powerlord

I did see those, but they are not 15 quid. plus, seems with something like the tent, you've got a bit more latitude for things like leaving my battery pack, etc outside too was my thinking - i.e. stuff that I usually have on the ground under the tripod. I mean bottom line is they're 15 squid, so I'll get one and post some pics of the results.

stu

I love flying up there in my paramotor - had a close one with US airforce last time right enough.. but still - awesome scenery. It's where I named my puppy after 🙂

Last time I was up (2019) I had amazing weather - motorhome parked next to sea in a wee place all to myself, swimming in the sea in the evening, and flying over the Cullins during the day. cannae beat it. Wasn't into astronomy then so probably missed out on some great night skies.

Saying that, yer a lucky lucky man to get those conditions, rain, cloud and wind are more likely.

one of my movies if interested:

So.. as we have a dry week forecast, with maybe 2 or 3 seeable nights, it'd be nice to leave my kit out. I've done that a few times with just the mount, covered in a mylar (body warm) sheet, but I was thinking one of these would be sort of ideal.. might need to remove the base so I can pop it on:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/384104097603?hash=item596e636743:g:mB4AAOSwlIZgfVnc

What do folk think ? Anyone got another cheap and simple solution for leaving kit out, hidden during day,  out of sunlight and safe from  the odd shower ?

stu

update: ordered EQ-R PRO from FLO today. July earliest delivery 😞 . but I can wait - will keep learning with what I've got in the meantime. Next job is to collimate the 200p and try to get used to the thing.

sorry - missed your post. I was waiting to get a few sessions under my belt and learn it's ins and outs. I still reckon thats ongoing tbh. give it another 3 or 4 sessions.

However headline is so far so good. All works as you'd expect. Only quirk is around having to HOME it each time you turn it off or it gets quirky.

powerwise - standard 12v, standard connector. USB is standard serial, so EQMOD compatible.

I run mine off my own built power pack - you can tweak how much current you let the steppers use, but by default it's 0.8amp per motor. I find it runs fine off my custom job (which would struggle if over about 2.5 amps):

1600 wise - there's one on ebay that might go cheapish is all... I mean it  might not - 2 days to go.

thanks for advice. And NEQ6 vs EQ6-r - for my application do you thing the 250 quid more is worth it for the belt drive of the R or will it be wasted on me or not required with ASIAIR compensating for backlash anyway, etc do you reckon ?

thanks, neq6, eq6-r, az-eq6:

as faras i can tell.. neq6 is decent gear driven, az-gt6 same but with az option, and eq6-r is belt driven?\

eq6-r most accurate ? but other 2 prob good enough ?

So, equipment in sig. Warning: it's a long one...

Friday night I got my asiair pro set up with my 72ED and modded Canon 6d. The mount is an EQ5, with an EQStarPro controller and belt driven servos.

I was guding with my ASI224.

My target was M51 - if was gonna be small, but I wanted to see a galaxy!! 😀

The result was ok, about what I could expect - with a nearly full moon, 37 lights 90 seconds, iso1600, and nowt else.

And heck, it was the first galaxy I've ever seen !! (andromeda not visible from garden)

Last night, I was back again with better PA (took me 20 mins as the EQ5 tilt is quite worn and it was back and forward, back and forward.. but with a larger guide scope (50mm vs 30mm), and my Mak 102 with the 6D.

I spent about 2 hours setting up, and trying to get the guiding tuned, and mostly I was getting RMS error of less that 2 degrees, with most of that being DEC (I assume my PA wasn't as good as I thought). I shot 60 lights at 180 seconds iso1600. I shot darks, flats and bias.

Sometimes DEC was really struggling, so only 43 were good.

There is a fair bit more detail in there, but not as much as I hoped.

Am I expecting too much do you think and this is about as good as I can get with my current kit ?

I feel that my old EQ5 might just not be up to small targets like this - I do want to try my AZ GTI just to see how it compares.. but I imagine if the EQ5 setup is struggling the AZ GTI will certainly struggle.

I came into the hobby wanting to basically try a bit of everything and then see what I like best.

