powerlord

Well, here's my M51. I only got my first telescope in January, so I've very much learning here. I realise it's not in the same league as the best photos here, but it's my best yet and was a breakthrough for me in terms of how to process data. It is also the first galaxy I've ever seen.

It was taken with my ED72 and my ASI224 on a very tired EQ5 mount that I've upgraded to goto with an EQSTARPRO. All controlled by an ASIAIR PRO (which I'd had 4 days at this point), and guiding (also something I'd only been doing for the last 4 days). 60 second subs, and about 1.5 hours of data.

I first tried M51 3 days previously with the ED72 and my DSLR and though tiny, that as greaat 'woohoo - look it's an actual galaxy!!! wow!!). I then got a bit obsessed and spent the next 3 nights trying with my MAK102, the ED72 and asi224 with UHC, and then finally without the UHC - and that's what is shown below.

review posted

review posted

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/377411-full-eqstar-pro-review/

So I've had the EQSTARPRO for about a month now.

I think it's time for a review.

I got the pro version for the EQ5. It comes in other versions.

You get the controller box (solid aluminium box), servos with mounts, cogs and belts, and all the cables you need.

You need to supply your own power supply (12v standard connector).

The manual is.. not great. It doesn't cover fitting, just using it. It's all pretty straight forward though - I'd already fitting a motor kit, so I just removed that and fitted this stuff.

I adjusted the tension on the belt to pretty right (about 2mm play). There is no tensioner, so it needs to be tawt.

Before you fit them you should probably take the opportunity to adjust your worm gears to eliminate any backlash from your mount.

Once fitted, the motors connect to the controller via standard ethernet cables.

I changed the DEC for for a curly spiral ethernet to keep things neat.

You get a little hand controller with it which plus into the ST4 port and lets you manually move it at different speeds.

It has a USB post, which has a built in serial chip so it basically looks like any other EQMOD mount when plugged in to a PC. It also has build in wifi which can be switched on and off. Initially I used it in the wifi mode and used the synscan mobile app.

To SW Synscan app it just looks like an EQ5 goto mount - and connects fine.

There is one quirk (well quirk for me coming from azgti), in that you must set home position and hibernate to home position at end of sessions if you want to avoid doing the following each time. This might be the same on EQ5 goto - I don't know.

Basically disengage the clutches and goto home on synscan - and the servos will start to move and will move for a few minutes. You need clutches disconnected as they will otherwise twist your mount round and round.

Once motors have stopped, manually set mount in home position, and then engage clutches. At this point app AND mount know they are in home position.

From that point on it just acts like the azgti really - you can do your 2 star or 3 star align, your PA, gotos, moon tracking, sidereal, etc. All works fine.

Out the box it's set to 80% of max current/torque. which was fine till I stuck my bug 200p on it. It struggled a bit with that, so I changed it to 100%. You do that via a config utility on a PC with the mount plugged in to USB.

A few weeks later I got an ASIAIR PRO. Initially I had some trouble connecting it, and to be honest I'm not sure why. I did nothing to fix it, and it just started working. I can't swear to it that I didn't get an ASIAIR update inbetween. Bottom line is, it will connect to mount fine either in direct USB/COM serial way or via wifi (though I won't go into that here as you need to know what you are doing to bridge wifi networks).

Again, once connected to ASIAIR it has full control. Again, like synscan you must first tell it to go into home position with clutches disengaged. Unfortunately ASIAIR has no 'hibernate' function so you do have to do this every single sessions, which takes a few minutes.

Obviously with ASAIR no alignment is required, just jump straight into PA, then goto somewhere and let it plate solve you into the target.

This works a treat.

Guiding wise, it also works as you'd expect. My EQ5 is a bit of an old dog, but I can tell get about 1.5" RMS from it.

Neither motors or controller gets hot. They don't use a lot of current, and seem rock solid stable - unlike the azgti for example which sometime won't let me connect to it.

Support wise, Alexander over at www.astro-gadget.com  has been great. He often replied to emails immediately. English is not his first language (they are based in Ukraine), but he got me through the bits I struggled with above (home position, etc).

So the only real quirk is the home position stuff - it will need someone to comment to find out if this is the same on the real SW EQ goto mounts or not.

Also, they are only available direct from Alexander or via ebay - both from Ukraine. Mine arrives in around 1 week, and not extra tax/duty was due. Your mileage may differ.

