BobInYorkshire

I purchased a Skywatcher AZ-EQ6 GT Mount from RVO last September.

After a couple of months it developed a small fault, it wouldn’t work with my Synscan adaptor so I reached out to Adam at RVO.

I won’t bore you with the details but Adam went out of his way to sort this out for me, making me a very happy man.

1 hour ago, ONIKKINEN said:

Matching darks are necessary, if you plan on using darks at all so a set of darks for every different exposure time. Bias, flats and darkflats are ISO/gain/temperature dependent so you can use them with all the different exposure times.

In Deepskystacker you can use the "groups" function at the bottom to separate the different exposures into their own groups. Drop set1 of frames to group 0, set 2 to group1 etc. This is also used for projects spanning several nights, each night in its own group. DSS stacks all of them together in the final image.

Different stacking combination methods for the lights can also have an effect. You can try using the entropy weighted method if the exposure times were very different, like 2s x300 + 120s x 100. But generally stack as you normally would, with median kappa-sigma.

In Siril with using Sirilic you can also create a project with multiple sessions and drop the different sets into those.

Thanks a lot for that, it’s something that’s puzzled me for a while and I couldn’t find any information on YouTube.

I’m still very new at this and so far I’ve only stacked subs taken with the same exposure.

If I try to stack subs with different exposures but at the same gain and temperature do I put them all into DSS or similar and stack together or do I process them separately?

That then leads on to the question of what do I do about calibration frames?

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

4 hours ago, Clarkey said:

Assuming you are using this for imaging, the more you reduce the effective FL the more you will reduce the imaging area. Also, below about 0.8 you will probably struggle to find anything decent. You might be better picking up a second hand ED72 or ED80 with flattener. There is an ED80 with flattener for £350 on ABS now which may be an option? To me £350 for this is a bargain.

Thanks, that’s tempting but I know I’d end up buying another guide scope, guide cam, etc, etc as I wouldn’t want to strip down one rig to put it on the other if you know what I mean and it would end in divorce or my death. 😁😁

I have a Skywatcher 100ED-Pro with the Skywatcher 0.85 focal reducer.

Are there any others available below 0.85 magnification.

I’ve been on Google but I’m a relative newbie and can’t seem to find any information and if there are will one give me a wider fov?

I bought one of these last week for my Nikon and it works a treat.
 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07FBGQ84S/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

44 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

Do you need to take them in this software? Why not simply do them manually with just the camera? Use the camera histogram to find exposure settings which put the histogram peak about a third of the way between left and right and shoot a set. As long as the files are shot in the same format as was used for the lights I can't see what difference it would make.

Software has an irritating habit of thinking it knows more about what you want to do than you do.

Olly

That’s what I ended up doing but to do that I had to disconnect my camera from the AAP which meant I had to use the files on my camera micro sd card. As it was done that way they then have to be manually sorted when I transfer them to my computer whereas if they could be done on the AAP they would all be in their relative file folders, Lights, Bias, Darks, Flats and in the same file format.

I was hoping there was a way to take them all with the AAP.

I should add I’m new to this so still learning.

My first time using the AAP last night and everything went more or less to plan except when I tried to take flat frames.

I used the white cloth method with a dedicated light panel but every time I tried to take them the AAP said it couldn’t calibrate and to alter gain, etc.

I had several goes at altering the ISO and also the brightness of the light panel but failed miserably.

I’ve looked on YouTube but can’t find any videos about this specific scenario although there are plenty showing how to take them with dedicated astro camera and also plenty showing how to take them with a DSLR as a standalone camera.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Bob

You can also buy a hand controller that just plugs into a port on the side of the EAF.

I just got my EAF, Controller and temperature sensor delivered today, it was a bit of a faff fitting it as I had to modify the mounting plate slightly to get the screws to align but it’s up and running now.

I just need a clear night to try it out but I think I’ve more chance of winning the lottery than that at the moment here in North Yorkshire.

Now the head scratching begins.

I got a message from FLO, mine arrives on Monday and clear sky is forecast.

2 hours ago, wimvb said:

Great first image. Whatever you use for post processing, your first step should be to colour balance the image.

Thanks, I’ll bear that in mind for my next one, given the cloud cover we are getting it may be a long time coming. 😊😊

On 01/10/2021 at 16:50, DaveS said:

Oh, and Deep Sky Stacker is also free. On occasion I've found DSS to give a clean stack where AA8 just plays silly whatsits.

I’ve already got that thanks but I decided to use Affinity as I’m pretty familiar with it having used it for a year or two for my landscape photos.

13 minutes ago, sthow said:

Great photo of Andromeda , especially seeing as its your first one. 👍

Thanks, I did try hard but I suspect it was more luck than judgement. 😁

25 minutes ago, Lee_P said:

Mains power is best if you can. I keep my electrics outside permanently in a waterproof box. A regulated power supply is then connected to a splitter. Finally, two Lynx Asto cables go from splitter to my ASIAIR Plus and to my mount.  A splitter is a good idea, but please don't go for the "Linkstyle" one posted above; from the picture I can see that the cigar adapter plug is a poor quality. The one I linked to is much better.