I originally thought going down to complex laptop, guiding, modded dslrs, etc direction was not for me and i wanted simplicity.

However as a super-nerd, I should have known better.

What I reckon I'd enjoy best, is a solid setup that will me shoot nebulas and galaxies. The odd planet would be good, but I think I'd like to focus on nebulas and galaxies - moving into mono, narrowband, hubble pallete, etc.

So.. rather than add more and more not quite right equipment to the already burgeoning pile I have accumulated in 3 months, I think maybe now is the time to flog what doesn't meet those goals, and get the kit I do need to do it well:

- two setups: one mobile(ish) that I can take with me in the motorhome, probably built around the az gti in eq mode, and one for the garden for the serious stuff.

Serious mount wise, seems to me it's a no brainer to get an EQ6-R PRO ? Ticks all the boxes ?

After that though I'm a bit lost.

Imaging wise, unless I do narrowband with colour camera (many doing? worthwhile ? not trying to win competitions, but do wanna get cool shots ), i suppose im looking at mono camera, filter wheel and LRGB, Ha,Oiii,Sii ?

What do you think are the best options ? 1600GT ?  1600 pro mini ? or colour like ASI294 ?

But it's when I get to OTAs I'm really lost. I think the 72ED I have is a keeper - it's ideal for most nebula - AND it's portable for the motorhome ?

So if thats the case, could I cover the rest (smaller nebula, galaxies) with one other OTA ? Are we talking something expensive around the 200-2500mm range ? EDGE HD or summit ?

I know I'm very much running before I can walk, but I like progressing fast, and I feel at the moment, I might have outgrown the skymax 102, I've yet to actually use the 200p I got hold of, basically because it's really too big/heavy for the EQ5/EQStarPro and the one time I tried it, it was just so so cumbersome to try and use.. And though I've enjoyed using my Canon's, I wonder if know, I'm trying to knock a square peg in a round hole, and should sell them on (well maybe keep the 6d).

EDIT: got a bit carried away there - the point I was also gonna make was - do I just need a different OTA for small stuff and that would let me get nice pics with my 6d ? I mean, I can still shoot narrowband, etc. ?

stu

Friday night with the 72ED:

Saturday night with the Mak102:

Thanks - I got there eventually - what with eventually finding out that it was based on it.

stu

p.s. I'm sure Skye would like meeting yer dogs!

Maybe this can be the thread to document the best...

I've had a few so far... but don't scroll down if you want to guess this one.

Second night ever trying to guide for first time - I've got  a 30mm mini scope, and an ASI224.

I'm having to wack the gain right up and put explosure to 3 seconds to see any stars.. i mean.. it's a small scope but surely.. is it this bad... even focusing is hard. sigh.. another stupid purchase - should have got a 50mm one like a normal person.

I then proceeded to actually get this working, guiding on a star, and shot about an hour of M51.

When packing everything up.. I discovered this.

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whew.. ok progress last night. again, posting more for future searchers who might have same issues.

I aligned with my polar scope this time, AND centred polaris in liveview on the DLSR.

then did PA on ASIAIR and it was pretty close. yeah! (i had a 😐 face

some small adjustments later and I got a 🙂 . it was under a minute off, and that I decided would do me for now.

I then tried getting guilding to work and really struggled to get a clear picture (but that deservces it own thread..

eventually I got a star locked, and started calibration but didn't get anywhere. I blindly fiddled with the settings that have no documentation or tutorials (arggg):

- guiding rate

- agressiveness on DEC and RA

- calibration step

- max dec duration

- max ra duration

All clearly related to each, other, NONE documented. I mean how difficult is it to write a f^&king manual.

I eventually through blind luck got something that started to actually calibrate! it's still pretty rubbish, but it IS working !

I think I ended up with:

75

75/125

2000

1000

4000

I really wish someone would do a good tutorial on how to tune this - it strikes me as having a lot in common with the quadcopter/gimbal tuning PIDs = without a tutorial it's blind luck you get it right!!!

