Olli

Still no joy and to top it all off the power bank adapter snapped in the mount so safe to say this was not meant to be. Will be looking to get a manual mount. Thanks everyone for the help, shame it didn’t turn out.

Further update to this.. still unable to align after trying the above. I am not really sure what I’m doing wrong and it is starting to put me off using the set up all together. Will research some more but not getting any luck. Thought using technology would make things easier ..

Edit: I have just seen that the location sensor has been turned off in the app. Would this be the issue? Though the co ordinates were close.

34 minutes ago, Ratlet said:

If you haven't already, reset the alignment before you try again.  You can find the option on the bottom right when you select the alignment option.

 

Thanks , I try to reset it but it always appears to be greyed out, so have to reset the mount itself and the it seems to work. 

Thanks everyone for all the advice so far , I will try all of the above when I have a chance. I’ve also just purchased a small red dot finder to put on the scope so hopefully this will help as well. Fingers crossed..

9 hours ago, Elp said:

A. Did you buy the azgti new?

B. What side are you mounting the telescope, LHS or RHS?

It was ordered from flo a couple of years ago. This isn’t my photo but it’s set up similar to this 

First time using my scope after a long time out , unfortunately clouds came in a bit quick but managed to see some meteors which was a bonus! Apologies for the poor quality.

Hi everyone, 

I have just started getting back into stargazing using az-gti mount with  a Talenet cell battery . I have practised indoors aligning the scope making sure that the controls are pointing west and the scope parallel to the ground pointing north and “tested” it aligning the sun and seemed  to be in the right direction. On my first a couple of tests I was having issues where the scope was pointing upsidown etc and changing the scope and mounts position fixed this.
 

However after my first time trying it properly I followed the same steps yet it was way far out of the actual object. I tried using Polaris as well as Altair. I haven’t had a successful run with this yet and slowing losing my mind as I really want to test out the scope.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

Have always been curious about this robot. The pictures seem quite good.

Thanks Guys, think I’ve managed to fix it but now the mount itself won’t turn on.. not having the best luck so far with all of this. Appreciate the help.

Hi everyone, I’m not too sure what happened but after finally setting up the heq5 the bolt that tightens the mount is stuck and can’t tighten any further. As you can see the by the photo.  Not sure what the best solution is. Any help  advice would be appreciated.

8 minutes ago, newbie alert said:

Astrophotography is a steep learning curve, to someone that's not even used their kit bombarding them info in one go might not be the best idea, certainly wasn't even the question he even asked... Bite sized pieces or drip feeding as you put it will be far easier to absorb, certainly in the early stages.. he was asking for a guide camera and scope and his budget was £200... If he went down the PI route, there's half his budget gone.. not the question he ssked

You guys need to stop. It’s sorted and it’s fine they were just giving me advice and it was helpful. Don’t take it so personally.

Thanks all for the help. A lot of info to take in. I guess the best solution would be to try with out guiding first and give it a go. At least I now have some idea on what to get for when I want to go the next step. Cheers everyone. 

1 hour ago, gilesco said:

If you want to guide, then you will need a mini-PC. The ZWO120MM-mini is really just a cheap camera, it doesn't actually have any built-in star tracking functionality.

Also, if you choose to go down the Raspberry Pi route as a mini-PC, be sure to check about the compatibility of the ZWO120MM-mini as this particular camera has lots of problems with Linux which the Raspberry Pi runs on.

As for power, this camera can be powered over USB (from the mini-PC).

Thanks for the info, I did think that about the camera. I have been looking at mini pcs I’ve also been looking at the zwo asiair plus or there is a cheap pc Flo sells which looks like a good option. The power  I currently is the skywatcher 17amp power bank. Would this be enough for everything?

1 hour ago, LaurenceT said:

Don't worry about asking questions, there is always a wealth of knowledge and support on this forum.

As far as power goes, what exactly will you want to do with the scope/camera combination?

It was to go on top of my z37. I didn’t want anything to big/heavy so this seems like a good choice. I will be buying a mini pc at some point to use with the guiding too.

Thanks both for the suggestions, that is what I was kinda looking for and seems like a great bundle. This is probably a stupid question but how do you power the camera? I have a powertank can I just plug it into that or will I need to by a mini pc? This is completely new for me so sorry about the questions!

Hi guys, 

I am currently in the market for a guide camera and scope. My budget is fairly limited so can’t go above £200 really if that’s possible. A lot of people have suggested to get one as soon as i can . I haven’t used my rig yet so I’d thought I would get this purchase out the way any advise or recommendations would be appreciated.

Thanks.

28 minutes ago, Stu said:

It’s not ideal to be honest, you would probably want to push it back a week or even two if you can as 10th is full Moon. On the plus side, if you can’t change it, the Moon will rise later and be waning as the time goes on and so towards the latter part of your stay you will get much of the evening without it interfering. So, for example, by Saturday 17th the Moon won’t rise til after midnight (so strictly 18th) and will be down to 58% illuminated. It also rise on the opposite horizon to the centre of the MilkyWay where lots of great targets are.

So, ideally push it back a week or two, but don’t despair if you can’t, just expect to wait until the back end of the break for best views.

