Rob20236

hi

as per my other post i bought my replacement mainboard for my neq6 pro and everything is good. guiding is back to being as good as it ever was before. now the board that came is an eq6-r pro v2 mainboard with usb 😄. couldnt be happier.

so. as the eq6-r pro is probably 90% the same as the neq6 pro  (well the internals anyway) im thinking i can with a fair bit of cutting here and there, add ppec to my mount as the mainboard has the connections for it ( i think it even has a connection for ppec on the dec axis from what i can see on the board).

my stumbling block is finding the pec module. ive been googling for 2 days now with no luck finding anywhere that does spares for the eq6-r pro.

any bright souls out there any ideas where i might be able to find 1? (or 2). surely someone has had one fail and needed a replacement?

the pictures are the actual pec module im looking for (image from a teardown and rebuild ,not mine) and the other is the image of my replacement mainboard

 thank you in advance

ahh yes. i didnt notice the rj12 and rj45. that will teach me to read descriptions properly .☺️

thank you

hi all.

 im about to replace the mainboard on my neq6 due to various problems including the tracking randomly stopping with this board.

i know all the connections are different so ill have to purchase new power cable but i was wondering as i have the lynx astro ftdi eqdir usb adapter for the az gti , will that work with this new controller board for the neq6?

on the website it states that all the skywatcher mounts use the same adapter with the ftdi 232r chipset, yet flo  has 2 versions on their site for sale.

will i have to buy another or will the az gti version work?

thank you in advance

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/sky-watcher-mount-accessories/lynx-astro-ftdi-eqdir-usb-adapter-for-sky-watcher-eq5-pro-heq5-syntrek-pro-az-eq5-gt-az-eq6-gt-and-eq8-mounts.html

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/sky-watcher-mount-accessories/lynx-astro-ftdi-eqdir-usb-adapter-for-sky-watcher-az-gti-mounts.html

23 hours ago, mackiedlm said:

@Rob20236 Did all that work on the offest solve your problem with the intermittent "chequerboard" effect. Or have you found a different root cause? I'm interested to hear how it has been resolved.

i only managed 1/2 hour session other night before the clouds rolled in. its forcast clear tonight so fingers crossed. but from the few images i got plus new calibration frames i took after the clouds rolled in, ive not had anymore issues with images, plus the images i did manage to get had a hell of a lot more datail.

 i didnt change anything else in my setup (cables ect) as i didnt want to change to much while figuring out what was wrong. so it looks like the camera setting change done the trick.

all i can say is a massive thank you for your and everyones help in using and loving this camera.

700 with 1 sec exposure. i need to install siril as i cant see the info your getting in my histogram

2022-06-29_22-32-23__22.00_1.00s_0000.fits

hows this one looking? i adjusted in increments of 50 until the left edge wasnt cut off at offset 300 (in nina).

as this was only a 5 second sub. will i need to adjust down as the xxposure length increases?

this is all becoming very interesting. love the learning as much as i love the imaging and processing. but the technical side and the knowlege of people here is amazing.

think i should change the title header to "overwhelmed"

thank you

2022-06-29_22-19-58__23.50_5.00s_0000.fits

23 hours ago, ONIKKINEN said:

There are pixels with a value of 0 in this dark, which is an issue for calibration as you cant divide or multiply by 0. How big of an issue? Probably not that big, but offset should be increased anyway. There are practically no downsides to having an offset of 500-1000 ADUs with this model of camera as the full well depth is plenty large enough.

Its just a hunch, but it might have something to do with weird patterns, as the sensor probably has some consistency to its readout pattern as to where the cold pixels are situated, and in your case they are clipped to 0.

