George Gearless

I figured this was the most appropriate place to post, since I need to get some pretty basic stuff sorted out. If I've understood platesolving correctly, it is an automated function in my Stellarmate that automaticaly aligns your scope, based on what it 'sees' through the guidescope. If this is correct, does it mean that the whole 2-3 star alignment process is no longer necessary? Or have I misunderstood what platesolving is? If I am using a guidescope, do I still need to polar align? Can I use my guidescope to track a planet for planet photography? I've been 'dry-training' a bit during the light evenings of the summer. So I haven't been able to actualy test my equipment in practice. Now that winter is approcahing I've realized how far behind I am in the training I had planned to do this summer. So if you can help me with the above questions, you'll grant me a head start for the season.

Hey Nikolav. I know this doesn't answer your question completely, but I have a tip that you might want to try before purchasing some expensive equipment. I have a Maksutov 180mm. And yes, it is quite difficult to focus. I started by using a clothes peg on the focuser. You can see what I mean in this video (Jump to 01:00 to see). By using the same principle, I went a little further and made a little wooden stick that I can mount on the focuser instead. It is a little bit longer than a clothes peg and I can now focus my telescope perfectly. Also, I felt a bit silly with a bright pink clothes peg on my fine equipment. A painted black stick seemed to be more respectful to my telescope. But, as they say; if it looks stupid but it works, then it isn't stupid. Edit: If you are asking because you eventualy want to make the focusing automated or remote controled, you will definately need to purchase some 'professional' equipment. But I don't know much about that. Luckily there are many on the forum who do.

@tomato Yup. Pretty much what I saw with my inner eye. Good job. Did you notice any significant difference in quality of the pictures, or is the difference purely measurable in degrees?

Hey all. I just recently bought the ZWO 385MC uncooled camera. I have yet to take my first real picture with it. Right now I am still fiddling around with my new Stellarmate and getting everything ready for the winter. Anyway, I looked at the back of it and it seems a very smooth flat surface. So I wondered if anyone has tried to paste a CPU cooler, either air or liquid, on the back of it? Obviously it will not be as effective as a 'properly' cooled camera, since it will only be the housing that is cooled down. But it might be a cheap way to modify the camera for a better result. Anyone tried it?

That's poster material right there. Or on the bookcover of some high end publication with thick glitter paper pages. Don't know if the compostion was a happy accident or by design. But it works. Very nice!

Reminds me of this visual trick beautifuly demonstrated on my favorite TV gameshow QI: Einstein Mask.

Gotcha. Thanks. George

So, I recently bought some heating straps for, primarily, my new Mak 180 in order to combat dew. I bought two. One for the scope and one for the eyepiece. So here's the realy dumb question: Where do I position the scope straps? Right up front near the apperture? On the middle of the tube? Right down at the bottom at the base? Is it any different when I use my refractor? George 'Still-a-noob' Gearless

Ok, all sorted now. Man, that was rough. Jasem had to connect to my computer via Teamviewer to have a look-see how things were working (or not working) at my end. Long story short: For some reason, Ekoslive was offline when I tried to connect. And since my app could not connect to an offline server, it was unable to start the app overall. Jasem suspects that the Ekoslive database hasn't finished loading when my app tries to connect. So he worked his magic and made the server restart automaticaly after 5 secs. And voila! Now everything works. Every time. It sounds easy. But the poor guy was hard at work for at least an hour combined, trying to figure out what was wrong. Now all I need is some dark winter evenings and some clear skies :). George. PS: Oh, and I also need to learn all the nifty functions that are now at my disposal. Maybe it's not such a bad thing that winter is a long way away.

Hey Kristen. Enjoy your stay.

