rnobleeddy

I'm not an expert in PHD2, but generally, people find it easier to analyse the logs. It it guides better than this with the ST4 cable it should be setting related. If you're happy with the PA, then perhaps I'd try - dropping (what I think) is the 4s camera refresh rate. Except for the end of the graph, RA pulses are always in one direction, so maybe realizing that there's drift more regularly would help. - I don't know this mount (I use EQMOD on an EQ6) so maybe the scales are different, but can you increase the 0.1x guide rate? - Try increasing aggression

I'd guess it's impossible to say what's happening in your case. Are you sure you've got everything setup correctly and you've forced PHD2 to recalibrate? From the research I did and (limited) experience, it's possible that pulse guiding will work better than using the ST4 cable, but in many cases it won't make a significant impact. Certainly shouldn't make it worse though!

http://deepskystacker.free.fr/english/index.html is the most widely used.

The mono is going to be slightly better, but for guiding, I doubt it's ever going to be what limits your performance.

Without wanting to sound all doom and gloom, unless this is very different to other PCs a dead battery won't have this effect. Even without a battery you should boot to a warning message and bios default settings. This sounds like something else, and if I've learned anything, things like this tend to happen again. Hopefully not though!

I've been struggling with this too, and with the potential for clear skies tonight, thought I'd ask if there's anything in particular that should work better in moonlight, or is it just about imaging as far away from the moon as possible and choosing the brightest object? I've had good success with the the dumbbell nebula on a relatively moonlit night, but M33 and to a lesser extent M31, were both poor. Last week I got 2 hours on the North American Nebula when the moon was almost 100% and there was less in that stack than from a 10 minute shot without the moon.

Thanks all. Would I be correct to assume that a 5x barlow would be massive overkill given UK seeing conditions?

Thanks. Does that apply to using a DSLR to record video? In either case, it makes sense to use the zwo with a 1.25" Barlow. The thinking for the scope was a longer focal length would be better. I've recently got an EQ6 so should be ok for something bigger, but I expect I'll always be more interested in DSOs, and afaik, there's nothing that can be good at both?

Good shout. I'd actually assumed that I would use the Canon for some reason and only remembered the 120mc when I posted this. I have a 1.25" 2x barlow already but could probably invest in a 3x as well.

Still very new to this. Have a 130PDS and I'm finding my feet with DSOs when the clouds allow. Then I hear that mars is as close as it will be for the next 13 years and start to think that perhaps I should have a go at that. In terms of camera, I just got a Canon 550D that I'm planning to mod myself, but that enables me to take videos. I also have zwo 120mc I use as a guide cam. The pixel pitch is roughly the same for them both. The 130PDS seems like a non starter though. With 1.36" per pixel with the 550D, and Mars at maybe 25", that's not a lot of pixels. So question is: given a 2" 3x barlow is pretty expensive, would I be better off just paying a bit more for a cheap second hand OTA?

Shame astroberry don't have a general version. It's probably the easiest thing I've ever used.

I got about two hours of data with approx the same amount of moon and it wasn't great.

Thanks. I ordered one of these. At around £60 including postage, it seems like a decent bit of kit for the price.

Figure this might be the best place to ask this. I'd like to sort out the mass of cables I have. I have a bunch of stuff in a waterproof box beneath the mount and cables running to the mount. Powered from the mains with a 4-way adapter and 4 separate power supplies. With the dew strap needing to be a thing now, I've decided I'd prefer to mount everything alongside the OTA, especially as I now have a mount that can take the weight. I need 3 x 12V outputs (EQ6 mount, dew controller, focus controller) and 2 x 5V outputs (Raspberry Pi + powered USB hub) and probably some room to have some more kit in future. I tot that up to around 3A at 12V and maybe 5A at 5V (as this powers my Canon Camera too). Current plan is to use an outdoor rated 12V PSU such as https://www.amazon.co.uk/Idealyuan-Waterproof-Transformer-Adapter-Lighting/dp/B07JP15KTG/ref=sr_1_6?crid=UF7D8GRFRMMZ&dchild=1&keywords=12v%2Boutdoor%2Bpower%2Bsupply&qid=1601935128&refinements=p_76%3A419158031&rnid=419157031&rps=1&sprefix=12v%2Boutdoor%2Bpowe%2Caps%2C140&sr=8-6&th=1 (although if I can find something more reputable that's not too expensive, I'll swap for that). I figure that apart from the lottery that is unbranded chinese hardware, it has plenty of headroom even if I do need 8A at once. I was then planning to just naively split the 12V (e.g. something like https://www.amazon.co.uk/kenable-Power-Splitter-Adapter-Camera/dp/B06XXCDLK1?th=1) and then a couple of 12V to 5V converters (e.g. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Converter-Step-Down-Power-Supply-Black/dp/B009P0504M). I figured I'd also add something like https://www.amazon.co.uk/Akozon-Analyser-0-100A-Precision-Analyzer/dp/B07L9WCD9H to keep track of power usage. I'm happy that providing the PSU is good for outdoors, any mains plugs are joined in outdoor rated boxes, and I use an RCD, I probably can't kill myself. My main question is if there's anything better, and if I should worry about running everything off the same power supply? I'm far from an electronics expert but as I understand items like the dew heater may cause feedback and therefore reduce the quality of the power to the places it matters (e.g. the mount and Pi). Having two smaller PSUs would also be an advantage from my current situation. I guess what I really want is https://www.altairastro.com/pegasus-astro-pocket-powerbox-advance-power-supply-2846-p.asp but I can't bring myself to pay that much for a PSU!

