scotty38

They're great images, way better than not bad in my opinion...

what about a mask of some description for the bubble? I say that as if I know what I'm talking about but I'd have to follow instructions 🙂

In fact now I look on a different monitor I am not sure 🙂 I think if I could take the bubble from the first one and pop it in the second it would be perfect. Apols if that's what you did but from here the first bubble has a bit more clarity.

Great image and I reckon my favourite is the first one 👍

I use NINA so agree with the above 👍

I have one too, just used for visual on my Stellamira and it's very good in my opinion. Also have the 120 mini on my imaging guide scope and that works perfectly well as you'd expect too....

Yep James’ tutorials are pretty good, he definitely knows the products inside out.

1 hour ago, Stu Wilson said:

It's 800mm at f4 and yeah cropped but not hugely. 

Great ota so far though. I'm very pleased with the results I've managed so far. Looking forward to some galaxy imaging etc. Be nice to get to a really dark sky site. Very light polluted round here. Car lights flashing past very often too adds to the frustration.

 

Stu

Ah ok read it as 600 so 800 makes it over twice my fl so explains a lot more too. Thanks for the info.

Also have a look at Affinity Photo as it now has astro features included and it's about £25 at the minute I think.

Apologies, I'd not spotted they were only 5 second exposure so yeah I'd say you need a fair bit more to start with. Mine were 5 minutes I think.

Agreed, we all know that given the sheer magnitude in time and space that we're dealing with the odds are there is something, somewhere. That same space and time makes finding it (or those of us alive seeing or knowing about it) pretty much nigh on impossible especially given our infinitesimally short lifespan.

We should not stop searching though.

Only that it's 600mm vs my 382mm and f4 vs my f5 so I assumed you cropped in a bit as I have an aps-c sized camera too. Regardless it's a great image that I'd be happy with.

I'm no expert by any means and other than the built in heater I am not knowledgeable enough to know what £450 extra buys you in the 071.... As you say the FOV is a touch bigger which may be important with your 150.

I have the 294 and that bins up to 4x4 and imagine the 071 is the same but it's basically combining pixels so 2x2 is 2 pixels wide and 2 pixels high so 4 in total merged as one as it were. Improves SNR but reduces definition I think but I've never tried it and tbh not entirely sure when I would.

So, if you are anything like me, experience wise, I'd probably go 294 and spend £450 on something else like the EAF and maybe even mini efw to have a play with 🙂

Nope I don't think so, its size is as it was shot so that size sensor and scope should give you that size image if you see what I mean., I've not cropped it or anything like that.

For what it’s worth here’s one I took on my GT81 at 380mm with flattener and aps sized sensor.  I accept its slightly longer than a Redcat but not that much longer really....

That's a great image, off to google the f4 photon to work out why my GT81 images of this subject are nothing in comparison....

Thanks will look at that lot but it’s working again now. Took a couple of hours of not really changing anything but after one particular close of apps I started phd on its own and it started guiding. I then started Nina and it carried on guiding picked a target, set a sequence, of course it stopped guiding while it slewed, and guiding started again..... I’d set it to the horsehead for an hour knowing I’d lose it behind a tree about halfway but left it to see what happened. Went back out after the hour to see the scope nicely parked and about 15 useable images....

No idea what’s going on......

14 minutes ago, alacant said:

Hi

What did the log indicate as to what went wrong?

There are so many things which have to be in place for successful guiding that it''s usually best to start with a concrete idea of the issue. Otherwise we're left guessing forever!

Cheers

Yep I realise that and as I mentioned all was well the night before. To be fair I was only looking for options on daylight fault finding so I could dig into it myself versus having someone fix it for me if that makes sense....

I had a look at the phd manual earlier and had not thought about the logs so they’re first on my list.

Thanks all, will look at the simulator good shout.

Yep settings exactly as the previous night no changes. One thing that was different was that at the end of the working session I noticed a NINA update which I applied. Thinking that may be the issue I tried APT but exactly the same.

PHD seemed to just loop around calibrating and stopped from what I recall but just never started guiding. Focus seemed ok, plate solving worked fine, everything was connected and so on. I restarted things, disconnected reconnected, rebooted and nothing changed, this is why I want to try some "daylight" fault finding to see if I can work out what was going wrong..

Hi all, I spent all night yesterday trying to get PHD2 guiding but to no avail although it had worked perfectly the night before....

Is there any way to fault find guiding issues during daytime rather than waiting for (wasting) the next clear night to do the same? Clearly logic tells me not but thought I'd ask just in case I'm missing some clever technique to get things done...

Frustrating is not the word. Tonight I've spent about 41/2 hours trying to get PHD2 working and no chance yet it all worked perfectly last night.  Just as I packed in last night I noticed an update for NINA so I installed it. Maybe that was the problem so tried APT and that was just the same.... PHD2 just seemed to loop around calibrating, stopping and repeating, messed with everything I could think of but no joy....

I took a load of M31 last night too so hope mine come out as well!

As I'm so new to this and it's not currently getting any higher I'm on my 18th frame of M31...

I have the 10mm and briefly tried it without the 1.25 section the other night. As I placed it in to my (WO 2") diagonal I could see it was like looking down a tunnel so took it out before even giving it a chance. Maybe I was too hasty so will try again though....

Very nice that is!