Dave2292

On 20/06/2022 at 13:46, GrampyG said:

I bought the telescope some time ago but didn't use it. Found it had 'pinched optics', and after some research apparently the 'cure' was to remove the 6 retaining screws around the front cell: these are not the 6 sealed screws. Apparently they are only used for transport.

Did this but still get a significant single 'star spike'

so, anyone aware of persons that may be able to fix this?

Thank you.

G

How long is some time ago and do you have the receipt, I had something wrong with my optics on my explore scientific scope and explore scientific themselves paid for postage to them in Germany and fixed it for me. 

I do believe the scopes have like a 10 year guarantee, might actually be longer. 

Hello again, 

Just wondering if people have any tips for balancing a light telescope on my Heq5pro. 

The reason I ask is because the axis on the heq5 pro are stiff enough to make it difficult to find perfect balance, as the explore scientific Ed 80 isn't heavy enough to make it easy to notice, with my heavier scopes it's incredibly easy to do. 

The reason I suspect the balance is off is due to poor guiding with phd2 (polar align excellent with sharpcap) , after calibrating and using guiding assistant. 

Appreciate any help and time taken to read this. 

On 12/07/2022 at 09:05, AstroMuni said:

Thats interesting. If you have the lynx astro cable then you should be able to use platesolving to get accurate go-to positioning. Check if some parameters have changed such as incorrect date or location.

Okay so this is bizarre but it seems to be working fine now, not really sure what happened but thank you for the help anyway man.

9 hours ago, malc-c said:

If you google the message you'll find that its some message related to the calculation based on calculated discrepancies between the axis - Here's one explanation I found.

And another, more detailed on Cloudynights forum

So basically the message can be ignored

I would ignore it if the mount pointed correctly at my target after doing the star alignment.

5 hours ago, AstroMuni said:

Just to understand more clearly, you are saying that it successfully completes the alignment and gives a warning message. But after that the objects are off target. Is this correct?

When an object is off target, how far off is it to actual position? If its close but not on the dot, then that happens depending on which stars have been used for alignment.
 

yes the alignment is successful, the 2nd and 3rd stars are pretty much bang on, I get the warning and then it takes me back to the star alignment but if i choose to ignore this and try and slew to a target, it isn't even close.

It's strange I had recent issues with Cartes du ciel. where I would sync on a star, slew to my target for the night and take a test shot but it would so far off.  It was working fine for a good year with Cartes du ciel with a lynx astro cable and a year before that using the handset.

5 hours ago, carastro said:

I have an HEQ5 and have never had this message, however my mount is a few years old so may have different software.   To be honest l PA accurately (with polemaster) but sometimes it doesn’t GOTO my alignment star either. Yet another nights it is spot on???!!  
 

l stopped doing any more than a 1 star alignment a long time ago as l have cone error and trying to align on two sides of the Meridian just causes more problem than simply doing  a 1 star alignment.   I then goto a bright star near my target and sync. 
 

Carole

It is bizarre , ive had the mount for a few years now and done lots of astrophotography using either the handset or connected to my laptop using a lynx astro cable. Just when doing astronomy I like to use the handset.

2 hours ago, Earl said:

Have you tested the mount with another handset or eqdir ? 

well before my laptop had some issues, it was actually acting very strange when using Cartes du ciel (after a year of perfect working). Thinking about it now it was probably doing the same thing but not as bad, I would sync to a star and then I would  slew to a target but it would be off by so much I could not see the target at all or recognisable stars in a test shot. I will be trying again tonight with Cartes du ciel and see if it is accurate.

Hello and thanks for coming to this post.

So I currently have a problem with my skywatcher Heq5 Pro mount, after I do a 1, 2 or 3 star align and the handset says successful alignment it gives me this 'caution previous NPE is applied'. 

It then goes back to the start of the start alignment where I have to chose either a 1, 2 or 3 star alignment,  if I ignore this and try to go to an object it is completely off target.

I have tried factory resetting but that hasn't helped.

Any help is appreciated, thanks

33 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

Maybe something strange is happening in DSS?

Try just stacking one session with one set of calibration frames to see if you'll get same issue.

hmmm just tried a single session of the pinwheel and they are still there, going to try the other session and see what happens. thanks so far 

it is strange, the way i use deep sky stacker with groups is like this (as deep sky stacker is odd)

main group has my bias master and then each group after includes its separate flats and lights (don't use darks)

the top image is two separate sessions unfortunately.