For the money - it is a fraction of the SW Goto upgrade kit, is ready to plug into a PC with USB AND has build in wifi. It's also servo/belt based rather than basic motors.

Provided you don't mind working stuff out yourself (and hopefully articles like this one will help future owners to not have to), it offers great value for money. I'm not sure it's worth trying to build your own now really imho.

disclaimer: I paid for this, I have no commercial interest in www.astro-gadget.com. This is just my own view.

stu

huh. thanks Richard. I'll have a look later. god knows how I missed that. can't remember seeing plan since the first week either. must have selective blindness.

stu

Hi chaps - does anyone with an asiair pro know how to do video mode ?

I initially thought it was missing because I was using my DSLR, but the other night I used my asi224 as the main camera, and I still couldn't see where video mode was.. its a difficult thing to google for as I just come up with 'videos'. But the zwo page says it is a feature. The manual of course, like 99% of the features doesn't mention it at all*

stu

*one of my pet hates is companies that spend a fortune on creating great products and can't be bothered spending 10k or whatever on a decent techincal writer and making a manual that is accurate and covers all the features.. why bother building a feature when the owner has to be clarevoyant to know how to use it?

just tap the guide icon at top to set exposure and gain.

I regularily just leave the thing all night so when I'm up at 7.30am it's been 4 hours or more since it last managed to see a guide star - it just keeps in sidereal mode - no biggy.

I've had my asiair about 3 weeks now, and I love it. I've used it with my DSLRs and my asi224 as main camera, and used my asi120 mini and the asi224 as the guide camera.

A tip - I use it with 3 different setups (eq5 with eqstarpro,az gti), and the eg5 i use with my ed72 and a big sw 200p.

to avoid faffing about changing settings each time and probably forgetting to reset something or other, I just made 3 cd card copies - and wrote on them what they are for.

So I just pop in the correct sd card for the session. means I often don't need to recalibrate guiding, and gains, and everything is all setup correct ready to roll.

Not a big saving, but in the dark at 1am.. easy to forget something, so if I can do anything to minimse the number of things I can forget to do, that's a win to me.

pic was before I covered everything with kapton tape and sealed the box. 🙂

stu

Woohoo - progress!

Last night I got 2 hours of data - no UHC filter, and this time I whacked the gain up to 300 on the asi224 and increased the exposure to 60 seconds. This brought the histrogram up to about 1/4 up which is about as high as I could go. versus night before when everything was really right down to the left.

Now DSS stacks no problem, and I had proper bias, dark, flats (my darks were wrong last time as I had light leakage I didn't notice in histograms). I dithered as well.

I am really pleased with the results, I feel I'm making real progress thanks to all the help and advice on here - thanks again 🙂

Next step, I suppose try and combine both sessions in stacking which I've not done yet so will have to read up on how to do that.

Still - I've  got real colours coming through, I think there's even a red swirl there.

Considering this is with the asi224 and ED72. There's no way my 200P/EQ5 can get to that sort of DEC, so no chance of using that.

Next step - I want to try it all again but with the ASIAIR controlling my AZGTI in EQ mode.. I reckon it might fair better than the old EQ5 - it was really struggling to guide under 3" RMS and sometimes the DEC went on a wander 20" off or so.

oh - needless to say, I've bought startools! though still waiting for my serial so screen captures for now.

Ah fair enough. I just took the camera off and stuck cap on for darks. easy enough. But of course, could be affecting night lights for long exposures, so want to fix. I was shooting 60 seconds with asi224 on high gain so even a small leakage from ground light might be affecting it. I'll just make up a wee cover around there - I reckon a velvet 'scrunchy' hair band will work ideal.

stu

Hi chaps, I noticed today that my darks I was taking were blown out. Which explains why they didn't work yesterday in processing! duh. should have checked histogram.

I traced the light leakage into the ring where the focuser tube moves in and out of the bottom of the OTA. This is an ED72.

Is this a common thing with a simple fix, or is it either a dismantle and try and trace and try to fix ? washer/oring ?

alternative, is insulating tape around the tube there - that works as it's how I found the light leakage, but hardly ideal.

I doubt it was making much difference during shooting at night, but can't help.

stu

6 hours ago, alacant said:

If you like, record your screen during the session and link here. It will probably be easy to see what's wrong. Usually something simple.

 

Which is here.

