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Hi, I am having real problems with my guiding and would grateful for any thoughts or advice. I am using an Ioptron IEQ30 pro mount, the guide scope is an Svbony 50mm 190mm focal length guide scope with a Zwo 120MC guide camera. I carried out calibration at the start of the run followed by using the guide assistant and accepting all the changes it suggested. The guiding started off reasonably ok (not brilliant), I left the rig to run overnight with the main scope taking 60 second subs, so eventually it started to get light which obviously destroyed PHD2’s ability to guide! However, at some point in the night the mount did a meridian flip and looking at the 60 second subs the mount starts moving in both RA and DEC, with only the occasional decent sub. I have attached the guide log (entry 10 is obviously the overnight run) in case someone can help diagnose something I am not doing right. I see there is an option to do calibration post meridian flip but don’t really understand how to do this, again any help gratefully received. Thanks, Ian PHD2_GuideLog_2023-10-21_190636.txt

Hi, many thanks for responding. I bought the mount second hand so not sure how old it actually is. Mechanically it seems sound as both axis move very freely (none of the Skywatcher mount stickiness). I also have several cables and the problem persists with all of them. I haven't tried the hand controller but may tonight as it is forecasting possible clear skies. I didn't know that Altair might be able to service the mount and I will certainly contact them as there is fractional play in the RA (different problem that I am yet to sort). I carried on playing with the mount and after multiple times resetting the zero position and redefining the park position, it now seems like it might be behaving itself. Though all my testing has been done indoors so not sure what will happen when I try it properly. Annoyingly as I made some many changes to try and fix the problem I am not sure exactly what the combination was. Though I think you are right about resetting the zero position. The problem initially occurred when I was imaging away from home and I have no idea what I did to upset the mount, other than when I tried to goto an object the scope went through a meridian flip and then pointed at the ground!! Hopefully I may find out more tonight. Ian

Hi, I have been happily using Cartes du Ciel to control my Ioptron IEQ30 pro mount for over a year. However, last weekend the mount seemed to develop a mind of its own. I can now get it to park pointing at Polaris but whenever I ask it to point at any object the position is completely wrong. It's like it has lost or is using the wrong the coordinates from the mounts initial position and therefore moves to the wrong position. When I first started using the mount all was fine I managed to get the software and mount to work together, but now I am at a loss as to what to try. Can anybody help point me in the right direction (no pun intended)?

Hi My latest version of Siril doesn't have an option for pre-processing with background extraction. Did you write a script or download it from somewhere else? If so could you let me know where. Thanks

I got the 9kg weight from the information on FLO's website. I don't know what the correct weight is but it would be good to know how accurate the weight is when looking at vendor sites. I certainly don't want to underestimate things and either struggle to mount a scope or have my mount struggle.

I think this sums things up. I have just tried to re-collimate my scope but now face at least another 7 days of solid cloud before I have any hope of testing it (so frustrating). Even if the clouds lift there is the issue of seeing, which of course may or may not be good. Certainly given the comments that aperture might not be the issue I think I need to investigate all avenues before spending over £2k to find myself in the same position.

I should have mentioned that I am thinking of an OTA to go on my EQ6R mount. I agree that weight could be an issue but actually the 8 inch CC weighs 8kg (approx) and the 9 1/4 inch SCT is 9kg. So not much in it. Though I just checked the C11 is 12.5kg, which is getting pretty heavy to lift. Thanks for your general thoughts on the 9 1/4. I did see the classified add, but I live in the NE England so pickup was an issue.

After a couple of years using my StellaLyra 8 inch classical cassegrain and getting reasonable images of the planets. Then seeing some peoples astonishingly good images I am starting to get aperture envy. So I was wondering whether it is worth me getting a larger SCT either 9 1/4 or 11 inch, is this going to be worthwhile? I do know that cool down and dew are a bigger issue with SCT's but think I can allow for cooling. I also see the Celestron SCT's come in XLT and HD variants. The HD's being considerably more expensive. Given the primary use is for planets and that the focal length of and SCT is huge (unless using Hyperstar) then I cannot imagine when I would use it for astrophotography. Though if there is a good reason for paying the extra for the HD I would consider it. I think I am entering into paralysis by analysis so would be grateful for any guidance or thoughts. Thanks, Ian

Thanks for that I would never think of checking collimation in such a manner but will try it (if the clouds ever lift!!!).