He sure is a champ. Ok, so status: When I got the Stellarmate I could not connect during the authentication process. I could find the network and log onto it not problem with my tablet, but then nothing happened. Enter Jasem, who during a long and painstaking process found out that I had an old firmware version. So I needed to upgrade it. Took me a while to figure out, but finaly I got the SD card flashed and it now had the proper version. I was able to log on briefly and thought everything was ok. Then the next day, same s**t. Luckily my stationary PC has Wifi, and with it I was able to log on to Kstar with VNC. I was also able to log on to webmanager on Stellarmate. But I simply couldn't with the tablet. So during the chat today, Jasem has patiently guided me through VNC to check for various things. Including a restart of Ekos and something called mongodb. This was through the command window on Stellarmate VNC. Now I could connect and everything looked fine. I even got my mount and cameras to work through the app. So I took a few pictures of the wall, while feeling like Bruce Willis in 'The Jackal' when I turned my telescope :): Turned off everything and had a cup of coffee which turned out to be 4 hours long. Got back and switched everything on again. App unable to connect. Did the reset commands through VNC and could once again connect. Something's definitely amiss. I've sent Jasem my update on mail and hope he can come up with a solution. I swear to God that man has the patience of a teacher teaching a retard how to do calculus. And he certainly knows his way around a Stellarmate. So I put my trust in him to come up with a permanent solution. In the meantime I'd better set up some sort of cable scheme. My mount looks like a hastily decorated christmas tree. And I haven't even put on the dewbands yet. I'm bound to get one of the cables snagged on something as it is. George

I'm currently in a Chat with Stellarmate guy. I think the problems are bigger than first anticipated. Will let you know.

Succes! To be perfectly honest I have no idea how I did it. Just fiddles about with the webmanager then VNC and all of a sudden I could hear the mount give the initial click-click sound in the gears when it comes online. Fiddles some more and managed to find the controls for slewing and took a few pictures of the wall. With both the main camera and the guide. So, cable 'problem' solved. Now if only I could get the damned app to connect (I've been using my Wifi capable stationary PC untill now), I'd be golden.

Careful StarDodger! I might take you up on it. My mount is a Skywatcher EQM-35 Pro. I asked the supplier (Astroshop) if SM would be compatible with it, which they confirmed. In the same mail I asked what cable I should get, and they sent me the appropriate cable (this is the one if you're curious). The serial plug fits into where I would normaly have my handcontroler. I think that's what confused me, compounded with the fact that I couldn't get a connection to the mount. So I think it was a case of 'wrong brain, right cable'. As you have no doubt deduced by now, I went for it and bought pretty much everything I talked about in another thread. Guidecamera ZWO ASI 120MM Mini USB 2.0 Mono and ZWO ASI 385MC USB 3.0 Colour Camera for the main. Oh and a mini guidescope. I tell you, it was tough going when I informed the missus. Had to take cover behind the couch and throw small pieces of chocolate at her, until she calmed down 😁. I think I'm ok now (allthough not tremendously popular). The next couple of weeks I'll be fidgetting around with my new toys and propably frustrate the hell out of myself and everyone around me. I may take you up on your offer, and add you the list of people I intend to frustrate over the summer. George

Oh I want to keep it as simple as absolutely possible. The reason I asked is that my setup program in Stellarmate (I forget the name of the program) can find my two cameras no problem, but fails to find the mount. And placing the serial cable comming from the Stellarmate into the serial port that is clearly marked 'handcontroler', seemed intuitively wrong to me. So, since there is a second serial port on the handcontroler, albeit smaller, I figured that kinda made sense. Ok, I'll rummage around the webmanager a bit more and see if I can't get it sorted. I'm kinda happy that winter is several months away. So, I've got some time on my hands to dry-train before I go 'live'. Thanks.

I've run into problems with connecting my mount to stellarmate. Am I correct in assuming that this is where I'm supposed to put the cable comming from the Stellarmate (the middle empty port)? : The plug I got from the supplier is too big. The empty middle port is smaller than the left one. Just want to make sure before I contact them about sending me the wrong cable. Btw, the above is a photo of a Synscan handcontroler. The fitted cable on the left port goes into the mount marked 'hand controller'. George

@stash_old Ok, so the USB3 to USB2 is not such a big problem as I feared. That's good news. Because that would heavily limit my choices.

@stash_old As far as camera choice goes, I have my eyes on ZWO ASI 120MM Mini USB 2.0 Mono Camera for the guidescope and ZWO ASI 385MC USB 3.0 Colour Camera for the main. Even if the USB3 to USB2 is compatible, it does worry me if the Stellarmate might be a 'bottleneck' in this setup. I do like the ZWO cameras, but they all seem to be USB3. So I might need to think outside the box on this one. I allready have a Canon EOS 7 Mark I which I am told is compatible for this setup. I will need a cable though. Crossing that bridge when I get there. That's good advice about the forum. Heading there now to setup an account. I'm sure I'm going to need it :). Edit: And whadda ya know: The USB3 to USB2 problem was discussed in one of the very first threads I looked at. It seems quite the controversy since some say that it causes problems and others say that they've experience no such problems. Certianly something that needs to be investigated further before a purchase.