Here are the first few steps, and yes, even after all that, the data is still held linearly. You can go back and completely redo it if you don't like it. Anywhere along the workflow:)

Cheers

thankyou! I've no idea why you did what you did from the defaults, but following the same steps then doing some colour, etc I managed to get something better than out of affinity. I clearly need to watch more tutorials on startools. perhaps it's worth buying after all - I'll play with it more.

here's what I managed to arrive at from the SIRL one. The one from the asi air for some reason startools seems to think is black and white if i choose linear/dslr, and chosing linear gives weird colours. but the SIRL one works fine as linear/dslr... not sure whats happening there.

OK ill have a go with it first with this pic. Everytime I've tried with previous stacked images and following those steps I end up with something resembling an acid trip.

1 hour ago, alacant said:

Nooo... We allowed our trial to expire;)

StarTools. I'm sure conventional methods would get you there too, but could take quite a bit longer.

HTH

 

 

Any chance you could just write a quick how to steps below ?

i use affinity photo - you've done a better job than me then - I'll give it another go.

Startools! - everytime I've tried that (following the tutorials) I just get junk out. hmm.. I must be doing something wrong. I even watched SGRs talk with Ivo Jager and followed his steps.

thanks. yeh mucky - but I swear it looks clean to me.

I did actually dither there for the first time, so probably no loss that darks don't work for some reason.

and Sirl was set with clipping algorithm.

Are those my fits processed ?? if so - how did you get those results! - you even pulled some colour out. looks amazing! Is this the dark expensive art of PixelInsight ? or something poor mortals can aspire to ??

stu

Maybe useful info for others -

So, low res, big bloated stars - Neither DSS or APP was having any of it for star registration, so stacking was a no go.

IF I was going to get anywhere, I needed to be able to stack outside of asiair pro.

So finally I re-read Siril tutorials to try to get to grips with another astro program designed by people seemingly without ever using another piece of software written in the last 30 years.

Well.. what do you know - Siril stacks it no problems. All 300 frames. Result is pretty much identical to the asiair (which to be fair does a really good job, but at the time I had no calibration frames, so it was just stacked without them).

I can't in all honestly say that the result is any different in Sirl though even with bias and flats.

Weirdly when I tried to add the dark master (which DSS had produced), though it pre-processed ok, the result was that it had removed nearly every piece of data from the image leaving only a few tiny stars.

After fannying around for hours, I finally traced this to the dark. Remove the dark, and just use bias and flats and it was fine.

Whether this is an issue with my dark master, an issue with Sirl, or an issue with the operator's failure to grasp the finer details of a program written for aliens I'm not sure - but that's as far as I got.

For interest, and as they are tiny anyway, here is the stacked fit raw from asiair (not calib frames), and the stacked fit from sirl (+bias+flat)

Note: ASIAIR stack is the lot - including about 50 at the end in daylight. Sirl is just the 300 that were good.

It's clear tonight, so need to decide if I have another go with same setup, no UHC, or go back to the DSLR (maybe add barlow?) and try with that - again without UHC.. as looking at my DSLR attempts I think there's more detail there if I'm honest.

OR.. I make the jump and finally setup the 200p now it's collimated.. but tbh I don't think it's gonna even make the 80+ degrees I'd need for M51 without hitting the tripod...

ASIAIR Stack350_Light_M51_30.0s_Bin1.fit SIRL_Light_M51_30.0s_Bin1_stacked.fit

Thanks, I'd like to, but can't stack anything unless I can get stacking/registration working ☹️. Cant even use the calibration frames I took

These are all so good. Pretty disappointed how last night's turned out. Was hoping for better. Shot with ED72 and asi224. couldn't really get any colour data out. I had a UHC filter on, maybe that didn't help. Or I need to get my finger out and  sort out the 200p.

I did a live stack in asiair, which was as well as can't get APP or DSS to align (don't detect stars). 300x10 seconds

ar$e

have a look at my post:

If all you need is 12v it's really simple.

the cheapest way (assuming you want to avoid massive lead acid battery), is as large a 4s lipo as you can afford from hobbyking. A mains lipo charger (to mains charge it), and regulated 12v output DC to DC converter (the one I used (10 amp 12v out) runs on 24v, and will work down to 15v = 3.75v per cell, which is still a fair bit of charge, but tbh it will keep cells working a long time and saves you worrying about discharging too much (if you used 5s, even at dangerously flat 3v it is pushing out 15v).

