david_taurus83

Is this close enough? The 102 will have a full frame Canon 6D so it will overlap the edges of the ASI1600 on the 71. I replaced the tin foil with another guitar pick! 0.5mm spacing makes a huge difference on the pointing of the scope.

OAG now in place. Had me scratching my head as to why it wasnt pointing at the same position of the ASI1600, of course, the prism is outside the FOV of the 1600 sensor.

Nice videos! Out of curiosity, how much effort goes into making and editing?

2 hours ago, Merlin66 said:

You can re-use your previous PHD2 calibration without using pulse guiding - I do it most of the time.......using an ST-4 connection.

I thought the guide rates change as you alter Dec?

I installed VNC Server on my laptop and it allows up to 5 devices to access it through VNC Viewer. I use my phone. You dont need to be on the same Wifi network either. As long as the server has access to the internet you can control from wherever.

That's one of the best I've seen! Lots of detail in the darker dusty stuff!

3 minutes ago, Danjc said:

It was as I had to frame it with the core off centre to make the most of my FOV. After the flip I just placed the core in the same position in the FOV but this was now 180 degrees out so I had this affect after stacking and the images all aligned. 
 

If my FOV was larger I would just centre it on the cross hairs in APT and it wouldn’t have mattered... hope that made sense and I may have missed a trick ? 
 

 

All your problems with meridian flip can easily just go away!

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

I dont understand, why rotate the camera after a meridian flip? Stacking software auto aligns the frames anyway?

.

On 26/10/2019 at 17:52, dazza1639 said:

Is anyone using a ZWO EAF Autofocus With StellarMate and Ekos? I know it works with the ASI Air and it has an INDI driver, but I can’t seem to find any info or examples of this setup. I’m thinking of adding one of these to my setup but would like some feedback before I get one.

 

Thanks

 

Darren

Not got an EAF but I can confirm it's in the drop down menu in EKOS.

5 minutes ago, Adam J said:

If only it was not locked down to ZWO products.

My thinking exactly. Ascom and INDI support almost all platforms regardless of brand. ZWO have great products but limiting the Air (which uses open source hardware...) to only ZWO products kind of goes against the spirit of the community..

Looks nice! I might buy it and flash it with Ekos and Kstars lol

What exactly are you struggling with? Set the number of steps to 0 and manually set the drawtube all the way in. My focuser (deepskydad AF1) wont retract below 0 steps. What I mean is if the focuser drawtube is out a little and the steps are at 0 it wont focus in any further. So when setting up I removed the belt, manually closed focuser and viola. 0 steps at focuser closed.

Last night I was doing a test fit of my new Baader Canon t ring. This t ring allows the insertion of a 2 inch filter within the t ring. The TS Photoline 3" 0.79 reducer has a fairly large 6mm depth Male M48 thread on the camera side so I wanted to make sure the thread didn't touch the filter. Good news, it doesn't as the filter sits at least 1mm lower within the t ring. However, the tolerance on the Baader female M48 thread must be incredible as it's a very tight fit. It squeaked and squealed with disapproval on both fitting and removal. Well this resonance from the squeaking has loosened the glass elements in the reducer! See below. The retaining ring is still in the factory position as someone has marked the notches with black felt tip to indicate their position on the thread. However the glass elements now move freely by about 4mm. I'm baffled. I can understand the retaining ring maybe coming a bit loose but it's never unscrewed itself that much. Are the elements glued/set in place and the retaining ring is set lower? Or have they been set incorrectly at the factory and the ring was screwed to the bottom element when the top element had a bit of room left behind it inadvertently? I've always struggled a bit with spacing on this to the camera. Got mixed results. Could this be the reason? First 2 pics show the gap between bottom element and the ring. 3rd pic shows the reducer held upside down and the glass elements fall to the ring. 4th pick is the M48 camera side showing gap between top element and shoulder.

Part of the reason of my recent selling spree. Looking forward to trying the NB1 filter.

Excellent! This is my favourite target. How dark are your skies?

How did you combine the channels? Which filter to which channel? Its false colour anyhow so process it to how you like it.

If you do an initial stretch to your masters and save as a jpeg to a certain size you can upload them to this link below and it will give you a snap shot of all the different palette combinations!

https://www.bintel.com.au/narrowband-preview-tool/?v=4442e4af0916

Courtesy of Dylan O'Donnell, Starstuff on YouTube.

I have had a few problems like this. Sometimes pressing park would return the mount to a funny position, not the home position. As Alacant has said, return the mount to its home position and clear the model and try again. Usually works fine afterwards.

Have you seen Barry Wilson's articles? Barry is a member on here.

https://barrywilson.smugmug.com/PixInsight-Tutorials

Theres also Kayrons:

https://www.lightvortexastronomy.com/tutorials.html

17 hours ago, michael8554 said:

CFA are tiny filters, R, G and B, arranged in a regular pattern over the essentially monochrome sensor.

Removing the CFA gives you a mono DSLR, but that's only a very risky DIY process AFAIK.

You probably want the LPF#2 filter removed which will give you more Ha response, but will mess up the Autofocus unless you have the sensor adjusted to compensate, maybe Juan does that as a matter of course.

Michael

Juan re-shims the sensor on all cameras after modification. You can also add a Baader filter which let's you use the camera for normal daytime photography.

3 hours ago, Adam J said:

I would try 55mm as from the stars you have it needs more spacing. 

He's tried 55mm. Decreasing distance improves the corners.

I've got the GT71 and though it's a cracking little scope, the flattener doesn't quite give a fully corrected field over a ASI1600 sensor, close but not perfect. Where I have seen plenty of images of the Esprit range where stars are round right to the corners. If I was to go back and choose between both again, I'd go for the Esprit.

How long are your flats?

4 minutes ago, gorann said:

Interesting thread that shows I am not alone with my problem (and I kind of knew that). I was just too optimistic thinking I would not have to waste precious imaging time next time it clears on checking corner stars but I will obviously have to.....

I did email TS and ask for the correct distance for their reducer and my Esprit 150 (which they also sell) and their answer was that I need to try it out myself.

Tbh I've givin up with it now. I personally think there is too much stuff in between the flattener and camera. Adapters, spacers, filterwheel carousel with filters. If any of those aren't machines to tight tolerances then they are going to induce some sort of tilt. I have the same flattener for my 102. I've ordered a DSLR and it's getting stuck on there at 55/56mm and it is what it will be.

I'd be happy if my corners were all that good at your 54.3mm.

Here's my findings. Is your 54mm spacing really that bad though..

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/340444-flattener-spacing-does-it-work/?tab=comments#comment-3702062

Only 10 minutes on that HH!!! Brilliant!