Craig a

Hi Ian I’m actually not far away from you I’m on the wirral, I’m in Neston to be precise, welcome aboard

Thanks for reply’s from you all, I think I will just stick to the default value of 70, there must be a reason zwo set 70 for all presets gain values

As the title states, I’m confused as to why the offset is set at 70 for all presets in native driver, does anyone use a different offset ?

A stunner Peter

Great news glad it’s sorted

I’m no expert but did you download the native driver and ascom driver for asi cameras? https://astronomy-imaging-camera.com/software-drivers the first one on the list and the one below the ascom platform also do you have ascom platform for that matter?

Ok my OAG is the zwo v2, I think that’s an 8mm prism, if I can find guide stars with my 1000mm newt and ancient Orion starshoot guide cam, surely the 120mm should have some stars to pick from through a 650mm newt

Thanks everyone for your input, I will go ahead and get the 120😀

Thanks vlaiv, I’m just abit worried about the smaller sensor on the 120 and getting enough stars in it to pick from, scope is 650mm fl, but I always managed to find stars using my 1000mm f4 newt with the Orion starshoot that is quite an old camera now

Hello everybody, in the market to buy a new guide cam to replace my Orion starshoot, my setup is 130pds f5 also the zwo OAG So it’s either the 120mm mini or 290mm mini pixel size on the 120 is the same as my main imaging cam the 533mc pro pixel size on the 290 is smaller but the camera is pretty much twice the price would the 120 be good enough for my setup? I’m also buying the helical focuser to go on the zwo OAG would I get enough stars with the 120 with its small sensor? Or would I be best just going straight for the 290 and be done I’m with it as it has a bigger sensor

Excellent, Carnt wait to try it out for the first imaging session, still don’t understand why eq mod would say nearly 18:00:00 in RA while parked but when I did a test slew to the sun (scope had its caps on of course) it was pointing in the right direction

I thought I could click on a object in stellarium then in the framing tab in Nina I can import the co ordinates from stellarium then slew which will get me near enough then plate solving will sort it from there for centering the object

Ok I had a play this afternoon and got eq mod working and moving the mount! also tried Nina controlling the scope and my asi 533 and it’s all working 😀 I’m very impressed goodbye hand controller! one thing I found odd is the parked RA number in eqmod it was saying 17:58:00 but dec was 90:00:00 should the RA say that? It did park back to the home position just wondering why it would report this? Am I missing something setting it up? Does it even matter as Nina will platesolve to get on target? tried to get stellarium to work with my mount and just couldn’t get it working but I don’t actually need stellarium to move the mount I only need it to get co ordinates for Nina am I correct in saying that?

I’ve just mounted my 130pds onto neq6, I’ve flocked it painted all the shiny bits flat black, changed the focuser to the focuser that came on my Quattro 10cf that now has a moonlite fitted, also changed the focuser thumbscrews and drilled and tapped the m4 to m5 ones that came with the bracket for the evoguide 50 and drilled and tapped a 3rd hole for a 3rd thumbscrew

Somthing to be said about these natural colour images, not over powering and still revealing details in the dark dust, lovely colours in this this the oranges and pinks and good star colours an all round excellent rendition on the trunk

Thanks everyone for your information, that’s good to know I can just unpark and slew to target and let Nina and platesolve do the rest, I was hoping to have a play today see if I can get everything talking to each other but the weather just won’t play ball, I have got Nina and stellarium talking, I managed that sat on the couch, I recently downloaded the latest nightly version that has 3 star polar align, that’s handy because my setup is permanently outside under a telegizmos 365 cover, once I’ve got my polar alignment bang on I shouldn’t need to do it again for a while, I don’t normally start imaging again till end of august so at the minute I’m getting everything setup ready for that first night hoping everything runs smoothly, the framing tab looks good also in the past it took me ages to get framed using the hand controller and lots of test shots it was tedious to say the least

Ok so after slewing RA to horizontal counterweight bar the DEC is slewed so the scope is 90 degrees to the mounts polar axis? Do I then plate solve that before I go to a target or just go straight to a target from there?

I’ve not managed to set everything up yet, busy with work and a baby but I have a question regarding once I power up, coming from the hand controller I used to do a 3 star alignment but now that’s gone do I still need to do that with eq mod or do I just plate solve in Nina from the start of pressing The unpark in eqmod? Hope you get what im trying to Say 😂

Brilliant thanks, I shall report how I get on

One question for malc-c my setup is permanently outside under two covers, one being the telegizmos 365 so when you say power down first and disconnect the eq direct cable do I have to take the cable off the mount everytime even though I’m permanently set up?

Thank everyone for all info everyone, it’s a big help everything is downloaded just waiting for my cable now should be here Saturday, I’m exited and nervous at the same time as me and computers don’t mix very well, I find it quite confusing but the info you all provided will help me a lot

Downloaded the cable drivers and the eq direct cable should be here today so I can have a mess about in daylight getting everything talking to each other

That’s a great explanation and helps a lot, previously I used nebulosity as camera control and dithering and phd for guiding, but I always found framing the target difficult if it was faint, hence why I wanted to move to Nina as it’s free and has good reviews and also for the plate solving to get the target in the middle of the sensor. on the driver for the ftdi eq direct cable which one of the 3 from that like do I need or do I need all 3? thanks again for your reply’s

ok thank you for that yes that is the cable i bought from first light optics, where can i find the driver for it?

Thank you for your help