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07P9Q3TB8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

If all that scares you, another option is a lifepo4 lead acid replacement battery - these are for light replacement of car//bike batteries and charge via standard car charger but they are not cheap.

Pfft - you can prove anything with facts*

Seriously all good - thanks vlaiv, thanks alacant et al.

As a beginner, it's not immediately obvious which are facts, which are theories, which are opinions. There is a vast range of experience here, and I'm using it as a 'validation' really of stuff I find on the internet - like any involved hobby it's not black and white. For example, I recently got back into Vinyl a bit, and you read some articles - and unless you spend 1000 quid on a turntable, and store your records in a humidity controlled safe, it will sound rubbish and you wasting your time. Clearly that may be true for that poor unfortunate individual who can tell the minute (arguably imaginary.. cough... my electronics degree raising it's head there) difference between 2 types of speaker wire... For the rest of us, we compromise - I got a 1990s sony deck and a new decent stylus, 1980 sony amp, and a pair of wharfdale speakers, and some second hand records off ebay - and it sounds pretty decent to me. and guess what - I'm the only one that matters.

Another example is when I took up paramotoring. I had no interest at the time in paragliding (I do now and fly unpowered often), I just wanted to go straight into powered flight. Some experts would swear blind you should not do that without the grounding of unpowered flight. Others were fine with it. That's still the case today.

With astro it seems similar, some will want to delve deep into the theory - that's the bit they enjoy. Others will get their kicks in other areas I suppose. I agree to a level, I want to understand what I'm doing (that's why I'm here, asking questions to learn), but also.. to use a physics analogy - sometimes the statement  'light travels in straight lines' suffices. Sometimes 'light is a wave' is all you need to tell kids. Later, they can learn about curving spacetime, and the duality of light.

Vlaiv offers his vast depth of knowledge on here, and I'm very grateful for him answering many of my numpty questions - and some of it I understood, and some went in one ear and out the rest - as it's (apologies Vlaiv) definately often in the spacetime/duality league**. As a beginner, and I fully accept everyone is different, sometimes I just want to know enough to be dangerous. Once I get more experience I learn more about why what I was doing worked and what it was for. That way, at least for me, I keep learning with what is interesting to me, and don't get bogged down with deep theory - I am interested in that.. eventually.. but tell me 'light is a wave' for now.

🙂

*stewart lee

**I'm actually re-reading some of his responses to my early questions back in Jan/Feb for example and they make much more sense to me now, with a few months more experience and reading under my belt - again, thanks Vlaiv.

21 minutes ago, geeklee said:

That's a great step forward @powerlord - well done for bringing it all back to the start and trying a different approach.  Just comparing the two - I see smaller, less saturated stars, enhanced structure in the flame nebula, more definition in the horse head itself and structure in the Ha cloud behind it.  The colour balance looks challenging, but I think there's very good reason to be as pleased as you sound!

thanks. yes, I couldn't get rid of the red bias very well. especially at the bottom. and I'm not sure howe much of the nebula in the top right is real vs noise/banding. I think I shot it all with liveview on - before I knew better.

At the end of the day I only took 30 lights at 60 seconds iso1600, so there really wasn't much to play with.

Took this back in mid-march, but I didn't really know how to process it after stacking very well. I post my original attempt, and my new one.

This time I went back to raws, and used affinity to stack, and process. Using the affinity tutorials on the website. There's some banding which was also in the flats, but I definately feel the result is a heck of a lot better than my first attempt with the data.

original processing attempt:

today's attempt:

So, I've made a more sophisticated and permanent version of my first attempt :

This has a solid aluminium box, 3 x USBs (each can output 2a), 2 outputs for DLSRs (8.2v), and 4 x 12v outputs - which can total 10amps. And an on/off switch. It's internally fused.

It is powered by a 24-26vv supply - basically because I'm using it portably with my electric bike battery packs (which are 52v and can be rewired on the fly to 26v). Or with a 24v mains PSU (I use a 6amp one).

Therefore when at home, and I've finished fitting the weatherproof power sockets at the end of the garden I can plug the PSU into one, and power the whole setup that way. And when I'm away in the motorhome, I can simply plug one of the electric bike batteries in.

Those batteries are between 6-800Watt hours, so will run the setup for 3 or 4 nights for 2 complete setups (2 mounts, ASIAIR, wifi extender, 2 main cameras, 2 guide cameras, dew heaters and a laptop).

Job's a good un. 😉