rob_r

Thanks for the encouragement, a bahtinov mask is on the shopping list. I tend to focus using the live view on the camera but zoomed in to ensure I get as close as I can. The camera shoots at a 24 FPS rate, which is slow compared to dedicated planetary cameras. I have been trying to get my head around WinJUPOS for de-rotation but I'm finding it a bit of minefield. I can do all the alignment stuff but when it comes to the final processing step I get a bit lost as there is only one image loaded in. I still have the stacked frames so I will keep playing with WinJUPOS.

Hello! I finally swung my scope on Mars a couple of weeks ago (26th Sept) but given the amount of data I captured, I can't help but feel a bit disappointed with the overall final result. All taken with a SkyMax 127 SCT and a Canon 600D coupled with a 2x barlow. I took about a dozen 90-100 second videos, took the best 10% and sharpened them up in Registax. The final stack was via Siril. There is some surface detail there but it is not well defined at all. I realise that despite Mars being close, it is still a fairly small target compared to the likes of Saturn and Jupiter. The imaging calculator gives a resolution of 0.3" per pixel. Is the issue at the acquisition or the processing, or both? Perhaps a readjustment of expectations required too. There is still some time to retry this target so any further advice would be welcome for a reattempt. Thanks!

I can only see it with 'averted vision' through my 127 mak with a 25mm EP. I have similar houses, lights and skies to yours at Bortle 6.

A latest effort of Saturn with a Mak 127 and a Canon 600D (unmodded) on a EQ5 mount plus a 2x barlow. Taken on 20th September between 21:10 and 21:38. 14x 120s (approx) AVI videos at ISO800. Had to manually press start/stop on the camera. Converted all the AVI videos files into SER files via Siril. Stacked all the resulting frames in AutoStekkert, 15% of the best frames. Brightened x4 to auto map alignment points. Noise Robust set to 7 (Low SNR) as the videos were quite noisy. A little wavelet sharpening and denoise in Registax 6 for all 14 stacked images, auto stretched on opening each image. Tried to do a de-rotation within WinJupos but ended up with a 'time interval error'. I'm unsure what difference it would make anyway as there appears to be very little detail and perhaps too small anyway. Stacked the resulting 14 images into a single image in Siril using 'Planetary alignment' method. It is another step in improvement for me but lacks any discernible surface or ring details. I might give BackyardEOS a go in future and certainly considering a ZWO ASI224MC but everywhere seems out of stock at the moment.

I have one, it was on the AZ GTI but I have since upgraded to an EQ5 now. The scope certainly needs a dew shield. As for the scope itself, it's light (3kg) and compact so it is quite portable. It is best suited for lunar and planetary viewing with it's long focal length although it can pick out DSOs at around 8 to 9 magnitude and that is under a Bortle 6 sky depending on the conditions. The AZ mount is decent but I prefer a handset controller, my AZ mount is has the WiFi connection to my mobile and is controlled from that. Another plus, it can be easily powered from a small power tank so it's another tick for portability. It is less suited for astrophotography and having a DSLR attached to the scope may be too much payload for the AZ mount. Plus, without a ADC, you will get distortion in the colours. Over the two years that I have had it, I would say it is a good all round scope for starting out. I have managed to get some half decent photos out of it too. Perhaps more experienced members can give more in depth thoughts.

