ONIKKINEN

Live video coverage with decent cameras and multiple angles is a fairly recent thing from SpaceX i think. Since they are a commercial launch company they literally make their money on public relations, like pretty videos from space.

JWST has been in development for longer than the concept of HD-video has been available (not kidding!) so this was probably not even considered in the design phase. Obviously they could add cameras later but this just adds complexity, mass and has no real mission benefit. Im sure there is a sensor for everything that could go wrong already in place and a camera would just be redundant. Also i think JWST is such a big thing now because it has been delayed for an eternity. Had it launched in 2018 as intended i dont think there would have been such a fanfare surrounding this and the public coverage would have been a lot smaller.

2 hours ago, BuUsef said:

Hello everyone,

How is your experience with the eqm35 going? Unfortunately there isn't much information shared about it online.

Do you think it can handle 6" SCT with asi294mm pro?

How long exposures do you get?

Please dont do this! Terrible mount, lots of unfixable issues. Some people claim pretend their mount works OK, but i suspect that is due to a) not wanting to admit to yourself that the money was spent wrong, b) using a very lightweight and forgiving setup, like an 80mm refractor and so just not being aware of the issues.

Its just a tiny bit cheaper than the EQ5 but much closer in comparison to the EQ-3 which is in a class of terrible on its own. If you plan on shooting unguided you could probably get 5s exposures to be consistently decent but not much longer than that. Guided performance depends a lot on the mount in question as these apparently have quality control issues, and also on which part of the sky you point at. Closer to the poles you can get decent performance because the sky moves slow. Closer to the celestial equator you will not be getting the performance you are looking for. But the EQ5 costs the same and does everything better.

Since you already have a proper astronomy camera in the form of the 294MM that costs a fair bit of money, why not spend money on the most important part of the setup: The mount. The telescope and camera are second after the mount that drives them. If the mount underperforms your telescope and camera are basically wasted away to poorly tracked shots. I would recommend staying away from this price class of mounts and getting an HEQ-5 or better for astrophotography.

Sorry for the rant, i feel strongly about this as i made the same mistakes as a beginner buying equipment. Oh, and welcome to SGL!

24 minutes ago, StevieDvd said:

Sounds like the co-ordinate system between the platesolve and NINA/APT could be set differently J2000 or JNOW (or one is metric the other imperial 😗)

Not my area but just applying simple logic.

Actually think you might be correct. NINA sometimes gives a notification that goes something along the lines of: Mount coordinate system B1950 was converted to J2000, or something like that. Cant remember exactly how the error went but i have definitely seen this one.

B1950 is also an old sky coordinate system, could be that Skywatcher mounts follow this system for some reason?

1 hour ago, david_taurus83 said:

Thanks for this. I will look into it. Just to be clear, is this the Skywatcher Synscan Pro app in Windows you use or just a widget that pops up like Eqmod?

Eqmod usually doesn't sync platesolved coords for me despite NINA getting a target bang on centre. It's not bothered me too much but I always wonder if this is why I have struggled with meridian flips. Both my first and current AZEQ6 always rejected syncing.

Its not the app, its just a tiny 100px widget that has the directional keys. Never used that either actually.

Im not sure my platesolve syncs work since there is no error message telling me that they were rejected. ASTAP always finds the target after 1 re-slew but to hit my tolerance of 30arcsec will take several retries. After a GO-TO to another part of the sky it will again be about 2 degrees off on the first one, so i think mine rejects the sync too but EQMOD is not there telling me about that.

42 minutes ago, malc-c said:

In addition to the info Steve posted above, the issue with Prolific drivers required for most (if not all) Skywatcher mounts with USB connectivity is that when Microsoft was developing windows 10 Prolific did not want to comply with the licencing agreement to have their drivers included as standard with windows 10 installation.  So Microsoft didn't include them as a native driver in its build.  Hence why 3rd party devices the use the chipset for USB to TTL serial (PL2302 normally) such as Skywatcher provide the last know version (normally windows 7) of the driver on their sites.

This might explain why my desktop PC recognized my handset as COM4 as soon as i plugged it in the first time but my mini-pc did not and had to install the drivers manually.

44 minutes ago, malc-c said:

Well that's interesting....   Just spent a while doing a test.  It look longer than I thought as the graphics card in the observatory PC was playing up (it's not been used for some time) but anyway I downloaded NINA, installed and launched the application.  I hadn't configured anything and prior to this had restored the machine back to a pre NINA config after the previous time it was installed, so no previous settings from the last time I messed about with NINA existed on the PC.

I selected the Telescope section, it had HEQ5 displayed in the options... clicked Connect and it launched EQMOD.  !!!!!!!

