Rustang

Lovely images but I definitely can't see anything extra over what the L enhance has produced with my 600d. 

I've had no issues what so ever with focusing with the L-enhance, I've not had to adjust my routine to do so. Its definitely a great little filter, even more so if you can pick one up a little cheaper second hand. I would be interested to see some good examples with the L-extreme and an older Canon but to be honest, with the cost of one and my plans to move onto a dedicated camera later this year, I probably won't be getting one. 

On 28/01/2021 at 22:09, Crispy5573 said:

Hi Rich, 

I've been looking into it myself and I'm certainly no expert but I watched this video today (Astrobackyard) where he explains all about it and shows some results. Hope it helps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHGcQ0HKRlU

 

He does state that the older Canon's may struggle with this filter which is why I'm hesitant to spend out for it to use with my 600D. I've recently seen it used with an older canon camera on the Rosette Neb and it didn't appear to add anything! It might just be a case of seeing how it goes for you but its an expensive filter to do so if its not certain to make a great difference. The L- enhance however, has made a decent difference to my images combined with my 600D.

Anyone else had an issue with the Skytech CLS clip in filters being loose? Mine arrived today, attempted to "clip" it into my Canon 600D, it's loose and spins around the recess it's supposed to clip into, not a great product then is it. 

10 minutes ago, The Lazy Astronomer said:

Thanks. ☺

No, you are reading it right, the Evoguide is being used as the imaging scope here. 

The reason I bought it was for dual purpose use as a guide scope and for use as a widefield imaging scope in its own right. 

Cool, seems more than capable then!

Lovely image 👍 When you say '"taken with a ZWO294MM and a Skywatcher Evoguide 50ED" are you actually using the 50ED Evoguide as the imaging scope? or am I just miss reading it!?

On 04/01/2021 at 10:25, malc-c said:

That's a contradiction of terms.  Alan was asking about removing both IR filters and using the camera in that basis... you are using a clip filter (and a very expensive one at that) to do the same job as the Badder modification which replaces the canon IR cut filter

As you have a filter in the optical path it's quite possible that this is the reason the stars are not bloated.

Very nice image by the way 😉

 

 

Ive just come across your reply as I'm looking into my filters etc/ I have a Baader modified 600D, I also have an Optolong L enhance filter that Ive been using, and from what I under stand from what you said is that the Baader mod is doing the same thing as placing an L enhance filter over a non Baader modified camera so technically I don't really need my L enhance filter then? I'm pretty sure its making some difference though, but never done any comparisons with and without.

Also Ive found that getting the right flats even for a DSLR can be an art form in its self (I'm still not 100% there) I appreciate I don't use the same equipment as you so all I can say is just keeping trying different ways and settings and see what ends up working for you. I would have thought someone with more experience would have been able to help though.

Just now, Adam1234 said:

Thanks, I'll look into the wonder fluid - I think I've seen it on FLO

Its definitely worth having around, and its not that expensive. Ive used it when i needed to clean the front of the lens on my SW ED80 and 72 after a few nights use👍

These are the wipes (drying cloths) I use with the fluid and to remove excess residue .

https://www.bristolcameras.co.uk/p-the-dust-patrol-delta-optical-cleaning-wipes-100-pack-.htm

9 hours ago, Adam1234 said:

As a side note - if I can't sort out the problem, I will probably have to clean my optics - objective lens and filters. I have a load of Zeiss wipes at home, would these be safe enough to use?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/ZEISS-Lens-Wipes-Pack-200/dp/B00IKGH2TI

I know alot of people swear by the 'Baader Optical Wonder Fluid', Ive got some and its pretty good. Your also best getting some lint free drying cloths aswell to get rid of any excess residue that both your wipes and the wonder fluid may leave behind. Go gentle!

Stunning 

1 hour ago, kens said:

The guide log includes the calibration and also what equipment you are using. Based on experience I'm guessing you are using the EQMOD driver which has the quirk of defaulting to a guide rate of 0.1x sidereal since that is what I see on the screen shot. That guide rate is way too low. The guide log would confirm that you are using the EQMOD driver in which case the instructions I linked are relevant. If some other sort of mount then you still need to increase the guide rate but the linked instructions would not help you.

The log also contains the raw data for the calibration which does not necessarily graph the same as shown on the screen shot. The raw data helps with the diagnosis.

In any case, adjust your guide rate to between 0.5x to 0.9x then try another calibration.

If you use the profile wizard and enter the correct values it will calculate the right calibration step size for you.

Thanks, I plugged my mount (HEQ5 Pro) into the laptop and yes the the guide rate was 0.1 for both RA and DEC in EQMOD so will keep an eye out to change that each session to what you have mentioned, i will probably start with 0.5x and I'm guessing that needs to be the same setting in the advanced guide settings in PHD2!?.  For now, with what you have mentioned and what Ive read I think Ive got enough to go on to try and get a better calibration, if i cant then I will post the logs of my next attempt. Thanks again for you help, I had a massive struggle at the beginning to begin my guiding journey and I was bound to miss some settings etc and its hard to decipher what I need out of the internet sometimes because i still find it over whelming, this forum has made the journey possible though, I owe my recent images to everyone on here!.

7 hours ago, kens said:

I can only make specualtive guesses without the guide log but start here to set a more appropriate guide rate. I assume you have EQMOD. I'd suggest you start over with a new profile using the profile wizard.

https://github.com/OpenPHDGuiding/phd2/wiki/EQASCOM-Settings

Then read the best practices:

https://openphdguiding.org/phd2-best-practices/

And always provide a guide log when you need help:

https://openphdguiding.org/getting-help/

I appreciate your help, thanks. I didn't provide a log because its just the initial calibration that I'm looking to sort then I can continue with improving guiding later. I thought the photo would be enough to do so, so apologies. I will look into what you have mentioned. 

