Rustang

1 hour ago, Spaced Out said:

I'm far from expert at this but I do stretch Ha data in photoshop no problem. I always do small stretches tho and repeat, if I do a large stretch it starts to look quite blocky/blotchy straight away. Same with adjusting the levels, so I use small steps. No idea why this happens tho ?

Thanks, I seem to have manged to sort it now, I did read that photoshop can apparently look blotchy when zoomed out but then when you zoom in it settles and hasn't actually affect the image so that's interesting. Anyway I managed this out of the data! 😊

I somehow got there with the editing, still not fully sure how but I'm learning.

So here it is, the first light with my QHY9 mono, 4hrs of HA during two nights of moon lit sky's . Stacked in DSS with flats, darks and dark flats and it would appear that my calibrations frames have worked, they took me all day yesterday to do so I'm really pleased. This hobby tests you and yet it still shows you that its all worth it, this is when you feel embarrassed when you throw a wobbly because of a rubbish night but hey they are going to happen from time to time.

I'm now very settled in what I'm doing with the new set up and you know what, its not all that scary really, it just takes more time to get the data.

Now to get some OIII and SII to make a colour image.

Seems ok to stretch if you apply in to a colour channel! (top left is screen reflection)  I was just watching a video for future reference and apparently Photoshop can show blotchy like that but its actually not effecting your image! If you zoom in it appears ok, I would rather know im still processing the monochrome correctly though ans Ive not got the rest of the data to make a colour image yet

FirstRossettStack.TIFHere you go

I have managed to grab 4hrs of Ha mono data (exciting!) which I have stacked in DSS, lights, darks, flats and dark flats. Ive opened the tiff in PS, mode is 16 bit and grey scale. I went to apply my first stretch and that's why I got stuck. I'm new to mono and assumed I could just stretch the mono Ha image in the same way I do a colour but it would appear not, what am I missing as the curve graph straight off doesnt seem right, its over to the left and when I do stretch it goes patchy! So I'm guessing I'm missing a setting or something which Ive tried googling. So what is the process of stretching a mono Ha image in PS properly!

Lovely images 😊 but I personally don't see what the extreme has added even in those conditions, for its cost I feel it hasn't appeared to do anymore than what the L enhance can do. 

Below-600D and L-enhance 

48 minutes ago, Doug64 said:

Fits Liberator allows you to view Fits images on your computer.

 

Doug

 

Thanks il look into that. I can view them on the laptop that runs everything but not the computer I use for editing etc. 

2 minutes ago, symmetal said:

The histogram is displaying the range from 1112 to 35399 and assuming the histogram is showing a linear display that makes the peak at around 28000 ADU which is fine. It's easiest to have the histogram showing the full range from 0 to 65535 to get a quick assessment of your ADU levels, rather than the min to max values of the image as you have.

Alan

Ok thanks, I'm new to these settings so never changed the histogram settings etc. So I'm all good!? 

Hi guys, I'm starting to do my calibration frames today, I'm using my LED light panel with paper. I'm using APT's Flats aid which is great, I know what ADU I'm aiming for and exposure time but my issue is with the Histogram, it seems to far over to the left, its not close to half way, is this ok or am I missing a setting?

Also is there a software to view fits files on my computer!?

Great start, we'll done. I'm on that long road now. I'm currently on my 9th Ha 10 min sub on the Rossett. 

Cricky, is there something in the air at the moment, all these issues and frustrations going on. We all must be the most tolerant, patient people to carry on this hobby! 😊

12 minutes ago, Adam1234 said:

Nice. I agree it does look much more like an angler fish!

Angler fish! 😂

4 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

Please share the images, looking forward to seeing them.  I really enjoyed using this camera, and it never let me down, producing great images, especially in Ha where I felt it really excelled.

Thanks Adam, if I manage to get anything worth showing i will definitely share, happy just to call tonight a successful test run if anything though 😊

Test night number two with new kit is going well. Still some issues to sort but all in all a lot more positive. I've managed to fire off my first few 10min exposures in HA and from I can see the stars are nice and round. Seeing doesn't seem great, the moon and very twinkly stars but the guiding is holding in there. I'm going to get an hour of HA just as a test then I might capture the moon for a laugh. Thanks for all the motivation to keep going everyone, we probably all need it from time to time. 👍

1 hour ago, Budgie1 said:

Have a look at this page in the APT User Guide and it explains all.

