powerlord

Yeh good point, I should have mentioned that.

Just a note that I have 3 in mine - 2 blinks and one tupu one. All use IR and I've never had any light seepage into the images at all.

I think it's just to be clear for beginners - when @edarter say moving from PS to PI was a massive difference I don't deny that personal experience. I just want to state though that that is specific to that Op. (so no prob with what you said there - hope that is clear too). What I mean is that if you understand the tools, and know how to use em, there is 100 ways to skin a cat. If you don't, then nowt will work - but maybe at that stage someone shows you how to skin that cat with whatever the latest tool you've bought is.. and voila! you might think - if only I'd bought that in the first place. When really, it was just that you didn't know how to skin the cat. And as I have a whole 2kg family pack of McCanes oven chips on my shoulder about PI... I know I'm not best place to be impartial here. However - I have not seen a single image EVER edited in PI that could not have been edited just as well with something else - and like everyone else - I'm not an expert in everthing out there - so I can only say for sure that I've not seen a single image edited in PI that I know I couldn't have matched using Siril and Affinity Photo (+ russels filters which bar blurx work fine in affinity photo). I will make the one notable exception - which is that nowt beats blurx for deconvolution and it's only available in PI - but it's blurx doing the work there - PI is just the container! I wish Russell would bring it out standalone or as a filter but he won't even though I keep pestering him to). So, for beginners all I'll say is don't get taken in by PI's mystique - it just does the same stuff siril and affinity photo (or PS) does - and in nearly all cases, in a decided more limited, slower, non-layered, prehistoric sort of way, hidden behind techno-babble. There's lots of PS and affinity photo tutorials on youtube - though less than I'd like to see - and it's the best way to learn imho. I keep meaning to start an astrostu channel myself focused only on stacking/processing with my chosen tools - I'm sure there would be folk interested - but it seems a lot of effort and I tend to work really quickly - and for me for it to work as a channel, it would need to be posting videos of processing I'm doing in real time as I do em - if it's too fast for you - use the youtube controls to slow it down, etc. And when I did a trial one a year or so ago the feedback on here was that I WOULD need to slow down - and that just wouldn't be a long term solution for me. Anyhoo that's an aside - the main thing I'm saying is: 1. do not for a second believe that PI is some sort of mystical panacea - king of the heap. It is not. It is an image editor (and stacker and a few other things). Just a very limited one that can only edit astrophotography pics. Treat it as such. Im reminded of as a biker, when folk say 'well I paid £800 for my ARAI helmet. I mean I only have one head, so it's worth getting the best'.. as if there is any evidence whatsoever that it's any better than a £50 one. If it has a BSI kite mark, and an ACU gold it's passed all the testing out there. the extra 750 might be getting you better safety but is just as likely to be emperors clothes mince. 2. Following on from 1 then - look at what is out there (including PI if you are willing to demonstrate you are not a criminal and are 'approved' for a trial licence..) , and decide for yourself what works for you. None of it is 'press a button. Some is more like that than others (e.g. startools), but to be honest, there's no way of avoiding some esoteric software somewhere in the processing - for me that's Siril: initially a black box of infinite misery to me that I ignored, until I bit the bullet and watched some tutorials and eventually worked out what it could do much better than affinity photo and Astro pixel processor (which I use for stacking - again a decision I made after trying DSS and Siril, though being on a mac, DSS needed to be run in a VM which limited it appeal to me out the box). In the end you work out a number of processes that work for you based on the type of processing (wideband, narrowband, SHO or HSO or HOO or whatever). and once you've got em, and yer happy with em - it's like anything else - it becomes really easy with practice.

