david_taurus83

The main benefit of Ascom pulse guiding is  that you don't need to calibrate every time you move position of the scope and you don't need the ST4 cable either. Another benefit of Ascom is you can completely control the scope via a PC or laptop, assuming its a GOTO mount. You don't need WiFi as typically you have a direct connection between mount and PC though it can be done with WiFi..

This is my 4th one of these!

I think I'm past my mid life AP crisis and don't foresee any rash selling up spree in the near future again!

Just get your camera modified if you only use it for astro. I shot this with a nodded 6D and a good light pollution filter. No fancy duo or tri band filter.

19 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

 It only has 6 USB ports, and I'm already using 11 USB devices connected to it.

LOL!

Any reason why you can't try all 3 instances on the one PC? Id have thought adding a second PC would make it more complicated. It confused me when I tried it with just 2 instances.

I'm currently on my 12th 900s sub this evening! Sorry!!!

But yes, it is frustrating. The longest and darkest nights of the year are also the worst for cloud.

A laptop is very power hungry. Have you considered an alternative like the ASIAir or a Raspberry Pi? Or a mini PC? If that's not an option then a leasure battery should do with one of those invertors than can bump 12v up to 19v or so for most laptops. I have one in my van so can charge up at work when not in the office. Something like this.

Have a look on ebay. Good quality used tripods like Manfrotto for < £100. Id also look at used 600D cameras, body only £150/200. You can then send that off to be modified for say £100. There's a big difference after modifying the camera! If you could stretch the budget again (sell the 4000D?) you could buy a decent clip filter for the camera to help with LP. 

Best to take them with the camera off the scope and a metal cap on. You only need to do it once in a blue moon 👍

Can you post up a guide log? There should be a folder titled PHD2 where it stores guiding logs.

58 minutes ago, Leewfc said:

Canon 600D but I can't get anything using eyepieces either? Really struggling

A rough guide is to measure from the front element down the tube 950mm to where the sensor on the camera is. So assuming you have a t ring on the camera, its 55mm from the ring to sensor, the front of the t ring needs to be approx 895mm from the front element. That should be close to focus on a far away object.

What camera are you using?

...don't fix it!

That said, NINA gave out to me that my Ascom needed updating so I did, 6.5 service pack 1 I think. No issues so far.

My first set of filters were Baader. Really great value. The only issue is the possibility of halos with the Baader Oiii 8.5nm. My first one had terrible halos but I had it replaced under warranty and the replacement was perfect. Currently have Astronomik filters and so far I have not noticed any Oiii halos on the few subs I have managed with it. I bought a set of Astronomik LRGB to go with the narrowband as they are the same thickness (1mm) and it makes a difference if you are using an OAG.

I suppose the next step would be to try out a different camera to rule out the filters?

Theres a little rubber flap

Theres an opening to allow the cable to exit the battery compartment while the cover is shut.

Apparently, a study in Arizona measured street lighting to only contribute around  20% of actual light pollution. I'm struggling to believe that though. It would have been interesting to see the result if they had shut off all lighting for a minute or so and captured it from space.

https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/street-light-pollution/

Ah lads! Don't make me change my mind again! 😄

+1 for a linear 12v supply. I have a Nevada 30A supply sat in the window by the back door. I run a 1.5mm² cable out to the mount.( Yellow rubber type we use on building sites for 110v, cheap and stay flexible even when cold) Banana plugs on the PSU side, cigar plug type terminal at the mount, one with voltage reading. I set the PSU to output 14v and at the mount through 15m of cable I'm still getting 12.5v with camera cooling, dew straps heating, mini PC computing. I have 1 cigar plug feeding the DSD DC Hub 2 and never have any issues.

Start off with a small scale dither and make sure PHD can recover within the allotted settle time. When PHD performs a dither, it doesn't move the mount instantly. It simply moves the cross hairs by a random amount, depending on the scale you have set. If you set to 2, it will select a new location somewhere within 2 pixels and then gradually issue commands to the mount to move the guide star back into the cross hairs. If its set to 30 it may take some time to move the guide star to the new location. All the worse if you have backlash to remove as well.

Zoom all the way out to see the extents. Also, if you plate solve an image it will give you the rotation. Adjust the rotation in the framing tool to match that of your image.

I've always just used a metal cap over the sensor, stuck camera by an open window and done my darks library during the day. Done it with an ASI1600 and current Atik 460. Dont understand why it needs to go in the fridge unless it's really warm.

That's real nice! I quite like the framing!

Have you run DBE on the individual channels before combining into a colour image?