Trucker360

What's going on here. No darks, no flats. Auto stretch in siril (channels shown) dark pic is stretch in gimp and red knocked down on curve. 

Canon 450d full spectrum

Borg 77edii

Svbony uv/ir cut. 

(My flats stretch with same gradient.) 

Idk if you need more info. 

11 minutes ago, david_taurus83 said:

You have the mount and you have a modded camera, so maybe look at a scope? What budget do you have? 

yes. i mean, cheaper the better. id prefer to be 5-700. id go a little higher if i needed to. 

im viewing this as most everything. when painting a car, or welding prep work is like 50-90% of the whole outcome. why should i learn to remove tons of problems with my stack, when i can learn to remove a little, and spend less time doing it with a better outcome. follow me?

I'm not 100% sure which forum to put this in. so, here's the story. 

i have an Orion 130st, that I've sat on top of a Sirius pro az eq-g. (its a black az eq5 skywatcher basically.) anyway, I have yet to upgrade my scope, as its my first scope. obviously, I've taken basically everyone's advice and got the biggest mount i can afford. i realized too late in this game, that yes visual is fun for certain targets. (m42, planets, maybe dumbell and ring) but things such as cali nebula are impossible (at least in my experience with my scope) i also have a full spectrum modded canon 450d, running on backyard eos.

so here's the rub. 

1) my camera lenses suck. chromatic, and hazy? and or doing super weird things. green blobs. cant get perfect focus, hard gradients. 

2) camera cant be used on current scope.

which then brings me to this circular self conversation I keep having with myself. 

do I fix up the scope to work? do I get a new scope? do I get a new lens? what scope or lens do I get?

I've been eyeballing the cf80ed Orion triplet. then I started eyeing the sv503 102mm. I like the idea of the 102, especially with a reducer. but idk what I need to get the best...… intermediate set up. do I need a triplet, or can I use a doublet. things of that nature. what accessories do I need/ obviously id need uv/ir cut, and I have one that's 1.25". 

I've done a lot of looking and don't seem to be googling the correct questions. any help please?

On 19/12/2021 at 14:49, Robindonne said:

Ok thanks.  I was in doubt to buy a white skywatcher or black orion.  I decided to go for the black one but all of a sudden couldn’t find them anymore.  

Yeah. Not on there site now. Neither is the polar scope. I might have to get belts soon. 

4 hours ago, Robindonne said:

Where did you buy this mount if i may ask?  In Europe?   

Ebay as "damaged" it wasn't damaged. Guy thought a captured screw was broke. However, this is the same as the skywatcher az eq 6 gt. And orion is no longer selling it, or any parts that go to it now. 

Fixed it with pae

1 hour ago, Shimrod said:

Do you have a reticle eyepiece  you use when aligning? I have a different mount, but I was surprised at how far out from the 'centre of the eyepiece' I was when aligning with a normal eyepiece, especially if lower power. The more accurate alignment using the reticle eyepiece has improved the goto accuracy on the mount.

I do not. I put it out of focus and fill the eye piece that way. 

6 hours ago, LaurenceT said:

Specifically which bits sound negative to you?

Not negative persay, confusing. 

1) this adapter ring thing. Sounds counter productive. 

2) I like close up action. This is less focal than my current lens.

3) another person said stop down my current lens to fix coma, but I'm not sure what to stop down to. 

14 hours ago, Uranium235 said:

Its all here:

 

Its possible to use your exisiting filter by using a step down ring, which would slow the lens to about F2.5ish - might actually work in a positive way for you as youre stopping down without using the aperture blades (no star spikes)

I'm going to need more explanation and or pics. I don't get how that sounds good. 

6 hours ago, StevieDvd said:

I think t's the same as the SW AZ-EQ5.

You mention the MEL & MAZ values - this reminds me of the Polar Alignmet in the Synscan handset which allows you to do iterative adjustments to get a better PA than just the start alignment process (as per the manual).

Evne if you have good PA (and presumably the correct time/location) you still need the scope/mount physical view to agree with what the mount thinks you are pointing at. If you do a goto on a known star you'd recognise and if not exactly centred then release the clutches and cenre it manually. Then you know your view matches the synscan expectation. If the next goto is not centred then check for loose clutches, loose Alt/AZ adjusters or one axis being overly tight (with clutches loose).

 

But the mount recognizes that it moved and compensates? 

11 minutes ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

This does not seem to be a popular mount in the UK.

