Viktiste

Definitely agree with the suggestions to look for a used one. £450 sound way more money than necessary on a mount PC. For NINA, as long as the PC runs Win10 64 bit and has 4+ GB ram you are good. Avoid the Celeron processor, go for an I3, I5 or better, all will work.

You need either 1. EQDIR cable Like this one, or 2. FTDI USB to Serial Cable for Sky-Watcher Handsets like this one Option one plugs from your PC directly into the mount where the handset normally goes, i.e. you cannot use the handset, only the PC to control the mount. Option two plugs into the bottom of the handset and into the pc, i.e. you can use both the handset and the pc to control the mount.

Not important at all, I would say. Controlling the camera/mount etc. is not processor intensive. But USB3 is nice to have, and the more USB ports the better. I bought an old used one, works like a charm.

But as I found out last week: NINA will only perform a meridian flip for targets crossing the meridian south of the Polaris. In other word if you are tracking a target crossing the meridian on the north side of Polaris, no meridian flip will be performed! I had this issue while imaging the Bode Galaxy. I asked on the Discord forum and they confirmed this is the case. So be aware!

No, had not found this. I will look through them, thanks.

I have read the posts above from @symmetal numerous times, as well as the posts linked to on the CN forum, trying to wrap my head around this. I realized I have a knowledge gap, so did some reading. I found this 4 part blog very informative to help me understand the basics: https://cloudbreakoptics.com/blogs/news/astrophotography-pixel-by-pixel-part-4-the-adu-and-you So, for my ASI1600mm camera (which is 12 bit, hence the x 4 factor), does it all boil down to that the minimum exposure is this? So for example : Unity gain, 139 -> Gain in e = 1 -> Rnoise about 1.7 (from the red ZWO spec graph below) Offset = 50 So I must expose at least until my background ADU = 316? This will give very impractical short exposures in a light polluted area? Say I image one target for one whole night (or two nights for that matter) the amount of files will make stacking next to impossible? Is there any downside to exposing much longer (apart from guiding, satellite trails etc.), as long as the target and most stars do not saturate? ZWO 1600mm spec for reference:

Are there any good PI Pixelmath tutorials out there? I would like to understand the syntax, but cannot find any good tutorials. Most stuff I find out there are very specific to one task, and usually from an old pixelmath version. Say for example I would like to check if I have black clipped pixels in Image 'L', I would think the following would set all pixels greater than K=500 to 65000, an leave the ones below 500 as is. But it does noting.

OAG and refractor you mean? Two things: No need to customize a mounting arrangement for a guide scope. No need to dew heat the guide scope. But for guiding performance an OAG is probably overkill with a refractor.

I also use a Zwo 120MC with a Zwo OAG on a SW Esprit 80ED. I used to guide with the stock finder scope in it's flimsy mounting arrangement. But when I bought my gear I added an OAG to the order. So I had to test out the OAG of course, and I have stuck with it. It works fine, there are always a few stars to guide on. Not a lot of stars to choose from, but so far it has worked very good. It was fiddley to set up focus the first time - it definitely helped to do that during daylight. For my small scope, guiding is good both with the guide scope and the OAG. But now there is one less scope that needs a dew heater.

Due to repeated thefts in my area I have come to realize this hobby will not be very easy to to enjoy in my own back yard 😬 However I am fortunate enough to own a cottage in the mountains, about a 5 hours drive from where I live. It has fairly dark skies, the milky way is pretty clear after a minute outside in the dark. I had a couple of days there last week and brought my gear. I was able to sort out a few hardware and software issues, and got some targets imaged: Andromeda, 2 nights L+R+G+B+Ha Spent a lot of time processing trying to integrate the Ha data (using pixinsight and a little cheating in Gimp): Elephant's trunk Nebula (one night) Ha +Sii +Oiii Bode's & Cigar (and quite a few more?) Galaxies (half a night, the meridian flip failed horribly in the middle of the night) L+R+G+B

Yes! It is hard to understand.

170 000 years she says in the book. But the photon undergoes a massive a mount of reaction in arbitrary directions and does not exist entirely as 'one' photon for that time. And totally besides the point, but interesting (since she is mentioning Richard Feynman in the book): The oldest daughter recently called and said "Dad, you must watch this documentary on the space shuttle Discovery on Netflix, I think you will like it". So I did (after the wife had gone to bed), and learned that Richard Feynman was on the review board after the accident. Cooling and squeezing an O-ring and thereby changing the forward plan for NASA's space shuttle program. I remember that accident from when I was a youth. And one of the crew members that died worked for the same company I now work for (Baker Hughes) Note to self: Read more!

Bought the book. Actually bought an e-book reader (Inkbook 3) and then bought the the book on Google books. Just on page 93 but it is a truly fascinating read. Thanks again for the recommendation. And as the kids are older and don't take that much attention anymore I hope I get the time to read more (probably utopia, but I can always hope) 😀

I don't think this has anything to do with Pixinsight, it just loads the image in whatever format it is. A superzoom of e.g. the L image clearly shows it is a color image. The same goes for the R, G and B images, the ones I downloaded from here:

Old thread, I know, but thanks for posting. I am gong to do this. Accidentally wiggled the power lead the other day, just after the 3 star alignment was done. Had to redo the alignment. Mars does not wait for my mount to get back on line, neither do the clouds. Very annoying!

And attempt #2

Had a go at this with Pixinsight, just for my own exercise. Your L, R,G,B images are all containing RGB colors? Was this taken with a mono or color camera? Anyway, here is what I managed with my current Pixinsight skills:

He he. I can relate to this 😁 But when you start to get decent images (which you eventually will) it is very rewarding. Buying the EQ6-R was a good choice IMHO. If I were you I would skip a dedicated OSC and go straight for a mono camera with filter wheel. I just started in this hobby a few years back myself, and the biggest challenge has been to learn to use the equipment with the very few clear nights per year (in the dark season) I get in my location.

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.