powerlord

6 minutes ago, DaveL59 said:

I did have some other thoughts re slugs/snails. I know copper tape is largely a myth but a variant on that might work. A circle of copper tape on the plastic section of the lower leg connected to +12v and ground to the metal leg. If they are close enough together that just might fry them or at least get them to turn back 😉

I had a bad experience of slugs when one got into the cat flap and fried itself across the electronics. Thankfully after a tedious clean-up the thing still worked tho it had scrambled the chip codes so neither kitty could get back into the house until I managed to nab them and reprogram them back into the memory. 

Now with the short tripod that's carbon rather than metal so a couple rings 1cm apart might work...

stand it in a basin of water ? cover the legs in salt ? stick a bit of flat A4 card between the seestar and tripod ?

Feedback is right in the app Giles.

Perfect fit

And as a bonus, is exuding Dalek vibes...EXTERMINATE EXTERMINATE!!!

1 minute ago, LDW1 said:

There is only one way to find out the virtues of that dew shield and its not speculation from afar, lol !

uhu. or stick a bog roll on the end. save yerself 15 quid.

4 minutes ago, Giles_B said:

Shipping is way more reasonable from that seller than the one I checked. For a tenner shipped, I think that's reasonable for a lens cover.

On the dew shield, would it make much difference given you already have dew control? Serious question, I'd consider buying if it would.

 

Finally got the Seestar under the  skies. Tried the moon this morning but Seestar couldn't find it and neither could i manually in the short time available. Found the sun no problem just now. Took some video but its all a bit windy. 

I do like the way it finds the moon and sun - by brightness and edge brightness is really inventive. asiair really struggles to find those as it only does plate solving - so it falls over completely trying to find big massively bright blobs.

I hope they merge that back into asiair as it's a great feature - maybe would work for planets, etc too - all of that is manual only at the mo because it has no alternative to plate solving.

1 minute ago, M40 said:

Doesn’t appear to be that high a cost, but I am wondering if once powerlords adapter arrives, would an extension tube fulfill the same function? 

I couldn't quite see from the picture but it looks like the ali dew shield has a thread on it, do you need an adapter for it?

doubt it, it's probably just an off the shelf thing - 50mm threaded extension tube or summit.

you could certainly screw a 48mm ext onto my adapter, but tbh  - its got a dew heater, and its a wee lens - I don't really reckon it needs a dew shield - yer then having to make sure you don't turn it of without taking it off, etc too.

I'd have thought keeping the bahtinov on when stored would probably be just about as good as a cap too ?

8 minutes ago, LDW1 said:

I haven't received them yet, I just ordered them but feel free to check them out on Ali, for yourself !  I don't do links.

sigh.

https://www.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale-seestar-s50.html?spm=a2g0o.home.search.0

imho a waste of money but each to their own..

Just to say I came across this seller on ebay (no connection) who is doing some very cheap full spectrum modified cameras:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_dkr=1&iconV2Request=true&_blrs=recall_filtering&_ssn=lumographic&store_cat=0&store_name=lumographic&_oac=1&_nkw=spectrum

I nabbed an a5000 and a lens to try from him.

My use case is a small camera for travel use - maybe to stick to my seestar s50. A mirrorless like the a5000 is 20mp. with the addition of a cheap sony e mount lens and a uv/ir filter you will have a capable pocket sized nebula catcher it seems to me - and change out of 200 squid.

just a thought. I'll be no doubt posting my experimental results on here, so follow me if you don't wanna miss em!

Well for now I've given up. I took base screws out and battery, but nothing obvious then. I tried a splunger to unclip the plastic and that worked a bit, but not so it felt right. It looks like the side with the power button on should come off. So at that point I gave up for now.

Looking like a bit of clear sky tomorrow so will try my two compact cameras with it. I've got an intervalomter for the rx100mk4. For the m100, I've got an elastic band..I'll avoid hanging my 300mm canon L USM f4 off it for now though.  😁

The pure lack of hassle to setup - no alignment, etc, means I'm thinking it just might be ideal for travel..the s50 confirming remotely what I'm pointing at, but the camera shooting hires (remote over WiFi possible there too). If I choose targets that fill middle half of screen to avoid rotation issues. Eg:

XXOOXX

XXOOXX

so should get 1/2 resolution of camera you use in a square format - so M100: 12mb. Rx100mk4: 10mp

I mean, worst case anyway depending on how much rotation there is.

