shropshire lad

When looking through the polar scope is the image upside down or just as we see it with the naked eye ???

Update on my post from monday .... re locking the azimuth .... I have removed the azimuth adjust thread/knob and locked the azimuth clutch with a small screw so it is now solid .... and it has performed great now.

I can remove the small screw and revert back if needed.

3 hours ago, SuburbanMak said:

I keep mine permanently locked and have added a PB70 panning puck under the whole mount. The Az clutch is the one piece of the setup that felt a bit flimsy, like the thread might strip with excessive use. 

If I want to slew manually I use the PB70 for Az movement and it turns the whole thing into a nice manual mount.  The only downside is that when used this way the dual encoders won’t get data, so it rules out hybrid manual/GoTo sessions - not an issue for me as I tend to use it manually only for shorter looks, if I’m out for a while I’ll align and drive the scope off the app. 
 

https://www.feisol.net/heads/panning-base/feisol-panning-base-pb-70.html

Yes I use a panning head as well .. so locking the azimuth shouldn't be a problem 

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10 hours ago, AstroNebulee said:

What is the sleeve mod, not sure I've heard of this before? Or I may of I the deep recesses of my ickle brain. 

take a look at this vid  ..... 

I am having so much trouble with the azimuth clutch, I have done the sleeve mod and that worked for a while ,but now thinking of permanently locking it ... will that pose any problems

Thanks for the replies ... it's a dslr and a Sigma 150-600mm lens. so finely adjusting the focus is not that easy.

Is this acceptable for focus or do I still need to tweek it?

Can someone explain The VXL letters please.

Last night 7th March  Telford Shropshire area .... was clearish at 8pm and total cloud by 8:30 ... but still got this.

Whats that last image please

Think on the next clear night I will do a test ... 5 images of iso200, 5 of iso 400, 5 of iso800 and five of iso 1600 and review them on my pc, checking for number of stars, noise level and lightness/darkness of the image.

Paul

Can I ask people that use a Dslr camera what iso settings have they found to be the best..... I know it depends on which model you use but just trying to get an idea.

well thanks again, I am really appreciative of your replies and the extent you have gone to for me (and others reading this)

As it will make my images better I will try and do the calibration frames then at the same time.

18 hours ago, ONIKKINEN said:

Its worth it to try to get Siril to work for you and it doesn't really take that much getting used to. The easiest way is to use the premade OSC preprocessing script found in Siril. Just create a folder on a drive that has plenty of free space on it (and make this the "home folder" for Siril), create 4 subfolders named lights, darks, biases and flats and then put all the raw frames on these folders and click the script. Siril converts your CR2 files to .fits files and then calibrates them and stacks them. It really is that simple.

Check this tutorial if it still doesn't make sense: https://siril.org/tutorials/first-steps/

If you want to have a drag and drop kind of experience like with DSS you can use Sirilic, which uses Siril to do the stacking but with a simple to use graphical interface.

Check it out here: https://siril.org/docs/sirilic/#the-first-steps-with-sirilic

With Sirilic you can do lots of things you cant really do with DSS, like removing background gradients per subframe (subsky) before stacking which helps a lot if you had an unusually strong gradient for some reason.

Can I use Siril with only light frames, as this may be my problem ... I keep getting an error see below.

14:00:17: Setting CWD (Current Working Directory) to 'C:\Users\Paul Lewis\Pictures\biases'
14:00:17: Running command: convert
14:00:17: No files were found for convert
14:00:17: Error in line 25: 'convert'.
14:00:17: Exiting batch processing.
14:00:17: Setting CWD (Current Working Directory) to 'C:\Users\Paul Lewis\Pictures'
14:00:17: Script execution failed.

Paul

Thank you onikkinen I will give it another try.

17 minutes ago, Chefgage said:

Any reason for not wanting to use DSS?

I have been using DSS but lately I'm not too happy with the final stacked image .. my raw files look good but the final image from DSS is way too bright I have removed and reinstalled it but no better.

1 hour ago, PeterCPC said:

I mean that you can't load FITS files.

Sorry I thought FITS files were the result of stacking my raw files in Sequator or DSS... I am a bit new to all this.

3 hours ago, PeterCPC said:

Sequator will not accept FITS files. Have a look at Astro Pixel Processor - not free but really good.

Do you mean .. wont save result as a FITS file ..... as I am loading CR2 raw files in to be  stacked.

Thanks for those replies .. does anyone use Sequator or is it too basic?

Wow Siril is really complicated .... cant get it to process my raw images

Any other software out there?

1 hour ago, vlaiv said:

Try Siril

Ok thanks .. I'll give that a look.

Hi .. does anyone recommend an alternative to Deep Sky Stacker ... thanks in advance.

As I already had a Dslr camera and several lenses tripod and intervolometer .. to get into astrophotography all i needed was the AZ-Gti goto mount (£215) ... free software downloaded.

Later adding the wedge (for Eq), bahtinov mask, counterbalance rod and weights and laser (for poler setup) ... so still under £300 

I think you have done quite well ... can I ask how many stacked images .. what shutter length and iso.

20 hours ago, bosun21 said:

Be careful where you use the laser. Airports and flight routes etc.

Yes definitely ... I only use it for polar alignment and always check the area of sky before swtiching it on ... and it's only on then for a few seconds.

Saw Prof Brian Cox using one hand held recently on TV .. would have liked him to warn viewers to be very cautious of their use.