ONIKKINEN

4 minutes ago, oymd said:

When I’m back in London for sure. 
 

Im currently abroad, so no option but to use these. 

Try to clean all of the rollers and all the surfaces they roll on as thoroughly as possible and apply the new grease after that. There should be no feeling of grit or jerkiness in any of the bearings, if there are it means metal or rust has flaked off and is causing friction. Rust specks will act as sandpaper and will destroy the bearing, if it isn't already gone. It does look a bit rusty but i wouldn't call it ruined yet. But if not cleaned it will be ruined in use eventually. I think it can still be used without worry of further damage as long as its well cleaned and greased, but do keep in mind that eventually it should be replaced.

2 minutes ago, oymd said:

RUST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Surprising for sure. Good grease will deter rust from forming on surfaces you apply it on, so its unlikely you'll run into this issue again. Although this brings a question to my mind: How did the rust get there? Either something was improperly assembled and water/humidity was in there since new or water has a way to get to the inner workings of the mount. Both are bad options, but its not that rare for rust to form in weird places. If the mount has been outside in the rain it would explain how it happened. Do try to clean off the rust that has already formed to stop it from spreading, but dont use unnecessary force as to not scratch anything that shouldn't be scratched.

4 minutes ago, oymd said:

 

I’m mid way through!

I think I’ve found the problem. 
 

when putting the things back, can I use COPPER GREASE I have for my bikes, or white lithium grease?

Nit sure what the shiny encoder ring is?

Use high quality lithium grease, leave the copper paste out. Copper paste is very durable and tough but also abrasive, so not a good choice for mounts. Copper paste is good for brakepad holders and other things that must not seize but also do not need to be perfectly slick and fluid all the time.

I was curious about this conversation about darks being not helpful with Canon DSLRs, and i admit i never thought about it or measured my own darks when i shot with a 550D. I took some test darks and found that a 1s dark has a median ADU of 2049 while a 600s one has a median ADU of 2047? So it seems Canon is doing something to make all dark signal be somewhere around 2048 ADUs regardless of exposure time.

Platesolving all the way, there are no real reasons to do manual align points or star alignment if you have PC control of the mount.

There are some who claim platesolving is bad but just ignore those comments, they are stuck in the ways of the old.

Star aligning is dead, long live platesolve!

The linked sub is very out of focus, this is easy to see if you zoom in and see that stars are hollow donuts with dark spots in the center. The screenshotted frame also looks like it might be a bit out of focus, but maybe not that much. The aberrations and elongation of stars everywhere except the center of the image is coma, which all fast newtonians suffer from. Looks like you already know about this since you have a coma corrector in your signature so i assume you just didn't use the corrector for this night?

That is what my NINA settings window looks like, and it is true that this setting is ignored. My 550D files are always saved as .CR2 format RAW files and i cant save them as .TIFFs even if i try.

As i open your .TIFF in Siril it seems i cannot debayer the frame as it has no bayer matrix pixel order information in the header (as it does not have a header because its a .TIFF and not a raw file). This is why it is monochrome when you open it. I can split the color channels into individual frames and maybe re-composite them later but maybe not worth the time and effort, something is wrong with capture. I found this thread on CN: https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/745264-nina-saving-canon-files-as-fits/

Where someone had a similar issue as you, but instead their frames were saved as .FITS files. Question is, what driver do you use to connect to the camera? Native Canon driver should be used instead of the ASCOM one is what i gather from that thread.

17 hours ago, Peter Reader said:

I cannot even see stars in the .tif files without a huge histogram stretch in photoshop and the images are greyscale. DSS doesn't detect stars until 2% threshold (the lowest available).

This by itself is not that strange if you took short exposures. Or longer exposures but with a slow scope. I cant see anything but the cores of the brightest stars in all of my images, and its not an issue at all. The reason why DSS doesn't detect the stars in your case is because it doesn't recognize them as stars, due to their large size and coma from being out of focus. Nothing to do about the focus issue now except reshoot and pay attention to focus drift during the next night. If the temperature changes, so will your focus. Also focusers can slip and cause focus to drift during the night.

From your screenshot it looks like you have the image statistics completely off-screen and star/HFR measurements are not in use at all. Click the star icon to use the star analysis and use this to focus the scope. The more stars NINA finds per shot the better, the lower you can get your HFR the better. Looking at HFR values in NINA is a very easy and quick way to reach very good focus, and you'll immediately see if focus has drifted when the HFR value increases.

You can rotate the lens to which these markings are etched on a Skywatcher polar scope, although you will need to collimate afterwards (you also did not mention what polar scope you have).

