powerlord

Oh also annoying - is that you can't set the wifi to join your home wifi. Hence, I can't sit upstairs cosily in my bed and control it like I can with my asiairs, etc but have to be in range of the seestar wifi. yes, I know.. maybe this is an edge use case - but come on - it's basic stuff. there's no good reason why they have not done this. quite annoying. humph. I've at least worked out if I focus on something in scenery mode, then select moon mode, I can shoot raw video which is stored on the S50 - still just 15fps but at least its raw avi - so I imagine if you wanted to shoot wildlife, that'd be the way to do it. stills are still rubbish jpgs though.

Just read the 'manual'. God that is terrible. How can they have spent all that time and effort on a product, but produce that - unbelievable. Absolutely abysmal.

LDW1: can't manually focus. Anyway, raised a case with ZWO, they got back to me - turns out v1.8 of app is out, but not in play store yet - I downloaded from their website direct, and its fixed it! yeh! So - daylight use wise a few observations: 1. didn't realise sensor is mounted in portrait mode. weird choice. 2. how to get to save on S50? or does it just save astro fits to s50 ? all scenery shots just saving to phone - nothing on s50 when I connect to computer. 3. quality of video and jpgs is rubbish. focus is there now, but jpgs are compressed to within an inch of their life as are the 15fps 1080x1920 portrait videos. They could be much higher quality. Also - surely the sensor can shoot 30fps ? I get maybe not trasmitting to phone but why not save on S50? seems a rubbbish decision. I mean, I know terrestrial use is an edge case, but still, they have really handicapped what it could do here Looks like might be some stars visible tonight, so will give it a go at night and see how it performs - might try an optolong L-extreme on it too. stu

Well, I'm afraid I have got to report a complete lack of success with autofocus on terrestrial targets. every single time, the autofocus routine goes past the focus point - you will see in the video one frame of sharply focused video as it moves backwards, then it moves forwards again and overshoots it. everytime. I have yet to manage to focus a single subject even after several attempts. I tried the wall as it is flat, thinking maybe it was having trouble with certain targets - sloping roofs, the antenna, etc - but it is not that - it just misses the focus point every single time. I've not had a chance to see if this is the same with night targets yet, but it does not bode well. I'm hoping this is a software fix, or else I am going to be feeling the pain of ordering direct from ZWO.... argggg Here's a video showing me several times pressing the autofocus.. you will see a sngle 'sharp' frame every routine before it 'finishes' somewhere totally different.

I was thinking more a professional print - gotta be worth it!

that is truly one to be proud of. I'd love to see the full resolution version. You should get it printed 300cm wide or something for a wall! stu

mine just arrived !! woohoo (and my designed filters fit!) stu

and my first trial run of SLS printed parts for the S50 have arrived too! And they are a perfect fit! whahee. selling these on the sales forum for cost if interested.

Yeh baby. Direct from China. Ordered day after was announced. Not bad for 300 quid. very nice solid quality. solar fiter included. And now can try out the bahtinov mask and 2" filter holder I've designed, got professionally SLS printed and are apparently getting delivered later today too!! I luv it when a plan comes together 🙂 Stu

There's always the moon ? Otherwise, better alignment, max out that iso and much shorter exposures. Biases to get rid of hot pixels, flats to help with detail. Bahtinov to ace focus. And post your results. 👍

forget about darks - don't need em. flats and bias would have been better. I imagine your darks are screwing up your lights. I use APP not DSS, but I've seen this issue before especially with DSLRs - where the reference frames once calibrated into the lights, screw them all up. In APP, all but 5 frames integrated, but the subs are all over the place - it doesn't seem to have been tracking much or at all tbh. I mean I know its az, but I'd still expect M31 to stay in the middle ? The integrated result was just a blur though so it was a false positive. But just have a look at the subs and you can see they are very streaky and moving about everywhere really. I'd suggest trying again and this time: 1. take flats 2. take bias. 3. don't bother with darks. 4. try to make sure your tracking is keeping target centred, and if you are getting star trails, reduce the exposure until you don't, and take more subs. you can't really shoot a target off centre with az, as it's going to be rotating, so will just end up off the frame - so make sure your target is dead centre. stu

try an asiair Geoff if you've not already. It pretty much does the same, but with your own kit. stu

post a few here - you have an audience of knowledgeable folk (not including myself here!)