51 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

Image would be helpful.

"bevel" type of issue happens if dust particle moves. Sometimes it can happen if camera rotates - but that will affect dust shadows differently across the frame. If single dust doughnut is affected - that dust particle moved. If whole frame is affected -  then something strange happened - as if whole flat frame moved a bit (maybe it was somehow aligned in stacking - no alignment is needed for flats).

Under/over correction happens due to improper calibration or light leak of sorts (same image of dust doughnut but brighter or darker).

Change of focus will cause outline type of error - doughnut will be calibrated but its edges will be beveled.

 

Here is a much better example, this includes about 4 groups with there seperate flats and stacked in different groups within deep sky stacker

28 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

Image would be helpful.

"bevel" type of issue happens if dust particle moves. Sometimes it can happen if camera rotates - but that will affect dust shadows differently across the frame. If single dust doughnut is affected - that dust particle moved. If whole frame is affected -  then something strange happened - as if whole flat frame moved a bit (maybe it was somehow aligned in stacking - no alignment is needed for flats).

Under/over correction happens due to improper calibration or light leak of sorts (same image of dust doughnut but brighter or darker).

Change of focus will cause outline type of error - doughnut will be calibrated but its edges will be beveled.

 

Here is a an overly stretched image as a quick reference, they do get worse than this in some images but i haven't saved them.

what i think i may have noticed is the more sessions i add to deep sky stacker from different nights and different flats for each group, it seems to get worse

hello,

i have an issue with what i am assuming is my flats, they seem to leave an almost indent looking blob where the dust would of been.

my flat taking process is as follows:

slew telescope to point straight up

stretch white t shirt over top

apply light box at a low setting

put dslr in AV mode and use backyard eos flat mode to capture flats

now i do refocus slightly mid shoot as the temperature changes but i have read a few times that this shouldn't cause any problems.

i can add a picture if it helps.

any help is appreciated, thank you for reading. 

10 hours ago, david_taurus83 said:

The Stellmira flatteners are the same as the OVL ones. Just different badge.

Removing the nosepiece on the 1.0 flattener reveals a female M48 thread and removing it on the 0.8 reducer reveals a female M54 thread (the advertised M48 female thread is wrong)

That's interesting about the reducer, thanks for that info as I was thinking about getting that in the future. 

11 hours ago, iapa said:

As the StellaMira range is produced for FLO, your 1st and best option is to get in touch with the FLO team.

I have asked them a while ago, they didn't seem to know, if I remember correctly they said it'll be fine with the noise piece but definitely getting some kind of tilt. 

Hello, i am just bumping this thread as i was wondering if anyone knows of an adapter to go between the extension tube on the explore scientific ed80 and the stella mira field flattener with the 2 inch nose piece removed (female m48 thread) . the extension tube thread which needs an adapter is a male thread with the diameter of 52mm (using a tape) . hoping someone has done this to their ed80 on here.

thank you

On 02/02/2021 at 22:14, Shimonu said:

I've got my EOS 700D and WO Z73 and I always get very hesitant about which targets I should go for. A few times I've gone out deciding for a target but once I try an exposure for maybe 3-5 minutes nothing really shows up. Maybe it's the light pollution or perhaps it was the moon last time. But I've got a few clear nights without any moon coming up so I'd like to know what a good target could be. I've been thinking about the Rosette nebula perhaps, I've got the best sky to the south and I'm at about Lat 58. I've done the obvious targets like M42 and M45 recently as well as the horsehead although I might get more data on that. I've also done a bit of M31. So I'd like some interesting nebula really.

I recently learned the QE on a DSLR is pretty horrible so I guess I've got that working against me as well. But I'm feeling a bit confused about how I should find a suitable target for my gear.

Try the monkey head nebula, I tried that as my first target with my modified dslr

Hello, just wondering what the best reducer and flattener there is for this scope. 

Many thanks 

7 hours ago, Snoani said:

If I understand you correctly, I had a similar problem with my scope.  I couldn't sit it forward enough to balance it.  After many many weeks of considering this and looking at expensive replacement tube rings and the corresponding spacers I ran across a thread with a simple solution.  

