Newforestgimp

Indeed ! It’s now on the list, thank you.

Thank you, Appreciate the confidence boost 👍

Moving from vintage lenses to a WO ZS61 myself I was amazed at the improvement, but you will need the Field Flattener, so factor that into your decision. I went for the WO Flat 61A just so I knew it would all work together and its genius, Round stars right to the edge of frame. I tried without flattener and couldn't live with the results it was too restrictive to crop the image down to remove the stretched stars. Nice Pic BTW

Just thought I'd provide a little feedback after applying the best practices advised in the link. I had clear skies last night so rather than gather subs I decided to do a pure guiding analysis and fine tuning. My EQM-35 is un-fettled, as is, out of the box but I'm pleased with the results so far, no Sine Wave tracking in evidence just pulses hunting along the central 0" reference line. I started by making sure the balance was slightly counter-balance heavy & checking and setting the guide speed in EQMOD Toolbox as suggested to between 0.5 & 0.9, I chose 0.8, it was set at default value of 0.1. I didn't make any further adjustment to this value on this occasion, I may reduce by 0.1 next time out and see if it makes any improvement. I then ran several (at least 4) guiding assistant runs and adjusted the focus, min/max values and exposure value as suggested by the assistant. I then proceeded to run a guiding session for 2 or 3 hours making changes to the exposure value trying to discern which seemed to give the most consistently low RMS value, I settled on 2.5 seconds. This seemed to achieve a very steady 1.10 - 1.20 RMS value, whilst not superstar noteworthy sub second, it was the consistency that I was after and therefore consider last nights session a success. Baby steps....

Ah ok my mistake I can see looking closer the ZWO is TEC cooled, so the Pro Tec cooled ZWO version aside.... ZWO have a non cooled version at £519, the ZWO ASI183MC vs the ALtair Hypercam 183c Fan cooled £499 is the real comparison £20 price difference.

Good Morning All, As the title suggests how do I decide between the Altair Hypercam 183C Pro (mouthful) and the ZWO ASI183MC Pro fan cooled cameras ? to my uneducated eyes one is approx £280 more expensive but without buying both to compare is it a case of picking by price and anodise colour ? Has anybody owned both and binned one for the other ?

So tempted by the colour version of this camera, cant decide between the ZWO and the ALTAIR version which is considerably cheaper, thoughts between them ? would be used on a WO ZS61 with guiding.

Thank you both, FLO gave me a basics check sheet which pointed also an ASCOM EQMOD starting point too. so I’ve gone back to basics, reset phd2 and just changed the tracking rate in ascom as advised by the articles. will run a guiding assistant session next time I have relatively clear skies, to see what setting suggestions to backlash and aggression etc phd makes.

WOW ! something to shoot for indeed !! How do I turn off any backlash corrections in EQMOD ?

Yes how indeed? I saw mention in an earlier post of the guide rate setting in EQMOD being low at 0.2.... what should that setting be ? So far im going with the Trevor Jones school of thought and not stressing too much about the numbers but would like to get a stable flat saw tooth rather than a sine wave saw tooth hunting above and below the centre axis. Been happy with the images so far but its nice to know what settings to use to start out with.

Perhaps speak to the retailer, just reading another post on cloudy nights with same issue and he was using two spacers and a Field Flattener and was still struggling, it was with a pentax but it does suggest the ES ED80 needs a hell of a long train back to the camera sensor.

Seems strange, i am def no expert, so i can only ask if you've tried (which i assume you have but been taught never to assume) no extension, one extension, two extensions ? what size are the extensions youre adding ? I needed just a single 20mm extender on my WO Z61.

as a complete noob i went headlong into platesolving after wasting evenings fighting with synscan to offer me alignment stars that were actually visible, now ive got it working ive removed the handset from the loop. I cant tell you how much more straightforward initial set up is after the obvious learning curve and experimentation. Considering some form of mini computer now to have just one cable connected to a single power supply. great shot BTW

Thanks all for your opinions and advice, After doing a some more research based on that advice I'm starting to go against the subject topic & come down on the side of a dedicated astro camera 🤦‍♂️, I think something like the Altair 183 Pro could be a good option for me after trying various chip size/scope/target combinations on astronomy tools, and pleasantly surprised it wasn't silly money. I'll still keep a DSLR in the quiver but think I might just stick with my 1300d &/or get it modified for now, the Full Frame ambitions might have to be side lined or for terrestrial only as I've just spent money on the William Optics field flattener for my Z61 and I don't want to get into another round of buying more flatteners/reducers etc to correct images.

