scotty38

19 minutes ago, david_taurus83 said:

Did you do a calibration in PHD?

Thanks and searching around suggest this too but no I didn't do anything other than start the sequence which does a calibration before it starts guiding.

I'm assuming there is a separate step somewhere so if so nope didn't do it or know about it....

Hi all PHD2 seems to be playing up again and Iost a clear night again 🤬 Everything appeared to be fine and after polar aligning (separate camera to guide scope) I set up a new sequence.  That started up and focused, plate solved and then guiding started but after a few seconds of perfect looking guiding the RA and Dec went off the scale massively ending up with a PHD error along the lines of "PHD2 is unable to make sufficient corrections in RA, check for cable snags, redo calibration...." Images obviously come out trailed. I have an RDP connection to the laptop at the mount so after happening a few times I went to check for snags etc but it all seemed fine. I set up the sequence again at the mount and the same thing happened. Restarting the apps, power cycling the kit and choosing different targets all resulted in the same issue so I packed it all away. It was also the same if I used PHD2 via NINA or if I just started PHD2 on its own and tried guiding separately.

I'm using an AZ-EQ6 with a WO guide scope and 120mm if it's relevant.

I checked everything was tight and have not looked at any logs yet but does anyone have any bright ideas what might be happening please?

Thanks in advance...

I get this but have assumed it's the mount not being level to the accuracy of polar aligning as already mentioned. If the mount is not 100% level then I'm assuming when it's rotated back to the "parked" position the arc it scribes will not be in the same plane as it would have been if level hence the second plate solve is "different". I usually just tweak the polar aligning again and carry on.

Rubbish here too in the end. App said no chance but I thought better and set up anyway. I just bought an EAF so needed to set that up anyway and sure enough lovely clear skies, app still saying 90+% cloud... Anyway I got the focuser all set up, target and sequence in NINA all set up and away we go... Well no, guiding not working and then no plate solving but I keep trying with no luck and PHD suggests a snagged cable so thought I'd better go and investigate. All the cables are fine but it's flippin cloudy now, all wet through with dew so packed it all away.

Even though I'd set aside the evening to get the EAF set up it's still disappointing when you cannot make use of a few hours of clear sky. I've only been doing this a couple of months so goodness knows how I'll be in a few years 🤣

And maybe a step or two up depending on exchange rate and busting the wallet a bit more, as an example something like this could give you the 6" Vlaiv was talking about.

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/slt-series/celestron-nexstar-6-slt.html

Finding one is the hard bit but that gives you more time to add to the coffers....

I have the GT81 and adjustable 6AIII but I'm a beginner so would love to know your thoughts on why the Stellamira is the one to choose vs the GT81 or FLT91?

I have a Stellamira 80 by the way so no axe to grind there 🙂

Thanks will give that a try too.

1 hour ago, bottletopburly said:

I’m using Startools 1.7 ,Dave Eagle has a new affinity book coming out which may be of interest 

https://www.star-gazing.co.uk/WebPage/shop/

Many thanks and yep I have that book. I just downloaded the APP trial as it happens but like most of these things first glance tells me there's another learning curve there too 🙂 I'm going to have another play with Affinity later, I mean I know it can be done as I have already created an image with 4 "items" so adding 2 more with Ha should be more of the same, I just need to check what I'm supposed to do with colours etc etc.

If I cannot get it looking in the same sort of ballpark that I'm seeing on here with Affinity I might just go PixInsight for the "easiest" given the amount of tutorials that are available.

47 minutes ago, bottletopburly said:

What program are you using?

I’m using Affinity at the minute.

I’ve had a try too but nothing to post as I’m still learning how to combine the various elements. I’ve managed to get a colour image out of just the LRGB so far but need to find further tutorials on how I should be adding the rest.... I’ll get there I think. One thing I have learned so far is that I’m glad I entered this game with OSC 🤣

Nice one good work. I don’t have PIxinsight and didn’t bother pursuing after the trial as I didn’t really get my head round it but this is making me reconsider....

I can't tell but have you tried taking the laptop to the rig and having, maybe just, the camera connected directly to see if that resolves the issue? I had a very similar setup to you that worked just fine but I had a 294 vs the 1600 and a different powered usb/ethernet extender from Amazon.

17 minutes ago, Orange Smartie said:

Really cool that you managed that pic with your phone!

Yes we are lucky.  I showed my wife a few objects the other week including the Leo Triplet of galaxies.  The conversation went a bit like this:

Me: "Can you see those three faint smudges".  Mrs S: "Yes".  Me: "Those are galaxies".  Mrs S: "Like our galaxy?".  Me: "Yes".  Mrs S: "What, whole other galaxies?".  Me: "Yes".  Mrs S: "Wow!".