Essentially, I purchased a couple of longer hex bolts and a bag of M6 metal washers from Screwfix and used these as spacers between the dovetail and tube rings.  I have had not issues and can now balance without compromising anything.  

Yeh almost what I'm on about, as the current dovetail that comes with the es ed80 means when it's perfectly balanced, the focus can't be rotated. 

Might try some washers or something similar. 

hello again, just wondering who has used this scope before and what they done to be able to rotate the focus all the way as currently i cannot as the focus knobs hit the mount (heq5 pro).

is it just a case of getting some tube rings and finding the best spot for them to hold the scope, or maybe making the scope sit higher?

any help is always appreciated 

cheers

hello guys , sorry for not replying in a while but ive started doing my flats using the AV flat mode on backyard eos and using an art light box instead of my laptop, seem to be getting better results doing this instead of using the histogram on the back of the dslr. thanks everyone though

On 02/01/2021 at 19:00, rickwayne said:

Why not just use SiriL? That's being actively developed. And is free.

ASTAP is another very complete, free package with which you can analyze your images. I told it to analyze a recent set of my flats, screen shot of the result below. "Background" is the figure of merit.

And of course if you were using KStars/Ekos you could set a target ADU value and the flats-capturing module would cycle through exposures looking for one that yielded the value  you sought :-).

 

i checked out that ASTAP software, analysed some of my recent flats and the 'background' level is only around 2500, im assuming thats the ADU?

is this really low or am i missing something here, can see all the dust spots really well though.

Thanks for the replies,will look into that siril program as looks perfect. 

Apologies for the late reply. 

Cheers

9 hours ago, rbeard47 said:

Hi Dave - This link talks about taking flats with a DSLR and also mentions adjusting the EV setting as part of the process.  I use PixInsight which has a statistics process, but unless you were thinking about getting PixInsight, you might want to try the EV adjustment mentioned in the article and see what the correction looks like in DeepSkyStacker.

Taking proper Flat frames with your DSLR (myastroscience.com)

Thanks,
Rob

Thanks for the link, shame it mentions pixinsight as damn thing requires me not to use a Hotmail account haah gonna try use apt flat aids. New software but from the sounds of it, it's better than backyard eos. 

hello there 

I've been searching the interweb with no success, i need to find a program that will measure the adu of my flats which isn't too confusing.

i'm currently exposing to half way on the histogram on the lcd display of the dslr(canon 1300d)

I've read that this doesn't work correctly and i should be basing how far to expose using ADU values, i have no idea how to find these.

I use backyard eos for capturing lights and darks but use the dlsr functions for flats.

any help will save me pulling my hair out, thanks haha

1 hour ago, Merlin66 said:

Always better to calibrate on a star closer to the equator.

PHD will then make corrections for the dec of the target.

 

So I want to calibrate on a star that is as low as possible and South? 

Thanks for the reply 

7 hours ago, Budgie1 said:

Have you done a calibration in PHD2 and where was the scope pointing when you did it?

Assuming you did the calibration, did PHD2 give any warnings, as these can point you towards what to check.

I calibrated on the end star in the big dipper and the only warning that popped up now and again was the max ra duration was too low but I bumped back that back to default. 

6 hours ago, michael8554 said:

Guiding at higher Decs is "easier" as the stars appear to move more slowly than at low Dec.

But where did you Calibrate - On Target, or at Dec 0 ?

Does PHD2 have a connection to the mount that supplies RA and Dec position ?

Michael

I calibrated on the end star of the big dipper and yeah using eqmod with the cable from first light optics. 

5 hours ago, JonCarleton said:

Redo the calibration, then run the Guiding Assistant from the Tools menu.  Let it run for a few minutes, it will give you suggestions to APPLY that are usually spot on.

I did use the guiding assistant for about 5 minutes and used the suggestions. 

Thanks for all the messages, this has ruined two nights for me haha I have tidyed the wires up considerably as well and the only error I got was the max ra setting wasn't enough, which I restored to default. 

Thanks again 

hello just a little question, whenever i guide looking at something in the northish direction PHD2 guides really well but if i am looking in any other direction it is horrendous.

the mount is a heq5 pro, polar aligned using sharpcap pro and the balance is as perfect as i can get it

any ideas? thanks for reading guys