EQMOD still works with USB only control, but doesn't have to be used. I think it was a "skywatcher mount" or similar option in NINA that does not launch EQMOD.

1 hour ago, david_taurus83 said:

That's interesting. So you don't use Eqmod at all? It doesn't get called up when you connect the mount? 

No EQMOD at all, correct. There is a small skywatcher widget on desktop after connecting though. It has N/S, E/W and slew speed buttons and nothing more.

But its not necessary since NINA and PHD2 (and the handcontroller) have full control of the mount.

15 minutes ago, Ags said:

Desturation. I like it, sounds very Star Trek. I suppose it means spinning faster and faster with no way to slow down ( without making JWST spin in the opposite direction)?

Yes, and the wheels can be allowed to spin only so fast without risk of damage. At some point all the wheels are spinning so fast that any changes in orientation take ages to do and they must be de-spun to maintain control. If you just let the wheels de-spin unpowered JWST would be doing cartwheels as the force has to go somewhere, which is why some form of external torque is needed (usually reaction control thrusters).

Sensitivity is the same with all ISO settings. How much the captured light is "boosted" and how bright it is interpreted in the image will change, but you cannot change the sensitivity.

29 minutes ago, kirkster501 said:

The positioning itself is still done by small thrusts of rocket engine lighting.  The gyroscopes - and these are much more reliable than the HST's -  provide the reference for a 3-D model of the sky that is constantly calibrated by the alignment of Canopus and Vega.  What the JWST team do not want to be doing is slewing all over the sky between research projects. i.e M82 and then M42 and then M87, for example.  The projects are scheduled scope time dependent on proximity to each other in the sky as a major factor, amongst some other things, to minimise fuel consumption.

Isnt it reaction wheels doing the fine pointing and gyroscopes "guiding" or making sure the orientation is correct?

Reaction wheels saturate if left running and need to be de-spun with external forces. Propellant is used for this most of the time, but the HST uses magnetorquers that somehow utilize the Earths magnetic field to provide the de-spin torque (no idea how). I guess L2 is far enough out that its not an option?

Also, light pressure will probably be considerable since JWST is basically a sail with the fully extended bits so reaction wheels probably need more desaturation.

1 hour ago, scotty38 said:

I actually used that on my old laptop along with all the other stuff. On this new pc I didn't install it and, as far as I can tell, NINA and everything else works exactly the same as it used to do but who knows what gremlin awaits....

 

Don't know if it's relevant but the SW prolific driver is from 2018, I guess it's possible the other stuff has moved on?????

Well i sure hope the whole serial faff is left behind soon. Would believe it if the driver was from 2008 as i dont remember the last time serial cables were really a thing outside mounts...

3 minutes ago, Stu said:

Isn’t that the point, it has a certain lifetime governed by the amount of fuel available for the course corrections required to keep it in orbit around the L2 point? It is not a stable orbit so needs to be maintained.

The good thing is that they have more fuel than they hoped, so the lifetime (assuming everything goes smoothly from here) should be longer than 10 years.

Yes, some lagrange points are not very stable and need regular maintenance to stay there. Which is why we dont see L2 orbiting asteroids.

L4 and L5 are stable though and in the case of Jupiter-Sun Lagrange points are full of asteroids in the form of Trojans and Greeks.

5 hours ago, Rusted said:

Thanks. Unfortunately Brexit has made it all but impossible to deal with the UK from the EU.
Even with forward VAT payment we recently ended up paying £40 extra on top of our £60 purchase + £25 for delivery.

I find this to be not true for many products. Small purchases probably not worth it but FLOs pricing is very aggressive for many other products.

Recent example: Astroshop sold Pentax XW series eyepieces at 369e and then had a "sale" for 369e from 399e. Thing is they were 399e for no time at all or just a while for legal purposes. Meanwhile the same sale over on FLO was an actual 20% off sale and cost me 280e including 24% VAT and 4,2% customs for telescopes and their parts and delivery on top. Many other products are also competitively priced, like mounts where the extra delivery cost sinks easily to the price of the product.

Yes dealing with customs is annoying and takes time but everything is out of stock everywhere anyway so rarely matters.

You need to download and install the prolific USB to serial drivers from Skywatcher even with the USB cable.

By the way EQMOD is not necessary then. At least NINA works with the native skywatcher driver just fine.

The left-right axis in all graphs here is the Gain value. Gain is like ISO for normal cameras, increasing the value will make the image brighter.

Top graph is full well depth of a pixel in electrons. The 533 has a fullwell of 50 000 electrons at the minimum gain value. Electrons are created when light hits the sensor so the camera measures these in the form of voltage instead of measuring photons directly.

