StuartT

eek!

Thanks so much everyone. I don’t want to suggest a telescope for him just yet, until I’m sure he has some genuine interest in the subject. If he likes the binocs you can be sure I’ll move onto a massive 200mm APO refractor and full observatory setup 🤣

Would anyone like to suggest a pair of binoculars suitable for my 11 year old nephew who would like to start stargazing?

This target has now disappeared behind my house for this year, so this is my final integration for a while. No guiding. No calibration frames. ===================================================== SkyWatcher Esprit 150ED Super APO Triplet (0.77x Reducer); ZWO ASI2600mc PRO Mount: SkyWatcher EQ6r-Pro Software: Siril · NINA 2.0 beta · Photoshop Filters: OPTOLONG L Extreme Dates: Oct/Nov, 2021 Frames: 440x35" (4h 16' 40") Avg. Moon age: 13.07 days Avg. Moon phase: 96.80% RA center: 20h55m52s.1 DEC center: +31°21′43″ Pixel scale: 1.496 arcsec/pixel Orientation: 81.643 degrees Field radius: 0.983 degrees

Thanks all. I would dearly love to have an observatory. But my garden is tiny, alas. What I have instead is a permanent tripod setup on a concrete base which I cover with a Telegizmos 365 so it stays polar aligned (more or less). I guess that's a half way to having an actual observatory dome, in that at least I don't have to physically set everything up each time. As for USB woes, I totally agree! My laptop annoyingly changes its mind about what number to give the COM port every time I connect up! 😡 Some of you will have seen this, but I do find it amusing.

So how is it that some nights nothing seems to work. Polar aligning takes forever and you end up accepting a crappy alignment before your target goes out of view. Your camera keeps disconnecting. None of your platesolve-sync operations are within tolerance and they just keep repeating. Your focuser has a gazillion steps of backlash. You can't get the exact same rotation as your last set of subs. The clouds keep appearing then disappearing... After a couple of hours of swearing, you just give up. Then on another night, it's crystal clear and your setup goes like a dream and you're imaging within 15 mins. 🤷‍♂️

Thanks! I didn't think of that. Yes, I am using the flat cross section cable that came with the camera. I'll replace.

So even though the belts are toothed, you think it's best not to spray a little in there?

I bought a bottle of this stuff (thanks for the tip). What I am wondering is can I open up the two side panels on my EQ6R-Pro and spray some on the gears and electrics? I'm concerned that over the long term, condensation might corrode them and affect my tracking. Or would this cause slipping or other issues (I have the newer EQ6R with belts)

Thanks. I deleted it because I solved the issue. For some reason NINA doesn't always see my camera. I find I have to unplug-replug sometimes.

thanks

Patronising! Not in the least. I much prefer people to be clear in their instructions. I am not at all a techie guy, so I do struggle a bit with this side of astronomy!

Thanks so much for your help. Very much appreciated.

The guy on there seemed to think I was fussing unnecessarily. Can't really say I understand any of this, to be honest. I just like the scope to go where I need it and I was worried that if it started from the wrong place, that it would also slew to the wrong place. What is LST?

Thanks for going to all that trouble. Still didn't work tho 😞 So I backed up and deleted the INI and it now seems - FINALLY - to have reset itself. I re-entered all the position info, com port, baud rate etc . Here's how it looks now. The Dec, Alt and Az are all correct. But the RA seems to be in increasing - not sure why that is

I usually launch EQMOD by starting NINA, so I'm not sure how I'd start it in Admin mode from windows. I must say, the whole ASCOM/EQMOD/EQUASCOM thing is incredibly clunky. It looks like it was designed in the last century! EDIT: ok, I think it's an EXE called equascom_run. got it. Still didn't reset tho. I wonder if somewhere EQMOD thinks that is my home position. So resetting it to HOME simply leaves it there?

I am assuming you mean press this button? If so, that's what I did

thanks, Just tried that, but the 'Mount position' refuses to budge. Looking at the INI file (thanks for flagging that) I see this: [default] PARK_DEC=10669656 PARK_RA=11006856 So if only I knew what units it was using, I could set them back to HOME... hmmm...

My scope is currently parked and is physically in the correct home position (weights down, pointing at NCP, setting circles at the correct settings). But EQMOD is showing the wrong Az value in the "Mount position" window. Instead of showing 0h 0m 0s it's showing 2h 34m 10s How can I reset this and 'tell' EQMOD it's actually in the right home position?

Ok, I just checked and the site is a Bortle 4 not 3. The nearest Bortle 3 to me would be a 3h drive

Thanks for doing this. I have Photoshop 6 which doesn't open Canon RAW files (.CR2)unfortunately. So I have to convert them to TIFF to fiddle about with them. I think TIFF is the same as RAW (as in it doesn't compress or lose information), but please correct me if I'm wrong

I think you're doing fine! Better than my first attempt and I have a wider aperture scope than you do! The main problem is the low elevation Jupiter is at from the UK just now (so too much atmosphere). Next year will be better

I tried a stretch in Photoshop, but the histogram was already about right, so there wasn't much stretching to be done. Yes, 10 sec was the longest exposure I could use and still get round stars (see original post). I was using the 10sec delay on my camera (to abolish shake). It's an EOS 750D I'll try stacking next time then.

it's a moonless night. And I drove out to a Bortle 3 sky location. Then I followed this (which suggested ISO 3200 or ISO 6400 https://capturetheatlas.com/how-to-photograph-the-milky-way/#:~:text=To summarize%2C these are the,your white balance to 4000k

I found a dark sky site about 30mins drive away so tonight I thought I'd try to image the Milky Way. Never attempted it before. Using an 11mm lens with an APS-C DSLR I'd previously worked out (by experiment) that the longest exposure I could manage without trails was 10sec (I am using just a camera tripod, no tracking). So I shot at ISO6400 for 10sec wide open at f/2.8 Not hugely impressed with the results. What am I doing wrong?