Varavall

2 hours ago, jacko61 said:

And every time you take off the lens cover you're attracting new dust particles. As you say, 2 or 3 minutes to run a flats plan in APT so why wouldn't you take new ones every session?

Because I like to sleep. NINA does all the work whilst I sleep, so taking flats that same night is not feasible.  However on the argument of temperature changes, my imaging could start at midnight at 30C dropping down to 20C over 4-5 hours, so taking flats before or after imaging, or indeed after each filter change, cannot avoid any effects temperature may have on the final image. Taking a flat after each sub may help, but that would be lunacy!

19 hours ago, andymw said:

The cons:  For my OTA I wish I had originally gone for the EQ6R Pro as the SW 200PDS is a big wind sail.

I have virtually the same setup as you have, except I don't use an OAG, I piggy-backed a TS 80mm guider/finder scope with a QHY5III462C as guide camera and made a counterweight extension bar to balance the extra weight and all on a homemade pillar. I get RMS 0.4"-0.7" depending on seeing. For the wind problem I cemented 2m lengths of 50mm plastic drainpipe into concrete blocks and attach garden windbreak fabric between them. Works a treat, movable and is cheap.

6 minutes ago, Elp said:

When you're post processing.

Ah.....🤣

49 minutes ago, spillage said:

To be able to move the pc into my shed I need a run of at least 6m from mount to pc.

Hi

I run a 10m Startech active USB 3 cable into my house and computer from my ASI1600MM-cool. I attach the mount EQDIR cable and filter wheel to the camera USB 2 ports (I found PHD2 guiding worked better when attached to the camera) The ZWO EAF and guide camera I run over a separate powered 10m USB 2 cable. Works a treat for me once I got the cable run worked out!

2 hours ago, Elp said:

You could draw a mask around that particular area, feather the edge selection and just tweak that region which will help.

Thanks for that. I'll give that a go.

2 hours ago, Elp said:

Its a simple thing but switching off any surrounding lights

I'd love too, but the nearest lights are 6 Km away and I don't think the town council will be obliging 🙄

2 hours ago, Dinoboy said:

I have looked on second hand sites but am always wary

I take your point. In my case I went to the seller to see the mount before I bought it as it was not an inconsiderable sum, at least for me. Find one within a reasonable distance and go see.

3 hours ago, Dinoboy said:

Would it be worth spending upwards of £1000 to get the Heq5?

I would say no, but buy second hand as I did. I got my HEQ5 that way and with eyepieces and a SW 200pds all for 800 euros (about £650 at the time). I have since upgraded the mount with Rowan belts (£120 ish) and it tracks beautifully. I only do astrophotography and I am very happy with the mount. A good guide scope and camera are essential if exposures beyond 1-2 minutes are desired. You don't mention what scope(s) you are going to be using, so that may bring other options to mind!

Adrian 

1 hour ago, Stargazer33 said:

I have tried starting & restarting a number of times but it still doesn't work.

I have had that problem a few times in past and with the latest update. I give up and wait to the next day, that usually fixes it 😉

On 15/07/2022 at 12:57, Shibby said:

I would say the colour balance is strange

I agree. I was trying to tease out as much contrast/detail in the pillars as I could and ended up with that. At the moment the big, bright moon is illuminating all the Saharan dust in the sky and has turned my Bortle 3 sky to a Bortle 7, just like being in the centre of Barcelona. Maybe when I get more data, I can tweak the colours better.

On 15/07/2022 at 12:57, Shibby said:

does GIMP still only have 8bit curve adjustments?

Yup

On 15/07/2022 at 12:57, Shibby said:

Looks to me like you may have some good data there.

That is a pleasing comment!

38 minutes ago, ninjageezer said:

do you guys use pixinsight to stack or dss

I align and stack using ASTAP. It works well for me, but I have all the calibration exposures too. You should get some darks and flats as they make all the difference. As it's only 38 degrees here today I may stay in and have a go at your images. 

1 hour ago, Maurizio83 said:

>>> https://flic.kr/p/2ncWMVn <<<

That is impressive for an uncooled baby camera. I use an ASI1600MM-cool for deep sky, but I think I may have a play with the QHY with deep sky. With it's infra red capability maybe it will rival the JWST for a fraction of the cost 😆

I think the images look very nice. I too have just bought that camera for guiding in the main part (for which it is proving to be superb) and for planetary imaging when the planets are in a better position (my astrophotography occurs when I go to bed and leave NINA to do all the work!) Now I can't wait to try the camera out on my SW 200pds with a 5x powermate. Will be interesting to compare images. I look forward to seeing more of yours when the seeing is better.

Adrian

Hi all

I have been gathering data over a couple of nights to try and capture the Pillars of Creation. I am working through night time temperatures of 22-25C, Saharan dust and a bright Moon, so far from ideal. This is using  SW 200pds, HEQ5 rowan belted, ASI1600MM-Cool, NINA for 2 hours each of Ha, Oiii and Sii at 5 minute subs, aligned and stacked in ASTAP and processed in GIMP. Any comments and suggestions as to the best Ha:Oiii:Sii ratio of subs for this target and useful critical comments regarding the image are more than welcome.

