teoria_del_big_bang

44 minutes ago, geeklee said:

That looks fantastic Steve!  Was that with the Esprit and QHY268?

(On my monitor, the very dark areas have a little green in them.)

Yes and Yes, thanks for the comments.

Sounds like it is a bit green then and I was thinking the monitor that was green was wrong, maybe its my laptop screen that is not showing green - thanks for info I will look into this 🙂 

Steve

After removing several bad frames:   10x Ha 600S,   12x OIII 600S,   14x SII 600s

Not actually spent very long processing,  all in PI

Ran Script WeightedBatchProcessing with above Light frames, Bias, Dark and Flat frames, then a slight stretch before combining the three processed images in SHO, then a couple of further stretches using Histogram and curves transformation.  Invert, then SCNR (green) and invert back to remove slight magenta halos and a further small tweak in curves transformation and that's it.

For such a quick process I am fairly happy with this image. All in all I think this target is not too difficult to process so maybe not the best test of my processing skills which I know are lacking and I need a lot more practice. So advice and criticism is welcomed as this can only help me improve the final images.

One other aspect I am struggling with is that the image looks so different on different monitors but try as I might I cannot set them up to display the colours the same (and I have spent ages trying) so what looks good and not over processed on one monitor looks dark and too green on another monitor, so all in all I have no idea how you are actually viewing this image.

Steve

22 minutes ago, irtuk said:

+1 for those active USB repeater cables, exact same product I have, although I do use the power supply that came with it.

I must admit a lot of people say they use these very successfully, but I tried two and never got one of them to work. 
I put it down to getting the cheap versions from Amazon, maybe Ebay can't remember now, although not that cheap at around £16 to £20 I think.

Some of these cables are super expensive, especially the ones on Astro sites, at £50+, so I was never sure why I could not get the repeater cables to work, tried with good powered hubs and without, so I assumed I was just using poor quality ones and due to the price of the recommended ones I gave up with them.

Is it only the relatively expensive ones that work reliably ? or was I just unlucky ?

If so then I would say id depends what you want to do, just leave your laptop inside and so require a lengthy USB cable or use a laptop of some description near the mount as you can get reasonable sized SSD hard drives now pretty cheap.

Steve

I am a little confused to what sort of USB cable you are after (sorry I am not over tech savy).

Are you wanting a usb cable you can plug into both computers and transfer files from one to the other ?

I would of thought the better solution would be to get a portable solid state hard drive and then using your old laptop outside make the hard drive your directory for storing the images.
Then after the session you can just take the hard drive and plug it into your main laptop, or any other computer and either copy or transfer the images to your main laptop.

Steve

On 13/04/2021 at 15:44, Nigella Bryant said:

Show's everyone once bitten by the solar bug that's it, lol. Watch the bank account dwindle, lol. 

Why did nobody give me that advice when I started , too late now 🙂 

Steve

I don't see much wrong with that image at all, in fact a great image, maybe could do with a more aggressive crop but still great.
Due to its position and the lack of high up nebulas I think this is a very popular target at moment.

With a mono and filters I have struggles to get the colours anywhere near that, I have a fair bit of detail but very little in the way of colour.

Steve

21 minutes ago, malc-c said:

Iut something was niggling at me.....

 In the image of the star clusters that was posted on Tuesday it would appear that the two images used in the stack shown have shifted. It looks like a fair amount of the underlaying image is missing from the left and bottom of image above, and with a slight rotation (field rotation??).  But the stars appear quite round.  This to me suggest that PHD2 was guiding whilst the subs were being taken, but the mount is not tracking, or its tracking as if it's an ALT / AZ mount and not an EQ Mount.  When an EQ mount is set up right and tracking the framing of the image should not change, at least not as much.  You should find that taking 10x, 20x, 30x, or more images that when stacked they  all line up at the edges and have the targets in the same place.

Personally I don't think we're looking at a PHD2 issue here,  there is more going on with how the mount us being used / set up or controlled.

I have kept out of this thread basically because all the sensible suggestions had already been made so did not want to butt in for no reason but I would totally agree with this observation and the large offset and rotation angle is not normal at all for an EQ mount.

Steve

So are you running EKOS ?

Steve

Very nice  🙂 

Steve

Great Image, Colour looks good to me.

I got some LRGB data lat night on this as there was no moon about seemed a good time to do it but I need a lot more data 🙂 

Steve

Just now, Stuart1971 said:

I think I see what you have done...you have both DST set...and UTC + 1 hour, and you don’t need both, you just need the DST set, and not UTC + 1 hour, 👍🏼👍🏼

Yes it just dawned on me now as I was reading your post above. Ha Ha how daft am I.
I am not sure how this happened but yes another "operator Error" scenario.

