david_taurus83

It was the Esprit fine focus that was slipping. I had a DeepskyDad AF3 on there. Changed to a Pegasus focus motor and that fits onto the course focus just like the EAF. It was around that time though that I watched that video above and setup the new focuser with correct backlash settings etc. If I was you I'd take the EAF off and inspect it for excessive play in the shaft before refitting. Hopefully that sorts it. What version of NINA are you on?

I had issues last year with AF. Turned out to be a slipping focuser so been sorted since but my graph did look like your wonky one above. When I sorted the focuser I looked at Patriot Astro youtube channel on how to set up the AF steps in NINA. Been solid ever since.

Ah! Alacant! Champion of the reflector, welcome to the maddening world of refractor back spacing! Lol Seriously though, I have tried them all, WO, OVL, Planostar, Telescope Express, HoTech etc None of them ever gave me perfect stars in the corners or sides. The closest was the WO reducer as they gave specific measurement for different scopes. As you've found above, pick something you are happy with and leave it alone! FYI, the best flattener to date is the specific one made for my Esprit 100, nice round stars across the frame with both my 533MM and 2600MC. Best coma corrector for my 200P is the TS GPU.

Is Rho all broadband and reflection? I would suggest standard Canon 6D myself.

For such a demanding application I would suggest going windows based PC over an ASIAir. That way you can get full use of PHD2. I find the ASIAir guide graphs are very optimistic. You say the mount had been tuned. Did you strip it and rebuild yourself? You tuned backlash out yourself?

I image throughout the year, including summer, and I have never seen peak amps go much above 3A for everything, mounts, cameras, dew strips etc. My Nevada PSU has an ammeter gauge and also can see current draw through the Pegasus powerbox. I think people have issues with powerbricks as they only deliver 12v to first source of power and then voltage drop becomes an issue with smaller cables between devices. If you can find one, I would recommend using a 13.8v power source as voltage drop shouldn't be a concern then.

Atik stuff is pretty well engineered. My old 460EX never skipped a beat, never disconnected, never dropped a sub or failed a download. Wish the same could be said for ZWO stuff lol. I think it's pretty safe just letting the camera driver control the cool down, not sure if it controls warm up or just switches off and let's the heat sink do the work... To err on the side of caution, I let NINA control both cooling and warming with a minimum 10 minute period each.

Just to point out, DSLR's themselves have CMOS sensors and they work almost exactly like dedicated astro CMOS, the catch being they are not as efficient. Where modern astro sensors QE (quantum efficiency) range is anywhere between 60/90%, a Mark I Canon 6D, probably the best DSLR for astro work, its QE range is only around 46/49%. So if you pit it against the well regarded IMX571 sensor, you would need to gather almost twice as much exposure time with a 6D as you would with a 571 type camera. Short exposures will work with a DSLR but you would at least need to expose above the noise level and have many, many subs which would require large storage space and lots of processing power to stack them which makes it impractical in reality.

I have 2 of these, Coowoo branded or similar, bought off Amazon. They work quite well despite being only 5v. That said, they are thirsty! On low setting they draw around 0.7 amps and on high they draw around 1.2 amps! Much more than the usual 500mah from a typical USB supply. I plug mine into a Bison leisure battery box with 2.5ah USB ports. I wouldn't use any USB device unless it has a dedicated USB socket that can deliver 2.5ah

Great first image! Would also love to see some pics of the scope! Any details on the build?

If the input voltage is 12v say, then the output on each port should be the same or very similar. I doubt the Plus steps up if input is a bit lower. Whether you have 12v at the device is another question as 12v is very susceptible to voltage drop depending on the cross section area and length of the cable being used.

I have the Mini. As already mentioned, they 4 power ports are all on by default, you can't switch them off. The app does tell you the input voltage and total power being drawn though.

Perhaps the above is a bit too bright? Maybe add some contrast?

Bubble Nebula in 5nm narrowband. Started on the Ha back at the begining of April and finished up on the Oiii a couple of weeks ago. Took 7 sessions in total and I gathered over 28 hours of data. 101 x 300s Sii (8hrs, 25m) 117 x 300s Ha (9hrs, 45m) 120 x 300s Oiii (10hrs) Skywatcher 200P / ASI533MM / Astrodon filters

? I didnt know there was a star list in there now. I use the older stable 2.1. Will have to have a look though I have an autofocuser anyway but still use CdC for slewing to near south for PHD purposes.