Hi, I noticed some play in the RA when I pull or push the counterweight arm of my IEQ30 pro mount. I would really like to remove or reduce this as much as is feasible, particularly as I notice the mount misbehaves when taking astrophotography images following a meridian flip (multiple frames where the stars are smeared badly, as if PHD2 cannot cope with the mount post flip). I removed the RA motor cover and see that when you move the counter weight arm the whole motor assembly pivots up and down, indeed there appears to be a spring that deliberately allows this to happen. The belt drive appears to be under tension with no slop. the movement appears to be in the way the worm gear is engaged, but as I said there appears to be a spring and pivot to deliberately allows this to occur. Does this mean that the mount is as good as it can be or is there something else I can adjust? Any thoughts or advice gratefully received. Thanks, Ian

As another person trying to learn/improve my planetary imaging I have been following this thread with interest. I totally accept the comments made about the need for good seeing in order to get decent images (no argument). I also understand the high frame rate to try and see through the best seeing. So in my case I use an SellaLyra 8 inch classical cassegrain with a Zwo ASI224 so I use reduce my region of interest round a planet and can get frame rates up to about 180FPS. I also understand the need for good focus, and now use a DIY electronic focuser which helps. Thought I do find the focus on my scope seems soft in that small changes in focus don't seem to alter what appears on the screen. Though I suppose the issue might be the seeing making it difficult to totally nail the focus. What I think would be helpful for the experts are hints on tips on other elements needed to get the best from a scope camera system. How much should I worry about the histogram? I also notic ethe comments around attaching the end of a barlow direct to the camera to get 1.X magnification. My Celestron barlow doesn't come apart like that. Can someone suggest a half decent suitable barlow that can be used? I also would love any helps or links to good guides on processing. I have watched so many You Tube videos which often say different things. some say use linked wavelets others say don't! It's very difficult to know what to do to improve and then I see some of the stunning images that others put out and I am left scratching my head as to what to do. Any help gratefully received. I think I noticed earlier in the thread that Mark was wondering if he needed a larger/better scope. This is something I also wonder about so am currently thinking of going to either 9 1/4 or 11 inch SCT, but I am concerned that I will still have the same problems as with the current setup. So as I said any comments or links to the best up to date information on squeezing the most out of my planetary imaging would be really gratefully received by me and indeed Mark might then be able to take on his 14 year old adversary 🙂. Thanks Ian

Finally darkness has returned for a few hours per night and I have managed to get the scope out, I felt so rusty during both the setup and processing! Anyway this is the North American nebula taken with my Altair 70 EDQ-R scope with Altair 26C mounted on a Ioptron IEQ30 pro. Total integration time was about 2.5 hours. The image was taken over two nights on the 3rd and 4th of September. The subs were stacked in deep sky stacker and all processing was done in Siril and Gimp. Thanks for looking. Ian

Image taken with Equnox 80, explore scientific 2x focal extender with Altair 174M.

Hi, yes, very happy with the wedge, the only problem with it is that the sun has disappeared behind endless cloud since I got it 😀. Hopefully the weather will improve soon and I can get back to practicing my imaging. Ian

This is my second attempt to image the sun, this time using an Altair Hypercam 174M with my 500mm focal length Equinox 80 and a Celestron 2X barlow. The pixel scale is probably still not right. I tried to be less aggressive with the sharpening in IMPPG, though I think this may still be work in progress. I used Firecapture for the first time to take a 30 second video and incorporated flats by defocusing. However, I think there is something wrong with my flats. Any thoughts? Conditions were again pretty terrible with mostly thick cloud and so I had little chance to play with settings. Anyway here it is and thanks for looking. Ian

