Viktiste

I can understand software developers need to make a profit , but from my consumer point of view it becomes economically unmanageable if all the software I use should be paid on a subscription basis. So I by principle don't buy any subscription based software. Period. I am happy to pay a one time price/fee for all the things I decide to buy in my life, but I refuse to pay a subscription fee to use my car, telescope, oven, paintbrushes or any software that I have bought. Sadly this is the way most software companies are headed. +1 for NINA

Extra points for the stickers

Rules me out as the owner I hope the owner is found. Having astro gear stolen is a real threat to this hobby, as I have painfully learnt myself.

Have a look at this Youtube video.

Clear night yesterday Had my first go at M33 . 16 x 200s L + 4 x 200s R,G,B + 9 x 200s Ha, so about 2 hrs worth of data. Darks and flats. Still learning Pixinsight, that's an uphill struggle.

So how did these photons come into existence? 10^10 electron jumps for each atom around? I guess my physics learning from the 90's need some refreshing/updating Looks like interesting reading. On my Christmas list now, thanks.

This is something I just can't get my head around. For example, after night has fallen I can see Vega. It is 25 ly away, that is 2.365 e+17 meters away. Now, if I move my eyes a centimetre (or whatever small distance ) I can still see Vega. I am guessing too that there are a lot of photons from it falling into my eyes sine I can see it. I also assume that would be the case anywhere my distance from Vega. A quick sphere calculation with Vega in the center and my distance from it as a radius gives a surface area of 7 e+35 square meters. Now that's a lot of photons in one instance. And then integrate over the the time Vega has been into existence. A quick Google of the number of atoms in the observable universe is in the ballpark of 10 + e 80. Vega is is one (bright) star, there are a few more around.... It bewilders me.

Oh Have not used Work spaces in Pixinsight before either. Thanks for the help, looks good now.

StarNet (within pixinsight) is set to point to mono_starnet_weights.pb and rgb_starnet_weights.pb and works fine. I have never used project in pixinsight before, but I assume I should get all the process icons and images loaded?

Im trying to load the Pixinsight project linked in the OP, but all I get is this: I do notice I get some of these errors while it is loading: My Pixinsight version is the latest 1.8.8-6 Ripley (x64) on Windows. Has anyone loaded this project successfully?

No. And that is quite possibly one of the more frustrating aspects of life - so many places we will never visit.

Totally agree with this.

Also if f you choose the 3rd cable (with the handset) there is some setting in the handset (PC direct I think, but not sure) that you need to enter to be able to control the mount from a PC.

Loosing the handset was one of my best moments in this hobby! I don't miss it But I still use it for visual observing.

First cable: Plugs from the guide camera to your HEQ5 mount 'AutoGuider' socket. I don't think you need this. Second cable: If you want to loose the handset and control the mount from a PC only. Plugs into HEQ5 'Hand controller' socket (and a PC) Third cable: If you want to use both the handset and a PC. Plugs into the bottom of your handset (and a PC). And if the PC is old and still have a RS232 connection, loose the USB crossover. Newer PC's dont have RS232 anymore and the USB crossover is needed. Also you might find this guide helpful: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/354148-howto-set-up-win10-from-scratch-to-control-mount-with-stellarium/ I suggest you get to the point where you can slew your mount with Stellarium. Then look at what software you want to use for imaging, I also recommend NINA. But there are plenty of other choices. Then look at guiding with PHD2. Took me a LOT more than one night to figure all this out.