Below is a screenshot of the histogram, the left edge is abruptly cut off when in reality it should continue as the right edge does.

thank you. so should i keep adjusting offset and checking histogram until the left edge is no longer cut off? start with 100 and go from there?

thank you again

Thank you again mackiedlm and everyone else.

i will give all cables a check. i did update the altair drivers after first seeing this issue, with no change. nina is latest version (non nightlies), all i can think of is it did show up more after Richard_  recommended using 200 gain looking at my sharpcap analysis. (thank you), but  i did get a quick 2.5 hour session on andromeda last night and a look throught the subs they all look good . so fingers crossed. also with no filter this time (thank you Budgie1)

also i did fire off a ticket to altair and they ran a comparison against another 26c and said mine looked ok ,so that put my mind at rest a bit (thank you altair) ,they  havent got back  to me yet about the other  intermittent issue ,but again fingers crossed it could just be a communication issue somewhere and thats to me to figure out. and learn how to use and love this camera more.

i will say im getting some good data on andromeda now. learning more each time with help from people here, so heres a peak at my latest attempt. it may not be to everones taste but as im also learning processing and experimenting at the same time. heres my latest experiment. well i like it

thank you again all 

i use nina with altair selected ,not ascom driver. i used sharpcap to do sensor analysis which is in original post.

heres  a "good" dark at 100 gain 60 offset

thank you for any help

2022-06-21_21-45-26__-11.00_180.00s_0000.fits

camera still on scope with cap on. all ive changed is the gain, from 100 to 200. it was happening before on gain 100 but only usually on the first frame. wether it be lights or darks. now it just seems to be happening at random and more often.

thank you 

thank you all again.

sorry to ask again for help, but right now im redoing my darks library and ive noticed these like checkerboard patterns with light parts to the image. before changing gain to 200 it would probably only do it on the first image but now im doing 180second and 300 second frames and its showing up in probably every  other image. or mabey 3 or 4 in a row. seems random. ive just lost half my darks to it.

anyone have any ideas please.?

thank you again in advance

2022-06-24_21-03-53__-9.50_180.00s_0012.fits

8 hours ago, Richard_ said:

Below is a tabulated version of the sensor analysis taken from OP's text file. 

Highlighted in orange is the Gain you chose (100). However, the Gain you should be using is highlighted in blue (200).

The tell tale sign is the sudden drop in Read Noise and the increase in Dynamic Range. If you use a Gain of 200 with your camera, your images will have about one third of the read noise compared to images taken with Gain 100.

thank you so much ill give that a try next clear night. allways learning and allways somone here willing to teach.

and while im her if i may ask for more help. as my final image come out so red looking and i have been struggling a bit in post processing, is that down to my filter im using? do i need to adjust white balance or black levels? even though i cant seem to find the option to do that in nina?

thank you in advance

thank you . literally just finished stacking my data and while the red and green dots have indeed been removed  does anyone think there should be any concern to them in the showing in the single subs?

oh an heres a preview of my stacked image

mackiedlm, comparing the single frame to yours the overall look and "noise" looks the same but im noticing a lot more green and red random spots in my image. im using the same gain as you at 100 but my offset is at 60 rather than 50. same at -10 c. have no idea what they may be but hopefuly wil be removed in processing with calibration frames.

would be good to compare with any other imx 571 users if any kind people out there would mind sharing single frames.

i apologise if i sound like im whinging. and maybe in a way i am. but this kit costs us all a lot and when you finally get your dream camera id just like to make sure all is good or maybe i just need more help learning. which places like this help a hell of a lot.

so thank you all

thank you for your reply. the more i look into it i do think i am jumping the gun. as you say the pixel size is different an the resolution is higher so im looking at smaller compressed image on my monitor. and yes i think one session was taken on the longest day. which is why im using the 7nm dual band filter even in my bortle 4 area. also my viewing is pretty east limited and lately the clear nights have been during full or nearly full moon.

also im right now stacking about 7 hours of data so ill see how that turns out.

more patience required.

thank you again

hi all. just purchased an altair 26c after seeing many impressive images form either the 26c or 2600 mc with same sensor. but after a few imaging sessions im left a bit underwhelmed. upgraded from a altair 183c protec  paired to a william optics gt71  with a .8 recucer\flattener also with the altair 7nm dual band filter all on a neq6 pro.

after my first session with 300 second exposures and being not very impressed with the 26c i done a sharpcap sensor analysis with results attached. full well capacity showing just under 3k from stated value but no problem. ran another session this time using the optimal exposure calculator in n.i.n.a so this time ran 180second exposures. still not overly impressed.