Anyway, after that I found M51 which was to be myt first attempt to see/photo a galaxy. I found it, and saw it!! I didn't want to chance star trails so settled on 90 seconds which gave nice clear shots.

It told me in about an hour it would need a meridian flip..and it sort of went wrong after that, and I've emailed Alexander at astro-gadget.net for some support there which I'll post if I get anywhere.

So overall it went ok:

- PA working

- guiding working (technically.. though need to hunt for a tutorial on how to tune)

- control working

TODO:

- my wifi extender is still rubbish, and can't reach from the end of the garden to my house - so I need a better wifi extender - which is a pain as I'd just converted this one to 12v with some circuit mods and soldering

- meridian flipping issues

TONIGHT PLAN:

- try the mak 102's 1300mm FL on M51 with the canon 6d and see if I can get some more detail that the pathetic attempt below.

- wrap up warmer 🙂

Well, that was a disaster.

What worked - well, plate solving working (yeha!) - and yes, I can see that would make a hell of a difference. targets you can't really see now spot on centred. wow.

2 issues:

A: PA - failing totally to do this

B: guiding not working at all. By which I mean, when it does calibrate, I slowly watch the target drift out the box, with it saying its increasing something or other but graph remains totally blank. mount is making a different noise from when sidereal, but nowt happening.. but goto works, sidereal works, etc - so its communicating with the mount (EQStarPro in EQMOD comms) fine..and it can see the stars fine - I used auto and it picked its target and shows it top left. Tried 4 or 5 times, differnt targets, same thing - no motion at all and after a while it gives up and says something like stars not moving. I wasn't sure if I should have tracking on or off on the mount for this ? Or it IT turns it off when it does calibration, then puts it back on or what ? so I tried both with it on and off. no difference.

Let's cover A first - previously my mount was pretty much spot on - I set up same place,and I've been using synscan PA routine to tweak it, and I find that really easy to use with the real time feedback on liveview on camera. I mean I suppose I could keep doing that, but not sure that's going to not just confuse things with me trying to connect synscan direct to mount, asiair connected via usb, etc, etc.

This time, red dot and DSLR is showing polaris, but asiair PA plate solves and says errors was something like 3 degrees and 6 hours out !!! - needless to say, no amount of twidling and even moving the tripod manually seemed to help. I gave up after 15 mins. tried a few gotos, plate solves, adjustments and got on IC1805 - and of course, 60 sec exposure has massive star trails as PA is mince.

Hmm. I wish I could try this is the day time.

So.. I suppose I'll waste another great clear sky tonight till I'm too frustrated to go on, trying to work out what the hell I'm doing wrong. But I do find the PA route in asiair a PITA  compared to synscan.

Tell me why this is dumb, but tonight, I plan to use synscan to get it close first, as I know it and want to get it within a gnat's chuff first. Then I'll do it in asiair, and first, if it comes up with nonsense like 6,4,2 out there's no point in me trying anything - something else is knackered. If it's close, I do what I do in synscan, and turn on liveview on DSLR, and adjust mount screws to get polaris in centre, or at least check it's moving the right way asiair says I should move.

Maybe B is also failing because of the massive PA error that it thinks is there but does not exist ? However I can't see what one has to do with the other - I mean it's finding a target ok, so it seems the stars, and then all it has to do is move the mount - which is can clearly do fine (goto etc fine).

Only other thing I can think of is to move from USB connection to mount, to wifi-wifi and add a wifi extender into ethernet of asiair - in case something doesn't work over usb - but seems a long shot when everything else works.

Learning from my syscan experience (the need for this mount to be 'homed' - this is full setup I tried:

- turn all on (all focused at this point)

- home mount in asiair. disengage clutches and let motors drive what ages till it thinks its home. move to proper home position (polaris), and lock clutches when red dot close to polaris.

- asiair PA routine. plate solves fine, moves 60 degrees, plate solves fine. tells me my error is some mental value. cue me wasting ages trying to make it do anything useful and giving up.

ah.. the joy of astroimaging...

Hi chaps,

So I've got myself an ASIAIR Pro.