Wow indeed!

I know I'm going slightly OT but in a similar vein, I had Mars in my scope last week and it was particularly round and visible so I went in the house to fetch my wife. She came out and her only comment was "Oh it's smaller than I thought it was going to be based on your excitement". I sent her back inside 🤣

That's a great image, nice one!

1 hour ago, SyedT said:

Thank you Scott. I admit it can be very difficult to extract the nebulosity. The 268M is a wonderful camera and its sensitivity has helped me a lot, and the FSQ85 speaks for itself in terms of star tightness and sharpness. It's well worth having another go; how much integration time were you able to get?

Hi and yep fully intend having another go, so many targets, so many clouds 🙂 All the info is on my other laptop but I probably took 30 x 180 so 90 minutes on a 294MC Pro OSC. Way less than you have, I'm in a reasonable Bortle 4 but even so way, way less data than yours so will try a lot longer given the chance......

I mean logic tells me and it does work that if you want to compare two eyepieces have two separate instances of the calculator tool running. I tried that with my "example" and they now show differently as would be the case 🙂

15 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

Same FOV - but different AFOV and magnification.

FOV represents how much sky will you see and how will object appear in relation to that background sky.

It's a bit like watching the same movie on your smart phone and on large cinema screen. Main character will take same proportion of the scene - but view on your phone will be small and very narrow but one on cinema screen will be huge and span almost all of your field of view.

Above compares how much of the scene you'll see and what the size of the main character will be in relation to the scene - but it does not show whether you are watching it on your smart phone or 100" plasma screen 6 feet away

 

I guess this is it (the bit I put in bold). The previous sentence would be correct if you were shown the two separate views but here we show the plasma view and the smartphone view as "looking the same"

16 minutes ago, John said:

This is the un-edited version with the fields of view the correct relative sizes:

 

Yep I realise that, as I said I specifically edited the eyepiece data so they both "matched" as it were otherwise my question makes even less sense 🙂

As above you can compare eyepieces for example but here is where my head hurts. Take the example below. I modified the FOV for the ES to make my point but as you can see the FOV is essentially the same so this is what you see when you look through the eyepiece correct? If that is the case then how can one be 27x and the other be 20x? What fundamental schoolboy error am I making ?

Once posted I can see the info is hard to read so the two eyepieces are a 40mm WO at 70 degrees and an ES 30mm 100 degrees edited to be 95 degrees to create the same FOV

2 hours ago, Newforestgimp said:

Its just such a shame, as i thought the whole point of NINA to be a one app controls all ?

So must admit Im still a little confused, when people are saying they start PHD2 first, are we auto/manual selecting guide star in order to start guiding or just opening the app ?

I'm with you to be fair and up until the point I had my issue I was using NINA just as you describe, fire it up and connect everything - all good. Then I had my hiccup that "fixed" itself by me starting PHD2 before NINA. I haven't had enough time since then to really try and work out what the issue is, just that during the session PHD2 first worked out ok.

Oh I am sure it does but having said that I bet I can find instances where it doesn't 🤣🤣. Now that I have "learned" to start PHD2 first mine just works too.

Let's be honest though none of this is foolproof or ridiculously easy is it? 🙂

This was my issue, pretty similar I think....

2 hours ago, Newforestgimp said:

Hi All,

I've had love hate relationship with NINA so far, I love the concept and the front end, but I cant seem to get it to work seamlessly which is of course the whole point. I had some issues last night with APT and out of frustration i thought i would try NINA again and to my surprise it worked amazingly, made it through the problematic platesolving and slewing/centering step that i could not get beyond before only to then stall at PHD2 guiding !!!!

NINA fired up PHD2, started the looping, chose a star, started its calibration, west step east step etc, but PHD2 would then continually say "Waiting for devices, Stopping" and select a new star and repeat that loop ad-infinitum.
So i stopped NINA started PHD2 manually, and it picked a star, calibrated first time no issues, and started guiding, so i restarted the NINA Sequence minus all the automation as a glorified intervalometer. I dont believe in coincidences so NINA must be causing some comms issue I believe.

Anybody else had this and got over it ? I'm thinking some timeout variable somewhere needs changing ?

Subsequent posts taken on board here but I have had pretty much this exact situation. Posted about it in another thread somewhere.....

Ha, don't try any more for my sake as I realise the effort that goes into them. Really sorry but I think your first one is still the best to my eyes, I do really like that one...

That's a fantastic image. I must admit I've only tried once and all I seem to be able to get out of my data is stars 🙂