So, to directly answer the OP's question: these leads are the best ones you can get to power your ASIAIR; and then your camera can be powered via your ASIAIR using a cable that would have been supplied with the ASIAIR.

These DC power supply adapters should work too if going direct from a plug socket, but the cables look a little short to me.

 

Brilliant, those are the leads I’ve been searching for, many thanks.

2 hours ago, Ouroboros said:

I don’t like using mains outdoors but I use a 12V mains power supply to power mine using a 5m 12V extension line. Longer cables are available.  Mains is more reliable than battery packs. 

I’m the same in that I too don’t like using maims power outside. I have a 110ah leisure battery and one of these to power my mount and was thinking of adding the three way adaptor shown below that to power the ASiAir and the camera. It’s just getting the actual cable with the DC plug on the end that I’m struggling to find.

41 minutes ago, Budgie1 said:

That's talking about the 5v supply that comes through the USB ports. Some cameras will work when plugged into the a USB port only, but the cooling won't work. This is saying the 6200, 2600, 533 & 071 need more power and won't work like this, they need the 12v supply from the on-board power management (marked "DC 5.5x2.1 mm Power Output x4" in the image above the text you highlighted).

The ASIAir Pro & Plus have four 12v power output sockets to supply power to the likes of the camera, mount, filter wheel & focuser. So all you need is one 12v supply to plug into the ASIAir and it can be used to supply 12v to four other devices, as long as the draw doesn't exceed the max of 6A.

Thanks for clarifying that for me, I really appreciate it.

37 minutes ago, Ouroboros said:

You can power the camera from the ASIair. The ASIair pro came with the necessary cables to connect to cameras etc. So I assume the Plus does? 

You’ll need a cigarette plug to 2.1mm (better check this) centre positive plug to power the ASI.  Something like this  

https://cablematic.com/en/products/power-supply-for-car-cigarette-lighter-to-dc-jack-21mm-CM074/?cr=GBP&ct=GB&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI1q-y9-qt8wIVWpnVCh3P5AphEAQYAiABEgIUZfD_BwE

I’ve just been and looked at the ASiAir Pro page, it can’t power the camera unless I’ve interpreted that wrong.

I’m not sure if that’s referring to the USB ports or the power ports.

Definitely ringing FLO tomorrow.

22 minutes ago, Ouroboros said:

You can power the camera from the ASIair. The ASIair pro came with the necessary cables to connect to cameras etc. So I assume the Plus does? 

You’ll need a cigarette plug to 2.1mm (better check this) centre positive plug to power the ASI.  Something like this  

https://cablematic.com/en/products/power-supply-for-car-cigarette-lighter-to-dc-jack-21mm-CM074/?cr=GBP&ct=GB&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI1q-y9-qt8wIVWpnVCh3P5AphEAQYAiABEgIUZfD_BwE

Thanks but I thought to use the cooling on the camera it had to have a separate 12v supply however I’m probably wrong! 😁 

It might be best just to ring FLO tomorrow.

I’ve got an ASiAir on order and at some point will be buying a ZWO cooled camera.

As far as I can tell I need to use a 12v supply to both.

I will be connecting them to a 12v leisure battery but I’m struggling to find anywhere to get the necessary leads.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Bob

2 hours ago, fwm891 said:

Astro Pixel Processor.

https://www.astropixelprocessor.com/

There's a 30 day trial

Thanks, it might be worth holding off until I get some more imaging sessions in and then process them together in the thirty day trial period.

25 minutes ago, fwm891 said:

Try APP trial. Great thing with APP is you can basically throw all your lights, darks, flats, bias.... into it press integrate and let it do it's stuff. When it spits out the image you can tweak it with its own processing tools to correct backgrounds and star colours.

Like most processing programmes once you get into it you can play with settings. I don't now use it (PI man now) but I wish it had been around when I started AP.

Francis

Hi Francis,

Please forgive my ignorance but what is APP? When I put that into Google it comes up with loads of “apps”.

Regards

Bob

2 hours ago, Stargazer33 said:

Great first attempt! You should be very happy with that. The shortish exposures have contained the core and stopped it from blowing out. The dust in the arms is showing itself too.

After you reprocess, if you upload the image in a lossless format, such as .png or .bmp, we can better enjoy your efforts. 🙂

Hi Bryan,

I've just had half an hour messing with Affinity Photo followed up by a bit more tweaking in Luminar A.I.

Here is the PNG version.

Thanks

Bob

1 hour ago, AstroMuni said:

There are a few good tools out there - Affinity, Startools, Siril and the big daddy PixInsight. The final choice depends on how comfortable you are using the tool I guess. I like Siril and follow this tutorial https://siril.org/tutorials/tuto-scripts/ and its free  

It will be Affinity Photo and I might also try editing the stacked image in Luminar A.I. as I have both of those already.

I might even try stacking them in Affinity as the latest version has a dedicated astrophotography tool for that.

1 hour ago, AstroMuni said:

Looking great. As others have said some post processing should get more details out. Good luck

Thanks, I’m going to have another go at the processing tonight, fingers crossed.