So..I wiser man would have testing this first, but I wanted to get stuck into CAD, electronics and software, so went ahead and built this before I knew if it would work: The plan was to several fold: 1. I hoped that an asiair would be able to be setup with a guide camera which I'd swap over to use as a main camera just for plate solving gotos and PAing (this bit does work), but then when ready to image, have it set to guide with the camera, tell it to use the DSLR 'snap' remote to take pics and not worry about the fact a main camera wasn't connected (since my M100 doesn't support remote wired control). 2. Also be able to use the same gadget to 'piggy back' on another imaging session, by using the DSLR interface to shoot with the M100 as the same target or a different one at the same DEC with maybe different FL, etc. 3. be able to set up the M100 with a traditional intervalometer and use for unguided stuff (no asiair) or even fixed tripod. The good news, was 3 works fine with the gadget. 🙂 1 however is a non starter - the asiair it turns out will simply not function unless it thinks there is a camera installed, so my plans to add PA and goto plate solving plus guiding to a more basic AZ GTI EQ setup are foxed there. So lets talk 2: My (untested) expectation was that the 'DSLR' remote on the asiair was 'live' all the time. i.e. whenever it was taking an image - whether via something like my asi2600mc, or via my canon 6d (though the USB not remote interface), it would still be operating it - pulling the shutter pin low when taking an image, high when finished.. I mean - why would you NOT design it like this... Well.. yeh.. ZWO designed to ignore the design paradigm - 'a design is not complete until you cannot take anything more away), and in fact make this interface conditional on a bunch of stuff. This is a right pita - and I'll raise with ZWO though won't hold my breath for a change.. So the DSLR connection ONLY works in the following conditions: 1. you have attached a 'DSLR' (i.e. a supported camera recognised as a non zwo supported canon or nikon) 2. you have selected the toggle that says to use the DSLR remote trigger interface to take photos If these conditions are met, though the USB connection to the camera is used for live view, and the connection must be active, when it comes to taking an exposure ASIAIR uses the DSLR remote trigger INSTEAD of the USB. The idea here is that some cameras have a max 30 sec exposure via USB control, and this gets around that. Which is all well and good, and certainly you need a way of selecting that it should or should not use the USB for taking an image - but there is NO situation where having the DSLR trigger simply working ALL THE TIME would be a problem and would have been the simpler design! This also means that if your main camera is an ASI2600, etc you are also stuffed - the DSLR interface does nowt. At this point then, I was pretty miffed off.. however then I thought - well.. hold on... the 6d doesn't need it, but would it work with it if I set it (and connected a remote line to the 3 pin remote on the 6d) ? The answer is yes, it does. Exactly the same as it does over USB. So, at this point I rigged up a new cable: On one end is the 2.5mm plug to plug into the asiair. It then splits into 2 cables - one has a 3.5mm pin for my M100 remote gadget, the other has the round 3 pin connector for the 6d on it. And I plugged it all in. I set the asiair to use the 6d as main camera, but use the DSLR for shutter. And I then tried taking a sub... both cameras fired as expected! In fact, you can even just press the shutter on the 6d, and it will press the shutter on the M100 (asiair doing nowt here) - since the interface is really basic - all it does is connect the ground (ring) the the tip to activate shutter. Hence, both cameras see this as continuity when asiair does it - both fire... and since the wiring internally in the 6d also connects it's interface when it takes a pic, that makes the M100 shutter go too! I imagine this could be extended to many cameras if you were particularily mental. So.. going back the the original wish list, 2 is a 'sort of'. Yes it has lots of caveats - It will only work if I have a rig setup with the canon 6d and canon m100 - they must be set to take the same exposure length - the targets must be at the same DEC for guiding to be working right for both (I think?? correct me if I'm wrong) So it is I grant you, very much and edge case... and I won't be surprised if I remain the only person in the world wanting to do this. However, it would be possible for someone as an example, to setup 2 identical canon 6ds with the same lenses, etc - and have one be shooting NB with a filter, and one shooting WB RGB with no filter of the same target all night. So - in summary - sorry for long post. The gist is: 1. asiair use: yeh can do 2 with caveats - just make that lead up 2. making that lead up will also work for any other intervalometer or remote trigger (e.g. the ones on azgti, SW EQ5/6 mounts, most adventure style AZ mounts, etc) and allow you to control multiple cameras at once. Here's a pic of the imaging rig I'll be trying sat night (on a modified EQ5 rather than the azgti shown here):

The canon m100 has a lot going for it, 24mp apsc, modern sensor, mirror less, cheaply convertible to full spectrum. But it has no wired remote shutter, so no real intervalometer or connection to asiair is possible. So I built this. Arduino pro mini, servo and bit of code. 3.5mm remote jack, takes power via magnetic connector from the dummy battery usb power feeding the camera. Plug in any intervalometer or in my case asiair, set camera to bulb mode, and voila..happily take super long exposures all night.

