AnonymousAnimosity

Thank you, since there is only one parameter to be set for ungided dithering in EKOS I will get back to this and try the settings you suggest when I find the time to sort out guiding. My bad, I mean to write 0.5s! Although I must have read somewhere that a few pixels were enough I will definitely increase the pulse duration and aim for 12 for the next attempt. Thank you for pointing out the mistake.

A few nights ago I tried doing unguided dithering of the skywatcher star adventurer through EKOS. The tracker is connected via the ST4 port to a guide camera (which I've yet to use) that is controlled by EKOS. I left the pulse duration at the default value (0.5s), which should be enough to dither for enough pixels at 6.55"/pixel (samyang 135 and canon 100D). Stacking was done in SiriL. I shot about 120x120" lights, calibrated with 15 flats and biases and this is what the background looks like: there are still visible patterns but it's a bit better compared to what I usually get. The following night I took about 100x180" lights, calibrated with flats and biases: Yesterday I further increased the dither pulse duration in EKOS (0.8s if I'm not mistaken), this time double the amount of subs: I am not sure what I should do differently to solve this problem. Any ideas?

That is indeed very helpful, thank you! I don't have much time to dedicate to astrophotography so for the time being dithering and polar alignment are the only uses I'm looking ot get out of astroberry, I will look into guiding in the future.

Yes that's what I'm hoping for! In normal conditions polar alignment is pretty quick, but if this method worked it would be useful when polaris is not visible.

It's not a GOTO mount, just a tracker with a motorized RA axis, so targets are aimed at manually. There is an ST4 port for autoguding and a usb port but I've read that it's not for connection to a PC. I noticed there is a driver in EKOS but I couldn't connect to it so that's confusing.

According to information found on the INDI forums it seems that the only way to get it working is to select "telescope simulator" as a mount, that does in fact "unlock" the align module. I will read up some more and test this on the first clear night. Thank you for pointing me in the right direction!

Both cameras seem to work properly, at least I can capture preview images. My tracker can't be connected directly to the raspberry so I figured I had to use the ST4 port of the guide camera. Here are the screenshots: edit: I have just now noticed that I'm supposed to have a mount in the EKOS profile, however it doesn't look like the star adventurer is recognized through either ST4 or usb (I guess it's just for power).

Yesterday I finally had the time for a quick imaging session after a few months of non-stop studying, just 30 minutes around Deneb at f2.4 I believe. No colour because I like the contrast better this way.

Hello, a few months ago I bought a cheap guidescope, a T7M guide camera and a raspberry pi 4 to perform polar alignment, dithering and eventually guiding on the skywatcher star adventurer. I have read the documentation for the "align" module, however I can't seem to get it working, all the buttons in the "align" tab of EKOS are greyed out. Has this happened to anybody else? If you use a similar setup with astroberry and a tracker I would be thankful if you shared your experience.

Thank you! I used Startools for processing.

A quick picture of the Beehive Cluster.

My first two pictures with this lens, Star adventurer and modded canon 100D. Stacked in Siril and quickly processed with StarTools. 72x120" lights at f2, calibrated with flats and biases 91x120" lights at f2.8 with l-enhance filter, calibrated with flats, biases and darks. Dark optimization in siril does seem to reduce pattern noise a bit.

I would like to mount on this 30mm guidescope, it looks like it should fit even if I file the rear of the base.

Today I finally picked up the WO redcat ring, sadly it clashes with my camera so rotation is impossible. I am not sure whether I should try to file it or just return it and buy something else.

I've been using a star adventurer with camera lenses for some time and I was contemplating the same decision recently, I can offer a few comments on the scopes you have linked based on my limited knowledge. You will need a field flattener (more or less specific for each scope) unless you buy one that already comes with it, such as the TS Optics EDPH 61/274, so budget that in as well I have seen some good results from people shooting at focal lenghts over 300mm on a star adventurer, but keep in mind that your polar alignment will have to be spot on every time, the lengths of your subexposure will be limited without autoguiding and you will probably have to discard a significant portion of your frames due to wind and periodic error. I think that using an 80mm refractor could get very frustrating. A good knowledge of the night sky (aided by software like Stellarium) is necessary to frame targets manually, you may want to look into platesolving solutions to make life easier I ended up buying the Samyang 135mm f2 lens rather than a telescope because pretty much every refractor I considered in the €800 range didn't strike me as of particularly great value for the money (if you are patient and wait for good second hand deals that's a different story). The cheapest option for a telescope might be the Skywatcher Evostar 72ED, you can buy it new with a flattener for about €500 but (based on what I read) I'm not sure I would recommend it without autoguiding (€200 or so for a cheap guidescope and camera).