The second time I've tried this different palette - Ha mono, with blue for brightest 25%. Oiii mono, and orange/yellow for top 25-50%. This time I've left the stars as they came out of the L-utlimate. Shot with Stellamira 90ED with 0.8x reducer/flattener and asi2600 last night - 6 1/2 hours of 10 min subs. Very little Oiii so just adding a touch of colour into it really. Edited in affinity photo. stu

no, the idea is you let it autofocus as normal, but at the end, you pop in the mask and you will be able to verify if the routine worked properly or if it's out of focus and you need to try it again. later when manual focus is added you can keep it on while manually focusing. it won't autofocus with the mask on - it'll just confuse it. stu

thanks, yeh that dimple is just an artifact of 3d printing where the cylinder lines start each time - pretty normal. stu

maybe worth using a Bahtinov ? bit of card and a knife is all you need to make one right for the lens: https://skeye.rocks/tools/mask/ usually printing and cutting one out is an option, but with a 135 it'd be pretty fiddly I reckon. Prob needs 3d printing. do you have access to a 3d printer ? You did well to get a takumur135 for 15 quid. I got one a few years ago which had sticky blades cheap.. took it apart to clean the blades, and it's never properly worked since - nearly went mad putting it back together..but still not right. stu

lots of fits do - thumbnails, etc. it's part of the format. you shouldn't need to unbundle them to stack them. fits is a very broad 'standard' though. does siril open them natively ? if it doesn't sirilic is the easiest automatic conversion and stacking app (google it). If it does, just watch a youtube video on stacking and do one with no flats/darks/etc to start - no need for scripts - can be done straight in siril.

fancy uploading a zip of fits for us to play with here ? It does sound like they are just regular fits files if they work in Siril, etc. Never used sharpcap. Siril isn't very user friendly for sure. When did you order if you don't mind me asking ? I ordered the 2nd day it was announced and mine is still 'processing' 😞

First test print. Dimensions of threads need tweaking. Tricky to find accurate sizing for the inner and outer diameters of an m48 0.75 thread.

nowt wrong with that - very nice. I've never had any issues with the L-series dual band with the the SY135. Looks like ZWO duo does a good job too. One tip, try to keep your darkest blacks at around 30/30/30 RGB. Maybe 15/15/15 lowest. There should be a clear gap on the left side of the histogram. Chances are there's some Ha you've clipped out there in the dark bits. Other than that though, very nice and sharp. Nice contrast and colours.

Here's the first draft of the 2 parts - bahtinov, and 2" filter adapter

this is getting a lot of attention, considering, if I've followed it correctly, LDW1 is complaining that on the first goto after a ONE star alignment, it's off. I mean yeh.. of course it is. I don't think I ever did one star alignments, but if I did i wouldn't expect it to be accurate until a number of gotos and corrections. You are far far better doing a 3 star alignment, and making sure the stars you use are in the area of the sky you want to then be 'going to'. It's not magic - it needs to create a model of where it is - 3 points is about the minimum that's gotta be. Even then it will be accurate for that area of the sky - if you do a goto to the other side it will need correcting and syncing again. that is the nature if any goto system. It's the same with my EQ6-Rs - only there, in combination with asiair and plate solving they do it automatically. IF the op confirms that he has done a 3 star alignment in the are of the sky he is going to observe/image. And then a goto is massively out, THEN it's worth trying to debug what's going wrong. 1. align it with true north (think: you are aligning it with the earth for EQ. For AZ mode it doesn't really matter just close is enough - magnetic, true.. doesn't matter) 2. you do a 3 star alignment, adjusting and syncing so each is centred for the 3. 3. you do a goto in the same area of the sky (ideally within the triangle of the stars, which should all be in the same E or W sky. 4. this goto should be 'close' - again, you adjust and sync. it will now track it well.

sls is pretty accurate. I work with 0.1 tight/solid fit, 0.3 loose fit. So 0.2 is just right. And that's over the diameter. 0.5mm per side (i.e. 1mm for diameter) would be no use to man nor beast. There's really no point in doing test prints for FDM when you are going to print SLS. And there's little point in doing SLS test print orders, because minimum order sizes means it costs the same to print 30 as it does to print 1. stu p.s. been doing 3d printing for 12 years now, so I know what I'm doing 🙂

Just be aware that's a 3s pack. So 4.2 x 3 = 12.6 full, 3.3 x 3 = 9.9v empty. Your azgti should be OK with that - specs say 7.5v to 14v. But if u have other 12v stuff like an old eaf, or a zwo camera, etc it's unlikely it'll be happy with much less than 12v. For those you'd be better with a pack with a built in buck booster that always outputs 12v. Or add one to the output of the pack. This sort of thing: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/204453322384?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=Br9H2YwyR02&sssrc=4429486&ssuid=k_pahIebQ6a&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY Just an example, size u need depends on max amps u need. Stu