powerlord

So... it's been a while. What with the terrible weather I've had few occasions to commit astrophotography, but the odd night that has been clear, I've just no interest. Having spent the last 3 years accumulating 20,000 quids worth of kit and building a bespoke 2 pier observatory in my garden..this is a bit of a set back. I've read of others over the years losing interest, and thought 'pah..that will never be me'.. and yet here I am.

There's a clear night tue maybe. So I'm trying to kick-start my interest again. Maybe a wide view with pons brooks ? Any other suggestions ? Sonething to really energise me into the hobby again ? I feel some of it might have been general crappy weather, S.A.D. and stuff..but if it doesn't come back I might have to face up to it. 😕 there's not a lot of other hobbies that cam make use of a solid concrete based roof off shed. 😳

If it's new, gather evidence from single subs, and raise with where you bought it. If it's FLO, I'd imagine they'll be no problem replacing it.

If on the subs it is just one side though, consider that it could be tilt - your asi2600 has a tilt adjuster - but don't mess with it until you are sure the issue is tilt.

stu

Just now, CCD-Freak said:

I missed that.  8^P   I will go back and take a look.

Does the software have a setting for EQ mode?

 

 

no. it's an undocumented 'feature' of the new 3 star alignment process - which basically makes it possible

3 minutes ago, CCD-Freak said:

Some pretty good images coming from the SeeStar scopes.  

I wish they would give the option of mounting it in an EQ configuration so that you would not have to worry about field rotation. 

you can - look a few pages back for me doing just that.

stu

im looking forward to the tracking in daylight - it was one of the things I liked about the dwarfii. be interesting to see if it can track the squirrels in my garden half as good as my jack russell can...

Hi Peter - latest version is v1.14 as far as I can see ?

https://www.seestar.com/download

stu

1 hour ago, Elp said:

Android instructions (iOS may be similar): to make sure the app is truly closed, go to settings, apps, click on the relevant app, press the force close button. You'll get a notification stating it may fail to operate properly if forced closed but continue. Any open app closed like this is truly closed and not running in the background unless it has installed specific background activity access or permissions.

Then open the other app you want to use.

I had this issue when using more than one asiair at the same time using the same phone to control all of them. You can't just switch WiFi or device, the app has to be forced closed otherwise it gets confused as to what mount is connected and you'll inadvertently stop one from running. So if I'm using one phone, I have to exit the app, open my open apps and swipe the asiair app closed, then go into android settings and force close the asiair app. Then I can connect via WiFi to the other air, open the asiair app and see what the other setup is doing. I do this multiple times throughout a session and it works no issue, it is easier having a second controlling device so you don't need to keep switching like this. This issue has been in the asiair app for a long while and likely been transferred to the Seestar app too by the sound of it.

This will also work if one tablet, multiple asiairs:

- use asiair 'switch' to connect to different asiair.

- at this point it is dodgy - it will show stuff like mounts not connnected even though they are, etc.

- close app (I've never needed to force close, just go to app view, and swipe it off)

- open app again. it is now good and connect to the other asiair, all stuff showing connected etc

-use as required.

- same process again to switch to another one

As you say, it's really worth having a device per asiair (or per seestar) - android devices are cheap as chips and any old phone or tablet tends to be better than the switch and close and open and switch and close mallarky.

Yeh.. I sort of went Mosaic mad in the first 3 imageable nights in 2024.. this is the last of the lot - not entirely successful to be honest. Lots of join marks, and APP didn't do a very good job of removing satellite trails either.

But to be honest, I've been editing it for hours and I've had enough. I shot loads of Ha, but I can't really see what it would add, sticking it all in to be honest, so after trying countless ways of adding it, I've decided it looks better without it.

the sort of weird band across the middle is the join line between the 2 parts of the 2 part upper and lower mosaic. And maybe that was the problem and I should have done 4 parts together rather than 2 then 2.

Each panel was imaged 1 hour RGB, 1 hour Ha. But as I say, Ha not used in the end. redcat, asi2600. 60 sec subs. It is what it is...🫤

3 hours ago, Giles_B said:

Has anyone else tried using the Seestar on the same network as an Asiair? I did so last night and got some unwelcome results.

I've recently tooled up for Astrophotography, so I'm just learning the setup and grappling with polar alignment, gain, exposure times and all sorts of other new things. Last night I thought I'd try @powerlord's EQ setup for myself in addition to all these new things, so I had the Seestar sitting and turned on while I set up the Asiair (Pro) on the AP rig. Both were in base mode connected to my wifi repeater.

Half way through the Asiair PA process the Asiair app told me I had the mount in Alt-az mode and refused top go any further - which was odd because I have an EQ6 - which given I'm new to this I *thought* didn't have an alt-az mode but I wasn't 100% confident. Lots of faffing around with the EQ6 later, I had got nowhere. I just couldn't get the Asiair app to recognise the mount. At that stage the app flashed up that there was new firmware and asked me if I wanted to update. I was about to do so when I noticed that it was recognising the mount as a Seestar!

I shut everything down and rebooted the Asiair with the Seestar turned off. Everything was back to normal.

Once I'd got the AP rig set up and following a plan, I rebooted the Seestar and ran the Seestar app, which also worked fine. - although I was getting a bit late for experimenting with EQ Seestar by that time, so banked that for another day. Not quite sure what happend, but my guess is that the wifi on the seestar is so much better than the Asiair pro that the Asiair app preferentially connected to the Seestar - but I would have to experiment to confirm, and I'm not sure I'm keen to do so!

Anyway all's well that ends well, but I diud almost either write Asiair firmware to the Seestar (or maybe the other way around??) - which could have been catastrophic, so I thought it might be worth sharing my experience as a warning to others planning on sharing a wifi connection, at least with an Asiair plus!

