Andy56

Got my spacers this morning. Another great delivery by FLO. Clouds included as usual. Supposed to have an hour or so clear tomorrow evening to give it a try Fingers crossed.

Many thanks for all your comments and feedback. I have found that I can remove the ring from the flattener (TS 1.0x GPU Superflat 4-element 2" Coma Corrector) and this allows me 3mm less back focus. Kidney beans means to much back focus. I will get a set of "Astrodymium Colour Coded Fine Tuning Spacer Rings for M48 Threads" spacers so I should be able to get the back focus correct and you get more for £1 more than the Astro Essentials. Alacant: I have serviced the focuser and made a huge improvement by cleaning grease off the tube and retensioning the drive part. It stopped the focuser slipping with the weight of the camera etc. I can't remember where all the rubber rings were. I have the "Tommy Nawratil – www.teleskop-austria.com" manual but is doesn't show all the rubber rings. Do you include the rubber rings under the fixing screws in the 7 you mention? I ask this before I take it apart. Cheers Andy

Hi Elp, Just measured the back focus distance using the spacers supplied with the ASI2600MC and it's 55mm as required. ie 16.5mm T2-M48 + 21mm Filter drawer + 17.5mm for camera Looking at the link you sent it appears the sensor is too far away so I need some -ve spacers. I'll have to replace the T2-M48 16.5mm spacer with a shorter one and buy some spacers. May be a question to FLO may help for bits. The tilt may be the focuser. Cheers Andy

Elp: Many thanks. Never heard of Kidney Beaning before. According to the documentation I have it should have been correct but possibly not. I'll look at the link later or tomorrow. Cheers Andy

Hi, Last night, just before the clouds rolled in, I managed to get my 130PDS, flattener, and ASI260MC working together. The images I took have strange shaped stars. In my experience this isn't coma, there may be some tilt. There is a possibility that the camera moved, ie rotated but I don't think so because the trails ar not centered. I've attached an image. It's a single sub of 300secs, background neutralised and stretched; and a 3x3 mosaic from Pixinsight aberration inspector. I did collimate the scope but I'm not good at it yet. Could someone take a look and point me it the right direction for investigation. Cheers Andy

"I tried stopping down to f5.6“ I used a 600d with a pentax 135mm f3.5. I stop mine down to F8 and get some good star shapes. I use an equatorial mount, recently the Star Adventurer Mini. The image is poor because of light polution and an issuee with the camera. Andy

It may not help much but I have a 600D and it had the mirror lockup set when I got it. Confused me until some on here mentioned it. Don't remember where the setting was though. This is a wireless intervalometer. I don't know if you used the wireless mode but if you did it's probably worth trying it with direct connection. I've never had an issue using mine with direct connection intervalometer. It's a different intervalometer though. I always use it with an interval between shots, about 20 secs for 1 min exposure. It's lets the sensor cool down a bit. If it was used with a direct connection I would suspect a faulty cable or connector not pushed in fully, causing extra shots to be taken if the cable moved. Also the intervalometer appears to have a manual button. It's worth trying that for a few times, it may give some clues. Andy

Symmetal: ah maybe. I'll have a read in the morning Thanks Andy

I'm currently using it straight to the sd card so I don't have to use a laptop or similar so no transfer cables. But having said that reminds me that I don't think I've used it like this before. So I will try a different SD card because many people have suggested it although I could never see the logic of it. Andy

Many thanks for your responses Elp: Yes, I can flip it afterwards, and have done so in Pixinsight. I was more wondering why, it's something I don't understand. Alacant, symmetal, Gfamily: This make sense that the origin is bottom left and not top left. This would cause the flip. Alacant: I haven't used Siril for processing because I have not learnt how to do so yet. I'm retired but still can't find enough time for it all. I have gained good familiarity with PixInsight and use it most of the time. I'm trying to resolve the balance between the use of software to correct lines from the Canon camera vs get a new(newish) one. Siril was a quick way to allow me to debayer images for examination in PixInsight. You have replied to my query Am I looking at a faulty sensor? with the good suggestions to overcome this issue, ie the Banding Algorithm in Siril. I hadn't realised that these existed until you suggested them, many thanks. I found the equivalent in PixInsight, CanonBandingReduction. Up to now my camera did not exhibit this issue so this is all new to me. Thanks for the link about Siril's banding. As and aside a member of our local astronomy group has offered to give some training on the use of Siril, I've signed up for this. Many thanks Andy