Another clear night last night although I was put off by the poor seeing forecast, however it didn't actually seem all that bad to me. I setup early at around 8.30pm and doubly made sure I got the alignment right this time round. I seemed to have done a better job this time round with the desired object falling into the field of view but off centre. In any case, I lived with that. Jupiter was already on the march towards the trees and with a quick peek before the giant disappeared altogether, I spotted 3 of the Galilean moons. Io must have been in transit. I was using a low powered EP, still the cloud banding was clear enough but I didn't spot the GRS, perhaps it was on the opposite side of the planet. I managed to get 5x 45 second videos using my Canon 600D at ISO800 30FPS and popped a 2x barlow in the train. I manually started and stopping the recording so I'll have plenty of frames to drop at the start and end of the clips. The sixth video, Jupiter slowly faded to black about 20 seconds in as the tree got in the way. I also caught the end of the first pass of ISS as the bright dot drifted across into the Southeast and faded away. A short pop left, I got Saturn and it seemed a little fainter this time round. Even with a 25mm EP, the rings resolved nicely. So I took the opportunity to shoot more video and managed to grab 14x ~120seconds videos using the same settings as Jupiter plus the 2x barlow. I could see Mars peeking through the trees to the East and just needed another 15 minutes or so to finally come into a clear line of sight. So I spent the interim taking some photos of Andromeda and testing out a 0.5x reducer with a focal extender. But no luck with that combination as I still could not achieve focus on DSLR. All I got was a donut of light, it wasn't far off but clearly the extender was the incorrect length. Disappointed, I took 30x 25s photos of a light fuzzy patch after removing the barlow and extender then achieving focus on Mirach and flipping back to Andromeda. A little time passed and now was pushing on for about 10.30pm, Mars finally edged out from behind the tree. This was my first time observing the red planet and is already unbelievably bright, perhaps on par with Jupiter if not a little more. Interestingly, I spotted another dot of light I thought may have been one of the moons of Mars. I suspect it wasn't as it was on the wrong axis as I was using the diagonal. But I could see it by averting my eye on Mars and was quite far away to the left. There was little surface detail on Mars itself, just what appeared to a dark patch stretching out from the top and weaving it's way through to the bottom. I spent a few minute observing Mars before packing up for bed and took some dark and bias frames in the meantime. A good session, topped off with seeing Mars for the first time. I am now considering a planetary cam so I can capture it as it nears opposition next month. Hopefully, I can use the footage in AutoStekkert and get something decent out of them.

I think I made the same mistake last night too. I got my first sight of Mars too and spotted a bright dot some way off Mars, I thought it could be one of the moon's but seemed too bright. I could see it by averting my eye on to the planet through my 127 Mak and it was on completely the wrong axis anyway as I was using a diagonal.

Hi. I have seen M57 and photographed with a Canon 600D it under Bortle 6 skies with a Skywatcher 127 with a 25mm EP. It is extremely faint and small, like a hazy high cloud. It is best when I use 'averted vision' to see it. It is surprisingly bright when I do this, almost like a vibrant blue. Hope you find it, it is a worthy target. It is the within the area marked with the blue square.

Jupiter from the evening of 9th September 2020, just outside Preston. Aligned and stacked 17% of the best frames from a 7 minute movie with AS!3 then Wavelets applied in Registax. Taken with SW SkyMax 127mm and Canon 600D with digital zoom on a SW EQ5 mount. This is my first time using Registax after stacking in AS!3 then further and final level adjustments made in Photoshop. It is a significant improvement on my previous attempts of this target, only the sharpness of the resulting image is proving elusive. The movie was extremely noisy perhaps due in part to atmospheric conditions and the low altitude. Acquisition: 7 minutes 20 second movie at ISO 600, 1920 x 1080 pixels.

