LaurenceT

There was a clear patch the other night and I wanted to see if my WO ZS61 could go 2 minutes unguided on my new SA GTi mount. I started doing M42 but after a few frames trees started to appear so whilst still inside I did a quick search for what was available but still high up and saw that Bodes and Cigar were there so tried that target. 2 minute subs were too varied so I knocked it back to 1 minute and took 42 subs until bed beckoned. I have applied a crop for better effect but I don't think I'll try that target again with this scope.

5 panels shot using an AS224mc, "vintage" Orion ED80 (refurb project), Az GTi, Sharpcap Raw16. AutoStakkert, Registax, Photoshop, Lightoom and DXo Photolab. Stitched in Microsoft ICE. Everything started out green because I didn't do a proper white balance to begin with! I removed the green but I couldn't get any colour out of it so converted it to monochrome.

You actually don't, using an Asiair is a different experience and for me as a novice it was an absolute game changer.

Yes, I should have corrected it in white balance, thanks.

Up until now I've been using an Evoguide 50ed with an Asi224mc and uv/ir cut ZWO filter and the resulting images have not been green. Last night I just changed to a different refractor and the images were all green. I'd be grateful for any ideas why this should happen and what I can do about it. Thus far I've simply removed the green colour in my image manipulation application. Images taken using Sharpcap.

I realised last night I had clear skies at about 10 so I set up quickly with my other scope and I wanted to test the EAF I fitted yesterday. There was no problem with the polar alignment but when I wanted to slew to M42 it went the wrong way. I turned off everything, moved it back to home and reconnected. I found PA very quickly but this time I made it slew to home before I went to M42 and it was perfect so I tried it all over again and again it was perfect so I've concluded that I need to "go home" after PA before finding a target. I don't hibernate the mount as I don't use the Synscan app, I use an Asiair.

I decided I needed one so I bought it, then I decided I didn't need it so I sold it, then I decided I did need one, so I bought another one. Makes sense doesn't it? That's why I thought the cartoon was appropriate.

Many thanks for that

I also saw that YT video from HPS and it didn't help me at all.

Although I've been using an Asiair for some time I still confused about these two commands. The sync option is offered once the the target has been acquired and position validated and the sync to mount option is elsewhere in the menus. It's the usage and difference between these two that confuses me. I'd be grateful for any comments.

When I try to post a tiff image it shows up as a white blank in the preview screen so I'm only able to post jpegs which come out badly when I convert them from tiff. I'd be very grateful for any ideas.

First light with this new mount, to compare tracking with my previous session with the Az GTi I kept most things the same in terms of gear and integration. I used the Askar FMA180, I changed the filter from the L3 to the Baader Neodymium Moon and Skyglo, 2 minute subs unguided for 2 hours. Something seemed to go wrong as soon as I started to polar align with the Asiair, instead of rotating 60 degrees it just contunued to rotate until it came to the hard stop. It then tried to reconnect to the Synscan app so I turned everything off and moved the mount back to the home position. On reconnecting everything went smoothly so I have no idea what the malfunction was all about. I found the adjustments for PA so much easier with this mount than with the WO wedge, I found PA very quickly and briefly basked in the glory of the Asiair speed ranking thingy. There were heavy intermittent bands of cloud over the next 2 hours, I only removed the very worst of the frames along with obvious satellites and planes. I have given the session only a run through in Astro Pixel Processor without cropping so I could examine the corners. I can't seem to post tiff files here so it's been converted to jpeg and it now shows nasty black areas that are not present in the tiff file.

I can't answer the first question by but I'd be very interested in any replies. As for the second there are solutions https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adapters/astro-essentials-right-angled-eyepiece-for-polar-scopes.html which is expensive, when I needed one I bought a cheap Seagull adapter and modified it slightly. This enabled me to polar align without slipping a disc

A ZWO EAF, I'm now looking for another one, a William Optics wedge, I bought another one and a Raspberry Pi, I bought another one......

When you rotate the axes manually is the stiffness uniform and are there any odd noises when you do this? Also are there are noises other than the expected mechanical ones when rotating them at full speed by using the Synscan app?

Are you able to communicate with the mount by. WiFi?

Thanks, I'll keep trying to post a fits file.

There is an option to save a non stretched image. Thanks for doing that. I can't seem to drop a fits file here, the system won't accept it. I do have Siril installed, it's getting to grips with it is the problem! Thanks for the replies.

Thanks, I've discovered that ASI Stack does indeed save an auto stretched file and I have done some minimal post processing. The blue nebulosity is almost absent and I cannot improve it, I'm wondering if this is due to my error in setting the camera gain at zero.

Thanks for that, it makes sense that Asifitsview is stretching the image.

Thanks for the offer but I can't upload an image no matter what I do so I'm abandoning this project for the sake of my sanity. I'll try again next clear night with just an LP filter and unity gain.

Slightly left field approach, some of your choice of scope depends to a degree on the performance of your AZ GTi. I have an Asiair FMA180 and my AZ GTi coped wonderfully with that. 2 minutes unguided was no problem and I even experimented with 3 minutes successfully. However the mount didn't behave so well with my ZS61 II. Unguided I had poor stars at 30 seconds and guiding was better but still not acceptable. These little mounts are brilliant but immensely variable in engineering quality and as I have the engineering capabilities of a gnat I decided not to open up mount and fiddle with it and changed to a different small mount so fingers crossed. Other people are able to put quite heavy scopes on their mounts so you could be lucky with yours. It would be nice if you could test the AZ GTi on a heavier scope first but I understand that may be difficult.

I had a session the other night imaging the Pleiades and have appeared to make a big error in reducing my 533MC Pro to zero gain. When I stack the resultant images in ASIdeepstack I get an image that I can possibly work with but when I open it in gimp or similar for stretching I get a different image that cannot be stretched. I realise that I'm most likely not be able to do anything with my image but I'd be grateful if anyone can offer an expalnation.

Having sold my EQ5 Goto a few days ago I retired my Az GTi from EQ mode last night with a few hours on the Pleiades, it's going back to AZ mode because today I welcomed the replacement. After much painful research I decided on this mount to fulfill my modest needs using my small imaging refractors. I decided to buy new because of the QC problems associated with the earlier versions and this morning it passed it's first test, I shook it and nothing rattled! It's marginally lighter than my Az GTi and WO wedge but considerably lighter than my EQ5 which is important to me now. A big thankyou to FLO, 22 hours from placing the order to it arriving at my doorstep. It's also a great day for other reasons. After being stuck on the drive for 6 weeks due to MOT failure my elderly but lovely Mercedes is going in to be repaired, a victim of the worldwide Mercedes subframe corrosion fiasco, Mercedes Germany are forking out over £2,500 to replace the subframe. I didn't have to argue the case, they agreed immediately, good for them. It's also our youngest daughters birthday 🥰.

I've joined the club today, placed my order with FLO and it's been completed 🤩. I've never really liked using my Az GTi in EQ mode, wasn't too bad on shortish subs but guiding was hit and miss so I'm going to revert to AZ only and continue to use it for lunar and planetary and EAA with Stellarmate. The point and track feature is brilliant. I've also sold my EQ5 and decided to reign in ambitions for a bigger scope than my WO ZS61, my other imaging scope is even smaller! I had thought about trying for a used SWSA GTi but it seems that the earlier versions were more problematic and after watching some YT videos decided I might regret buying used. At least I can return it if buying new. It will now be cloudy for weeks........