I've been getting by seemingly ok with a calibration I did a while back but its time to improve. I've been looking into where I can make improvements today which lead me to read that you can bring up your last calibration details, I've done that and can now see that it wasn't great even though it seems to have got me by - see picture below. I've been watching a good video by 'The Astro Imaging Channel' which has explained  some good things about PHD2 and showed what the calibration details should look like for a decent calibration. So along side doing my own reading up which can easily confuse me still, I would like to get an understanding of my next steps to improving the calibration when next out. I'm still to this day a little confused about the settings I need, and i need to get a simpler understanding of the exact settings in PHD2 to allow me to get the best calibration for my setup. I know I need to calibrate at the celestial equator and towards the south, it also appears I could have some dec back lash which I've been reading how to clear before proceeding with the calibration so it's mainly getting the settings in PHD2 right. My main confusion is getting the calibration steps to the right amount, from reading the very good 'understanding PHD2 and getting it to work properly' document on here, for my guide pixel scale of 3.44 (225mm fl 3.75 um) I need a calibration step setting of around 2500 and above, but my computed values seem to calculate 1000  It obviously calculates from what I put in above so what should I set for 'calibration steps' and 'calibration distance' to get it to calculate a higher calibration steps setting in the computed values section!? . I'm still also confused over the sidereal setting and guide speed and what they should be set to in both the mount and PHD2, should the guide rate siderale setting in the advanced section of PHD2 guiding, match the sidereal rate of the mount!? 

Anything you can see and can help with from the above info and image provided would be greatly appreciated. I have been doing alot of my own reading but I still get very confused, and still to this day I haven't grasp what the settings should be. 

8 minutes ago, paulastro said:

Fabulous image, you must be chuffed to pieces - or you should be 🙂.

Thanks for posting it.

Yeah really pleased, I've not been able to get out much for a while so capturing this till about 3am was worth it, and thankfully not a wasted night!. The SW 80 ED is working well still! 😊👍

Hope alls well with you. 

I'm back out after a loooong wait! My first attempt on this target and I'm really pleased with the result.

Modified Canon 600D with L- enhance filter, SW 80ED, 3hrs of 5min guided subs.

Hi guys, I was finally out again last night but not for very long because those lovely clouds rolled in! Anyway something has gone funny with the exposure times! I run my camera through APT and use a plan I have been using for a while with out issue, well last night it occasionally over run, my exposure time is set to 320 and ive got some at 328, some at 338, some at 325 etc so I'm thinking its either software or cable? I even watched it happen on one occasion, the APT timer had reached 320, stopped but it wasn't until a few seconds later it said 'exposure finished!' It now means what every data i had is wasted due to different exposure times, never mind.

......so just to add, i thought i might as well just shove the data into DSS just to see and strangely it didn't pick up on the different exposure times and has stacked the data which is very weird! 🤔

Mental! 👍

2 hours ago, happy-kat said:

Are you using dithering? Hopefully it is something you aren't doing yet as that could help your banding

I am but it wasn't going so well that night due to not so great guiding, it kept timing out which I keep meaning to ask the question that if it times out then I'm guessing that single dither hasn't worked!? I'm also still getting to grips with the dither settings but getting there, it appeared to work well on a recent M45 session. 👍

16 minutes ago, Stuf1978 said:

Yeah me too, just not sure whether to go mono or OSC.

I might be sticking with DSLR's for the near future but a better one! If that doesnt end up producing better results then I might look to go OSC. I'm pretty happy with my current results, if I can lose the banding and some noise then even better. The thing is, with the little clear nights we have in this country I think i might be to much for my brain to take on yet another challenge if i come away from DSLR's. It was hard enough setting up guiding and going computer controlled to enable dithering etc, but then to be fair, I manged it and now Ive started to get it all working well, it has definitely made a big improvement. For me, baby steps in better so sticking with my current way of doing things but with a better DSLR is the next step then maybe after a year of seeing how that goes then maybe take a bigger step with an OSC. It might be that any DSLR will still produce noise, I will be reading up before the change anyway so if that appears to be the case then I will think again.

2 hours ago, Stuf1978 said:

Nice image. I completely feel your pain with regards to banding. I'm using a very similar setup (Heq5 pro, ED72 and 450Da) and banding is a complete pain. Sometimes it's there and sometimes it's not. However, I do believe it's very much dependent on ambient temperature. I've also noticed that it's not (as) apparent when using fast lenses which I have found odd (maybe has something to do with capturing relatively more useful signal than noise with the faster optics). The banding reduction tool in Siril generally does a good job of removing it by the way (but not always haha). 

Thanks 👍 The noise and banding is something I can live with for now, I will be looking to upgrade my camera next year hopefully anyway.

1 minute ago, Adam1234 said:

Was there supposed to be an image here?

There is now,  my computer was playing up! 😊

I've recently had a couple of nights where Ive ended up with no data, just complications but good learning so never a waste. It was nice to finally have another session where everything came together and I managed another image I'm happy with. It wasn't the best of seeing with the moon light but I'm pleased with the result considering this. Still some way to go, I've still got what I believe to be a tilt issue but I'm not concerned about that for now and i think I'm always going to be battling noise and banding with my DSLR but it's the gear I have for now! 😊

Gear: SW HEQ5 Pro, SW 72ED DS PRO, Canon 600D modified. 3hrs worth of 5min guided subs, Bias and Flats, no darks. 

Yup, very useful feature, I took way to long before setting everything up to plate solve, now I would never look back!