A somewhat unexpected clear night last night over Preston in Lancashire and noticeably fresher too. After a disappointing week near Loch Lomond where I hoped to experience darker skies (Bortle 4) than at home (Bortle 6), a clear night was a welcome treat in any case. My scope was still packed up from the trip up to Scotland. So, gathering up the EQ5 mount and scope, I set up just as it was getting dark and there was a small window for about an hour before the moon came up. This time I forewent the 'Polar Scope' app and attempted to do the alignment manually through the polar scope, I figured it would be good practice and it seems to work out quite well as the scope started the star alignment process. The Summer Triangle was clearly visible high towards the South so opted for the 3-star alignment method but I could only select the first named star Vega, the other stars on the list were either blocked from view or I wasn't sure where in the sky they should be as the names were still a little obscure to me. More star chart reading required! I hoped to use Deneb and Altair as alignment stars and even a 2-star alignment didn't work out, same problem with an 'Out of Range' error message after exhausting the list. As the polar alignment seems to be fairly decent for once, the scope was only a little off centre from Vega. I opted for 1-star alignment but feared that the GoTo system would be off by some margin. Surprisingly though, it wasn't. Jupiter was already sat due South by the time I got out and the GoTo placed the planet only marginally off centre within the eyepiece. Knowing that this could be the last decent opportunity to shoot more video of both Jupiter and Saturn due to what seem like persistent cloudy nights and both are nearing to be blocked by nearby buildings, I wanted to get some decent video footage of both. Jupiter was straightforward enough, I took out the diagonal and slotted the Canon 600D straight into the back of the scope. I ditched the 2x Barlow too and used the camera's digital zoom to get Jupiter nice and big in the view. The mount did a very good job on the tracking, usually my targets always drift out of the view after a minute but this time round very little drift was occurring and got to about 7 to 8 minutes where the targets remained in view. I managed to get over 7 minutes worth of footage, the seeing conditions didn't appear to be all that good but there is some marginal detail of the GRS and cloud banding although the video is quite noisy. Next target was Saturn. This was more tricky as the planet appears quite small on the camera so knowing I had it in focus was a challenge but with some persistence, it paid off. I got 8 minutes worth of footage, quite noisy footage again as the ISO was at 1600. I decided to shoot it again at 800 in the hope for clearer details for another 8 minutes but the planet is very faint in the playback. Perhaps with a little processing, I might get a result, we'll see. As the GoTo system was working well, a target I tried to find in previous sessions was M57 Ring Nebula. Again, no problem here and coupled with averted vision, I got my first sight of this planetary nebula despite some nearby high cloud drifting across the view. At first, I couldn't see it but when I looked at a nearby star in the 25mm eyepiece, it appears as a brief flash. Keeping my gaze on the star, I could see it more clearly. Small but certainly there. The star in the middle of the ring wasn't visible, I imagine I will need a higher magnification and a lower focal ratio. I was quite surprised that it is so blue, almost a vibrant blue. I got a few shots of this too, only 15 light frames at 25s, maybe the centre will be appear when stacked. As it was getting late and having work the following morning coupled with a quick peek at Andromeda high to the East, a hazy grey smudge through the eyepiece revealed itself, I called it a night. Took a few dark frames as I packed up the scope and headed indoors. Mars is still behind trees for me at the moment but looking forward to a few more weeks as it should move to a point where I can observe it plus it will be another first for me. In all, a rather successful session perhaps more in part due to actually getting the polar alignment right or quite close for once. Quite memorable too, due to seeing M57. Very happy with that. I still need to figure out the star alignments for future sessions. Hopefully, if any of the processing yields anything decent I'll post them here at a later date. Below are a few stills from the videos. The brighter one of Saturn I quickly adjusted the levels.

I just brought a mains 12v 3A adaptor if I remember correctly with a 2.1mm connector pin. It works well. I did try and power it with an 12v powertank which has those cigarette sockets (which I use with the AZ GTI mount) when I first got the EQ5 mount but it didn't seem to slew. Seems my powertank isn't delivering enough power now as it is a couple of years old hence the switch to mains supply. Not a big deal as I do most stargazing sessions from home and have external power points in the garage and shed.

Passed me by that news and suspect it will be integrated into iOS 14. I used the API for DarkSky a few times for app development. I use AccuWeather, Meteoblue, MET Office and WeatherRadar along with ClearOutside. Between them all I can get an averaged outlook. Free weather APIs are increasingly hard to come by but I have used https://openweathermap.org/ in the past too and this still has a free tier. AccuWeather has it's own API but it's not free beyond the limited trial, https://developer.accuweather.com/.

Thanks, I'll have a look at that 'crop video' setting. I think the instruction manual refers to it as 'digital zoom' and has 3x - 10x on the 600D. I'll try it next time. I re-stacked it without the additional bias or darks and upped the contrast, seems to have brought out the GRS and banding out a little more.

