teoria_del_big_bang

Ran perfectly for the 4 hours of clear sky last night. Also did the flip flawlessly, which it had failed on the previous two nights, found that DST was not set to yes on the mount so set it to Y and flipped perfectly, checking alignment before flip and setting alignment after flip then re-calibrating PHD2 and carry on with sequence.

Steve

2 minutes ago, tomato said:

I think the inverse law generally applies, the more cloudy nights, the more people look at new/better kit and then make purchases. I know I have spent more on Astro kit in the last 12 months than the previous 2 years put together.

Of course, if the hopeless weather persists with no respite, then the law will break down at some point, and then the S/H market will be flooded with stuff.

But for me it only takes a few clear nights such as we are experiencing now (albeit with a full moon) to keep me going through the next few cloudy periods.

I agree with all that statement, I maybe do not understand why but I agree 🙂 

Steve

Another nice image, but I really like the heart image. I always struggles with getting anything worthwhile on SII or OII with that target but yours has grat colours.

Steve 

1 minute ago, Endolf said:

Kstars crashing, what version are you on?, I'm on the nightly's as Jasem has done some work to stop the crashing with the APS-C sized sensors and above on the Pis. I still get it, but only on the rig with my iOptron mount, the other rig is now stable running on stellarmate nightly builds.

Not checked but updated and upgraded regularly.
I am on Stellarmate and IOptron mount. Last night only crashed once in the couple of hours I got before clouds covered everything, even the moon.
it seemed to crash when saving the image so I put a 4 sec delay (which may or may not have down anything) but did not crash after that.

Steve 

Due to persistent clouds I have not had much actual exposure time with this new camera, di get a few Ha under the near full moon last couple of nights but viewing not great as over most of my 10 min exposures I think some cloud passed by.

But I did take some darks when it arrived and comparing to my ASI1600 it;s like chalk and cheese not that amp glow has gone.
Left is an auto stretched master dark (360S) from my 1600 and using exactly the same stretch on the QHY 268M on the right of a 360S master dark.

So, forgive my ignorance, but are darks now basically only taking out hot pixels ?
I am assuming the white dots seen in the dark are hot pixels as they are present in all dark frames.

So if dithering are the dark frames doing much for us in the processing ?

Steve

27 minutes ago, Deeko said:

First light with Heart Nebula, 4 hours of SHO

I think that is incredible for 4 hours total data 🙂 

Steve

Can't even see the damned moon now for clouds.
What with having a failed flip and guiding issues only got 3 X 600s worth anything.

Steve

Well looks good in Ha 🙂 

I then need a clear moonless day to get the RGB data, but God knows when I will get that.

Steve

Horsehead, Looking okay for me - 600sec Ha (but I forgot to start the guider for this one so starts a bit elongated). And why is it up North always has to have a clear night and full moon ?
 

Steve

1 minute ago, geordie85 said:

I hope so. I can't afford to throw more money at this hobby for it to not work 

Yes it can become a bit of a money pit can't it, but I would be pretty sure that is the issue, they do not like low voltage.

Steve

Yes sounds feasible, mounts tend to complain even around 11.5V so hopefully that was the issue 🙂 

Steve

It sounds like the stepper motor is stalling. 
Once stalled it will not move at all until stopped and started again as it needs to smoothly ramp up the frequency of the pulses to it when going at full speed. and it is very noisy when it stalls.

When you say you can move it with the handset or EQMOD are you sure it is at maximum speed ?
If not try again with the buttons at maximum speed.

If it stalls then I would say something is stalling the motor, either mechanical or low 12V.

Whatever program you are using to give the goto command can you slow the slew speed down and try it ?

Just a thought, if slowing it down works then it is a workaround but indication is that something in the mount needs attention - assuming the power supply is a good steady 12 to 13 V, the clutches are set correctly and the rig is balanced.

That.s all I can think of for now but difficult to say when I cannot actually see the issue - if no joy maybe post a video ???

Steve
 

That's a great image with moon so bright 🙂 

Steve

Oh, I see, so target not even in the frame, sorry was a bit bleary-eyed when I read your post and missed the point.