But an easier way is to rotate RA so that the orientation is the right way up when polar aligning.

2 minutes ago, Fegato said:

Thanks, yes I do use NINA, and I do take note of the HFR readings.  I guess I'm more worrying about focus (and backfocus / tilt with the RASA) when I look at these, so perhaps when I'm really confident I've got that sorted I will take more note of these with regard to seeing. I think my norm is about 2.7, but HFR is pixels so can't directly compare?

re: working at 0.67 - I tend to software bin (due CMOS camera), but haven't done too much imaging at this scale. Having two scopes and only one mount is faintly ridiculous with the weather here!

I think HFR values are a bit arbitrary and difficult to compare, since it depends on the number of stars NINA has decided to include in the calculation, tracking accuracy and field flatness, so seeing is just one part of the equation. But you should be able to produce an average value from your own data to see how much seeing has an effect. My HFR values are a bit higher than one should expect from an 8 inch newtonian, since my coma corrector is not that great (TS maxfield 0.95x), so mine should be much closer to yours on average since the imaging resolutions are quite similar.

Im not 100% sure on this, but i think NINA HFR values are in arcseconds based on the focal length you have input in the settings tab.

The APM UFF 24mm is a joy to use even in my fast F4.2 newtonian. Has very generous eye relief and i feel like i can have my head in various different positions to use it. Highly recommended!

Dont have that model of mount, but in my experience with another equatorial mount adjusting the worm is something that has to be done quite frequently if the temperature and/or humidity changes a lot. It has happened to me also, i adjusted backlash on RA to be as good as it can be, tested that nothing binds and then several sessions and a couple months later it no longer slews at all due to binding. Your case does sound a bit different though since you cannot even move it with the clutch open.

I would try to adjust the clutch, since you said there is a knocking sound on both ends it means something is binding that shouldn't bind. No idea how to adjust the clutch in the AZEQ6 though, since its different from other clutches, but maybe someone who owns the mount can help you there.

15 minutes ago, Fegato said:

I must admit I haven't really got a handle on seeing conditions, beyond a quick look for how twinkly the stars are!  Whenever I look at an astro forecast, the seeing forecast always seems to be terrible here if it's clear, and very good if it's cloudy.

My normal imaging scale of 1.98 arc secs per pixel probably means it doesn't matter too much.  But I guess I should take more notice when going for 0.67 at 1422mm focal length. But anyway, clear nights are so scarce that I just don't want to waste any, so will have a try anyway.

If you use NINA to capture you can set it to measure and show HFR per sub. HFR depends on your telescope and tracking too but seeing has the biggest effect and i find that on good nights it can be under 3 while on terrible nights its 4+. Most or even all of the HFR 4+ go straight to the bin, and this is with 1.84 arcsec/pixel.

I think youll need to bin2 with the 1400mm fl scope unless imaging from a mountain top in a desert/doing planetary as seeing doesnt really support that kind of resolution 99% of the time.

I dont care about seeing when planning a night. If its clear i will go out regardless of seeing conditions, but i also expect to not get all that great results.

On the worst nights i could end up throwing most of the subs away, but im still left with some decent subs at the end so the night is not really fully lost.

The very first thing i saw when i scrolled down the list to the number 1 telescope they recommend: The astromaster 130 😬 which is apparently good for long exposure photography. Having owned and used that as a first telescope i would point a few things out, which i believe most of us already know about.

"you'll need to collimate the setup. This process can be tricky for beginners, but with practice it's easily achieved – especially given Celestron has supplied a manual that walks you through the process." - True, the manual does touch up on collimation. Reading it it just says to center your eye on the focuser drawtube and adjust until you see all 3 mirror clips and the reflection of your eye in the center. Technically a form of collimation but just eyeballing it will not work and the views will keep on being bad.

"The equatorial mount assists with tracking, which is essential for longer exposure astrophotography." - So it assists in it or it does it? Which is it? Assisting in it does not lead to long exposure photography, unless 1s exposures are long.

"The optical performance is very good, with no major visual defects visible and we enjoyed the stunning contrast and clarity in the field of view. "  -No visible defects other than spherical aberration from the entirely spherical F5 primary mirror, astigmatism and just a general lack of sharpness even on-axis. So if we ignore these deal breakers then yes we do not have optical issues 😂.

"The Celestron AstroMaster 130EQ comes fairly well equipped, and features two good quality eyepieces (20mm and 10mm), a StarPointer red dot finderscope" -The 20mm erected view eyepiece might actually be the worst piece of optical equipment i have looked through. I dont know what the apparent FOV is but it is similar to the 10mm... The 10mm is your average Kellner 10mm (i think kellner) and nothing to write home about. Not awful is what i would call it, although wouldn't dream of using it if there are any options. The red dot finder has plastic adjustment screws and loose threads so it looses alignment pretty much immediately if you touch it. Sometimes even if you dont touch it.