ive  stacked but not  processed  2 of the 5 sessions sessions so far and  with comparible intergration time to the 183c on the same target again left feeling a bit under whelmed  . i may well be jumping the gun but after 5 sessions  looking at single lights compared to the 183c, the 26c seems more "noisey".

once again it may be just me or something im doing or not.

but any way please find attached 2 images from my 26c, 1 at 180sec and 1 at 300 sec with 1 image from my 183c at 300sec, also my sharpcap analysis.

thank you in advance for any advice\help

2022-06-16_01-18-11__-10.00_300.00s_0003.fits 2022-06-22_00-43-25__-10.10_180.00s_0001.fits 2022-05-29_02-49-09__-9.80_300.00s_0004.fits aa 26c.txt

Was right here I found it. Some very clever people about

First one is my version of the rail mod which I'm using now. The second and probably easier one I cannot remember where I found it. But if you Google eq6 rail mod you should find it. Could quite easily make it out of a lump of metal and easy to fit. It just closes the distance the alt bolt has to travel to adjust so not putting undue strain on bolt at extreme angles. I did print one but using the rail version for now. 

I 3d printed my own version of the rail kit and so far has been perfect. I honestly didn't think the plastic would be strong enough considering how hard it was to adjust the altitude before. But so far so good. Also got some standard 10x70mm (if I remember correctly ) bolts . 3d printed some knobs and now is so easy to adjust the altitude and a lot quicker to polaralign .

Didn't get a picture of actual guiding but here's my guiding calibration.  Pretty good backlash

On 19/01/2022 at 22:56, Hallingskies said:

I did the mod and now the mount judders in RA. Haven’t tried too hard to get to the bottom of it yet as I am using another mount, but it’s frustrating and I wish I hadn’t bothered.

juddering is could be the worm gear to tightly adjusted. belt slipping. but in my opinion a worthwhile upgrade. plenty of online tutorials. best one is astrobaby. also while your in there a clean and regrease is also worth while. the older models used terible grease. luckily mine wasnt like that. just stripped it down cleaned all the bearing in soapy water and give everything a light coating of superlube. guides as good as a mount twice the price for a little effort

hmm. was thinking of selling mine as ive not used it since buying an eq6. but after skimming through this thread i may just have to break it out. if it can take my wo gt71 with 183c . just to handy of a portable mount .

Totally agree. As amazing as stellamate/kstars/ indi is. I also was having too many reliability issues. Mainly with my camera (altair 183c protec) . But I found the polar alignment routine in stellarmate amazing as I don't have view of polaris. But since the new 3 point alignment routine has been added to nina there's been no looking back. Still getting used to nina but as you say seems pretty intuitive so far. And I've also been able to keep use of my rasberry pi by using virtual here to act as a wireless usb hub between my rig and my pc. With no problems there either 

i know this is mostly about hardware but it is the software that finishes it all off, so bear with me please

not been doing astrophotography for long but over time have built up my setup. have been using stellarmate with a rasberrypi 4 for about the last year, and while very good software im just having too many crashes an compatability issues with my camera.

so i have been looking for a windows based software to run my setup. i know theres many out there but i need to conect remotley/wireless due to location of my setup to my pc. and again i know people are going to say you can get these mini pc's to control everything or even a laptop, but why spend more money when i allready have a decent pc. plus i allready have a rasberry pi, so just needed to get them connected.

i know nothing about linux so needed something simple that i could just flash onto card a put in rpi. people may have found other solutions and id be more than happy to hear and try them them, but for me i found virtualhere . just downloaded the server software to card, put it in the rasberry pi ,connected to my wireless network downloaded the client software to my pc. now everything that is connected to my pi is showing as connected to usb on my pc. it does cost like £35 gbp but there is free demo where can connect one device. ive used it twice for imaging and so far been running perfect. no connection drops, seems fast enough to me. and now learning how to use n.i.n.a, which also so far has been trouble free.

sorry if i went on a bit, but so far this has saved me  a few hundred quid. and agin if anyone has better solution or allready use this software. let us know.

thank you

Thank you . Altair 183c protec @-10c.

It's amazing the different colours you can get with slightly different processing.