its been running fine over the last few years, but I've taken a little time away from astro recently. I come back now with a new Sky Router (after having a fall out with BT) and the mini pc doesnt find the new Sky signal. If I bring it inside it finds it and works perfectly, but outside (say 7-8m away) nothing. 

Any ideas as to why a pretty much brand new router would have less signal strength than my old one?

That is beautiful.

I've had the MINIX mini pc running my setup for the past 18 months without any issues (touch wood). I run Stellarium, SGP Pro, EQMOD, PHD, SharpStar etc and its a great bit of kit for the price. You can just see the pc behind the finder scope in the picture.

On 17/05/2020 at 15:48, jiberjaber said:

That was great, a bit like Elite but not.

HaHa...i remember that so well on my BBC Micro, many hours lost invested in Elite.

Although mine is at the bottom of the garden (AZEQ6), all I have to do is pull the cover off and the lens cap and just switch the power on. That's pretty much it to be honest, all i have to do is link up to the onboard mini pc (via window remote desktop) where i run SGP Pro, PHD, EQmod, Sharpcap and Stellarium.

10 minutes ago, Laurin Dave said:

They don't need to temperature match your lights but its just best to do them with cooling as that minimises overall noise ..  I suspect that the overcorrection is caused by the incorrect or lack of calibration of your flats..  what messages did BPP throw up when you started it?   Your new flats and flat darks should sort it 

 

 

There were messages coming up "no correlation between master dark" which I've just noticed.

Again, I was under the impression the temperature of the camera isn't a factor when producing flats as they are for removing visual aretfacts and not noise. I've just got a new flats panel so I'll take some tonight at -20 along with some dark flats to see if this helps.

No Bias frames were taken, I always been under the impression that they are not needed for this type of camera/chip.

Hi, I've been collecting quite a lot of data over the past few weeks, which i am now trying to process. I'm using the PI BatchPreprocessing but I;m getting awful results and I can't figure out why? I've uploaded my files on the OneDrive if there is anyone out there who could kindly give me their honest opinion on the data I've got. I'm using an ASI-1600mm cool with a TS100Q, SGP and PI.

The files can be found here https://1drv.ms/u/s!AsOwCeIp2jCOh0tlJgU_tWjq656k?e=mbbG5L

The image below is calibrated with 50 Flats and Darks in PI.

Got my copy (.pdf) today and have to say it looks extremely comprehensive, just wish this was about when i first bought Pixinsight.

1 hour ago, david_taurus83 said:

Possibly the same fan?

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/347386-zwo-fan-fail/?tab=comments#comment-3776782

Perfect, thank you. Just ordered one on Amazon and should be here tomorrow. Hoping it`s as simple as a broken fan...

1 hour ago, Laurin Dave said:

Mine stopped..  took it apart and it was stuck together with spiders web ..  gave it a clean and all ok..  hopefully the same for you 

My first thoughts too, but when i went outside to check it over the first thing i did was the gentle blow on the back of the camera and the fan span up very easily.

Anyone ever had to replace the cooling fan at the rear of the ASI1600 before?

Looks like mine has given up on me tonight, its not turning at all and the camera is getting uncomfortably warm.

4 hours ago, blinky said:

William Optics have came back today and said when the temp is around zero degrees I should use a dew band - anybody heard of this before, is it normal to use a dew band on fracs when the temperature is around freezing?

I've always used a dew band on my frac to prevent dew forming on the front lens, be it summer or winter.

3 hours ago, skybadger said:

I can post some details. I'll get some photos. 

Yes please

59 minutes ago, steppenwolf said:

Full constructional details of my solution were published in the January 2017 edition of the Sky at Night magazine (issue 140) if that is of any interest.

Well, this is just perfect, I couldn't ask for anything more thank you!

Now, I'm no DIY wizard, but has there been anyone who has built their own Flip Flat like the Alnitak Flip-Flat ?

These things are ridiculously expensive....why? And, are they that difficult to replicate in some way?

I have the TS100Q and its a great scope. No faffing about with getting the correct distance behind the FF/FR to the sensor, the focuser on the 100 is rock solid, but can't comment on the 80mm version.

14 hours ago, newbie alert said:

I see that as a halo, not microlensing..

Are you using more than 1 filter ie a light pollution filter, is your filter as close to the sensor as it can be?

No secondary filters (LP) are used in my setup, nor any reducers as the TS100Q is a quadruplet. The ASI1600 is screwed straight into the back the ZWO filter wheel, so yes, its as close as it possibly can be. Once the images are stacked, it definately both halos and micro lensing.

Just to add this in here, I get the micro lensing effect at F5.8 on my TS100Q

The ASI290mini is the only one i would reccommend (I use this on my current setup), but I'm affraid its not cheap. I've used the one of the cheap GPCAM's (which i think is a clone of the QHY5) before with very poor results (not picking up stars with enough SNR).