My latest efforts in capturing Jupiter from last Saturday night. Perhaps far from the best conditions or planetary position as Jupiter was skirting the rooftops plus there was a brisk breeze but it was clear skies for once in what feels like a month. In any case, I think it is a improvement from my effort from last year which I posted somewhere here. This one just seems a little blurred I guess and I had problems getting a decent alignment on the stacking even after manually deleted some wayward frames. Still got some cloud bands though. Io was touching the disc towards the bottom right. Seems to be about the best size I can get with the current equipment I have so considering a dedicated astro cam, perhaps a ASI224 or 120. 52 lights, at 0.2s at ISO 400 18 darks, at 0.2s at ISO 400 20 bias, at 1/4000s at ISO 400. Skywatcher SkyMax 127 with Canon 600D unmodded on SW EQ5 GoTo. Removed the diagonal and slotted the camera straight into the back of the scope with a Celestron 2x barlow lens attached. Pre-processed and stacked in Siril on MacBook Pro. Processed and stacked all bias and dark frames, normalised all frames. Processed and stacked all lights, processed against a stacked bias frame and stacked dark frame, normalised all light frames. Image Pattern Alignment (Planetary - full disk) registration used for stacking, with average stacking with rejection. Level and curve adjustment in Photoshop with a little hue and saturation tweaks. I also captured 4 minute videos (roughly 7000 frames at 25fps) for both Jupiter and Saturn but still yet to process these in Autostakkert via Bootcamp.

Sounds similar to the AZ GTi which I have, I assume this is a newer version? For the GTi running from batteries can be a little flaky at times, I would consider getting an external power tank, https://www.firstlightoptics.com/batteries-powerpacks/skywatcher-powertank-7ah.html. This will supply the power required, is quite portable and doubles up as another light source (both red and white).

I have also done this with my MBP as the internal SSD is too small, I got an external 1TB USB3 flash card. I have put Windows 10 on it and at the moment is still in it's trial period. I will perhaps buy a licence once full darkness returns and the clouds actually clear off for once. It is also my backup development environment for work should any kind of local lockdown comes into force.

I'm going with C. I think the key word here is 'theoretically'. So yes in theory, you could add some latency in the transfers due to cramming all the data into a single path but such latency would be a millisecond or shorter. A mouse has a very low data rate in any case and your laptop may have it's own internal hub anyway under the hood. As RayD suggests, just make sure it is powered. I remember the days of when USB first came out with these hubs, only to find those hubs losing power by having multiple devices plugged in and losing data that way. Non powered hubs should only be used for devices with a low power draw.

Most do, I think I read somewhere it is so the gear teeth engage and reduce alignment errors due to mechanical backlash. Very strange with the alignment issues though, usually mine is good at getting targets within the FOV (not necessarily centred) with a 25mm EP. Perhaps try a 3 star alignment if you haven't already, there are a few more threads regarding alignment issues with this mount. Hope you get it sorted one way or another.

My AZ GTI mount does this sometimes too, I concluded it was due to low power. How are you powering it? Via batteries or a power tank? I have a 12v power tank and my mount started drifting down as the power drained.

Just to add to the above which is all great advice, I have the SW SkyMax 127 and for viewing the moon and planets you won't go far wrong with that scope. You will struggle to see all but the brightest DSOs, thinking Orion's Nebula and star clusters under semi urban skies from my own limited experience. Do put a dew shield at the top of your shopping list too.

I have the SW SkyMax 127 and it is certainly playing to it's strengths regarding lunar and planetary viewing/imaging. I also went down the DSLR route and 2x barlow with this scope with some decent results although I am still very much a beginner to imaging. The only thing I found was that the DSLR (a Canon 600D) is nearly another kilo on top of the 3kg scope so sometimes on the AZ-GTI mount is started slipping a little. Balancing the scope will help with that though. I have since upgraded to a EQ5 GOTO mount. As for the 72ED, I have little idea but looking at the specs, it should be decent for DSOs. The SW SkyMax 127 has been on a few trips with me and is quite portable although I would be taking the original tripod and mount it came with. The EQ5 weighs a ton.