"Overall, the package is a sound choice as a first serious telescope for astrophotography." 🤮

Honestly i am quite shocked reading this through since i agree with almost none of it, pretty much all of the review is the opposite of truth. There is no way the person who wrote this has ever been in the same room as an astromaster 130, which leads me to believe that yes this is indeed just an ad, probably written by Celestron themselves.

I ran into this as well while browsing Light pollution and searching for good spots local to me.

There is the Helsinki nebula in the south, with around 1.5 million population producing the light pollution. Turku to the West and Tampere in between, all "big" cities. Then there is another nameless blob to the northwest, where the town of Närpes with less than 10k population is. Was wondering how its possible the light domes can be similar in size but turns out most of Finnish vegetables come from there! I have never heard anyone seriously considering doing anything about light pollution, but then again we do have immense areas of almost complete wilderness still left so maybe its not seen as a big issue here.

Not really an expert in good guiding and definitely never seen a graph like yours on my setup, but a few things come to mind.

What sort of guider do you have? Setting the focal length wrong in PHD2 settings can give bogus readouts and also, if you have something like the 30mm miniguider its possible PHD2 just doesnt pick up the errors and so the graph is flat.

Another option is that the periodic error correction is doing a good job and it really is doing that well. This is what i hope is the case as a soon to be user of the AZEQ6 😁.

Also, could be a combination of all of the above + shooting in high DEC. At 73 degrees of Declination my EQM35 sometimes reports RMS of under 0.4 too. Definitely not truly that good but that is what PHD2 and my guider can pick up at high DEC.

5 hours ago, Midnight_lightning said:

When you say "HC connection" are you referring to a USB cable connected to the handset or the handset port on the mount?

USB cable to the handset USB port. Of course the HC is connected to its port on the mount too.

2 minutes ago, kirkster501 said:

...hmmm, they said they had the day off today.

Webb Sunshield Tensioning To Begin Tomorrow – James Webb Space Telescope (nasa.gov)

That makes me thing have they hit a problem and want more time????  There was never any talk of days off in the middle of this critical deployment.  What do you think?

I sure hope no problems were found...

A human factor would be just to allow the team some well deserved rest in the midst of what must be a horroshow for the team responsible. JWST will spend a while on the way anyway, so why the rush? Thats what i hope anyway.

9 minutes ago, Jonk said:

I thought exactly the same, a good run of clear nights at the worst time of the year for astro-darkness.

But, there's plenty to observe / image in the summer, even with the very short nights, it's not all about long exposure DSOs.

True, Planets and the Moon i did manage to see/image during summer. Jupiter was surprisingly good on one night (just that night) during summer so not entirely wasted.

As someone living at 60 degrees north, i have 4 months offseason every year at 2 months either side of midsummer. Looks like the summer months were not that bad, is there any astronomical darkness at that time of year for you?

As a bad joke, we too have most of our clear nights during summer in which astronomical darkness is physically impossible...

On 31/12/2021 at 21:14, ollypenrice said:

My imaging rig priority order is, without any doubt whatever, mount-camera-optics.

Olly

I ignored the mount part when building my setup and hate myself for it. I thought "well the manufacturer says 10kg is fine so why would a 0.1kg telescope be any better than a 9.9kg one". Well its not that simple and that's the markets fault for accepting the blatant lies from manufacturers. We really do need manufacturers to state AT WHAT FORM do the payload limits and FOR WHAT USAGE they apply. For imaging and for long OTAs, like long refractors and especially Newtonians the limits are probably closer to 50% of the stated "max payload". Shame it has to be this way really as i believe the overwhelming majority of the userbase is budget limited and must choose which evils to pick from, and the mount should absolutely not be one of them.

If i had a time machine i would go back in time and pour almost all of my budget in the mount. Nothing else in the setup matters at all if the mount underperforms.

18 minutes ago, alacant said:

So, plug and socket on each;)

In this game, especially at 03:00 when you're half asleep and the dew has had chance to work its magic, you need the fewest possible bits to check. Believe me!

Cheers

Thats why i go to sleep at 05:00

But yeah, less things to break is generally better for reliability. I used to be a car mechanic and my favourite vehicle was the Suzuki PV (a moped). Do you know why?

There are basically 2 cables in the entire vehicle that go to 3 places. 1 connection to the rear light and 1 to the switch to control low beam/high beam and from there to the front light (no other electric appliances). Either the alternator is broken, the light bulb is burnt or the cable is disconnected somewhere so very easy to fix 😂.