Thanks stu, this was kind of on my bucket list to go to do so I wouldn’t want the moon to ruin it. I’ll see if I can push the dates back tomorrow. With observing with a full moon is it pretty much like doing it at a Bortle 7 sky? I was hoping to do some photography too so I guess that would be out the window if I went during those times apart from the back end.

25 minutes ago, Captain Scarlet said:

Actually starting off at Full Moon is not at all bad. Full Moon means it's diametrically opposite the Sun. Which means at Full Moon, the Moon rises when the Sun sets. Which further means that from that point, the Moon rises about an hour later each night thereafter. Just 2-3 nights after Full Moon, you'll get 2-3 hours of pre Moonrise darkness, and each day gives you an extra hour. In my book, Full Moon means dark nights start really soon.

I've appended a chart of key times based on Tenerife location and those dates...

Cheers, Magnus

 

That chart is incredibly helpful. A bit reassuring that it slowly goes down near the end. And it’s good to know about the pre moon darkness.

10 minutes ago, Stu said:

A lot depends on the exact dates, but I would think you stand a reasonable chance of getting some time with the Moon out of the way for a few hours at least. Full Moon does rather trash things, but let us know when I I can have a look.

Hi stu, 

the exact dates are the 9th of September to the 19th. After doing a bit more research I think it maybe best to see if I can change the dates. When is usually the best time for the moon cycle?

2 minutes ago, Stu said:

How long are you going for Olli, and whereabouts?

Hi Stu ( sorry for putting it in the wrong topic) I will be going to Tenerife for about 10 nights.

Hi all, 

I will be hopefully be travelling to a dark skies  site in the near future with a possibility of renting a 300p lightbridge. However when I go it will be when the moon is at its brightest mid September. Bad planning on my end. I just wanted to know what will I still be able to see and if it would be worth investing in any filters at all to make the experience a bit better?

thanks for the help.

The only place I know is canary island which is supposed to be quite popular and has tours etc though I’m not sure if it has their own scopes. I will keep an eye on this as I also want to do something similar. I know @ollypenrice has a place in France that is sometimes available .though Africa sounds nice!

14 minutes ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

Its not easy and its good to get to grips with one or two software packages rather than trying loads of them as you then never really get into any of them.

I guess it all depends on how much you invest (or intend to invest) in your imaging gear to how much you spend on the software.
Also to whether this is just dipping your toe into AP or its definitely for you and you intend to see it through as some software can be quite costly but I suspect some of the paid software might be much more versatile or easier to use than some free stuff (cannot comment fully as only tried one or two.

If you end up spending £1000's on gear then my reasoning was a couple of hundred on good processing software was well worth it.

When I was dipping my toe in the water I used Nebulosity. I had to pay a small fee but I think it may be free now. Its very easy to use some very good tutorials on the internet and is very good for pre-processing and stacking but a bit sparse on the post processing, however a very good starter and can create pretty good images very quickly.

I use Pixinsight and love it but it is not cheap and admittedly takes a bit of practice to get into it so maybe just one to consider when you are sure AP is definitely for you.

Another really popular one is Adobe Photoshop, not specifically astro but has all the tools in there. Again if you use this long term it can get quite costly as its a subscription but again if you are just testing the waters paying for a few months may not be too bad.

A lot of good imagers do use a combination of PI and PS.

A good alternative  to PSS is Affinity Phot which is quite cheap and along the same lines as PS, they often have sales I think, I bought mine at half price some time ago.

I cant really say much about others as never used them, good luck on the journey 🙂 

Steve

Thanks Steve, 

that’s quite a big selection I will have to have a look through all of them. I kind of spent a lot of money on my AP rig recently as its been something i wanted to do since I joined this forum in 2018 ( all have been bad influences haha😅) I guess as I’ve spent that much money it would always be worth matching it in software but I understand that even cheap  or inexpensive software is still as good. I have heard of Pixinsight haven’t looked at it properly will definitely check out the others.

42 minutes ago, Ratlet said:

Nebula photos (I don't work for him, honest) is good cause he does various combos of software.

I like siril cause it's free and can do a photometric colour correction which gets your star colours sorted and makes the colours look real good.  Not as popular as some software, but very powerful and free

Haha, I believe you.. I did have a quick look and he seems to have a lot of useful videos.

7 minutes ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

That's a great idea to get a jump start.
Processing images can be as difficult, or harder, than the acquisition so wasting no time getting some practice in can only help.
Also, doing it this way from a reliable source means you know the data is good and you are not wasting your time processing poor data.

In fact there is some great data from the IKI observatory that was used for several competitions last year on SGL and may be exactly what you need HERE

What processing software are you using ?

Steve

 

Hi Steve, 

that’s exactly why I wanted to practice first, and probably better to do it with good data. I am currently not suing any software at the moment ( not really sure where to start!) thank you for the link will have a look.

4 minutes ago, Ratlet said:

Nebula photos on YouTube has some data you can work on and videos to work along with.

The only issue is it's really good data lol.

It's fun to work on it though since you can try different software on the same data and see how you get on.

Thank you, will have a look. I did think of that after I posted this might disappoint myself when  going to use my own haha. I just wanted to dabble my feet a bit with the software as I know there’s quite a lot to choose from.