AstroMuni

A guidescope helps guide the mount in between exposures - nothing to do with PA. I will second what @Franklin has said about not needing accurate PA for viewing. Just give it a go and enjoy. 🙂 Dont buy more equipment at this point. If you do find that you are finding it difficult to view then you can post here about the issues you are facing.

A simpler option would be to cover part of the telescope opening to reduce the amount of light coming in. Most scopes come with a lid which has an opening and cap, try that. In my opinion the Moon filters are not worth it.

I would definitely recommend it. Its not the all singing all dancing package like PixInsight, but its under active development and with regular contributions from developers is getting better with every release.

Look forward to seeing final version. Good luck

Looks lovely 😍 You could still try and extract the brownish dusty clouds from your image, as I can see that its there in background. I used the GHT feature in Siril to do this.

Are there any instructions for installing on Linux?

I am only 2 years old in this hobby, so not an expert by any means. As I understand it, Increasing exposure time is not necessarily the right answer. It just saves disk space on your computer. At the end of the day, the more the photons captured the better the image and the SNR. And its also a lot down to post processing. As an example if I were to give my data to folk here, they would end up getting a much better image from the very same data that I used for my image 🙂

Have you seen this? I know its not about DSLRs but it will give you a bit of background on the topic as the sensors are pretty much the same on both DSLR & Astrocams.

I used Siril (its free 🙂 ) Your tilt is minimal if any. I dont think you can easily achieve perfectly zero tilt as any movement in scope could cause tilt due to gravity. Here is your image showing the tilt.

I dont see square stars. Just a few dust spots and a bit of what maybe vignetting? Both would be removed by flats. If this were my scope I wouldnt worry about it at all as the image looks great! EDIT: And some stats on the tilt : Stars: 965, Truncated mean[FWHM]: 2.83, Sensor tilt[FWHM]: 0.08 (3%), Off-axis aberration[FWHM]: 0.13

All I was trying to say is that when Barlow mag is blank or zero Excel shows a division by zero error, so if you fill 1 in the Barlow mag column that will resolve it. 🙂

In Ekos, there are 3 options The first one just Syncs scope to the coordinates found in platesolve, 'Slew to target' syncs and Slews to target and last option does exactly what it says, just platesolves. So I would suspect NINA would do something similar as option 2 with 'slew and center'. Someone who uses NINA could confirm.

Thats exactly how I started my journey 🙂 but only tried lunar & planetary imaging with my phone. I did find that the motor got in the way in certain positions on my Astromaster 130, so thats one thing for the OP to watch out for!

Check this out. May give you the answers you are looking for https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/692243-how-to-control-your-usb-enabled-scope-with-stellarium-mobile-plus/

Useful for calculating exit pupil. You might want to default the Barlow mag value to 1 so that you dont get DIV/0 errors. BTW, have you seen the calculators that FLO have created at https://astronomy.tools/calculators/magnification ? I am not sure they have a calculator for exit pupil but there is mention of exist pupil on this page EDIT: The exit pupil calculation is on this page https://astronomy.tools/calculators/field_of_view/

Here is my routine with the HEQ5...quite similar to yours with a few differences.. 1. Set up mount roughly pointing north, switch it on so I can see the reticle and do PA using the Polarscope. (I am fortunate that Polaris is visible, othewise I would have to do PA using Ekos) 2. Attach scope and balance it 3. Put scope in roughly home position 4. Check rough focus so platesolving will not fail 5. Slew to a bright star, platesolve and do fine focus adjustments manually 6. Attempt guiding. If I get too many errors then do PA alignment in Ekos 7. Slew to target and start imaging As you are platesolving there is no need to do 3 star alignment. Everytime you platesolve with a different target the mount model will get updated and it will get better and better at pointing.

Welcome to SGL. Vlaiv has given you a comprehensive explanation above. I am guessing you are thinking of using a telescope for observing the skies and not for birdwatching etc. If the latter then I would advise looking at binoculars first. A simple 10x50 will get you great views of terrestrial as well as stars. Assuming its the former, it would be good to know answers to a few questions before we can assist you with your query. - what is your budget - are you interested in viewing or taking pictures - are you interested more in planets/moon or the deep sky objects (DSO) like galaxy, nebula etc. - are you able to readily setup a scope in your garden or do you have to carry it a distance to get to a clear and less light polluted site. EDIT: And to add to vlaiv's explanation. The biggest constraint we have is light pollution. Most of us live in urban or semi urban areas and are surrounded by lights. So even assuming that you and I have the same scope, the viewing experience would differ depending on where we both live.

I will second that. I would go for option 3 as this will let you do EAA and get some decent images as well. Platesolving is easily setup and as you have the HEQ5 you have the tracking and goto abilities all ready to go. If you are not already controlling the mount via a PC then I recommend you do that. Makes it a lot easier when combined with platesolving. Most of the the software is free anyway. Option 1 is needed only if you are planning long exposures over 1min. I can get upto a min on my HEQ5 without guiding (if my PA is good). EDIT: Option 3 will help improve your PA as well (software like Sharpcap, NINA & Kstars help you do that). You could always add the guidescope at a later point in time.

You could try getting one of these to help track the stars https://www.celestron.com/products/astromaster-powerseeker-motor-drive I have the 130EQ and the mount looks similar so the only way to settle the wobble is hang weights to the mount (I used milk bottles filled with water). The plastic tray is too flimsy so dont hang on that. The other thing to do is set a delay on the camera before it captures an image. This will allow the wobble to settle once you have pressed the shutter. Using a remote control also helps reduce the wobble. EDIT: If you have the Astromaster series, it probably doesnt have the additional lens in the drawtube (my 130eq doesnt) so not a birdjones. And dont be put off by comments that its optics are bad etc. See my signature link to see what kind of images you can get from such a scope. But you do need a better mount to get these! Good luck!

I think you & I are saying the same thing 🙂 The planetarium software (be it Stellarium/ Skychart/HNSky/Kstars) only helps send instructions to the mount to point to the area of sky you are interested in.

GUI wise, I would rate Stellarium as the best. And there have been several requests on Kstars forum to decouple the planetarium from Ekos allowing users the choice of planetarium s/w. Having said that once you get used to the interface of Kstars I find its highly customisable and feature rich. Some of the features I love are in this menu (eg. Whats interesting)

You are correct. And if I am not wrong @han59 who posted above is the author of HNSky 🙂 Ekos includes control of Camera, Mount, Platesolving (internal & external), Focusing, Accessories (filter wheels, rotators etc.), Guiding (internal & external), scheduling etc. So a lot more comprehensive toolkit for AP. EDIT: Its got Dome control as well Its like the NINA toolkit available on Windows.

Ekos unfortunately is built into Kstars and doesnt share its services/integrate with other programs. Atleast not yet.

Nice find. CCDCiel & Skychart runs on most platforms and can use ASCOM + Indi drivers. The author has now added support for mounts, filterwheels, domes etc making it quite comprehensive. Its a good alternative for users of Linux, RPi who had only Kstars/Ekos in the past with this level of coverage.

Thats a good combo if you are happy with the interface of Cartes du ceil.