TerryMcK

I’ve just had a look at https://astronomytechnologytoday.com which is being offered at $6 a year or $9 for 2 years. Normally it is twice these prices. There is a demo copy to look at. Not sure if they offer pdf downloads or just as per the demo which has some sort of online screen reader. Either way it doesn’t break the bank and might be worthwhile if the magazine survives the pandemic. The demo magazine was roughly three quarters taken up with American based adverts which are not relevant to me. However magazine adverts in whatever form boost revenues and paying ongoing costs. Not a problem for me. I subscribe to the print version of Astronomy Now which is good, digital version of Sky At Night which is poor and Amateur Astrophotography which is good. I might drop Sky At Night.

SW gear is usually well padded and it’s come a long way.

It looks great for so little time. Of course it will get even better with more data.

The reason it is making that noise is because the voltage of that cell has dropped below 12v since you used it earlier when it probably had more charge. It cannot supply enough power to the mount which needs 12v at 3 Amps minimum when slewing. The voltage needs to be constant and not drop when under load as appears to have happened. That power source is not suitable and you need a mains(line) power supply that can supply 12v (nominally 13.8v) such as a ham radio/CB regulated power supply. From the link you posted to amazon.com I’m guessing you are not in the UK? The line voltage in the UK is 230v so may well be different in your country. Whatever try to get a power supply which provides the correct voltage/current or has already been mentioned use the supplied cigarette lighter cord that came with the mount and try it out with a car socket.

Thanks Dave I’ll try that out.

I have the ZWO ASI 183MM and 183MC Dave. APP gets rid of amp glow completely but I still struggle with PI. I am using the weighted BPP script. I use darks, bias frames and flats. I’ve even removed bias from the PI integration but still get amp glow. There is probably something I’ve missed in the settings.

I also use APP for integration/pre processing. So easy to use and get great results. It can easily remove amp glow. I also own Pixinsight which does all what APP can do and much much more. I use Photoshop professionally so have that too although you can do much of what PS does in Gimp (free) and the incredibly cheap but fantastic Affinity Photo. My experience so far of PI is it may indeed be the only tool you need to produce spectacular results although I personally have issues with processing ampglow with PI (I need to experiment more). I agree that APP is sublime at producing mosaics and haven’t yet experimented with PI to do the same. So really it is up to you and what you want to do/have interests in. I’m glad I use all these tools but know that budget maybe a consideration. In that case PixInsight would be my choice if I was starting a fresh. Get a training course (rather than random internet Youtube videos) by MastersOfPixInsight for instance and it would pay dividends for years to come.

Excellent. Thanks Stuart

What is the case Stu? I’d be interested in something that stops the dew. It seems to happen about 4 or 5 hours after dark dependant upon humidity of course.

I also have the blink outdoor camera and it works well. I have it at a lowish level just pointing towards the scope about 10 feet away. I’ve never had any issues with IR. That said after a night of imaging the blink dews over and is as much use as a chocolate fireguard. Dewstrip for a webcam anybody?

Definitely amp glow. You will see them in darks too. The 183 has a particularly distinct pattern. It calibrates out completely in integration.

Yes far too heavy once you get gear on it. Mine weighs 4.12 kg with dedicated camera, guidescope/camera and field flattener on board. When I put my DSLR instead on it the mass goes up to 4.3kg. I think the skyguider has a capacity of 5kg and “should” hold it. Whether it is stable is another matter - some say you should be less than 2/3rds to 4/5ths of a mounts capacity when imaging. I’m not sure if that figure is applicable to the Skyguider. You may be better with the much lighter Redcat.

I have the IDAS D2 light pollution filter but that is intended for OSC cameras - I see you have one for your DSLR. I suppose it would work on mono as it blocks several wavebands of light pollution areas, LED streetlights, tungsten, sodium and mercury vapour etc. I've never tried it on my mono cameras.

A pair of binoculars from 1979. Carl Zeiss Jena East German - Jenoptem 10 x 50. They are surprisingly good and I got them brand new back then.