A short 90 minute observing session on Saturday night, a rare sight was a clear sky for once after what seems like a couple of months of persistent cloud and we had a full day of drizzle near Preston. The sky started to clear from about 9pm with the odd high cloud floating through. This was by first outing in about 3 months and my SynScan controller pretty much confirmed that when I powered on and it displayed the date from the backend of April. Using the fading light, I setup my Mak 127 up on the EQ5 mount and hooked into the mains after carefully avoiding my wife's 5ft high sunflowers. This time around and after seeking advice on here, I used the 'Polar Align App' on my iPhone and a wooden holder I fashioned from some scrap wood to see if it could do a better job of aligning without having to break my back. Plus, the reticule is rotated so it is already a little trickier than it ought to be. With no views to the west due to houses, there was no NEOWISE for me, but I think I spotted a faint dot above the setting sun earlier in the evening at about 9.30pm. Thinking back, I'm not sure if I mistaken it for a star now and unfortunately I don't have a pair of Bins to confirm. Being based up in Lancashire, it is still light during the evening and we still not getting full darkness. I could only see the brightest stars principally Vega practically straight up. With that in mind and knowing time was limited as it was due to cloud over again towards midnight, I powered on and one star aligned to Vega. Left with around 90 minutes I decided just to observe rather than getting the imaging kit out and to get back into the swing of it. I wanted to see if I could spot M57 but that seemed to be a bust. I caught the first ISS pass at around 10.30pm to the south, unbelievably bright and silently drifting from west to east. I had a look at Vega as more stars were becoming visible as it got slightly darker. The polar alignment seemed OK with the targets just off centre but within the field of view so just need some minor corrections, I figured it may have been more to do with just using a one star alignment during the setup. Maybe I had M57 but just couldn't resolve it well enough. Time passed into the eleventh hour and spotted a bright object emerging from behind the tree line at mere 10 degrees above the horizon, Jupiter was slowly coming into view, an ideal target for my scope. I had about half an hour I thought before it disppears behind another set of trees. Using a 10mm eyepiece and even with less than optimal viewing conditions, I could make out the cloud banding and the red spot. With a mirror diagonal the moons lined up vertically, Callisto at the bottom then Io just underneath the gas giant then Ganymede quite a distance directly above, all within view comfortably. Europa was in transit behind the planet. After a good 30 minutes observing the planet, clouds started to build and was affecting the view. I was disappointed that I was clouded out for Saturn as it would be following close behind to the east but happy enough seeing Jupiter for the first time this year. Getting on for midnight, I packed up and got some sleep in preparation for my 19 month old daughter waking up early morning. Opportunities where I can park work and daddy commitments for a few hours coupled with clear skies are a rarity indeed and it was just good to be back out under the night sky despite not locating my intended target of M57 and missing out on Saturn. Looks like next opportunity may be Thursday but forecasts seems wildly inaccurate at the moment but wouldn't be up late enough anyway.

I have 600D with a SanDisk Extreme 16GB and a 4GB. It was second hand and came with those cards. The plan is to let my laptop control the imaging to store them on a 1TB external card.

Longer focal lengths can lead to flexure where the scopes will be pointing at different points in the sky. I have read on the link below that off axis is best for focal lengths over 1500mm to 2000mm. I have the same scope, the SW SkyMax 127 and considering getting a guide scope and camera. Through my own reading up on the subject, I came across this article, https://agenaastro.com/articles/guides/autoguiding/selecting-a-guide-scope-and-autoguiding-camera-for-astrophotography.html and lists some recommendations although it is now a couple of years old.

FLO have two bundles at the moment which I am considering as I have a Mak 127 also, https://www.firstlightoptics.com/guide-cameras/sky-watcher-9x50-finder-adapter-zwo-asi120mm-bundle.html and https://www.firstlightoptics.com/guide-cameras/sky-watcher-evoguide-50ed-guidescope-zwo-asi120mm-bundle.html. I can't really offer a definitive advice as the focal lengths of both scopes need to be considered plus the ratio between them which I gather should be under 4. I'm sure more experienced members could elaborate further for us both on this regarding the arc seconds per pixel and need to read up further on differential flexure. However, entering the information into this calculator for both bundles seems to be a good ratio, https://astronomy.tools/calculators/guidescope_suitability. But you could imagine that a guide scope could in theory be physically longer than the main scope.