Still no real other place for asiair as a device, so starting a thread here for top tips that are not in the manual. here's my starter for 10: 1. linking it with your wifi not only means you can control it easier, but it also means you can mount the internal and sdcard on your computer (SMB so fine for windoze, linux or mac) - and easy grab all the files off there. 2. it runs linux so if you are familiar you can easily change those Samba shares to be read/write letting you delete stuff and add stuff 3. If you see a picture you like on the forum or elsewhere, you can copy it to the asiair (either via 2 above, or manually putting on sd card) - you can then browse to it on the asiair app and plate solve it and goto! no need to manually enter coordinates. It would be nice if zwo added a way to browse your phone/tablet gallery and do it that way - but still - this can be quite useful. 4. you can only connect 2 phones/tablets to the asiair at one time - but 2 can be useful..see 5 5. on a new mac (mac silicon) you can natively run ios apps. that means you can run asiair app on your mac - even at the same time as running on your phone/tablet - can be handy if you are using your computer 6. if you have more than one asiair, I'd recommend having a phone/tablet for each because of the issue with switching (see 7). 7. you can switch between asiairs on the app, but it does not recover local state well. e.g. you might switch to asiair2 and it shows your mount as connected when you know it isn't - it is still showing the state of asiair2. the same is true of most things. In order to 'sync' it, you have to switch to the asiair you want to use, then close the app, then open it again - it will then reconnect to the last connected asiair and you will see it has now 'syned' to accurately show the status of that asiair. Hence, it is best if possible to use a dedicated device to run the asiair app for each asiair you are using. 8. if you are not sure what the exact FL of your guide scope is, just make it the main camera, shoot and plate solve with FL=0. asiair will work out the exact FL and set it - record this and use it when you switch it back to being your guide camera (note: this might be a bit different to what you thought it was - use the asiair setting). 9. If very accurate positioning is required, once the asiair has completed a goto it is beneficial to shoot another picture, platesolve, and goto again. 10. be aware that the extra step of 9 cannot be done if doing automatic meridian flips- so it's not uncommon for them to be a bit off target. 11. if you have very different setups you share an asiair with (e.g. different mount with different guiding settings, different guide scope, etc) it might make sense for you to take a copy of the sdcard (use something like Apple Pi Baker or Win32DiskImager) and keep each card for that setup - it can avoid you forgetting to reconfigure the backlash or guide tuning or whatever when you swap between your EQ5 and azgti or whatever.

I've been doing this nearly 3 years now. I've tried most stuff out there. I stack with Astro Pixel Processor. it's a bit more flexible that Siril, and does mosaic really well too. It's also not too expensive for a perm licence. I use Siril for astro bits and bobs like stretching, plate solving, photometric colour correction and deconvolution. I use Affinity Photo for editing with the addition of Russell's StarXterminator and NoiseXterminator. I hate Pixinsight with a passion on many levels. I won't go into them here, make your own mind up.

I'm sort of starting to plan how I'm going to be imaging, and to a lesser extent, what just now and it struck I'm clearly not going to be the only one. So how about we post our plans down here ? I'm hoping to get some ideas from you lot, and I dunno maybe my plans are useful to some folk too ? Basically I've got an observatory with 2 EQ6s, asiairs, etc. And I try to be imaging with both each night that's clear to make use of those few good nights. I have my 200pds on one mount, and that will probably stay on there through the winter. The other one has my Stellamira 90ED on there just now, but I tend to swap that around for other stuff like redcat, or wider also. However I want to maximise my imaging time this year, so in addition - since I have 3 other EQ mounts (2 azgtis and a self converted EQ6), and one other asiair I figured I'd spend some time sorting out cabling and process so that I can also setup a 3rd mount each night, perhaps even a 4th. I've done this occasionally before, but not often because of the hassle - so the planning is about eliminating the hassle -so a harness of power and ethernet ready to go coiled up in obsy, 2 mounts (eq5 with asiair, and azgti without) ready to go and PAed after the first night. I will drill positioning dimples in the circular slabs where they will go to aid getting the position more or less replicated each night. I plan to use my canon 6d on the eq5 mount, guided with the asiair and a asi224 and scope. And I'll use a bunch of lenses I have and the redcat with it. As I've created a custom FF in camera L-extreme filter for it, I can use this setup for wideband and narrowband. Once setup, the 2" tripod and EQ5 should just need a quick PA tweek each night, and will fit back into obsy in the morning. For a 4th mount though, I currently don't have any more asiairs, so I'm stuck with no guiding, AND no plate solving, etc.. my plan was to use this 4th mount with my newly converted canon m100. This can't be controlled by the asiair, but can be set to take pics with the aid of a bit of elastic and a bead I've made up - you put it on, if pushes the button down, and if set to continuous shooting will keep shooting at whatever settings you set - however I'm limited to 30 secs max exposure. Ive also designed in camera L-extreme for this too, so would really like longer exposures but afaik the only way to do that is via wifi to a paid android app, and that is a faff... So though part of me wants to get another asiair and cheap guide camera - which would certainly let me ensure I can take far longer exposures (you flip the camera between main camera for gotos and plate solving, to guide camera for guiding), I think that it's use would be limited to the fact the M100 is the only other camera I have available.. I hate manually having to set it all up with synscan though, so... I dunno - no good options for that 4th mount at the moment. The basic plan though is to get 3 nights imaging minimum each good night - maybe a 4th if I can work something out with the M100. kinda wish I hadn't sold my D1200 now 🙄 I want to do far more wide views - I've had good results at 70mm with the 6d so I've got 70 all the way through to 300 or so that I've not done much of: the outside setups will focus (sic) on that. anyhoo that's the basic plan as it is just now. What are your plans ?

Just a shout out to this ebayer whom I had convert my Canon M100 last week to full spectrum for astro use: https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/spacetinkerer Great comms before hand explaining what was done, then turned around and back in the post to me in one day. Perfect job - and can now use the camera for regular stuff, UV stuff, IR stuff, and astro! goes without saying- but no connection with me - just think good service deserves a mention.

