Giles_B

My ED FP51 doublet has some unidentified debris on the inside of the objective. While it is not affecting visual and any effects on imaging can be calibrated out, I'd like to get it removed at some stage over the summer - I'd rather not send the scope by post or courier, and would be glad of recommendation for professional servicing near Bristol, if anyone has one.

Not an exact answer, but my own experience in my first year of astronomy when I moved from a 5" (Mass produced, Synta) Celestron Newtonian to a 10" Orion Optics (Hand finished, 1/6 Wave) Newtonian, was that there is a difference, but on galaxies it is a pretty small difference - a bit more brightness overall, a slightly extended visible periphery, and a bit more differentiation between the core and the periphery. But only a bit - a small increment rather than a revolutionary change.

The difference I noticed was on other objects - globular clusters (especially) and open clusters showed noticeably more detail.

My guess would be that you wouldn't notice a change from 8" to 10" at all (on Andromeda).

My 12v LiFePo battery gives 12.8v according to the voltmeter. It runs my Asiair pro with no problems.

Success - of a sort : The Lindy cables seem to have sorted it out - however, I also swapped the focuser onto the hub, so I will swap things back tonight and see what the effect is.

Interestingly, soemthing I did seems to have caused a couple of other issues:

The short cables have made it very difficult to balance near the horizon. Clearly one effect of the long dangling bits of cable was to stablise the x-axis and I'm going to have to look at other ways I can do this

I also got some random shutdowns and disconnects from the asiair as I tried to sort out the balance issues mid-session - but this was probably me destabilising the connection with my fiddling!

Thanks - glad to know it's not just me!

I'll try swapping things around as you suggest. I think I started out doing this but then I wondered if the power to the hub was the problem, and I've not tried it with new cables, gorilla tape and all - so it's good to get a reminder to keep plugging away.

It really is a pain. Last night the camera did a meridian flip with no disconnection problem, but as soon as the EAF moves in plan mode, everything falls apart!! Grrr.

Thanks for that - presumably the USB short would be cured by swapping out the cable if that was it? Hopefully the cable will fix it. If not I'm sure I'll be back...

I don't think my system is underpowered - it was an issue before I got a powered hub - but see what you think:

The whole system is run off a battery box built off a 30Ah 12.8v LiFePO4 Battery with 3 12v sockets, and a double usb3 socket all fused at 5a

12v socket (1) powers the Asiar Pro - which in turn is connected to:

• ASI 585MC (USB3) [main camera]
• ASI 482MM (USB2) [Guide camera - connected to USB2 to reduce the power draw]
• EAF (USB3) [Focuser]
• USB hub (powered separately)

12v socket (2) powers 2x dew heaters and runs an auxiliary 12v cable to power a Vonets wireless bridge/extender

12v socket (3) powers the EQ6 mount

USB 1 powers a USB hub - which in turn is connected to:

• EFW [filter wheel]
• EQMOD to the mount
• USB memory stick

There is a volt meter that doesn't  show any obvious drop.

Cables - thanks for the tip to Kennable - The cables I'm using aren't the flats, but I admit I couldn't find short USB3 A->B cables anywhere. I ended up with an 2m Amazon essentials cable as this was the only thing I could find that fit the spec. So I will order some 0.5m cables and see if this helps. It will certainly help cable management! @Elp can you recall which cables you are using exactly as there are a couple of different specs there? [ EDIT: both types out of stock anyway, ordered these "reassuringly expensive" cables instead: https://www.lindy.co.uk/cables-adapters-c1/usb-c449/0-5m-usb-3-2-type-a-to-micro-b-cable-5gbps-anthra-line-p11405]

After a few months grappling with imaging - that's months not weeks owing to almost unbroken cloud through January and February - I'm finally getting to grips with imaging on a "proper" rig (having got the bug using a SeeStar).

I'm using an Asiair Pro, and one major problem I've had is with equipment disconnects. So few sessions means that it's taken a while to get to the heart of the problem and develop a workaround. Last night was the first night I took advantage of the who night of clear sky.

I've isolated the problem down to the main camera - a ZWO ASI 585MC - disconnecting 2/3 of the time the EAF autofocuser runs a sequence. Having just run the EAF with stock settings - refocus every two hours, on filter change and on a new target - the main camera reliably disconnected within a couple of hours of leaving the rig to image unattended overnight - often reassigning the guide camera (a ZWO ASI 462MM) to main camera. Having lost the camera, and lost the guiding, the Asiair stops the sequence and shuts down. very frustrating. The only thing that seems to fix this is to not use the EAF in my imaging plan, and only use the autofocuser attended. Then I can jump in and reconnect the camera (in the software - a physical unplug and reconnect of the usb lead is rarely needed).

