david_taurus83

That's pretty impressive what you've got with just a rough polar alignment. The 60s shot looks good. At 2 minutes though you really are into the realms of guiding, especially with this little mount that's not really designed with imaging in mind.

12 minutes ago, John said:

lovely looking pump though ...... 

Indeed! All fixed now and I dont have to wash the dishes again. Dishwasher in a busy household with young children is literally the best, time saving domestic appliance I have ever bought!

A dishwasher heat pump...

How is this astronomy related, I hear you cry? Well, I should have received and proudly displayed an Astronomik clip in filter for my 6D but have had to cancel that order due to this unexpected expense 🤨

I made a a small cool box out of a plastic tub and lined it with insulation and stuck a peltier cooler on top so I could shoot temperature controlled darks. With both my old 600D and current 6D, I can tell you that the sensor temperature does not keep increasing with long subs shot one after another. I've taken darks up to 5 minutes so far and as long as the ambient temperature remains static the sensor temp levels out at around 5-6°C above ambient. This is true for around 10°C ambient and below. As the ambient is raised up to 15 or 20, the sensor temp gap does increase to 8-10°C, but it does level out and stays even.

As above, dont waste time trying to let the sensor cool, keep grabbing those photons!

The OTAs and focusers themselves are very likely the same or similar in quality. The price difference will be because of the glass quality. It's difficult to work the better glass.

Worth a read.

http://www.ianmorison.com/everything-about-refractors-part-1-their-objective-lenses/

Ah I see. The difference will be the glass. The WO has FPL53 which has better colour correction than FCD100 on the Altair. All the models I mentioned above have FPL53. I'm unsure if there would be a noticeable difference when imaging.

I've owned a GT71 and now have a Starwave 70 EDQ-R for imaging. I also have a Starwave 102 EDR for observing. All really nice scopes. The WO was excellent. But their never worth the price difference you have been quoted? They are practically the same price here, £1100 for the Altair and £1195 for the WO. I'd go with the Altair if buying again for the rotating focuser.

On 10/03/2020 at 22:04, Snooze said:

My AZ GTI arrived. I'm so excited and also found out I need a couple of adapters to makes things work.

 

Looks like I need another retaining bold for the eq wedge cause the plastic head is slightly too big. I also need an adapter to make the counterweight bar from the star adventurer work 😕 Hope I can sort these out before saturday so I can start testing things :D.

I used a normal bolt and just tightened up with a spanner.

As for the counterweight bar, I just bought a length of M12 threaded bar from B&Q and cut it to size. I tried the Star Adventurer bar first but it's too short for my setup to balance. I got one of these off ebay. Just need to clean off the locking compound with an old toothbrush under a tap and it fits nicely.

@tooth_dr Is this my old one Adam? I returned one to FLO and was sent back a tested replacement. My issue was it worked fine with W7 on a USB2 laptop but I got the split screen issues when I got a new W10 USB3 laptop.

4 hours ago, MarkAR said:

I'm surprised not more people use Surveyors or Contstruction tripods, they look pretty sturdy and cane take some weight. Maybe its because you need to modify the mounting thread to a 3/8".  Even seen some vintage wooden ones on Ebay.

The majority are cheap light aluminium ones that come with rotating lasers. The good ones are the yellow Leica wooden ones used with total stations (theodolites). Real good heavy duty tripods, good for heavy total stations but I reckon if you put a mount and scope on there with a long moment arm, they would flex without a central spreader between the legs.

I think this is an improvement.

Admittedly, the first steps were done in Pixinsight. Cropping, DBE, Deconvolution, and initial colour balance and stretching. I then switched to Photoshop and followed the excellent tutorial on the link posted above http://www.astronomersdoitinthedark.com/dslr_llrgb_tutorial.php

Thanks @Owmuchonomy

As in the tutorial a lot of work is done on a pseudo Luminance image before applying to a colour version. Theres a lot of dust and I played around with some selective masks to bring it up a bit more. It probably doesnt look right now as its maybe too bright and the colour is wrong but I'm done with this image for now. Its probably the most popular target but by golly is it difficult to process! Leaving it at that! I think Photoshop has won me over as well.

Canon 6D, IDAS D2 filter

4 hours worth of 60s subs at ISO1600

First light with my Altair 70 EDQ-R

All mounted atop a dinky AZGTi in EQ mode.

Thanks everyone for the tips and advice!

@ollypenrice that's a neat technique with anchoring the black point and lifting the faint stuff just above it. It's also used in the tutorial.

Thanks @Davey-T  😉

No experience with either of these top end filters but reading other reports the Chroma are regarded to be as good as the Astrodons.

Hi Anthony. Have you got your 450D to work with APT now?

Before you spend more money on either a goto kit for your EQ5 (£300) or a new mount altogether, you could do "manual" platesolving and goto in APT.

Point your scope where you think your target is, take an image, platesolve in APT, send the result to Stellarium and it will show you where exactly you are pointing including the orientation and field of view. You can then move the scope with the hand controller and repeat the steps. It's still a bit trial and error but a hell of a lot better than blind guessing.