But it does show what a Godsend Platesolving is as it always corrected the 1 hour error.

Thanks for the help 🙂 

Steve

Have you updated APT recently and maybe lost some settings ?

There is a bit of a discussion on the APT forum about issues with Blind Solving I don't know if it will help at all ?

APT Blind Solving Issues

Steve

1 minute ago, Stu Wilson said:

Hi Steve. I've always blind solved. It works or did work every time.

You mean it did, sorry I guess I did not digest your OP thoroughly and realise this was the first time it didn't work.

I just wondered it you had tried the near solve and that worked, might be a clue.

Steve

What are your Point Craft Settings ?

I do not use APT anymore (only because I wanted to use a RPi mounted on scope because APT is a great bit of software and worked well for me) but my settings were as below:

Also make sure your focal length, ccd pixel size and ccd width and height are set correctly in APT.

Also why are you Blind solving anyway ?
Can you near solve okay if you transfer your mount positions over into the Point Craft then Near solve ?

Steve

I have just powered up the mount to double check settings in daylight and they all look good,

Daylight Saving Time is set to Yes

Time and date are correct

Site coordinates are correct

Steve

In a way this is not really an issue but just really curious why it is happening.

I can set the zero position so the counterweight rod is pointing straight down, as normal (as far as I am aware) and in fact the CEM60 has a search for zero position and that finishes with it in the straight down position.

But every night when I image my first goto is always a long way off when I plate solve. 
As I say not an issue because I plate solve I am on position in not time.

But at the end of the session when I come to power down and send my scope to zero via the handset it ends up with the counterweight bar arouund 10 to 20 degrees away from the straight down position.

Now I first noticed this about 3 months ago and I enabled Daylight Saving Time on the handset and I thought it stopped this happening.
So I guess I could de-select this again and see if any different.
But just thought I would ask if any others have this issue, if so do they just ignore it - am I just worrying about nothing ? Or is it something to do with daylight saving and GMT, because it probably is about an hour out of position ?
Does the mount know when it is GMT or BST ? As of course the clocks changed recently so if the mount does not know and this has to be done manually everytime that would account for it.

Steve

59 minutes ago, Jonny_H said:

Thanks Steve,

This is useful to know. How do you rate the CEM60? I have been browsing the 45 and 70.

Re: other equipment - I have a evoguide 50ed with ADM rings. A 120MM mini guide camera and 533MCPro imaging camera. All powered by an ASIAir Pro. Going by the weights specified on various shops it seems the total weight will be circa 9.5 - 10.5kg (depending on which site/sites you look at). So very close to the max recommended payload for imaging.

Again I may be absolutely fine and if push comes to shove I can swap bits over to to make the setup lighter and/or remove things.

I really like the CEM60, but there again I was happy with the HEQ5, it was only that I really was on the limit and I had to strip what essentially were items I did not need off the mount to get it to balance properly.

So even before I took a couple of bits off it was literally just over what the counter weight would balance and I did run it a couple of times with an extension piece on the counter weight rod to get balance and it actually worked well (cant remember actual RMS figures but I was getting subs over 10 mins without issue.

I think because I had this issue and the weight was on the very limit AND I had a bit of a bonus from work for working over Christmas I felt I deserved a treat so used the cash to upgrade the mount, If I did not have that at the time I may well of stayed with the HEQ5.  

Steve

Apart from the 100ED what else is going on the mount ?

I upgraded to the same scope and with what I had in addition (guidescope, SX filter wheel, ASI 1600M  camera, USB hub)
I originally could not get balanced on my belt modded HEQ5 without either an extra counterweight or using an extension to the counterweight bar, neither of which are ideal.

In the end I removed a dual saddle and the SW adjustable gudescope saddle which both weighed a fair bit and then just achieved balance.
So I actually had a bit of cash then and did upgrade to a IOptron CEM60.

I think there are many with this scope and still using a HEQ5 but it is about on its limits and I think money spent on new bearings and grease will not make it any different.
Before this I did buy good quality bearings and grease and fitted them but the old ones were perfectly okay and it made virtually no difference to tracking.

Steve

1 minute ago, DanLXIX said:

That could be good Ian, thanks. Any idea how out of date the books are, and do they keep the PDF version up to date?

Yes this is a great book (or rather 2 books as there is the book about mastering PI taking you through the various processes and some of the scripts and a second book that explains what all the parameters in the processes are.

Now whether the author will keep updating the PDF's in future I am not sure, so far I have received a few updates from him via email but probably more to correct grammar and typos as I doubt that much was added to PI in the timescale.
The author is very reproachable and very quick to answer emails so  if you did think of buying the PDF's then you could email him first and I would think he would answer your question.