But I'm thinking better for wide field anyway where your integration time is going to be limited to a few hours probably anyway - milkway shots, up to 70mm or so perhaps.

stu

alright, that might have been a tad of an exageration. 🤪

50%  maybe.

Also, just a note to say my batch of prints in black resin rather than nylon are printing now in china, so should be available in 10 days or so. I'll update when here.

I've not seen anyone do a tear down of an S50 yet - only the CAD pics from ZWO from a while back. I think I might take mine to bits and take some pictures - it'll be interesting and will also help answer questions about gearing strength, etc - though my guess is a very similar construction to the az gti - which you can over limit by 300% and still works good.

yeh I'd not want to hang much of it as you say, but a mirrorless aps-c size with a lightweight lense I doubt will be a problem.

who knows. not tried it, but it sounds pretty much like the azgti when it moves - plenty torque. plus, as it's mounted at the pivot point there's really no extra weight on motor to move really - I mean I reckon you'd probably be able to stuff a DSLR on there with a SY135 easy enuf.

I mean, I've got an obsy with 'real' mounts.. so I'm not gonna do this at home other than as an experiment.. BUT.. as for making the S50 a more vesatile travel mount for holidays, away in motorhome, etc - could be useful. It's bigger than an AZ GTI though, and I'd be using the azgti in EQ mode... so all in all - for me - I dunno-- maybe ?? I'll have to try it.

But for others who are probably beginning or well.. the more typical market for the S50 - yes - I think they should definately have a go. Shooting with something like a 70-150mm equiv with a compact camera should give a decent result I'd have thought over 30 sec exposures or so (will test), and once cropped for rotation should give some nice stuff. Or even wider milkway shots - why not ? You are effectively sort of adding a possible wide angle lens to the extreme ~1600mm equiv lens of the S50. And go pro mounts peal off leaving no marks, so nothing damaged.

Your main issue is making sure your camera has some sort of at least basic intervalometer. The m100 for example does not support remotes other than bluetooth and wifi, so you either have to use a phone and intervalometer app, which gets messy, or settle for bluetooth remote and manually pressing it (urg). But assuming you have a camera with a basic intervalometer, I think it is well worth a go

Genius or pointless ? I've just stuck a gopro mount to the pivot point. Gopro 1/4 camera clip let's me quickly attach any camera. Here is an apsc m100, and my rx100 mk4 for example, but could be any camera within reason

You now have an "AZ Gti" as well. You'll need an intervalometer either in camera or plugged into it to shoot subs, but can now shoot the target at different fields of view, much higher resolution or whatever. Simples !

9 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

Good points. However, I wouldn't say that SXT has any role in preserving or discarding stars. In order to create the starless layer it obviously removes them. However, when they are replaced, they are replaced by stars from the original image, untouched by SXT. There are different ways of doing this but the simplest (which I no longer use) just involves putting them as a top layer in blend mode lighten. If Photoshop is doing what it says it is, these stars will come into view as the stretch renders them brighter than the background. This means that the imager is likely to halt the stretch before the faintest stars have become visible. I'll see if this method gives a greater range of stellar brightness.

One thing I have done is experiment with ways of varying the star stretch according to the brightness of the background around them. While this is not true to the data, it may be more true to the visual impression since stars of a given brightness otherwise look way brighter against a dark than a light background. I didn't do that on this image.

Olly

Don't use ps, but in affinity photo it would be an Add blend layer. The opposite of how you get the star layer in the first place (by flipping the starless layer to subtract, set above the original image and merging the visible layer into a new 'stars' layer). Screen can give a milder result, but Add is the 'as it started' way.

What I tend to do is start with either it set to Add or Screen as I feel best suits, then apply curves, levels and saturation to that layer as appropriate. I usually do end up 'normalising' a little by reducing the bright stars.