Until someone better informed comes along, here's my stab in the dark.  If Sirius didn't write their software from scratch, they may have based it on someone else's. In the latest Sky-watcher Synscan software, MEL and MAZ are parameters that pop up at the end of alignment to show you how much your polar alignment is off, and there is some procedure for using them to fine-tune the mechanical adjustment.  I generally ignore them as it's too much for my aged brain. 🙁

I have found that the GoTo is not very accurate, particularly if the sought object is the other side of the meridian from the two alignment stars, and have got around this by setting up the mount with added software for a "plate-solve and re-sync" (which works brilliantly, BTW).

Hey! That's it. Mel maz! I've found out that apparently it's the same as the sky watcher az eq6. Different paint job though. I'm starting to wonder if it's the hand controller. Maybe an update or the v5? 

i need something either a) better or b) a 8" astrograph. currently i have a kit 75-300mm canon lens. i need something better. id prefer it to have 58mm front threads as i just bought 2 weeks ago a kolari uv/ir cut ha pass filter. camera is a 450d full spectrum.  

i have an issue with my orion sirius pro az/eq-g mount. im going to try and explain what its doing, however, i predict this wont end well. 

so. i go set this thing up when its clear. im pretty good at it now, and do an alignment. usually always two stars. ive tried three star alignments, but idk if there was a glitch or what. anyway....... go to vega, turn the rate up to 7 and move it a good ways to get it centered. its that far off. ok, fine. think itll then do deneb. its closer, but not close. ok.itll say alignment successful. but then pops up a warning about some axis or maz mal something.... 2 sets of what looks like lat and long. then go to m31. m31's core will be right on the edge of the glass of the eyepiece. (orion 130st with star guider 8-24 eyepiece at 24mm which is 60 degrees fov.) which, then everything is off on the pointing. it tracks fine, im getting no trails at 300mm 4.5 min subs not guided. i just dont know what to do to get it to point better. 

i think that dumpster fire of an explanation is everything. 

things ive checked so much i can almost recite them. 

polar alignment is spot on. 

elevation is correct. 

lat and long are correct.

time is correct. 

pic i took... lens has a ton of coma, but youre not getting horse head with .9 subs. over 2 nights with a ball head mishap. also, sequator vs dss. lol

Thought! How much of my focuser would I need to cut off to be able to get focus? 

29 minutes ago, Andrew_B said:

That's good. Presumably then you're familiar with things like image stacking and the post-processing to remove light pollution and bring out the details.

It sounds like you've done some photography with a static camera which can give great results with a wide angle lens. I think the next step would be to do some tracked exposures with the camera attached to the mount directly or piggybacking the telescope - one of the tube rings holding the scope might have a 1/4" bolt which you can fix your camera to. The other thing I'd recommend is photographing the Moon just using your DSLR at first either as single exposures or by taking a load of shots and having a go using software that selects the best images and stacks them automatically. You can do the same thing with the Neximage and it's more suited to lunar and planetary photography in many ways but the chip it uses is obviously much smaller than the one in your DSLR so its field of view is tiny and getting objects in the frame is more difficult so I'd start with the easy stuff first.

Start off with the wide angle and move to longer focal lengths as you get more experienced. You'll be able to see things like how well you've polar aligned your scope based on whether you have nice round stars or not and it's easier to do that with a wide angle first and then progress to your telescope which I think has a focal length of 650mm if I'm reading the right spec sheet. If you do struggle to get round stars and you've polar aligned as best you can then try reducing exposure time and just taking more images until you find something that works and doesn't show tracking errors.

The nice thing about using your DSLR is that you don't need it to be wired up to a laptop. If you don't already have one, an intervalometer is very useful for setting up imaging sessions - you set it to take maybe 120 exposures each 60s long and it will control the shutter firing automatically. A decent one is pretty cheap and you don't need to pay for brand name hardware. Some cameras also have an intervalometer function built it but it may be a bit limited if you want to take longer exposures - my Fuji lets me set exposure times up to 30s but any longer than that and I need to use a separate intervalometer.

That's alot to unpack. 

So, I'm skipping to an eyepiece projection I took with scope and dslr. 

4 hours ago, Andrew_B said:

The question that came to mind reading your post is: have you ever done any astrophotography before just using a camera and lens?

If the answer to that is no then I'd say do that first, ideally with your wide angle lens because it's easier, and don't worry about using your telescope or trying to do planetary photography just yet. Astrophotography is a lot more complex than normal photography and when you're starting out it's best to make things as simple as possible while you get used to techniques and workflow. There's a lot more to think about when you introduce a telescope into the mix and a lot less margin for error which can be frustrating when you're starting out, especially if you try to do too many things at once.

I have used it and a tripod before. 

I am once again coming to you guys for help. I'm going to do my best to explain.