I have both the hard copy and PDF's but in all honesty the books hardly get used and usually just have the PDFs open on computer when using PI.

If the author does intend to keep them updated then that is a real bonus but I never really expected it as it would be hard when not in control of the software to keep a manual on it totally up to date, but he may also intend on revisions at various intervals that may get updated and also available on PDF, so actually as it is an interesting question I will email him myself.

I think all in all it will be difficult as even in the 3 years or so I have been using it I have made some Word documents using screen prints of what I did during processing and when I use them now on many I notice some parameters that were there have gone, others have appeared and things like algorithms that can be selected to do various process can get added to.
Now I can only assume these enhance the capabilities of PI but do make it a nightmare to keep any manual up to date unless it is the software writers themselves doing this and it is one aspect of PI that is sadly lacking in my opinion.

Steve

I really don't think you need anything special to use PI.
Minimum specification is I5 or equivalent and 8Gb with I7 and 16 Gb recommended but for sure an I5 is fine.

Regarding anyone recommending one software package over the other is very difficult to do unless they are good at using all of them which will rarely happen.
Many (including myself) use both Pixinsight and Photoshop (in one version or another) .

Many also say that PI has a steep learning curve or that it is difficult to grasp, personally I do not agree but it is different in the concept and the way you use it, which may put some people off using it.

Now whether it is that people having used other software extensively and then moving on to PI and because they are so used to one way of working that it then becomes difficult to see how PI works and basically I used PI from the start of my imaging (as I am only a relative newbie to it) so had no previous concept of how other programs worked that is why I did not have a problem with it whilst others do, or my brain is just wired differently - I have no idea.
I am the other way round in that I still cannot get a grasp of Photoshop, whilst most are very fluent in Photoshop and struggle, or do not like PI.
Don't get me wrong even after 3 years of owning PI I have not used every tool in there and often have to refer to some notes I have made or a book when using some tools, so I am no Guru with it but can do most things I need to do. I think with any of the 

Also there is Astro Pixel Processor which does get some great reviews and comments so must also do a good job but I have never used.

When I started I originally did use Nebulosity by Stark Labs and that was cheap and very easy to use.
Yes it lacks a lot of the finer tools but generally you can pre-process and align and do some basic stretching very quickly and get some great images if the data is anywhere near reasonable.
So maybe worth thinking about trying it at least to start with as you can process very quickly with it and at least see what is in your data before spending hours learning something more complicated.

Steve

Click on Control Panel tab

Then click on the frames below the Lights header, when you do this the CFA Settings appear on the right.

 

Then select CFA images, I think you can leave Bayer/mosaic pattern at Auto and Debayering method at VNG if you are not sure what the DeBayer pattern of your camera is.

Steve

I am not positive as I use a mono camera but I think for OSC and DLSR images you have to select "CFA images" and also you need to click on the lights tab and define the DeBayer parameters.

PixInsight is a great processing tool, it is not cheap but in my opinion well worth the money.
Some say it is hard to learn with a steep leaning curve, personally I am not too sure and whilst I am no expert with it by a long way and there are so many processes I have not even tried yet I found it relatively easy to pick up to create reasonable images (probably could do better). It is just a different way of working to most other Windows based processing programs that may take a little time to get your head round.

Steve

14 minutes ago, michael8554 said:

I'm not a EQMOD or ST4 user, so I'm not sure why you have a ST4 connection on the guidecam when ASCOM guiding - is that necessary ?

Again this is all a bit flakey in my memory but when using ST4 with PHD2 don't you select "On Camera" in the profile ?
But as "Mount = EQMOD HEQ5/6 (ASCOM), connected, guiding enabled" is in the guide log then it looks like EQMOD will be moving the mount to compensate for guiding, BUT the camera will also put out guiding pulses whether used or not and the mount will receive them so would this cause an issue trying to use both EQMOD and ST4 ??
 

So as you say in previous post I would definitely remove the ST4 cable and let EQMOD compensate the mount.
This may not cure your issue but its wrong so needs correcting (I would think).

Steve

5 minutes ago, malc-c said:

Heck, I've just looked that up.... the scope is tiny..... and only weights 1.5kg.   I think the issue you have is that you can't balance that small mass on the EQ35-M.  The counterweight may be right to the top of the weight bar and it still have issue as each one weighs 3.4kg.

A beautiful scope for widefield  but yes I see what you mean about getting balance. 

One thing I see in the log is that 

13 minutes ago, malc-c said:

Steve - I had a bash

 

A dam good bash I would say. 🙂 

I was still looking and couldn't see anything jumping out at me.