Thanks Stardodger. That was very well explained. I was surprised to discover that I actually understood what you wrote. Not surprised with you, but with myself. People usually have to explain these things as if they were talking to a small child. And even then I find it challenging :). I will propably opt for the 'expensive' full package solution. I've often found my technical capabilities vastly overrated when it comes to such things. I'm perfectly willing to pay my way through my own technical shortcommings. I was very encouraged by your last line. I've come to firmly believe that the Stellarmate is a good choice for me, rather than fiddling about with a laptop outside in the frost. A laptop which I btw do not own. So overall, I may even be saving money (that's what I will be telling my better half as well as my conscience). Thanks again.

Thanks Julian, for putting my mind at ease. I was worried that the Stellarmate was just 'an introduction to poverty' which required me to make mulitple other purchases before it would function. If I've understood you correctly, Indi/Ekos, Raspberry Pi3b are things I not need concern myself with, if I buy a 'package' such as this one. If anyone else has personal experience, I'd still like to know if there are programs/software that would complement the Stellarmate.

I'm considering buying the Stellarmate and also a guidecamera. Finances willing, I'll also be getting an uncooled camera for AP. I'll propably keep my DSLR handy for deepsky though. So I've been looking at the Stellarmate tutorials and I think I got as far as number two out of twelve before I got confused :). 1. It is unclear to me what software is included (if any) with the purchase of the Stellarmate. Apart from the Stellarmate App, ofcourse. 2. What the heck is Raspberry? I know they taste great with milk, but is it also a program that I will need to purchase for my tablet? 3. What programs do you use to complement Stellarmate? I've heard Star Safari mentioned a couple of times as well as Stellarium. But I'd also be interested in knowing what kind of programs you are using for your camera operations. For instance, I think I read somewhere that DSS can be use for some sort of live view? 4. Do any of the programs you use require a license? What I mean is; do they cost anything? And if yes; are they worth it? Keep in mind, that I plan to primarily use a tablet. But I've read that you can connect the stellarmate to a local network. So potentially I could also be using my PC that is connected to said network. What do you do? Hoping for some good pointers. George

I was not aware of the Stellarmate option. Think I might have been too focused on the AsiAir that I forgot that there might be good alternatives. Luckily, time is on my side. I won't be making the purchase for another couple of months or so. So I will definitely check out the Stellarmate option as well as Astrobin. Thanks for the pointers.

Not a problem Extreme. If the moon and planets are your main targets, a Mak is definitely the way to go. A 10mm and a 20mm eyepiece will give you a good range. You may already have those for your reflector. Heres a small video I took with my Mak127 on my AZ-GTI mount last year. It's nothing fancy and was only recorded for my own amusement. No post-processing what so ever. It's just uploaded as it was on the SD card. But it'll give you an idea of what to expect. Mucking about with my Mak. If you want to get into deep sky targets such as nebulae photography, I'd say a refractor is your best bet. But being successful in this endeavor places great demands on your mount and a lot of other equipment. Without being too assertive, I sense that a Mak would be the right way to go for you at this stage Besides, no one is stopping you from getting a refractor as well later on, right? 😁 But can you take a picture of a nebulae with a Mak 127 and a beginners AZ- goto mount? Well, you CAN do it. But the result is not impressive. This picture was taken with my Mak127 and my AZ-Goto GTI mount and an old Nikon DSLR. It's grimy, poorly detailed, the colours are off....but I was (and still am) terribly pleased with it! Mainly because most people will tell you that you can't take pictures of nebulae with a Mak. Of all the pictures I've taken, this is the one I remember best. Your reflector will likely outperform the Mak for this type of target by a long shot. One other small point in favor or the Mak that I'd like to point out is that they are notoriously sturdy and virtually maintenance free. This is a scope that you can literally throw in your backpack with your mount and go on your bike to a dark area for hours of enjoyable viewing (I'm not just saying this. I've done it). And the scope won't be worse for wear on that account. My vote is for the Mak. George.

Stunning! Well done, Datalord. I really can't imagine what changes anyone would suggest.

What a great link. Thanks, Michael. As I'm writing this, I've only just perused the site. But it looks like there is a lot of information there which is directly relevant to my situation. And here I was, doing great in convincing myself that getting a proper AP camera was my only option. And then you come and spoil everything. Dammit! 😁