A customer bringing in a car that sometimes has an electrical problem with nothing in the diagnostic computer is a NIGHTMARE. Never doing that again unless forced.

25 minutes ago, alacant said:

We connect via eqmod, sometimes remotely. Quite often I'm the guy on the ground at the telescope end...

Speaking from bitter experience, they're cheap items and for us at least,  replacing three pieces of hardware (eight mating surfaces to go wrong) with just a single cable makes for far fewer sleepless nights!

Cheers

8 surfaces?

HC to cable, cable to mount, HC to USB-cable, USB-cable to PC. 4 connections?

But i do understand in that case. If you cannot physically access the setup the thing with least possible points of failure would probably be desirable. But also i cant really see how the HC somehow unplugs itself with the self locking connectors, but i dont have to care for unattended mounts so it could happen for all i know.

6 minutes ago, malc-c said:

It was noted in a recent post on the EQMOD user group then when the handset is connected to the mount that has a USB port, and a USB cable is also used between the handset / mount, it's easy to end up screwing up the positioning (such as goto) when driving the mount via the PC if the handset is first used to polar align / or any function that requires the mount to move as EQMOD loses positioning data and then has no means of knowing the true position of the scope.  IMO it is therefor better to use either just the handset for control and remove the PC connection, or if PC control of any sort is used (plate solving / guiding / alignment etc) then just use the PC and associated applications to do so.  This way each application knows where the mount is pointing as they all communicate via ASCOM / INDI.

If EQMOD is used with the USB plugged to the mount but not the HC, the HC must not be used as the HC and EQMOD do not communicate directly and yes you do lose positioning information. But the idea of using the USB to HC connection is to not have to use EQMOD as it is not necessary (IMO, dont shoot me). USB to HC connection means EQMOD does not work. So in this way yes it is correct that the worst possible way is to use a USB cable plugged to the mount and running EQMOD but still doing GO-TO/slewing with the HC. In that case you must ditch the HC as it is nothing but trouble.

With USB to HC connection you do not, and can not use EQMOD. But both the HC and PC are fully aware at all times of the position the mount is in. You cannot slew in one with the other being out of touch and losing the position. I can slew to M51 with the HC and NINA agrees of the coordinates. Likewise i can do it the other way around, slew in NINA and the show position utility function confirms the coordinates as M51's coordinates.

19 minutes ago, alacant said:

Perhaps the main disadvantage is that one still needs the hand controller in the mix.

Depends on the user. For me it is an advantage as i do not have to use stellarium or CdC with a remote desktop connected tablet (pain in the backside) and can do some things with the HC. For people who can abandon their setup overnight running in their backyard and do everything remotely with a proper PC, maybe a disadvantage as it is one more trinket to connect and carry outside. But also why buy an extra Serial chipped cable when the handset will act as one? Some like, some do not.

20 minutes ago, alacant said:

Is it possible to use EQmOD without PC-Direct?

Not through the HC. Without? Its a tricky question since you have no way to set PC-direct mode without the HC so i think the answer is no you cannot.

1 hour ago, alacant said:

1. USB cable from PC to hand controller (HC). The hand controller runs normally, you do polar alignment and 3-star alignment from the hand controller. Kstars/Stellarium/cartes du ciel etc can send commands to the mount to tell it where to go. AFAICT, on-camera  st-4 guiding (phone cord from camera to mount) is the only way of guiding with this configuration.

2. USB cable from PC to HC, just like (1),but set the HC to PC-DIRECT. You no longer need to do a 3-star alignment from the HC. Install INDI or  ASCOM on your PC. It allows the PC to take the place of the HC. This makes things like plate solving possible, which greatly simplifies life (once you get plate solving configured and working). on-camera or pulse guiding are possible, the former being preferred. It also eliminates the need of that phone cord from camera to mount. Anything for fewer cables;)

1) HC does work normally, but wasting time with star alignment is not necessary. Also ST-4 guiding is not necessary. Full PHD2 pulse guiding works just as well. The USB port in the HC is a Serial to USB chip in disguise as a normal USB port, which is why the prolific drivers are needed. You have full control of all mount features with both the HC and the PC this way. Both can initiate GO-TOs, slew manually etc.

2) PC-direct mode is only used for certain types of firmware updates and never in "daily use" like this.

This only applies for the latest version of Synscan where both the HC and mount have USB-ports somewhere, but this version has been sold at least since 2018 so most units are like this. I believe method 1 is the ideal way as you do not need to buy the extra Serial to USB cable and still have all features available.