My plan is to use this, my SVBONY 120mm guide scope and asi224 as guide camera, and my DSLR and either my mak102 or 72ED or DSLR lenses as main camera.

all that seems to work together.

Initally I've not sorted out wifi extenders, etc - so it's gonna be controlled via phone within a few feet of mount as asiair wifi is as terrible.

With the moon as it is, I'm focusing (sic) on practice rather than expecting much in the way of results. I figured I'd try a few nebulas (heart/soul, american) with the 72ED, and then try the mak102 and see if I can get anything on M51 - maybe add a barlow.

And yeh, maybe try the moon too.

Obviously if I do try planets later, Im gonna need to get another guide camera as I'd be using the asi224 I'd imagine.

Usually what happens when I try so many things for the first time is that it all goes terribly wrong, I can't understand what, or I do summit stupid - so in an attempt to learn from my mistakes I thought I'd ask for some wisdom from you chaps ?

Additionally I'll be reading manuals again, and watching youtube tutorials.. this will be the first time I've used a guide camera, first time plate solving, first time using my big EQ5/EQStarPro in anger, first time using 6D since it's been modded..

One thing I learned previously is only add one new thing at a time, so I've already thrown that rule out the window....

stu

OK, I'm gonna answer a bit of my own post, rather than edit above in case useful to others.

I'm not sure what I did to fix connectivity - so I'll just say what I did:

- I got a rooted asiair image from here and booted it so I could ssh in and confirm the cp2102 device loaded as a usb serial port:

https://gist.github.com/timucingelici/217ac492bc2b127c6645ce033463d265

and it proved it was loading it fine.

I then powered everything off,  put the original sdcard back in, powered every on.. and was going to go through all baud rates once more..

but it straight away connected fine as EQMOD mount baud 9600 !!

home, goto, the lot, all working! yeeha. so - might be as much use as a chocolate fireguard - but IF you have the same problem - try above.

DSLR - still interested if I'm missing live view.. I imagine there is none though. pity if that's the case - I mean it IS possible with canon utilities..

Now 2-3 nights clear... however idea conditions not needed to [removed word] around with  new kit... chances are I'll just waste all the time trying to get everything setup... but will give it a go anyway.

stu

hi chaps, I've got myself an asiair, and got it connecting ok to my 1200D and 6D, but can't seem to get any sort of live preview working ? without which I'm struggling to see how yer supposed to get focus spot on ?

Or is the idea to use liveview on the camera itself only as I would do ?

It also doesn't seem the most reliable thing - 'crashing' the dslr sometimes - I'm trying skipping magic lantern to see if that is the issue.

Also, so far having no joy trying to connect my EQMOD contol mount EQStarPro - the usb port is a CP2102 chip UART job, but ASIAIR is not detecting it. A search online shows a few others using EQDir leads based on this chip connecting ok, but I wanted to see if anyone on the forum has this working with this chip/cable or better still - with an EQStarPro.

At the mo, I'm wondering if the rasp pi isn't' mounting it for some reason and next step will be to root it, ssh in and have a look - but if there is some dumb thing I'm doing I'm all ears.

stu

So, after installing a nice level circular patio for observing recently, it only became more apparent that vast bits of the SW sky are blocked by a neighbours massive trees.

As a new one moved in recently I wondered how cheeky it would be to introduce myself and suggest that IF they were considering removing the trees, I'd gladly contribute to the cost.

I mean, its a small garden and the things must be blocking all their light too... still felt like it was a bit cheeky for me to ask though.

This morning I thought I'd pop over and do it... only to be woken up by the noise of a chainsaw...

He's only gone and called the tree surgeons who promptly removed BOTH the trees ! yeh!!!!! what a difference !

So clearly anything I wish for is coming true - wishes will be granted to the first person to offer me a nice Takahashi, cooled mono camera and filter set. 😜😜

arg you're right - it's the firmware on the azgti that was tweaked, not the app. duh. my bad.

phew.

stu

Hi chaps,

I got myself one of these mini guide scopes - a 32mm svbony SV165 -pretty much the same as the ZWO ones but 1/2 the price.

optically nice and bright and works nicely with my new ASI224 (I know..not ideal for a guide camera but for now it's what I've got).