Power is the least of my portability issues unfortunately! I have no intention of dying either, but I thought running an extension was pretty common? I've got already got an outdoor extension cable, proper waterproof box where I plug stuff in, and an RCD on the plug socket it all plugs into.

Figured I'd resurrect this rather than start a new one. I need 3 x 12V connectors (total maybe 4A) and 2 x 5V connectors (up to 5A). I was thinking of https://www.amazon.co.uk/Idealyuan-Waterproof-Transformer-Adapter-Lighting/dp/B07JP15KTG?th=1 as the PSU A couple of 12V to 5V converters (https://www.amazon.co.uk/DC-DC-Converter-Module-Output-Adapter/dp/B01G8PZS84) and some 12V splitters (eg https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/4-Way-DC-Power-Supply-Splitter-Cable-for-12V-PSU-CCTV-Camera-DVR-Security-Kit-/182232019317). Any reason why any of this would be a bad idea?

Personally I preferred a RDF as I can work out exactly where in the sky I am. Obviously YMMV, but I'd expect that the GOTO will be accurate enough to find targets.

Good point about the settings. I have a 10 pixel dither set in EKOS and a 2x scale in PHD2, so perhaps that's 20 pixels? I was aiming for a large dither because I use a relatively noisy Canon DSLR and a large dither was recommended to work around structured noise. I also have a 5s settle time for some reason. That said, I imagine the recommendation to use a large dither was in terms of main camera pixels rather than guide camera pixels, so I'll do some maths. I'm also using PHD2 , primarily because I haven't had enough time to try the EKOS guider, but I guess this might also save time going back and forth.

Can anyone with a beltmod on an HEQ5/EQ6 let me know if it improved dither times? I've gone for RA + DEC dithering. This seems to work well in that the mount is stable, however, dithering takes about 50s to complete. This isn't the end of the world if I'm exposing for 300s as it's a lot faster than darks, but it'd clearly be better not to lose so much time. My guess is that the backlash in the DEC axis means it takes a long time to move and settle down, but the only other experience I have was an EQ5 where I set it to dither in RA only.

Assuming it's a 9x50 finder? YMMV, but I used a 9x50 finder with a Zwo ASI120 and an EQ5, and the EQ5 was the limiting factor in guiding performance.

Without suggesting that is a good choice, everyone seems to forget that modern PC's are all pretty powerful and that it'd certainly work fine. An i5 or i7 will process your images faster, sure, but does waiting twice as long for DSS to stack kill your processing? Probably not! I have an older gen i7 which seems to work fine. The i3 in your link is about 15% down on raw CPU power compared to mine, which I'd doubt would translate to a noticeable difference. I'll echo the advice - if you're buying new, get an i5 , i7 or comparable Ryzen and 16Gb ram - but you'd also be able to manage fine with a second hand PC for £100.

Interesting. I've been looking to get a cheap second hand Canon with an 18MP sensor because somewhere I read they were less noisy, but I don't think I've seen anywhere that tries to quantify that. Also because I want to try astromodding on something cheap! At least getting a model that records video would presumably help with planetary imaging, regardless of sensor noise.

Definitely recommend looking second hand. You can get a stock Canon 450D body only for maybe $70 on eBay (converting from £ to $ based on sold listings in the UK). If you look around, you might get an astromodded DSLR with your budget, or a better, less noisy sensor than the 450D. I'm not sure any of the cameras max exposure time will be an issue - if your mount is so good you want to expose for that long, you've probably got money to spare for a camera!

The issue is that weight limit is for visual observation. The recommendation for imaging is only 6Kg. I started to run in to issues with 7Kg when imaging on my EQ5, and was often limited to shorter exposures.

For the budget, you're going to need to choose either deep sky or planets. There's plenty of choice for planetary cams (and they can double as a guide cam for later) but for DSO you're basically looking at second hand DSLRs. You can get probably a second hand astromodded DSLR like a Canon 450D for £150 or less, or slightly newer model that's not modded. Whilst the advice to use a cooled cam isn't bad advice, that's going to cost you as much you've spent already or more, and there are plenty of good images taken with uncooled DSLRs. Worth pointing out that the 200P is going to be very heavy to use with the EQ5 for imagine DSOs. Based on this alone, I'd probably suggest you start with planetary.