What's the equivalent process in Ps ? Or I suppose rather, what do you do in Ps ?

Oh, and how long did starx take on the whole mosaic ?? How many mp is it in ps ? Must be Giga pixels ?

Stu

9 hours ago, DaveL59 said:

So after some messing about, created a new vLAN, new SSID and the Seestar connects just fine to it according to the app. Thing I don't see the point of with this tho - when you click connect on the app it always asks to open wifi and you have to choose the S50 to connect to or it just does nothing useful. e.g., connect to the same WiFi SSID and you aren't connected to the S50.

Am I missing something here?

Or is the point to just let the S50 see the internet that way so it/the app can go get other useful stuff to display?

If the latter then that's a PITA as I'd have to open that SSID to be able to go out to the internet which I never do for IoT devices (of which I only have CCTV cameras, on another vLAN).

I don't click connect. Maybe give it a min to find it.

Now mine is in station mode, when I open the app (I'm on my home WiFi), I just wait a few secs and it finds it and shows its connected.

yeh the app only works in portrait mode. Sounds like something was getting screwed. and on tablet it just runs as a phone app (everything just made bigger), so no real benefit over just using phone.

14 minutes ago, DaveL59 said:

yeah that may be a neat add-on but not for me, too many flight paths pass around here and being ex airport manglement that'd certainly not be appreciated by the authorities 😉 

Did you figure out what that +/- button is for at all?

Nothing in the manuals about it and it didn't seem to do anything.

works for me - it's just brightness control of the on screen stack - press it brings up a slider and brighten up or darken view of image (nowt to do with actual exposure shot)

5 hours ago, DaveL59 said:

Digging around in my camera bits I located a 49mm lens cap that's low-ish profile, lower than most OEM ones at least. Clips in fine, but unfortunately not enough clearance when the moving section returns to park. It'd get almost there but not quite so that idea's a bust.

Also added a bit of copper tape on the sloped corner which hopefully will be reflective enough that I can see roughly where its pointing in near dark, might get some luminous tape if the idea works - could be handy on tripod legs too so as not to trip and stumble about in the dark 🙂 

I suppose attaching a green laser is an option. I mean - standard disclaimer - use with care, don't use when planes around, etc, etc, etc.. but if say demoing it to friends, etc it might make it quite clear where the thing is in the sky that you can then see on the screen ?

stu

agreed - no security from obscurity. use WPA2. locking down by mac address seems extreme, but fair enough.

I had a nice strong connection last night once I bridged it to the obsy wifi. I will say, it battery looked like only lasting about 2 hours hours - did 10% in 20 mins.. so I plugged it into a powerbank and left it out there, so it used up all the powerbank first before using its own power. that worked fine. I imagine the dew heater uses a fair bit. a wee 13ah powerpack yet it going for 3 or 4 hours. I turned it on at about 8pm I think, and when I turned it off remotely at about 3am, it had drained the powerbank, and was down to 60% or so of it's own. So no probs running it all night easily with a cheap 20 quid powerbank plugged in.

stu

29 minutes ago, DaveL59 said:

I'd be more than pleased to have got those images 🙂

Interested tho in the Russell's filters, are they available anywhere.

https://www.rc-astro.com/

Well, I'm afraid I only got about an hour between the clouds last night for first light with the S50.

So here's the results restacked from the fits in APP, and edited in affinity photo with Russell's filters.

NGC7023 Iris Nebula - 22 mins. I mean this is a tiny amount of integration time for this reflection nebula. I'm surprised any of the nebulosity has come out. AND it was a full moon last night.

And IC1396 Elephants Trunk. This one shot with the "LP" filter (a quite bround NB filter). Only 29 mins for that - again not much and I'd be interested to see what it'd be like with a few hours - of course by then you'd only really be getting those hours of integration into the centre circle though.

Overall, I'd say there's enough there to get a beginner interested in astophotography - and what above everything else, it has going for it is ease of use - no pointing it north, no start alignment - just stick it on ground, switch it on, and tell it a target - job done.

Clouded up here. Moon between clouds is all I can get for the moment.

Oh yeh, a quick screenshot of my bahtinov fitted. And zoomed in.