Question is - these mini guide scopes, just like the ZWO come with a mount which is not adjustable/alignable. Is this  just how guiding works ? I mean obviously fitted on an OTA it doesn't align to the viewfinder. But I suppose all the guider needs is some stars to plate solve - and if it keeps THEM steady, then whatever the actual OTA is pointing at  (moon and planets accepted) will also be kept steady ?

Otherwise it seems kinda dumb that they come with these mounts if I'm supposed to bin that and source a 30mm adjustable mount (though that seems to me would be a damn site better, as could be used for visual with an eyepiece.

Or have I got the wrong end of the stick here ?

stu

It looks like skywatcher have removed all the downloads for the EQ modded synscan app.

http://skywatcher.com/download/software/synscan-app/

So those that rely on it probably best save a copy of the app incase they need to reinstall ?

stu

i use meteoblue.  i really like their meteograms - everything in one diagram. I have a little script that refreshes them and runs all the time on an old tablet in the kitchen so I have an up to date forecast for the next 5 days. I've used them for years for my other hobby (flying). the meteogram also shows deviations from other forecast models show you can see 'behind the curtain' and decide for youself.

Like every forecaster, sometimes they get it wrong, but I'm generally very impressed with the accuracy and depth = for example cloud base and percentage cover is very useful for flying, as is the wind speed vs altitude.

stu

Well, it turned into a totally cloudless night last night, and miles from anywhere, crystal clear skies.

Saying that, I ended up with nothing much to show for it images wise, but was a good experience.

Easily put down to poor planning, and too many new gadgets I tried to test for the first time in the dark.

I tried to capture M51.. but with my ASI224 I'd only just got on my skymax102 - I didn't expect much, but quickly realised I didn't even have any reliable way of knowing I was pointing at it with not other stars in the area... I ended up going to Mars, which worked as a 'dot' - trying to add a barlow and failing miserably at getting that working at all (again never tried before even in daylight!)

I then tried my new ed72 -- again never tried before... realised I hadn't even fitted and aligned a rdf so spent ages getting that aligned to anything. In the end I attached the DSLR and got some shots of the Soul nebula, but not very good ones - 2 min subs with some star trails as hadn't got a good enough alignment.

that said, it was a lovely clear night to see the stars, and not too cold. I saw my first burning red meteor, and my first satellite.

All in all, an experience I will repeat in a few weeks time - next time with a bit more preperation and planning!

stu

I imagine these are old hat to you lot, but last night, sitting out in a cloudless sky on the east coast looking to the north, I was caught off guard as a sudden red flash and bright red dot moved across from east to west and burned out.

I think I'd seen my first honest to god proper meteor.

A bit later while aligning my ASI224 on Mars, I then saw my first satellite moving across my fov.

As a newby numpty, they were pretty cool new experiences.

hi, it might be worth trying what I found I had to do with my EQSTARPRO:

As for how you know its tracking in syncscan app top right when you've 'goto'ed somewhere you will see a >> icon. tap that and it will show you what tracking is enabled (1/2 sidereal, sidereal, moon, sun). Also if you stick yer ear on the RA motor you should here it.

You can also check your PA there (and frankly its a d4mn site quicker getting correct via app that with scope imho.

first ensure you are using synscan pro app not 'synscan;.

once you've done alignment, got to utilties, advanced and chose polar align. you can choose a star (i usually just got for the brighest of the two I've just used to align) and follow the instructions but its basically:

- centre  star using app buttons, NEXT

- align star in up/down middle using ALTI MOUNT screw , NEXT

- align star in left/right using RA MOUNT screws , DONE.

Now, go to alignment, reset and do it again.

9 months since I've been allowed to use motorhome. But from today can do !!

360 degree views, clear skies forecast all night - bring it on ! Im gonna try for andromeda with the 72ed and DSLR, and the whirlpool nebula/galaxy with the skymax102 and asi224 - prob get nowt with that, but I'll get it a try.

Gonna take some widefields too - see if I can get the milkyway and the motorhome in the shot.

stu