Second graph is the relation of gain to e(lectrons)/ADU. ADU is the pixel value. This one being a 14 bit camera will record values between 0 and 16384. Different gain values change how many electrons does it take to gain ADUs. The marked spot of gain 100 has a 1e/ADU gain so every electron results in 1 ADU increase of a pixel value.

Third graph is dynamic range in stops. Mostly irrelevant for astrophotography, but this camera has a very high DR. Dynamic range is the difference between read noise and full well depth.

Fourth graph is read noise in electrons and is the most important graph to look at in this case. Notice that at gain 100 the read noise drops dramatically, but does not really decrease all that much after. With this particular camera a gain value of 100 is the best for almost all applications. Read noise is noise created by the camera every time an exposure is read from the sensor, so this is the same for a 3s and 300s exposure. Read noise of 1.5e is very low and allows short exposures to be completely sky noise (light pollution etc) limited.

Take away from this: Gain 100 is the best for thia model.

13 hours ago, Gonariu said:

In fact, with the temperatures you have in Finland in the cold season, you need to have a lot of courage to go outside. If there are + 3° outside at Orotelli I do not have the courage to take out the telescope or I make a hit and run observation (I must say that I have a slight chronic pharyngitis that does not encourage me to go out on too cold nights, at least according to the concept of "cold" that we have here in Sardinia). In Cagliari which is on the sea and has a subtropical climate "I dare" more .....

Its not that bad if i just wear proper layered clothing. 1 or 2 base layers of merino wool and then whatever on top of that + a ski jacket is already good enough for down to -20 for a while. It will still be cold though if im standing still at the eyepiece, but a short hop into somewhere warm for a while or do some jumping jacks and its warm again 👍.

Mine would be a good power station, this one: https://ecoflow.com/products/ecoflow-river-portable-power-station

I had a smaller celestron battery pack and a car battery jumper pack at first and it was never really reliable for long and dropped below 12V faster than i expected. Also had a 12V cable going out of my car door with the engine running when it was very cold outside 😆. Buying this power station just made all the problems go away in an instant. Has never run out mid session or dropped to voltages low enough to cause problems as it is regulated. Well worth the mone and a true worry free replacement for all the possible ways you could power a full photography rig 👍.

I would point out a few things that came to mind. How quickly do you want to get results? What types of targets do you have in mind? How much do you want to tinker or "lose time" with the setup?

I image with a 200mm newtonian and a poor quality mount and its been mostly trouble the whole time, so i would advice against that. Newtonian with a good mount? Dont know, as i do not have a good mount yet but im hoping my upcoming AZ-EQ6 will be up to the task. But here's the thing: I want to image galaxies, most of which are dim and smaller than nebulae, do not benefit from light pollution blocking filters, and i want to do this kind of imaging quickly as i cannot control the weather. I am also not made of money so a newtonian was really the only option for me. Large aperture compared to price and a very convenient focal length that is not too large really fits my use case perfectly.

But if i had more money i would definitely want an APO in the 130mm and up range to do the same job. Also, if you are already considering the HEQ-5 which is a fair bit of money why not go for the bigger EQ6R-PRO? I really do hate my mount and wish that nobody would try to undermount their telescopes so if i had a time machine i would put almost all of my budget into the mount.

13 minutes ago, Swillis said:

From what I understand ISO shouldn't matter for signal(?) As it effectively multiplies the signal, same number of photons reaching the detector. But also read noise goes down at higher ISO?  So we should use highest possible ISO

Thats pretty much it, but with a few caveats. Read noise goes down as ISO increases, but for most models only to a point. Once at that point there is little to gain from pumping up the ISO, but there is detail to lose in the form of overexposed pixels. Fully saturated pixels no longer contain useful information so this should be avoided, if possible.

Where this sweet spot lies depends on the model of camera in question, but according to some sources the 350D sweet spot would be at around ISO400. For my 550D it is around 800 and that's what i used for all shots when using the camera. http://dslr-astrophotography.com/iso-values-canon-cameras/    https://astrophotography.app/EOS.php

2 minutes ago, Ags said:

As long as it doesn't go negative...

It probably will once it settles in to its orbit, but not right now hopefully. Its just gravity doing its thing and the Earth pulling JWST back as long as its "in range".

In the Sun-Earth L2 point the speed relative to the Earth becomes a meaningless statistic really since it is sort of hula-hooping around an invisible spot behind the Earth in terms the Sun-Earth line. JWST will definitely be coming towards the Earth at some point, so negative velocity.