Here is one done in Pixinsight as SHO and the process: Channel Combination R=SII, G=Ha, B=OIII I did an autoscreen transfer function Tweaked the STF very slightly and applied it to a Histogram Transform to make the image non linear Next I inverted the image and did a SCNR to remove green the reinverted the image again HDR Multiscale Transform next with 6 layers and 1 iteration with B3 Spline (5) and a lightness mask Script dark structure enhance Starnet to create a starless image and a star mask Saved the starless image as a 16bit TIFF and imported it into Photoshop In Photoshop the image was denoised with Topaz Balanced the histogram to move the black point slightly I run another PI unsharp mask on it and saved it again Back to PixInsight the starless image was loaded up again Invert the starmask and did a SCNR on the green component and inverted it back again Next run a photometric colour calibration on the star mask based upon my focal length/pixel size/date of acquisition and RA/DEC PixelMath came next to add together the two images Export as a PNG Here is yet another rendition of Pickerings Triangular Wisp AKA Flemings Triangle

No it should be ok like that. Ideally you would have an EQDir cable https://www.firstlightoptics.com/astronomy-cables-leads-accessories/lynx-astro-ftdi-eqdir-usb-adapter-for-sky-watcher-eq5-pro-heq5-syntrek-pro-az-eq5-gt-az-eq6-gt-and-eq8-mounts.html connecting the PC to the mount and then install ASCOM 6.5 onto your PC. This will enable the computer to control the mount, guide with PHD2 (not using the ST4 cable) and take photos with your imaging camera using software like AstroPhotoGraphyTool. As well as do much more. Guiding with the ST4 cable is ok and better than not guiding. Clear skies.

In that case use "On-Camera". The ST4 cable should be plugged into the camera and then onto the mount

They're not all black. Mine are transparent and are the integral ones built into the scope cover that come with William Optics refractors.

Have you got ASCOM6.5 installed on your imaging PC? Your said Windows so assuming it is a Windows PC. What cable do you have from your mount to the computer? What cable do you have from the guide camera to the PC? https://ascom-standards.org/Downloads/Index.htm

Here is another one this time using a combination of mainly PixInsight and finished with Photoshop. This time SHO Channel combination SII to Red, Ha to Green, OIII to Blue Screentransfer function looked ok with the default so went straight to Histogram transformation HDR Multiscale transform - 6 layers, number of iterations 1 with a scaling function of B3 Spline (5) set to lightness mask Ran the script Dark Structure enhance with the default settings Then did a starnet to create a star map and a starless image Inverted the starless image and did a SCNR to remove any green Did the same on the star map to remove green Reinverted both images again Applied 4 iterations of unsharp mask Recombined the two images with 100% on both Saved as a 16 bit TIF for import into Photoshop From Photoshop ran the Topaz Denoise AI plugin Did a final sharpen on the image Save as png file I quite like the structures it has brought out this time.

All the scopes are kept in my office. The mount is in my workshop ready to be wheeled out when the clouds clear. It spends a long time in there!

Here is mine in HSO as I quite like the colour combination. All done in PixInsight (for once no Photoshop!) Here is the process: Combine with Channel Combination - R=Ha, G=SII, B=OIII Dynamic Background Extraction - 25 samples, tolerance 0.5, Shadow relaxation 3 and smoothing factor 0.25 unweighted Photometric colour calibration - based upon the data/ focal length, and pixel size embedded in the xisf data - white reference Average Spiral Galaxy Histogram transformation based upon the auto STF and a little manipulation of the black/mid points of RGB Convert to RGBWorking space Minor adjustment of luminance within curves Local histogram Equilization - first run Kernel radius 25, Contrast Limit 1.5, Amount 0.180 (8-bit) - second run Kernel radius 75 Inverted image. SCNR on red component to remove halo from some stars and reinverted image Ran starnet on resulting image and produced a star map Slightly increased saturation on starless image Ran pixelmath to add 75% of the star map back to the starless image Applied sRGB IEC61966-2.1 ICC profile to image Exported image as PNG

No not really. I think I have 180 seconds with a 10 second delay. Then set it to repeat 100 times

I use this one and it works with the 400D and 450D (and many others) when set in bulb mode. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01GHHBNU0 They are all very similar. I can easily get 5 minute+ exposures from it but normally limit it to about 3 minutes.

I have no complaints with my ZWO ASI183MC and ASI183MM with the apertures/focal lengths I use. I too don't like the square format of the 533 despite its promise of zero amp glow. One thing to bear in mind with the 183 is the amp glow but it can be calibrated out completely. Also keep the gain down to default 111 or even 53 and it is more than sensitive enough. The 183's from ZWO also have AR coatings on the aperture windows so you don't get any internal reflections.