scotty38

Being polar aligned ie the mount is physically aligned is the first thing to achieve but you then need to be star aligned so the scope knows where it is pointing in the sky. You have NINA (hopefully you have 2.0 installed) so you could actually use the TPPA plugin for polar aligning and then also use plate solving to get aligned. Once you've done that your gotos will be spot on, or at least pretty accurate.

Blimey, only just saw this. I assume because you went back to the guide scope it couldn't be tightened up and something had broken?

Glad you think there's more detail as I keep spinning between the two and thinking the latter is brighter but more blurred rather than more detailed, I just cannot decide. I even thought about about manually culling the files and picking the best from the two nights to see what that looks like. Oh and yep I quite like the l-extreme... My wife has bought me a mono camera for my 60th but it's not until August lol so I've decided the Veil is a mini project until then so I'll keep adding to it as and when I can. I will then try it in mono and do a comparison, even if only for my eyes....

Cloudy Outside forecast 100% cloud last night so I ignored it and managed to get another couple of hours to add to this..... I'm hoping there's a positive difference, but I just stacked the additional frames, STF and PCC.

This to me looks like aggressive ZWO pricing and feels like the price point that QHY would have ordinarily been at, all things being equal. It will be interesting to see if QHY can actually get under this by the usual amount, if they can it will make their version almost a "cheap" camera..... As you say, the delta from 294mm is significant so I think ZWO have changed their game here and decided to play in the lower priced game. Interesting to see the reactions

Pedantic point but in NINA that's a Slew and Centre which involves a plate solve so you don't actually ask NINA (or rather ASTAP for example) to plate solve either lol.... 🙂

Yep need to do both, the Polar align means the mount is phyiscally aligned where it should be, the plate solve means you now know your scope has moved to where you told it to.

Is that after plate solving?

Yep was on the ZWO site yesterday….

I think in some respects, and it may be slowly, it is getting there. Take PI as one example, not too long ago its WBPP script came with a "warning" that it was not "optimal" and should not really be used in place of the manual processes. That warning no longer exists and in fact is PIs preferred method now and what's more also now incorporates more processes too..... I realise this is not post-processing but even so it's a nod towards ever more automation.

I would remove the "virtually" from the above statement and replace with "absolutely"..... You can see this once you look at the micro adjustments made when going through the process.....

https://astronomy-imaging-camera.com/product/asi533mm-pro TLDR $1080

No I don’t think the concept of triggers exist in the basic sequencer but I’ve not used it in ages anyway.

I think an autofocuser is a definite quality of life thing even if you ignore all its other benefits 🙂 Just off to have a look but can you do anything manually with the Hocus Focus plugin??????

Looks like star alignment to me on the face of it, can you try a different tool by any chance?

NP and I checked and yep on the inside so all good..... Can you tell I never touch them lol

Think it's the same tripod on my AZ-EQ6 and they're on the inside on mine (I think 🙂 ). Better there so they don't get kicked anyway

With NINA's advanced sequencer you can have triggers set that will automatically force recentres should the target drift by a predetermined amount.

Did you focus after the flip as the HFD seems low and not many stars detected? Just a thought as to why the solve may have failed????

Ah, must admit I was assuming the heater was behind the panel..... The rest makes sense yes.... The way that I will need to orient my panel means that, most of the time, it will be more vertical than horizontal so hopefully be less of an issue under extreme circumstances but we shall see....

Bit late to the party but only just saw this post and my panel hasn't arrived yet... Is the answer as simple as treating the panel the same as the scope and having the heater on as you would the dew heater? I am, sort of, making a bold assumption that the scope would have also been wet through without the aid of dew heaters???? Hoping you say yes as I don't need anything else to whittle about as I bought this partly to be able to automate "covering up" once imaging was complete so don't want the "cover up" to actually make matters worse 🙂

But for the avoidance of any doubt every single NINA developer considers the Beta the stable version.....

That's an old version you're looking at. Try the beta (that's not a beta 🙂 )

The QHY version will more than likely be a couple of hundred cheaper at a guess.

Well, give or take, there's less than a £100 difference between the 294MC and the 533MC so why not the same difference between the mono versions which would make it about £1300? If you look at the 183/294 price relationship the ratio holds out...... Scrub the 183/294 I got myself mixed up but as for the rest that's ok