I think that will be the issue. As mentioned above, try using EQMod? Just to point out, on my first AZGTi, I had to leave the encoders on otherwise EQMod wouldn't sync its position after a plate solve. Yes, a different mount but I bet they are very similar internally so worth bearing in mind. Generally I follow this rule myself but there are some occasions when I want to also use CdC. When calibrating PHD I like to slew to near meridian in the south and you can't do this with NINA. Also, if you don't have an autofocuser and still use a B mask you need an external app like CdC to select and slew to a bright star.

So @ONIKKINEN I took your advice and decided to just process out the dodgy background issue I had in the other thread. I used GraXpert and in my opinion its as good as DBE but much easier to use. Any how, I created a monster and decided to see if I could combine the 6ish hours of Lum data I collected on the 200P with the above data from the Esprit! Behold! Edit: Above is a composition of 349 x 60s (5hr 49m) of Lum data taken with the 200P/533MM at 1000mm combined with the colour data of the Esprit 100/2600MC at 550mm. The 533MM was binned 2x2 so the pixel scale at 1.54 arcs/p is similar to that of the 1.4 arcs/p of the 2600MC.

I really wanted to image this with the 200P but struggling with flats on that at the moment. Still didn't want to miss the recent spate of clear skies despite no astro darkness so mounted up the Esprit 100 on the AM5. 252 no. 180s with the 2600MC, no filter. Just over 12.5 hours worth captured over 4 sessions 20th to 26th May. On a side note, the AM5 and ASIAir Mini performed flawlessly when left unattended. Not a single dropped sub apart from those I rejected due to clouds on night 1. With many friends!

Sorry to hear you've lost a few hours of work! Its kinda like when you leave everything running after being happy with the first few subs to find the next day the rest are ruined by un-forecast high clouds! I've also been unable to open that corrupted file. I tried to change it to an .xisf file and a tiff file but Pixinsight says no. I would suggest saving files direct to the ASIAir unit while imaging and transfer afterwards.

I've had no issues with parking either to standard home position or custom position. I have an AZEQ6 and I have turned off the encoders from within EQMod as have had the mount do strange things in the past with them on.

I'm not so sure. I do get gradients depending on where I'm pointing and they are your typical brighter on one side to less so on the other. This looks too localised to me. And almost identical on 2 different targets taken months apart with different position/declination in the sky? Could a light leak cause issues?

Sorry, I probably wasn't clear. The mirror doesn't move, I meant movement of sensor relative to the mirror. Colimation isnt perfect but i have round stars with your old GPU coma corrector so i leave well alone! It's the flats calibration that is giving me trouble.

The bane of many a newt imager, I'm sure! I shoot flats every session so as to eliminate mirror movement. On LRGB I get a weird dark patch to the right of centre. Ignore the dark shadow on the left hand side, that's from my OAG prism and I can crop it out. I thought I was doing everything correctly. Tube is flocked, I have a 12" dew shield, I autofocus my chosen filter at the start of the session as well before flats to get the position correct. Not sure exactly what it could be? Below is 2 targets, flats applied to the left stacks, flats and stacks without flats. To rule out Pixinsight i tried DSS (below, left) and get a similar result. To throw a spanner into the mix, narrowband is completely unaffected and calibrates just fine! The Ha flat looks horrible compared to the broadband filters but works a charm. Any ideas?

How are you finding its performance Adam? Better than the AZGTi? Backlash in Dec was the AZ's Achilles heel

Yes Ian! It appears so! Chucks it round as if it's a Redcat! I haven't inspected any subs yet and after setting up and checking the first couple of subs I left it to do it's thing. At 3.30am when my alarm clock went off to go and pack up, it was still going into its 4th hour. The Air Mini has been great. I've experienced no issues with it. I set the WiFi to 2.4g and I can still get signal from middle of garden to upstairs bedroom. I tried station mode but it's a bit flaky so tend to stick to the Airs own WiFi. Last night was the first time using the 2.1 firmware and all was OK. I did download it from the ZWO site though and not use the one on Google Play as some people think that version is problematic?