As if the mount has lost its orientation.
I think from time to time I had this with my HEQ5 and if it did then did some plate solving close to the polaris and gradually work further away plate-solving various bright stars so I could see they were in the frame. After that so long as I did not undo the clutches it seemed to work fine.

Why it should happen with change of set-up I am not sure but probably just a coincidence.
Sorry I can't help but hope next clear night it all works out for you - nights like that can be very frustrating to say the least but we all have them.

Steve

Polar alignment shouldn't affect it I wouldn't think.
FL should also be correct.

Its been a while since I used APT so cannot help too much but are you sure all the data in "Object Calculator" are correct and you clicked on "Recalc" afterwards ?
I am not sure the recalc is required or not but all the other data should be correct.

Apart from that I just can't remember. You should have some logs somewhere that record what happened when it failed, but not sure where they are stored.

Steve

5 minutes ago, Deeko said:

Only just getting first light with the 268m tonight! I am having some issues with getting all white images intermittently  using APT with latest beta drivers. It can happen at any exposure length. Not sure if it's a driver or APT issue. I may consider switching to NINA if it carries on as the dev of NINA seems very reactive with QHY drivers.

That's an odd one. Have you opened the images in another program you can stretch them such as PI to check.
I am using KStars on Linux and have had a few issues (my first try out tonight too) with KStars crashing and sometimes I have had very funny images (one was all white) in the Fits viewer KStars displays after each image has saved but when I opened them they were fine.

My viewing is pretty poor with cloud all around so probably will not get any useful data but it has been worth trying the camera out anyway.

Steve

Well I did get the rig out whilst skies were relatively clear but by the time I had polar aligned and done a plate solve it started to get hazy and very quickly very cloudy.

Also all did not go perfectly and KStars just shut down several times, usually when saving the image (or so it appeared). So work still to do if I am to get a reliable setup.

One thing I was worried about was that I did not have the correct back focus as I thought I needed around 1.2 mm more spacers. I found a 1 mm spacer and hoped that would be near enough.
The couple of images I did get without program crashes or full cloud cover, although viewing was not great, 300 sec Ha, seem to show the BF is fine.

Highly magnified stars in corners

Steve

2 minutes ago, Physopto said:

Steve, at present we do not know if we will be able to go back to the normal number of people attending the Star Camps. If we can there will be a good few more pitches available. Please see the 2021 Autumn Galloway Star Camp posts for future information.

Oh fingers crossed on both hands then , thanks for the info will keep an eye out 🙂 

Steve

Just now, Endolf said:

What cloud.... 😁

The ones that will appear 10 minutes after I cart all my gear out onto patio, but have to try.
There is a chance of some gaps between the clouds tonight so have to have a go at least give it all a try out 🙂 

Steve

Just a quickie to say my setup all working now (well it seems as if it is - next clear night will tell) thanks to help from @Endolf .
All my fault really but lack of easy to find info and a good manual from QHY doesn't help those not so tech savy 🙂 

I started another thread if anyone need to know the whys and wherefores 🙂 

QHY 268M camera & QHY CFW3 filter wheel with KStars / EKOS / INDI

Steve

3 hours ago, Endolf said:

The filterwheel on the 4 pin plug doesn't show up as it's own device, it shows up as a component of the camera, so you don't need to add it. If it's connected to the camera, and the switch in the FW is set to 4 pin mode, then it just appears in indi as a new tab and you can set up the filters in each slot from there.

This was my only issue, looks like I am good to go now 🙂

Now that you have got me going with the equipment any chance you can clear these clouds ? 

Steve

3 hours ago, estwing said:

Looking better for October people 🙂

Fingers crossed for you all, I wish I had managed to get booked in before it was full but hopefully next time will be okay 🙂 

Steve

Works a treat - cheers for that.

I can't believe I did not see the extra FW tab in the camera settings, feel such a fool now.

I bet it did work as soon as I downloaded the 32 bit ARM drivers instead of the 64 bit but never saw the extra tab and added the filter wheel in the profile.

Steve

@Endolf well thanks for that sounds very encouraging.

I am off to the garage to try your suggestion, I will report back.

One thing I am finding with QHY is that their website is awful to negotiate and find things out. There is a lot of info in there somewhere but not always a logical way to get to it.

Steve