3 minutes ago, malc-c said:

If you connect via the handset, and have the handset in PC-Direct mode you still need EQMOD or GSServer.  All PC-Direct mode does is act as a USB to Serial convertor - much the same was as an EQDIR cable.

Same goes for new mounts with USB ports - it's just an EQDIR adapter (USB to TTL serial) built in.

No need to use PC-direct mode with the USB plugged in to the handset. The new versions of Synscan mounts say in the manual that other than some types of firmware updates (motor controller for instance) you dont need to use PC direct mode. 

Just now, dazzystar said:

Do you not need a driver though or does NINA recognise the hand controller?

I believe its the native Skywatcher driver. Not sure if i had to download it or NINA just recognized it as its been a while. Probably had to download the driver from Skywatcher.

You may also need to download the prolific chipset drivers from Skywatcher if your PC does not recognize the handset. My desktop recognized and auto installed them, but my mini-PC did not and had to install them myself.

This page has the prolific one: http://www.skywatcher.com/download/software/accessories/

The ASCOM driver page has the handset drivers if they are necessary.

On 28/12/2021 at 15:43, dazzystar said:

Thanks very much for the replies. I will be using NINA so do I need to install EQMOD as well or does NINA take care it?

No need for EQMOD if you connect via on-mount USB on the hand controller. Not sure about the control box though. I use my EQM35, which runs on the same Synscan hardware and firmware with NINA this way.

The handset still works this way, so you can manually slew or do GO-TOs from either the handset or NINA.

15 hours ago, kirkster501 said:

 and M82, another 80 hours.

Literally cannot wait to see this picture if it ever gets made. This seems like a very "real" object to image, not that the ultra deep fields are not real, but M82 is a target most are very familiar with so very excited to see JWSTs take on it!

Looks to me like it should with the equipment used, or at least in the ballpark. Planetary imaging requires very different methods and equipment than deep sky long exposure, so you are just too wide for Jupiter to show much detail.

A commonly quoted target f-ratio would be 5 (or was it 6?) times the pixel size for planetary imaging with a colour camera, so for your 700D with 4.3 micron pixels you would want to have an f-ratio of around F21. So for the 200p being an F5 system you would want to use a 4x barlow to get there. If you have 2 different 2x barlows lying around, you could use both of those aswell, although the image quality will probably degrade compared to a single barlow. I got an image of Jupiter this summer using 2 different barlows on top of each other and a 550D in movie crop video mode. Wasn't a very good picture due to Jupiter being so low and probably the barlows/DSLR not being optimal for the job, but it was a picture.

Having said that, how high was Jupiter at the time of imaging? Jupiter is quite low in the sky for UK latitudes so the atmosphere is probably also working against you here.

Looks like the background is gone after your noise reduction, which could be wanted or could not be, depends on what you want. Olly already tipped you on the layer masks and their power in processing, but ill give you one method of easily removing colournoise from the background. Try this method before going for noise reduction tools, it could lead to a more natural look.

Easy to do in photoshop: Select -> Color range and then from the dropdown select "Shadows". Adjust the Range and Fuzziness to values that have all of the background selected (white) but none of the signal you want to preserve. Depending on your image and type of background this can be difficult, so just choose what fits your data best. Then click OK and you have a selection across the screen. Then go Select -> Select and mask and finalize the parameters of the new layer mask. You could put a small Feather effect on this so that the transition between values is more subtle. Could be important for some images. When happy select the Output To mode to be new layer with layer mask.

Then on that new adjustment layer just drop saturation by as much as you want. -100 will make the background monochrome and looks out of place in my opinion, but experiment on the exact value in your image. Since you selected only the background, only the background loses saturation and the interesting bits should remain whatever colour they were. Sometimes all it takes is desaturating the colournoise instead of trying to fight it away, but often it takes a bit of both.

Dark site trips for both imaging and observing are definitely on my list as well. Visited family in a Bortle 3 area just over 2 hours drive away over Christmas and had a quick look at the sky with binoculars through some intermittent cloud cover. There is so much more to see it doesn't look like the same sky anymore and i definitely need to have a look with my VX8 to see if i can spot things that are completely invisible in brighter skies.

Goals for the upcoming spring would be to image the Coma cluster of galaxies and Markarians chain in Virgo, which i missed this year due to technical difficulties. Couldn't really image these far southern targets at all with my unsuitable mount so gave up . Hopefully by then my AZ/EQ-6 has arrived and most of the problems will be sorted. Might have to compromise and only shoot one of these though, since the time window to shoot these from 60 degrees north is just a couple of months long and who knows how many clear nights there are?