LaurenceT

All this talk about community and helping each other has  given me the courage to ask one question.

Can someone lend me a fiver until Saturday....................................?

🤣

Thanks for the replies but I've put the tube on my mount and although the total weight of the tube, camera, Asiair and guidescope/camera is within the 5KG limit I cannot balance it in the RA axis with the supplied counterweights. Rather than put strain on the mount I think I'll abandon the project and stick with my WO ZS61 as largest imaging scope.

Once again thanks for the replies.

I want to use my somewhat ancient Orion ED80 for astrophotography but in order to achieve good balance I would like to position an Asiair and guidescope on top of the scope on a double bracket.

I want to position this at the mid point of the tube rather than at the rear so I'm looking for a solution that possibly involves a bar connected to the rings that would allow a finder base to be attached.

Be grateful for any ideas.

I came to this forum during lockdown when I abandoned wildlife photography in favour of a photography related hobby I could do in my garden.

Being of advanced years the learning curve has been steep for my diminishing faculties and this forum has been an absolute anchor for me.

There has been one standout and that has been the ethic of there being no stupid questions only stupid answers. I've never been afraid of asking about anything that has bamboozled me.

The forum the other side of the pond is also useful but sometimes more acerbic in it's replies but so far nothing that has had me sobbing into my pillow 😅.

I had a very quick go at M42 the other night before it dived into the trees, just 14 x 60 seconds integration time. I noticed this large circular artefact in the image and it also appeared om my Bodes image later that night. Any ideas what it's due to?

Edit: my wife took one look at it and said it looks like dust. A quick Google shows that it probably is dust. I'll run my setup past her first next time.

Love the mount but then I would do 😀.

That looks to be quite a heavy load on the mount but of course appearances can be deceptive, how much does it weigh?

I'm looking forward to reading how you get on with this and seeing some of your results.

Edit: just seen what the scope is so it looks like it's well within limits.

Sounds a good idea. I've only just managed to do a lunar mosaic but I'm keen to find out how to do a deep sky mosaic.

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.

20 minutes ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

ty for this, need more experience before considering an asi air

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

Just now, vlaiv said:

That is really not the reason why images turn out green

It does nothing to do with number of pixels - but with relative sensitivity in different parts of spectrum.

Most sensors have strongest QE in green and this will result in green cast if image is not color corrected (often wrongly referred as white balance). Some cameras have peak in red part of spectrum (usually those very sensitive in IR) - and those produce reddish tint images.

@LaurenceT

You have "white balance" controls in your capture software which you can tweak to get color neutral image. Alternatively - do color balance afterwards in software while at processing stage.

 

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.

1 hour ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

did this happen right after "un hibernating" your mount? mine's done it twice since i got it (two weeks ago).

I think, to fix it, after un hibernating i do a one star alignment on something fairly near home. then it seems fine.

i haven't updated my firmware since i got it two weeks ago and maybe that update might fix this possible problem?

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

1 hour ago, Tomatobro said:

Given that plate solving is used to locate the object I also am confused. According to HPS its something to do with using the phones geo location data to tell the mount where it is but I think it tells the asiair software where the mount is geo wise. Would have been better to use the term sync location rather than the mount?

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.

21 minutes ago, TiffsAndAstro said:

hope its ok to ask here.

after tearing down my gti at the end of the night - should i loosen or tighten the clutches?

also, unless im missing something, i need to limbo to use the polar scope to align?

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?

12 minutes ago, StevieDvd said:

I can drop a fits file (drag & drop) or (Other Media) - don't know why you cannot!

Simple start for you with Siril:

• Open the file 
• Then in the Image Processing click on 'Remove Green Noise...' and just click on Apply.

Should fix your green tint in above image of Pleiades

 

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

2 hours ago, AstroMuni said:

See if there is an option in ASI stack to disable stretching and save the stacked file. Get hold of Siril. It provides the tools to post process (you can also stack with it)

I have done a quick stretch on your image using Siril and you can see that there is nebulosity. So if you start fresh you should be able to get a lot more. Good luck

 

There is an option to save a non stretched image. Thanks for doing that.

2 hours ago, StevieDvd said:

Can you drag & drop the fits file instead of the jpg file?

I have Siril so could correct the green tinge and run colour correction so you can see the result. If it's worth it to you then downloading and add Siril to your tools.

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.