Remember u can turn on CC with YouTube and have it translate in real time. I mean its not great, but gets the gist

Not that I've noticed.

Here's the finished article. I made a 3d printed frame in the end.

Here's an l-extreme done too. Alongside the uvir cut. I've painted wood black. The only thing left I think is that I might need to create a mask out of thin black plastic to just be .2mm or so smaller hole so light doesn't go through edges as these are tapered and I imagine will scatter light.

Well..nearly a month later. Sorry about that. I got a bunch of microscope slides to practice cutting, then had to source second hand l-extreme..and finally work up courage to potentially destroy 2" l-extreme. IT WORKED !!! I have to finish it off a bit, fit a wee frame, etc but sticking it in to try it, all lenses I've tried have no problem focusing to infinity. So all looks good. Proof will be in pudding of actually trying it - I'll try sy135 first as never had good results with it mounted on front. Here's a bunch of piccies showing me taping it up, scoring it with cutter. I found best way is to just keep scoring and eventually it just splits. It's a bit bigger than the optolong, which moved about a bit.i plan to laser cut from 1mm balsa and 3d print something and see what works best for a frame. I've also blackened the edges of the glass. So..no issues with focus, cuts OK, etc. For 150 quid I've got probably the world's only full frame clip in L-extreme. 😁😁😁

Sweep and tidy up ready for season. About 8 months in now with observatory. Metal definately the way to go.

nah, i found infinity was actually a good back back from the infinity icon on the bar when I pulled it back, so no such luck

So, the forecast was rubbish for tonight, but when it got dark the clouds disappeared, so I got the S50 out and did crescent again (see above). But I also wanted to test the new more solid camera mount. I stuck the new sony a5000 full spectrum I've bought on it with a 55-210 lens. I stuck a UVIR 49mm filter on the front. I didn't know how well it would track, so I stuck to 20 second exposures, shot about 100 at around 130mm (according the EXIF) and 130ish at 55mm (full open). I must admit I thought I'd zoomed right in for the first set, but I reckon it slipped back. Anyhoo, good news! - with a solid mounted camera the S50 has no issues tracking with that camera on, and the shots from the camera are good. It was just a test, so I just focused by eye, so my focus is not great - but the point is - no star trails on the 55mm, and minimal star trails on the 130mm. So I think it's definitely a viable platform for a aps-c sized mirrorless camera, even with a zoom lens on it. Now bare in mind - this is a tiny amount of integration time: 13.5 mins for 130mm!!, 32 mins for 55mm. It is really just to test the concept. As your integration time goes up of course, your rotation will increase and you'll end up cropping into the square in the centre of your FOV. You should be able to find your way around with Sadr in the middle there. A little bit of nebulosity starting to show where it should be. Is this going to get you an APOD ? No. But for a beginner who gets a taste with the S50, and doesn't want to spend a fortune to do a bit more - I think it's a great way to do that. here's the integrated 130mm image: and here's the 55mm.

So... same target tonight. 30 mins - so 4 mins longer, but pretty much same... here it is with internal LP filter: Surprising eh ? I mean, sure, with a heck of a lot more integration time, the L-extreme might be better, but I think the internal LP is a far better filter for most S50 use. here's a gif:

appropriate that today's APOD was this: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap231006.html I wonder what Mr Hubble would make of an S50 if you went back in time and gave it to him.

its 3 and 4mm. some is ply, some is solid wood, and some is veneer on MDF. I just put it all together like a jigsaw, then put a bit on top, flipped it over, and glued a backing bit of MDF onto it. My creality will cut 6mm nicely. not sure if I've tried anything thicker. I get super clean cuts - as an example - here's a bahtoniv mask I cut yesterday - it is for a 49mm 100mm FL lens, so tiny tiny thin lines - probably about .3 of a mm each. it did it no problem. I did wonder if I'd be wishing I'd bought a 20w or more, but I've not really - it does everything I want.

You should maybe tell the police in case it's serious ?

I doubt I'd still be doing astrophotography and wouldn't have built my observatory if it wasn't for asiairs - absolutely the mutts nutts imho.

It's a 40 quid job from China off amazon, so I'm not holding my breath for quality..but we'll see.

Just sharing this. I'm getting my m100 full spectrum converted for ir photography and astro. I'll need uvir for basic astro, but wanted to be able to use duo-band too and preferably without putting expensive 2" on end of lenses. So I laser cut these little hoops. You can pop in a 1.25" filter once you've taken out mount, and it covers the sensor (just!). Tasted here with uvir, but will get a zwo duo to use too. Tested with some lenses and focuses fine. A cheap way to get aps-c osc wideband and narrowband imaging.