You’d be right, it’s wide field DSO that interest me the most atm and more forgiving for my noob skills but it does tend to send me down the path of most expense 🙈 Ideally a modded DSLR to not have the extra cost as you say of getting it modded. The cheapest option would be to send my 1300D away to be modded but before that I wanted to check on others experience of FF vs APS-C. I have an old 30D aps-c and it’s just way better screwed together than the 1300D, maybe a 60D/70D would be the sweet spot for DSLR.

Appreciate all the feedback, food for thought. Yes I did mean smaller relative to frame size, I realise the object image itself will be same but wasn’t sure if. FF image would withstand aggressive cropping in post processing. When it comes to price I should have said I would be looking at 2nd hand market and decent CCD/CMOS seem to be like finding hens teeth, then also finding one suitable for DSO and the price rockets, unless I’m missing what the optimum bang for buck price point is on them ? Which is the first rung of the ladder that would be better than a modded DSLR ? Maybe that’s where I should be looking ? thanks again

Thank you I’ll look him up 👍

I’m afraid i can’t offer filter advice, can I enquire where you are getting the mod done and how much ? cheers Andy

I’m currently using a canon 1300D but I can feel the new camera itch beginning, if I decide to scratch it I’d like it to be a modified DSLR, my confusion comes when trying to decide APS-C or Full Frame ? Will my images from a 61 APO be too small on a full frame ? Would cropping a FF give better images than aps-c ? Full Frame my assumption would be a 5D of some description or should I be looking at Nikon ? The cost of a dedicated Astro camera for DSO is too much for me at this time I think. suggestions and any experience with both FF and APS-C would be appreciated. thanks Andy

Of Course !!!!! Cant believe i didn't think of that DOH!, i could do that during the day and mark the mount to always get it perpendicular quickly. Thank You

Thank you, its the arbitrary movement to have the clock face pointing straight up thats bugging me most at the moment, i release the clutch, rotate until 6 at bottom 12 at top, it all just seems a bit imprecise when the goal is to get within seconds of proper alignment. I'm wondering whether i need a plumb line to make sure clock is pointing straight up and then marking the mount ? I really dont want to remove the polar scope if i can help it. I'm guiding so polar alignment isn't the be all and end all, it just bugs me all this precision but relies upon checking something by eye ? Andy

Hi All, Quick question on that rarely mentioned conundrum Polar Alignment 😉 I have a SW EQM-35 Mount and I'm polar aligning fairly well and fairly consistently, but feel it could be more luck than judgement. I'm using a consistent method of positioning tripod to fixed points on my Patio, I then adjust position using a magnetic compass not the iPhone as it swears north is West sometimes ! All good so far and results in a minor tweaking each night to get polaris on the dial but its relying on my ability to see by eye if the polar clock is perpendicular. The vagueness in what I'm doing is what I don't understand and need some help with, I have to release the clutch on the mount & pivot the axis slightly so the polar scope clock is pointing vertical ? Why isn't the clock/polar scope vertical anyway ? can this be adjusted ? I assume its something to do with the dial and markings on the mount at the eyepiece end of the polar scope. Is there an easy explanation of these markings and how to use them ? Any layman explanation appreciated. Andy

I won’t give up with NINA but I’m using APT tonight to get used to the overall process, remember I’ve not plate solved or guided before used together for target acquisition and framing, and so far so good. plate-solving and target cantering worked no issues, guiding failed a couple of times but changed the exposure time a bit and it then successfully completed calibration and started guiding consistently after a bit of tweaking the settings. It must be a night of firsts as it then went into a meridian flip ! It navigated it ok until it went to recentre the target then failed, so just got it going again using plate solving to navigate and centre, guiding restarted and it’s currently running. I’m not all that concerned with the image as such I’m just pleased to have used the whole process.

Very cool, 3D printing always amazes me. Such a handy little jig for the phone too.

I’m sorry to report back that I’m still struggling with platesolving via NINA, I’m now confident that ASTAP is working as expected and configured correctly, same settings transferred across to NINA yet images won’t solve from Nina. ive loaded the captured images into ASTAP and APT and both solve the image using BLIND & with coordinate help. I also noticed using NINA that PHD2 kept throwing an error ‘waiting for devices’ during its calibration, as soon as I closed down Nina it carried on past the step causing error & for much longer but sadly the clouds started to roll in and scuppered the evenings test. Im at the point of kicking NINA in the butt and just using APT, I like the way you can point to a spot on the image and slew to it for framing.