The Histograms button is top left on the Tools Tab in APT.

That's been really helpful, thank you, I think I can use that stretch process to look at stars with the Bahtinov mask to aid focusing. I looked at some shots from last night in APT, stretched them and I could then see all the diffraction spikes of the stars to show I was in focus so that's really handy, and will help with the darker NB filters, thnaks! 👍

13 minutes ago, Mr Thingy said:

I would second the idea about creating a workflow/checklist. I recently dived headlong into AP, but rather than ease my way in step by step I opted to go mono, use guiding, platesolving, autofocuser, etc, all from the off. I'm not good at restraint! 

I must admit that it was daunting but I already feel confident now to set up quickly and effectively, and get some shots off. However, right from the start I created a workflow and guidance document, which was a godsend.

I hope you get your mojo back though. Hopefully the next session will deliver some lovely shots that make all the pain worthwhile.

Cheers, I have a folder that I'm constantly adding to, notes, procedures and everything in between. I'm not sure I still fully understand my notes! 😊 every time you awesome lot give some advice, I add it to the folder. Because there is just so much to do and so much involved I have struggled to grasp it all but getting there. Its really easy to miss even the simple stuff. I'm doing my best and I try to figure stuff out in between the panic, but I honestly just get confused when reading up on stuff, one day Il be able to stand on my own to feet a bit more but for now, you kind lot will have to keep putting up with me! 😉

2 hours ago, Budgie1 said:

When I got first light with my OSC I went with the mindset that I was using the first & second sessions as "tester sessions". This way I expected things not to go right and wasn't disappointed when they didn't. I also made sure I picked an nice bright, familiar target (M31 in my case) so it was easy to find and see with APT's auto-stretch.

I know I took the lesser jump from DSLR to OSC and not DSLR to mono with filters like you have, but it's still a whole new ballgame.

I also had issues with plate solving a while back and ended up having to re-install/update the plate solving software for APT which sorted it. I've also had camera drop-outs, mainly on the ZWO ASI120MM Mini guide camera and that seems to be down to the supplied USB cables. So I've now invested in a couple of higher quality USB cables for the guide camera and OSC, which seems to have solved that issue.

Lastly, when you've had a bad night, just go and have a look at the first images you produced and see the advances you've made in quite a short space of time. No more Sad Face!  😀 👍

Yeah I did my best to prepare for some wasted nights but ended up still being fed up lol. What do you mean when you say in regards to the target 'easy to find in APT auto stretch' !? 

2 hours ago, Viktiste said:

I have had many nights like this. But eventually I got the hang of it and my setup is usually pretty smooth now. What helped me was realizing I won't remember everything between sessions - so I made myself a checklist in excel.

Make sure you use the L filter when you are platesolving. Which software do you use?

USB issues  - If you are on Windows  - try installing USBview as explained here:

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/354148-howto-set-up-win10-from-scratch-to-control-mount-with-stellarium/?do=findComment&comment=3855306

APT and PHD2

1 hour ago, smr said:

Partly the reason why I jumped over to Cooled OSC from DSLR instead of straight to Mono. I thought there would be a learning curve with OSC and there is. There's nothing wrong with jumping straight into Mono, and if forgoing the filters it's essentially the same process, that said I have found a jump between going from DSLR to Cooled OSC, and more of a jump than I expected.

I spent the first night expecting everything to be really easy and get some good hours of M42 for first light. No, instead I spent the night trying to understand why I couldn't see any stars to focus on whilst watching M42 sail on by, in good skies and with no Moon. Frustrating? Yes.

By the time I had kind of figured out how to focus and see bright stars ... clouds.

Next night I decided to shoot the Soul Nebula, the subs were horrible, severely elongated stars in all corners and stretched / bloated stars near enough across the entire frame. Seems I hadn't tightened my flattener after rotating it, and I still hadn't properly managed to focus, or at least go through the focus routine smoothly.