 I've been in this hobby since 3 months before the Saturn Jupiter conjunction. Granted I was waiting on back order, until January ish. I work stupid hours, so I'm not out every night. And apparently clouds like weekends. 

I have an Orion 130 st sitting on a sirius pro az/eq-g. 
I also have a Canon xsi full spectrum modded (because Orion and h alpha). Lenses include 18-300mm (I have 3 lenses lowest being like 18 and highest being a 75-300mm. 

The last piece of hardware besides various accessories, is a neximage 5. But I don't have a laptop yet. (I find one on ebay for about 175$ max today and I might just have it ordered soon) suggestions on things needed for a laptop. 

I've had so much trouble with the mount. Well, that's now over. I had a new friend over last night, and he fixed it. Revert to factory and magically most my problems are fixed. 

Along the way of start to today, the path I've wanted to go down has become a half ass game trail. I need some guidance to find my way again. 

Last night I had a t ring adapter with extension, on my eyepiece. Absurdly long, heavy with no focuser lock. Let's not forget, extremely frustrating. 

My friend said I can run that neximage 5 for solar system, and dso. But, idk how it'll work for dso. I'm also (i swear) just looking and found ZWO ASI120MC Super Speed Color CMOS Telescope Camera (copy paste lol) 

So, now what? Use the neximage 5 for everything? Put the camera and lens on the scope ring? Keep the camera in case I ever get a refractor. I'm so flipping lost. 

But my s21 does fantastic for 5min quickies first thing in the morning when I get to work. Lol.

On 25/03/2021 at 17:01, Stub Mandrel said:

 

If you look at the contents page of the manual it says that Menu operations and Settings are on page 38:

This explains how to get to the settings I've listed below better than I can explain it.

If you can't follow those instructions, I suggest you either look for a video tutorial or try and find someone who can show you once lockdown ends.

What lockdown? I've looked at a vid. The problem I'm having is when I move the f stop, it only does that in av. Manual I can do shutter lock. Idk. I didn't see a thing for noise. I'm getting decent pics now, and that's about to get better when I get my tracker. 

On 07/03/2021 at 05:34, michael8554 said:

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't force it to drink..........

Michael

That implies the horse knows what the noise setting might be called. So, in this case, it's something new and foreign, and instead of a tad more help, you instead revert back to a child with comments. Do you feel like a big boy now?

53 minutes ago, Jiggy 67 said:

I’m no Astro photographer but it looks to me that you’re trying to run before you can walk. There is no point in trying meaningful AP until you learn the basics like how to polar align which will never be good with an EQ1, a very basic mount with which you cannot expect to get good results.

If I was you, I would forget about Astro photography for now and just concentrate on using your mount to find objects and observe the sky. Just observing is the most relaxing (and you don’t sound relaxed) satisfying and wonderous thing there is, you will learn the sky and how to use your mount and telescope without even realizing it. Only then will you be ready to take on photography. I suspect there are very few members on here who’s first look at the sky was through a camera.

Good thing I'm not putting my camera on the mount. Why do people keep thinking that?

Oh, and is this forum on tapatalk.

So, I have a few general questions. Im not sure if there's a specific forum. Sooo.

I'm having tons of problems polar aligning my scope. It's an orion 130 st with the eq1 mount. No motor. 

I can only view the moon, 7 sisters, m42, sirius. It's getting really bored with these objects. And, there disappearing everyday. 

Ap is not as easy as youtube made it to be. I'm using sequator, and gimp. I'm doing all this on my own. No real help for any of it local. Like, I'm learning/ teaching myself computers, photography, astro photos, editing, and telescopes. I'm running some star apps, but it's not really helping. 

So, here's some pics. 

Moon was 2x barlow and 9mm expanse with my cell phone. So, don't beat me up on focus. The moon as it appears in the sky was a 2x lens in a t ring adapter with my camera. 

Camera is a canon 450d. Lense is some kit lens, but mainly a 75-300mm set at 300. 

On 23/02/2021 at 11:59, Stub Mandrel said:

And like magic, here is the manual:

450D Manual Download

 

i have it sitting beside me. oh well. figures. starting to figure out forums just suck and arent my thing. also figured out neither are computers, cameras, or telescopes. getting rid of all this junk

so, im a noob...... how do i get to most of these settings. like the noise thingy...

Tonight was the first clear night to get out my brand new 130st eq! And, omg! So, got a pic of Sirius, and what I'm hoping is Orion's nebula. Pleiades didnt turn out. And, I'm 99% sure I'm using my mount incorrectly. These pics were taking with a crappy cell phone mount with my samsung a50 with a diffrent camera app running. I also put them through some software to do some enhancing. Dont care if you dont like it, its day 1.