Things that didn't fix this are:

- Making sure the Usb connectors are not oriented toward the ground

- Using copious amounts of gorilla tape to stabilise the usb connector sockets

- Investing in some cable management clips

- Buying a new usb lead

Having now isolated the problem, tonight I will tape a loop to keep the usb lead fixed at the camera and Asiair ends, to the allow extension when the focuser moves. However, I doubt this will stabilise more than I have done with the current arrangements.

Has anyone else on SGL suffered these disconnection problems?

Is there something I am not thinking of that will fix them?

Is this normal for ZWO cameras or should I return it?

Is it because I am using a planetary camera and the usb connection is less robust?

Can I expect less problems when I upgrade the camera?

Or is there something else in my setup I should look at?

I've had only good experiences from ABS, and also from the classifieds here. My experience is that prices are very fair, and if things go wrong (and I've been on both sides of the fence on this) both buyers and sellers are understanding and honest. Ebay is more of a mixed bag. I've been cautious and avoided any really bad buys, but I've had a really nit picky buyer who tried to get money off after the event for a small scratch on the barrel of an eyepiece. It was my mistake as I confess I hadn't noticed the mark (it was tiny!) but the buyer was really unpleasant about it - they wanted a 50% discount - and in the end I got fed up told them to return it for a refund - to their credit they did send it back. Overall it felt a very different experience to the much more congenial exchanges on ABS and SGL, so I tend to avoid ebay if I can.

8 hours ago, Brutha said:

Perfect thanks! Not too worried, either is fine - something that doesn’t need huge numbers of subs would be a good start, M42, something like that!

I've sent some subs of M42 by PM - sorry for the wait!

You can use some of mine. I'm out at the moment, but I'll dig some out when I get home. Would you prefer nebulae or galaxies?

Thanks for that - it  sounds like it needs some experimentation before reporting a bug. I'm all for having as few devices as possible (despite having telescopes falling out of every cupboard in the house!), so switching rather than separate devices appeals to me, but I would need to get everything set up without interference - I mean, it took me forty minutes to polar align using the asiair given all the mucking about with losing the mount, and that was no fun at all.

I will try the force close method. My recollection could be faulty, but I don't think I'd opened the SeeStar app at this stage. However, I know apps can have a nasty habit of hanging around in the memory even so - and it could be that it was doing so from the last time I opened the app, which would have been a day or two before - I'll try the setup again when we ever get clear sky. 

1 hour ago, Elp said:

Are you using the same controlling device to control both? (IE same phone or tablet?).

Yes., same tablet, but the Seestar app was closed and not running. The Asiair app got hijacked by the Seestar!

Thanks for the prompt. A bug report is a good idea - not being able to access the Asiair while the Seestar is running could get to be a pain. I'll get onto it tonight,

Has anyone else tried using the Seestar on the same network as an Asiair? I did so last night and got some unwelcome results.

I've recently tooled up for Astrophotography, so I'm just learning the setup and grappling with polar alignment, gain, exposure times and all sorts of other new things. Last night I thought I'd try @powerlord's EQ setup for myself in addition to all these new things, so I had the Seestar sitting and turned on while I set up the Asiair (Pro) on the AP rig. Both were in base mode connected to my wifi repeater.

Half way through the Asiair PA process the Asiair app told me I had the mount in Alt-az mode and refused top go any further - which was odd because I have an EQ6 - which given I'm new to this I *thought* didn't have an alt-az mode but I wasn't 100% confident. Lots of faffing around with the EQ6 later, I had got nowhere. I just couldn't get the Asiair app to recognise the mount. At that stage the app flashed up that there was new firmware and asked me if I wanted to update. I was about to do so when I noticed that it was recognising the mount as a Seestar!

I shut everything down and rebooted the Asiair with the Seestar turned off. Everything was back to normal.

Once I'd got the AP rig set up and following a plan, I rebooted the Seestar and ran the Seestar app, which also worked fine. - although I was getting a bit late for experimenting with EQ Seestar by that time, so banked that for another day. Not quite sure what happend, but my guess is that the wifi on the seestar is so much better than the Asiair pro that the Asiair app preferentially connected to the Seestar - but I would have to experiment to confirm, and I'm not sure I'm keen to do so!