You can follow my tutorial on setting up platesolving here:

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/334568-setting-up-platesolving-in-astrophotography-tool-apt/

Where the M6 bolts are, you could drill an 8mm hole down into the bar just enough to sink a cap head bolt. I've a dovetail somewhere where I've done that but cant find it otherwise I'd post a picture to show what I mean.

Possibly the same fan?

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

+1 for flipping the screen out. I've seen a 600D go up to near 40°C until I realised the screen was closed and lit.

16 minutes ago, dannybgoode said:

I can’t comment on your camera but what I will say is AP is by far the hardest, most frustrating hobby I’ve ever tried.

 

It's an absolutely crackers hobby. What with the cost and the weather and never ending issues with kit. Yet here we still are! I've been doing this for couple of years now and still have to deal with kit niggles. I've just learned to streamline the issues and problem solve quicker! Trust me, 90% of nights I'm out something goes wrong! Keep at it and gather as much data as you can on a target. You'll get there. M81 and M82 are starting to rise this time of year if you can see them, nice beginner targets as they are fairly bright. Theres nothing better for a beginner once you start to see a galaxy or nebula emerge out of the darkness of your stack. Keep your data and as you get better at processing you can always go back and reprocess stuff as you learn new techniques. 👍

I bought an AZEQ6 Pro in 2018. It was the version without the USB port so only a name change from the GT version. With a Sharcap polar align I could get regular guiding average of 0.6/0.8" RMS with about 1.5/2.0" peak errors. 15 to 20 minute images were fine, round stars at 2.38" per pixel. I had it set up on a tripod and carted the whole assembled lot in and out of the house every session! If set up on a pier the guiding could probably be fine tuned a bit more. For imaging at around 1.5 to 2 arc seconds, it's a good mount. It's a SW mount, so we all know the limits. If you went up to 1000mm focal length and sub arc second image scale then you might not be too pleased with guiding results. Both axis are also quite stiff so difficult to balance properly. My main gripe with it was a minor one but the latitude bolt sticks out way too far and if your using a short refractor then you need to orientate your filter wheel upwards and route all cables so theres no risk of snagging. Theres also loads of backlash on the same latitude bolt so when polar aligning it's best to make your last latitude adjustment upwards. If you need to go down it tends to jump due to the counterweight.

I even dabbled with a dual rig and there was no discernible difference with guiding due to extra weight. Actually improved as I added an OAG into the mix.

I sold mine recently due to downscaling a lot of astro stuff as saving up for a house move but I'd own one again no probs. If I had to choose between the AZEQ6 or the EQ6R, I'd go for the EQ6R purely because of the long latitude bolt on the AZ but it wouldn't be a deal breaker.

2 weeks to go. Hopefully the weather improves!

Hi Vin. I used Stellarmate for a while and quite enjoyed it. Miss it tbh! Using a Windows mini PC now with NINA or APT. I never used my Stellarmate with the server/client approach with a PC and the RPi. I let the RPi run everything independently and monitored/controlled via VNC over the wifi connection. You can do this with any device that can connect to its wifi signal. Mostly used my phone but you can of course use a laptop. I found it much more stable this way and the RPi downloaded images much quicker and also platesolved quicker. Only used it for DSO so if your trying EEVA then it may be a bit different. I found a 32gb Sandisk micro SD card sufficient for storing a few nights worth of images. Using the VNC approach again, just stick a USB stick in to transfer your images, no need for a separate keyboard, monitor etc. Cant answer question 2 but if I was to go about it with VNC viewer, both RPi's would have separate VNC ID's so you could click between them or have your laptop monitor one and a tablet/smartphone monitor the other? Pretty sure you need the Lynx Astro cable. Might run into some serial port connection issues depending on what other hardware your running but theres a few ways to work around it.

1 hour ago, BinocularSky said:

A question for those of you with RPi-4: What are you using for a field power supply? My battery packs with USB won't go above 2.1A, and RPi-4 needs a minimum of 3A. 12V + buck converter, perhaps (and, if so, can someone recommend a reliable one?)

TIA

When I used one it rarely went above 1 amp? I used one of those in line USB volt/amp meters to measure. I powered it from a 12v cigar plug hub with 2 USB sockets and like you say, both rated to 2.1 amps. Worked fine.

ED80 with field flattener or 70mm f6 of the various short refractors are perfect for beginners and that size mount. Guiding is also essential unless you by a £10k mount!

2 hours ago, Owmuchonomy said:

There is a little backlash but it can be adjusted out to a point by removing the cover and adjusting the tension on the worm drives.  For a portable mount I find the small amount of backlash acceptable.  I use mine all the time for outreach public events and its very quick and easy to set up especially when using the point and track option.  Which bit of the setup is a faff?

Interesting. I opened mine and found the worm spring loaded onto the large wheel. The backlash in mine is in fact lateral play in the dec motor's output shaft. Got any pictures as I couldn't see anything that can be adjusted?

Canon 600D is 100% RGGB Bayer pattern.

Depends on how sturdy the mount is and how big the scope is. I used to stick my AZEQ6 out in all sorts of breezes but it only had a short frac on there.