Absolutely no offence taken. I need to learn and I had followed a YouTube tutorial for IMPPG and was unsure about how far to take the sharpening relative to what was in the video. I will certainly look at the link. Ian

Some weeks ago I bought a Starfield solar wedge through the for sale section of this site. Since receiving the wedge it seems to have rained or been cloudy every day since. However, yesterday there was brief respite in the weather and I managed two 30 second videos of the sun. I had to use my Zwo ASI224MC camera along with a Skywatcher Equiniox ED80 scope. I stacked the best 5% of frames and then had a go at sharpening using IMPPG and then finished in Affinity Photo. I know its not very good but I was very excited to get my first solar image so I thought I would post it. I am interested in feedback as I am unsure on how far to sharpen. Ian

Great many thanks Ian

Great image. I am awaiting delivery of a Quark and wondering/dithering over what camera to partner with it. Could you let us know your camera and image acquisition details. thanks Ian

I was messing around with my Tal100 achromatic scope earlier this year just to see if I could get get it setup with a QHY183C camera in order to possibly do some lunar or planetary imaging. All seemed well and I was able polar align in Sharpcap and platesolving worked. I then wondered what would happen if I tried to capture M42. I didn’t expect much as I had no guiding and the pixel scale was all wrong. The Tal has a focal length of 1000mm and the QHY183C has 2.4uM pixel size so I was significantly oversampling. As I was only doing experiments and Orion wasn’t very high in the sky (Images were taken on March 7th) I only took 10 subs. I reckoned that with the lack of guiding I might get away with 30 second exposures and a gain of 10. On checking the subs, 2 were discarded due to satellite trails and so I stacked the remaining 8 (a total of 4 minutes integration time) with 30 darks, 30 flats and 30 dark-flats. The result was processed through Siril including the new Starnet star removal and reintegration feature (Siril 1.2.0-beta2). Whilst the image isn’t brilliant I was rather shocked at how well it turned out give oversampling, no guiding and 4 minute integration time. I know M42 isn’t too challenging but I think it shows that whatever equipment you have it can be worth having a go at some DSO’s. I will be interested in people’s comments. Thanks for looking Ian

Pretty much the end of my season as well but thought I would have a go at the Markarian chain as I have never seen or tried it before. The image was take on the 2oth April and consists of 137 30 second subs so a total of about 1 hour and 9 minutes. I took many more subs but had to discard as they were plagues with cloud!! The image was taken with my Altair 70EDQ-R F5 with a QHY183C camera, gain 11. Subs were stacked with DSS and processed with Siril and Gimp. Not going to win any awards but I was pleased. Thanks for looking. Ian

Will certainly try that. Unfortunately I am busy for the next couple of weeks so it may be a while before I can run more tests. Thanks Ian

I had a look at their website and the dew heater for a 4 inch scope produces 8W of power so only 0.66A. They go on to say that the low power draw negates the need for PWM controller. Which sounds great. However I don’t know if 8W generates enough heat to keep a scope clear. Does anyone know if it would be enough? cheers Ian

Great question. With regard to settings I really should be more systematic and write these things down. I can say I have tried increasing the gain and or increasing exposure with really mixed success. I have tried 2 camera a QHY183C and a Zwo 294MC. Binning so far has always been at 1. I had wondered about 2x binning, do you think it might help? Thanks, Ian

Thanks both. Last night I tried with (inputting the focal length) and without (omitting the focal length) and both were equally poor. What was frustrating was that several times when I tried short exposure times with very little in the way of stars on the screen the platesolver reported; more than 540 stars unable to solve, try reducing exposure. I did wonder about focus, but had used Sharpcap's multi star focus assistant to get focus pretty good. Luckily I had two scope out so at least while I did battle with one the other had very happily solved and was taking decent photos until the inevitable clouds rolled in!! Are there any other things I should try?