Hi, I've just started using Siril to batch remove Canon banding but I've noticed some strange behaviour in DSS when stacking the files. I'm basically evaluating my 600D I have just started to re-use. It has gained some lines across the image and I'm experimenting with different processes to find the best way to remove them (or buy another camera). I have converted 10 *.CR2 files to FITs and de-bayered them. I then run the Siril batch Banding Reduction on these files to get a new set of FITs. I have then run DSS to stack the fits files without calibration files. The DSS stacked FITs are both inverted vertically but the CR2 files are not. This does not happen if I stack them in Pixinsight. Can anyone shed light on this. I guess it's something I'm doing but it's seem to be a Siril/DSS thing. TIA Andy

Hi, Thanks for your ideas and thoughts. I'm slightly concerned that using resistors may give a problem of the copper wire becoming work hardened over time and breaking whereas I understand that Nichrome/KANTHAL is much more resilient. If I use Nichrome/KANTHAL I would crimp the ends to connect the power wires. Something like a JST connector crimp and then solder the power wire to that. Cost: KANTHAL wire seems to be very popular for foam cutting and Vaping coils and is very cheap £6.95/50m I think this is the way to go. Blackwaterskies (thanks for the link) suggest 0.3w/cm for a telescope but to lower this for camera lenses. So I my plan it to design for a max on 0.3w/cm and use the COOWOO controllers. Fun ahead! Cheers Andy

Clarkey: Good plan. I'll look for these. Stuart: Many thanks but a bit big I think compared to the lens Cheers Andy Edit: I had a look for DIY heaters, looks like some Nichrome wire will be coming my way

Hi, I'm using vintage lenses on a 600d and have had issues with condensation. I have two COOWOO heaters but they're are 45mm wide and the lens is 30mm long so I could get vignetting. It's a 28mm Pentax M SMC. I've had a hunt around the net and can't find any narrow ones, ie about 25 to 30mm, Ideally something about 10-15mm wide would be ideal so it can go round the focus ring and run off a USB power pack. Do they exist? Cheers Andy Edit: typos and bad grammer.

Sorry about the delay, the notifications aren't happening. I'm using DSS and Sequator for fast results. I don't have APP but I have PixInsight so I gave WBPP a try, good results (see below) but it took 1hr 10mins as opposed to a few mins in DSS or Sequator. I generally use PixInsight when doing deep space objects but then the whole kit, including the camera, is much better. I was trying to be economic with time as I'm planning a trip to the Southern Hemisphere but it doesn't pay. You have to pay somewhere equipment or time! Cheers Andy Orion last night: Star Adventurer Mini 0.5arcmin dither + home built dec ditherer, all running from a USB battery pack. Canon 600D, ISO800, 75x19secs lights, 10darks, 20flats Pentax 135mm at f8 72%moon bortle5 (or worse) Quick processing Stack, Background Neutralisation, Manual Stretch, Noise XT, Blur XT Given the moon was 71% and 30deg from Alnitak I'm quite happy with this. The background needs some work though, but considering I overlook the town and the light pollution probably what is to be expected.

Hi Michael, I understand what you are saying. Given the hardware I have at the moment I was hoping for some program that I could call programmatically to analyse the two images and compare this to a number of steps. I would increase the number of steps until there was a measurable pixel shift and this would give me the backlash number I need. Since my first post I have decide not to be two precise at this stage and just give it enough shift to average out FPN but no so much to require significant image cropping. The SAM defaults to a minimum of 1' of dither (there's a trick to get this lower) but I was looking to calibrate it to 1". So now if I think of dithering in minutes of arc then at 135mm, 1arcmin will be approx 152 steps so if the backlash is 10 or 20 out it won't be a big deal at this stage. So if I dither up to say 50 steps than I'll lose about 300 pixels off the frame in DEC. I can live with this at this stage. My next stage is to have an ST4 port so I could use in on my Star Adventurer Pro (not Mini) and get tracking in RA an DEC. Cheers Andy