So yesterday I decided to take a step back from it all and reassess my whole imaging set up. I decided that rather than try to capture images, I'd try to focus on my work flow. So I decided to to reset and recalibrate my guiding, and I spent most of yesterday understanding how to focus in APT with a dedicated astronomy Camera and why Live View was poor in ZWO native driver mode.

So I uninstalled PHD2, installed the latest version, went through the calibration of my Mount and it tracking speed, at night I calibrated my Guide Camera with Sharp Cap for focusing it and Calibrated on a good guide star 20 deg of the Celestial Equator. 

I realised that with APT you have to left stretch the histogram to see Stars in Live View

ZWO native driver live view for whatever reason doesn't work very well and so I set the Camera to ASCOM in APT, live view worked much better. 

Focused the Camera.

Plate solved over to the Soul Nebula and started imaging. Good guiding, much better stars. And this was with the attitude of expecting to use the night for testing, I wanted to be sure I had everything dialled in and couldn't care less about imaging last night, but from being pragmatic and methodical and not trying to jump straight into imaging I was able to sort everything out.

What I'm trying to say is, do everything in steps slowly but surely and go through them with a checklist to make sure you have done everything as well as possible and try to eliminate power or connection issues during the daytime. Things like USB hubs/ports can be diagnosed during the day and once you've established where the weak links are you can fix them one by one until everything is working as it should.

Good advice. I had done all the usb connections and software connections during the day which is why it was annoying when it failed again last night, I will look to get a better quality powered external USB hub. Today I have taken the mount down, checked everything is level, balanced the new gear as well as I can and it appears good. I managed to focus ok yesterday but that was only if I had a bright star in view, I slapped on the B mask and took a short exposure and the defraction spikes appeared bang on after a couple of focus adjustments so locked it down. I'm concerned going forward how to check focus on each filter if there's no bright stars in view. I've not looked at where the histogram is in APT? I look at what you said about stretching it. 

1 hour ago, Budgie1 said:

I was also going to mention camera pixel size setting. Did you chance that from your DLSR pixel size to the mono, or are they the same?

APT may pick up the pixel size from the camera, I can't remember but it'll show what it's using in the Object Calculator window that Steve posted above so it's worth checking that this matches the pixel size of you mono camera. 

Yeah that was all entered correctly 👍

21 minutes ago, david_taurus83 said:

How are you trying to solve? Platesolve2? ASPS? ASTAP? PS2 shouldn't need the settings changed but I know that ASPS (Blind solve) is funny if the correct FOV and pixel/sensor size isn't setup correctly from within the ASPS settings.

I'm just using auto because its worked before ! Il check the settings etc and double check what software it's using to solve 👍

1 hour ago, alacant said:

Hi

Are you certain you are not confusing Aim, GoTo and GoTo++?

Cheers

I'm following the same routine as I've done before, object's, chose target and slew, auto plate solve the go to ++ to centre 

43 minutes ago, Paul M said:

One thing I found with CCD plate solving in APT with ASTAP selected is that it struggled with 1x1 binning. 

So in APT I have the default exposure set to 15 sec and binning set to 2x2 for solving GOTO++ etc. Works a treat now but was frustrating initially having had no issues with DSLR solving.

It's an ASTAP issue for me as ASTAP won't solve any 1x1 images I give it in free standing mode either.

Thanks, il give that ago! 👍

6 minutes ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

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

Thanks Steve, you didn't read wrong, I wasn't clear so changed what I wrote after your commented. I had been opening the clutches to sort balance etc so maybe just one of those things. I'm hopefully out again tonight to will see how it goes. 

5 minutes ago, Chefgage said:

I have had many a frustrating night but I find I then have a night where it all goes right. The image then produced makes me feel like it's all worth the effort. If at any time it starts to feel like it's a chore to get all the gear set up then for me that will be the time to sell up.

I do like the fault finding part when things are not working (it's what I do as a job) and when the solution is found that again makes it worth the effort for me.

Fault finding builds up knowledge over time to hopefully fix things yourself but there is just so much in regards to settings, software etc that I still find it overwhelming. It's a great feeling when something works, I feel I can tick that off and move on, but when it comes round and gives you problems on top of new stuff you just feel like banging your head against the wall. People are right that when you get a decent result it feels worth it but it's a slog getting there. Still, onwards and upwards.