Anyway all's well that ends well, but I diud almost either write Asiair firmware to the Seestar (or maybe the other way around??) - which could have been catastrophic, so I thought it might be worth sharing my experience as a warning to others planning on sharing a wifi connection, at least with an Asiair plus!

Wonderful FLO - it arrived today so I'm all set up to enjoy another clear night - images will follow!

Oh-ho - gotta try this

Thanks both. I've now got the 16.5mm on the way and some thin spacers to boot - I'll also treat tonight as a further experiment and not expect too much of my imaging 

11 minutes ago, powerlord said:

2 hours with the Seestar S50  last night in EQ mode.

 

 

5 minutes ago, PeterCPC said:

Could you explain how you used it in EQ mode - I see nothing on the ZWO website about this. Good capture by the way.

Yes I'd also like to understand this, as the rotation is a real downside of the seestar for me.

The impression I get is that you are just using a wedge, but the posts I read over Christmas on Cloudy nights implied opening up the seestar and disabling the gearing - which I'm not keen to get into! Can you explain please?

Amazing detail - will you reprocess the image?

Do you put the quality down to great seeing, or did you use some other trick?

Thanks that's all really helpful - @Budgie1 I was wondering how I was going to get the 0.5mm T2 spacing!

I have a ZWO mini EFW inline, which adds 20mm between the T2 connectors - I'm planning on trying a variety of filters (L'extreme, Altair triband v2, OIII) but will try using the shorthand of +1mm for now @Elp

Overall with the 20mm EFW plus the 1mm filter and the 16.5mm, it sounds like I will need to find an additional 11mm spacer.

(Edit: sorry brain now working - I already have the 11mm spacer!) So I should get the right spacing with 20mm EFW + the 1mm filter + the recommended 16.5mm M48 to T2 (which I assume has a female M48 thread, but I'm checking this with FLO)

I'm assuming the example starfield distortion in the pictures is quite exaggerated, but will find out tonight - with my current heath robinson setup I'm about 1.5mm short, so I will closely examine the stars if I make any images during my experiments!

After some deliberation I jumped in feet first over Christmas and set myself up with some imaging rig. It's been a steep learning curve with some frustrating nights spent getting to grips with the new kit. I feel like I'm slowly getting there but I've still yet to image anything worth speaking of.

The rig I've assembled is based around an Altair 125 EDF, which is f7.8 but has a planostar m92 0.8 reducer which converts it to a f6.24 astrograph - https://www.altairastro.com/altair-wave-series-125-edf-apo-refractor-w-heavy-duty-m92-rp-focuser-454-p.asp.

I've paired this beast with an ASI585MC - which is far from using the full potential of the scope I know, but seemed a good place to start.

I've only now got the right m48-t2 adaptor to use the reducer, but assembling things tonight i realise I'm confused about the spacing from the reducer to the camera. The reducer spec states:

"The reducer comes with an M72 to M48 spacer pre-calculated to give a 55mm sensor to flange distance."

Does this mean I mustS make sure there is 55mm between the reducer and the camera sensor? And if it is not exactly this distance (I'm a couple of mm off), what happens - will I fail to reach focus, or fail to utilise the flattening of the reducer, or what?

This is very sad. He made an equatorial platform for me last year - he was a real craftsman.

On 08/01/2024 at 12:35, PaulM said:

 

Been using my S50 for about a week now, from what I can see and transferred from the S50 in terms of files and have read you get a single JPEG stacked image form the subs and a FITs file, you do not get individual sub files to stack, apparently the early\beta release provided these and most of the YouTube videos are now out of date due to this, you cannot stack the individual subs, happy to be corrected on this as it would be good to do so

With respect this is incorrect - "Save each frame" in the 'advanced options' saves the individual subs - if you don't have this checked you will only get a a stacked image.

I realise @Cosmic Geoff has pointed this out, but I thought it was worth being explicit about this for anyone else reading the thread!

It would depend on the algorithm that the automatic stacking uses - it appears to discard frames when it detects no stars, but I assume every other frame is included. If this is the case then the "bright" photo would lighten the overall stack a bit, but eventually it would average out over a long period. If you were to manually stack the FITS the you could avoid stacking the offending frames by choosing a stacking alogirthm that would discard the frames with the lowest numbers of stars.

The practical limit of the averaging out effect of including every frame would be the amount of rotation in the stacked image. How quickly this is a problem will depend on how high in the sky the object you are imaging is. As a rule of thumb, I find that once you go beyond an hour the stacked image starts to show a distracting amount of rotation.