Hmm, I've not had them on the same night. But I suspect its not wifi strength, you say you have them in base mode. More likely both are broadcasting with mDNS with ports that are common across both devices and the asiair app thinks the seestar is an asiair. Have you got the latest apps ? If so, I'd suggest raising bug with ZWO (you can do it straight from the asiair app).

My biggest Mosaic yet - 6 parts (8 shot but clouds ruined two panels) shot with stellamira 90ED with 0.8 reducer and asi2600 over 2 nights.

Like it smaller redcat mosaic of the same region, though didn't get comet in it this time unfortunately.

Lots of galaxies there though. Clicky dance gets you the whole 132 megapixel. I had  to darken the background more than I'd like, but there were joining artifacts from the Mosaic and it was the easiest way to get rid of em.

Left middle you've got the eyes, some spirals in the right.

you should check out his website. seriously impressive stuff

https://www.woodlandsobservatory.com

publication list as long as yer arm.

Todays APOD. Kinda mental looking, but useful I think for compositing future projects?

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap240123.html

can't they just cover them with black velvet ? or failing that, cat fur ?

13 minutes ago, Stuart1971 said:

Great image…👏🏻

can I ask what you used for your website, what hosting and design, as it’s excellent, nice and simple and to the list , with a good easy to navigate set of pages…👍🏻

wix.com

need to update actually - not updated in about a year!

stu

Shot With Redcat and asi2600. RGB and Ha with Ultimate filter.

Processed in APP, Siril and Affinity photo.

About 3 hours each of RGB and Ha. It's one that really benefits from RGB for the reflection purply bits and the colours in the Spider and Fly I think.

yeh, I edited late last night and actually found myself thinking the same thing overnight - well not the techy bit about elliptical tbh - just the fact all I got was every galaxy in red with no real extra data. I'll re-edit and remove the Ha.

thanks

stu

Shot over 2 nights - this is a 4 panel mosaic in RGB and Ha. Shot with my Redcat and asi2600a. Ha with Ultimate filter.

And, I admit just by pure luck, I managed to catch a comet too !

It was a bit of a [removed word] to process, as it's 90mp worth. So all panels individually stacked, then mosaic joined in APP, then processed in Siril and then into Affinity photo for starX, noiseX, compositing in the Ha.

It's about 8 hours in total  - 1 hour per panel RGB, 1 hour Ha.

Edited and cropped down, it's still 60mp so probably well worth the clicky dance. There really is a lot of galaxies in there. It boggles the mind to think of each of of those being billions of stars and planets.

<edited to remove Ha as not adding anything - thanks Olly>

Also, added annotations showing all the galaxies

Annotated:

So, is this allowed ? I noticed on 18th Jan that Jupiter and the Moon could be framed in the same shot at 430mm with my 90ED and 0.8x reducer/flattener and asi2600.

Now obviously actually imaging both in the same shot is not exactly straight forward. I took some 10ms shots which unstretched show jupiter and the moon well, but none of Jupiter's moons and no stars - though the stretched imaged did have all the moons in it.

I also then used the asiair to shoot video of the moon and jupiter so I could lucky image process them later and composite them back into the image with a bit more detail.

Finally I had to get some stars - so the next night I went to the same place in the sky - no moon now, and jupiter in a difference place but I imaged 60 second subs for 30 mins to gather enough data for stars and any galaxies lurking around.

I then took out that jupiter from the stack, and popped the original frame back in with jupiter and the moon as it was on 18th. Finally I extracted the moons from the original night from the stretched image and popped them back around the original jupiter.

Finally I used the lucky imaged moon and jupiter to add a bit more detail into the original 10ms sub.

Last but not least, Jupiter being pretty hard to spot in the composition, I added a bit of the flaring from the original 10ms shot when stretched too to balance the frame and make it easier to spot Jupiter in there.

The clicky dance to full resolution one definitely required here. I like the fact it really shows the difference in apparent size in one composition. Last night I did the same with Uranus! A bit less impressive, but might post that too if this one is allowed.

stu

the avi needs to be debayered first. basically it records the data from the sensor 'raw'. It needs to be processed using the debayer pattern of the sensor to become proper colour data.

PIPP will do this on the PC if you download it.

For the moon and the sun it seems to use an alternative to plate solving - which is great and I hope it migrates into asiair code base. Since there are no stars to plate solve in each case, it seems to go into the general area, and then move towards the lightest part of each frame. It's generally a great way of doing it. With the asiair, since all it can do is plate solve (at least in current release), you rarely get a good goto for the moon and need to manually adjust it.

However, because of this algorithm it is, a bit like moths, prone to mistaking other things for the moon. I've had it move and centre a street light a few times.

21 minutes ago, Doug64 said:

Do the images from Seestar go directly to this tablet.

Thanks

mines is an a7 are works great

Think that's the first time I've seen -10 maintained with no cooling!

Parky oot there

I really commend samsung tablets. You'll get a refurbished a8 under 100 quid, or a new one for about 140 quid. Stay away from the Chinese makes you've never heard of unless you know for a fact its good (ie don't trust reviews).

Stu

All ready for first proper sesh of 2024.🤩

15 minutes ago, Doug64 said:

Hi,

I hope someone can help me. 

I got a Seestar at Christmas and managed to use it properly last night for 1st time due to recent bad weather in UK.

I got some nice deep sky images however the jpeg / video wasn't copied to my android tablet.  The stacked files are on the SS under The Works folder

When I used my android phone the jpegs etc were copied to my phone under Coms.zwo.seestar album.  This album is not on my tablet, the images arnt there.

Can anyone offer any advice to help me get the images to show, be stored on tablet.

Doug

 

check the app permissions incase you've left something unticked ? also, what version android ? if it's very old I think someone else somewhere said gallery didn't work.