Hi, I'm building a DIY ditherer that works on the DEC axis of a Sky Watcher Star Adventurer Mini. It's based on https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/779709-star-adventurer-automatic-dec-dither/ but I have changed almost everything except the 3D printed bracket and the stepper motor. Currently it uses an Arduino Pro Mini, DRV8825 stepper board, OLED display and two pots to set the dither frequency and amount and runs off 5V only. The aim is for it to run off a USB battery pack. I use a 5v->9v boost converter internally. According to my calculation the camera will turn about 2.6 arcs secs per step BUT the hysteresis is about 360 steps. For a 135mm lens on a Canon 600d I need 2.53 steps per pixel so for 10 pixels I need 25 steps, but if I want to change direction I need to add in 360 steps so if I have the hysteresis off by a few steps it could mean none or too much dithering. Currently I'm finding measuring the hysteresis accurately is difficult. I'm using APT in live mode, full zoom with the camera pointing to a mark on a fence 5m away and increasing the hysteresis steps until I can see movement, very inaccurate least ways I can't tell if it's good or not. So what I would like is a means of analysing/comparing images to see how many pixels it has moved so I can set in a movement and measure the pixel movement and so see what the hysteresis is. I'm thinking something like the way PHD2 calibrates. I have though of using PHD2 but I would have to add a comms interface to the unit and I don't want to spend the time on the software at this time. So does anyone know of any software tools that would give me a pixel shift indication by comparing adjacent images so I can increase the hysteresis slowly until I can see a change? I've also looked at SharpCap but can't see an appropriate tool. If you wish to see Cheers Andy

As a Pixinsight user I found the "CanonBandingReduction" script. So I'm not the only one! I also found that it only occurs in low light situations ie darks and lights. It doesn't show in flats or bias frames even if I give them an extreme stretch. I tried a series of darks from ISO400 10, 60 and 120secs also ISO800 10, 60 and 120secs. Giving them an equal stretch the line is visible in all but ISO800 120secs. So it seems that there is some clipping at the bottom. I don't fully understand it, maybe some one can explain. This gives me a lower limit on the exposures I can use. If the weather was any good I'd have tried it outside but darks were the only testing I could do. Cheers Andy

Hi alacant, A software solution is quite preferable over the gravity solution. I'm going to give Siril a try although I've never used it before. I used dark fame on this data because the lack of dithering showed many hot pixels after stacking. I'll try with and without. It'll save buying another camera. Cheers Andy

Hi, I've had a Canon 600d for a few years and moved over to an ASI2600mc for a few years. I've been experimenting with a more portable rig and started to experiment with a SAM and my astro modded Canon 600D for wider angle. The last session gave me images with a line across it as you can see in the attached Persius image. This image was 90x 10secs stacked with DSS, 50mm Pentax at F5.6 and ISO800. There is walking noise because I hadn't turned on the dithering because I forgot and it was the first night out with it etc... Overall I'm impressed with the SAM The second image is an uncropped 16x60secs at 135mm with a lot of dithering so the line can disappear. Plenty of light pollution, bortle 5 and it shows the lens defects. So the question is, based on your experience is this a failed sensor with one line failing to readout? Cheers Andy

Hi, I'm building a MyFocuser2 for a 130-PDS and a Zenithstar 61 II. I have found an STL file for an adaptor for a NEMA14 stepper for the 130P-DS but I can't find one for the Zenithstar 61. I have found one for the 73 but the dia is obviously different and may not fit even after modification. Has anyone seen a file for this or created one they are wiling to share. I have no experience at creating 3d models and think it would be a long learning job creating my own. My intention is to get the adaptor printed for me using one of the on-line options (JLCPCB) which is where I'm getting the PCBs and other 3d parts made.. If someone has a prototype I have no issues filing to to fit. Cheers Andy

Hi, The filter is in a filter draw next to the camera. I can remove the filter easily to see if it's that. I have 3 artefacts in the final images because it appeared at different positions during different sessions. I've created a video from one set of registered subs from the HHN. For the first 1/2 there was no dithering and about 1/2 way though it does a meridian flip and dithering starts. Then about 10 frames before the end there is scope move or something. The artefact follows the approximate location. I would have though it would have moved substantially after a flip if it was external lights and not moved if it was a bright out of view star. One set of subs did not show it at all. This was a different night but the telescope position would have been within cms of the other occasions. My tripod goes onto 3 1/2 bricks in the lawn. I guess I have to wait until some clear nights come back to greet us or at least some with few clouds and no rain. (and warm. Maybe move to Spain) Cheers Andy HHN_2023-01-17 .avi

Hi, Yes good point try a bright star. Find one at the same approx alt/az position to see if it's external light source. Cheers Andy

Hi, I know this is an old topic but I've just come across it. I have the WO ZS61 and find it to be a great 'scope. I think you may have been unlucky. Does the nylon piece look like the bit in the photo's below. It's for the clamping rings. First Light got me replacements from WO for this. Andy

So I've looked over my subs in great detail and found something very interesting. The reflection moves around with dithering so I thought probably a streetlight (no moon) or similar on the lens. Perhaps I forgot to slide the hood up. BUT it stays in area after a meridian flip. I would have expected it to move to the other side of the image if it was external to the telescope. Any one any ideas? Cheers Andy