3 hours ago, Adamar98 said:

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hi

Vlaiv beat me to it. I settled down after dinner to work your images in GIMP, and yes, he suggests exactly what I was doing, so follow what he said.  I can now do something else less useful. Good luck on the steep learning curve!

Adrian

On 23/06/2022 at 00:03, malc-c said:

How good is your soldering skills ?

Not well practiced! I assume it's the chip with the red splodge on it?

On 23/06/2022 at 00:03, malc-c said:

do you know of any local repair shop

I believe there are some in nearby towns, so I'll ask around and see what's doing. If nothing, I guess its a soldering iron and Dremel from Amazon; nothing to lose, just honing a skill.

Many thanks for your assistance, it's much appreciated.

On 21/06/2022 at 18:59, malc-c said:

 

Yes, post up some pictures.  I'm confident the unit is an older PIC based unit given the fact it's out of warranty and you use an EQDIR cable rather than a USB cable.  The newer revisions have a USB-B type port in them (with a TTL Serial to USB convertor chip like that used in an EQDIR cable internally )

Here they are! I await news from the oracle 🙂

2 hours ago, malc-c said:

Should the description have read ?

2. Connect handset from my SW HEQ5 to my EQ3-2 and I get the "both axes no response" message

3. Connect EQMOD cable to my EQ3-2 and get failure to connect

4. Connect the same handset to HEQ5 and it works perfectly

5. Connect the same EQMOD cable to HEQ5 and it works perfectly

6. Inspect Synscan EQ3-2 motherboard with magnifying glass and can see no sign of blown components.

Yup, you got it right.

2 hours ago, malc-c said:

If you have one of the older syscan boards which have 2x 16F886's but lack the option to program them drop me a PM and we'll try and sort something out.

Thanks for the offer; I'll post a photo of the board and perhaps you can tell me what I have. I'm afraid electronics to me is a black art, but, nuclear explosives and synchronising global computer networks are a cinch in comparison 😁

2 minutes ago, malc-c said:

 If the fault lies with an EQ3-2 then why confuse matters by stating the HEQ5 in your original post

Because that is the order in which I verified that there is no problem with the handset or EQDIR cable.

3 minutes ago, malc-c said:

Have a read of this thread 

I'll take a look. In my gut I think the something has fried.

Thanks for your comments

3 hours ago, malc-c said:

You don't mention if you powered down the mount between swapping handsets and EQDIR cable

Thanks for the response. Yes, always powered off whilst swapping cables.

3 hours ago, malc-c said:

The firmware is expecting one or the other to be connected at power up.

3 hours ago, malc-c said:

I would advise you stick with using either just the handset or just the EQDIR cable. 

That's the problem. Neither EQDIR cable nor the handset works now with the EQ3-2 mount.

Hi all

I need some help with troubleshooting this problem:

1. Connect EQMOD cable to mount and all works perfectly

2. Connect handset from my SW HEQ5 and I get the "both axes no response" message

3. Connect EQMOD cable to mount and get failure to connect

4. Connect handset to HEQ5 and it works perfectly

5. Connect EQMOD cable to HEQ5 and it works perfectly

6. Inspect Synscan motherboard with magnifying glass and can see no sign of blown components.

All comments welcome! It is not under warranty.

Thanks in advance

Adrian

From using a Nikon I like DigiCamControl 2, which also caters for the non-Nikonistas of this world by supporting Canon too. Had a lot of success with it before going ZWO and NINA. I believe NINA supports DSLR's too, so if your camera works with NINA my vote would go for that.

Hi

I have quickly created the mosaic  using GIMP and coloured it a nice sunny yellow. This is a manual task, but not too complicated. The layers need to be blended to even up the colour across the disk, which is of course another manual task for which there are online tutorials. I'm a cheapskate and if I can avoid paying for the likes of Photoshop and PixInsight I can spend more on actual kit! I tried using ICE, but no joy even on just 2 frames. Hope you find this interesting.

Adrian

1 hour ago, BrendanC said:

Yikes. There is the zipped version too, but when I tested the unzipped download it seemed to have zipped everything up anyway so that may not make a difference.

Finally it all arrived over 4 hours. I have stacked the images and calibration files using ASTAP and aligned and processed the stacked subs in GIMP. There is a good amount of fine detail around the galaxy, but I think you need to take more subs to build that fine detail. Of course you could stretch it until it blows out the galaxy centre. I couldn't recreate the kaleidoscopic effect without extreme stretching, i.e. overprocessing the data. Below is what I achieved in about 15 minutes in GIMP (exported jpg), but I think I have demonstrated what I wanted without spending too much time on it. Maybe the rich people here with PI and PS can pull out more detail! Interesting exercise and I hope it helps.

Adrian

Of course it may be next Sunday by the time the download finishes!!! I live in the mountains so rely on a 4G router; no fibre here.

32 minutes ago, BrendanC said:

Finally... deep breath... given that I'm losing what little hair I have left here, would any kind soul (@vlaiv?  @Elp? @Varavall?) be willing to take a look at the entire set of data? If so, it's here - subs, flats, dark flats and darks, total 13.4GB unzipped: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AqovBuVZMwj3ku8zByEPVWYQIHSeLQ?e=NaPSm2

I don't have much planned for Sunday, so I'll take look tomorrow and see what I get. Should be an interesting exercise!