Quatermass

After using NINA to frame my final image of the seagull nebula this is what I came up with super happy with NINA especially now I have upgraded my camera but will also use APT when I'm using my Canon again.

I was impressed with the Manual rotator function when I found it as I dont have a rotator and often go out there and rotate my camera manually to frame it up in Stellarium after doing a plate solve in APT but with this function it tells you exactly how much your out which is pretty awesome. I will use this to mark on my camera exactly what my rotation is as I have a bit of white tape around it with marking in degrees to roughly show me where the camera is at. So far I am loving the functionality of NINA next up will be the advanced sequencer when the clouds decide to play nice again. All this was covered in the excellent tutorial on Patriot Astros channel. https://youtu.be/rwpOO7CsD7U

Thanks for the info everyone I have not tried the advanced sequencer yet still getting my head around the interface and trying out a simple sequence to test everything out. I have noticed that when it changes to the next sequence it sometimes fails to plate solve then increased the settle time for the scope which cured that. And I have been watching the lazy geek vids to give me some more ideas about using it. Tonight's session apart from the clouds is going very well I have got it slewing to the target plate solving centring the target and guiding starting all works well which is great. Not sure how to get it all to stop if the clouds roll in and it loses the guiding though?

I had my first imaging session with NINA the other night having used APT for a long time which I love and highly recommend. The reason for the change is because my equipment is now becoming more and more automated and I thought NINA was better suited to this kind of set up. I really enjoyed using NINA for the first time and found its many features very helpful. It did seem a bit daunting at first though mostly getting used to a new interface and learning where everything is so tried to keep things simple and managed to get a reasonable image out of my first session on the seagull nebula in H-Alpha. I have yet to try out a full set of sequences and trust it to just get on with it so if any one has some helpful tips on things to watch out for that would be most helpful. My set up is a Sky watcher 130pds on an Sky watcher eq5 pro mount. Camera is the Altair Astro Hypercam 294c fan cooled camera and guiding is with a zwo asi 120mc guide camera and a SV165 Mini Guider Scope 30mm/120mm F4 all this is controlled from the main pc inside my shed extension with cables running to my roll off roof observatory. The picture below is my 200p on the mount before I got the 130pds which is much better suited to the mounts weight carrying capacity and a superb bit of kit in my opinion next on my list will be a focuser so I dont have to keep running back and forth to focus my images for which NINAs auto focus features will be put to the test. Clear skies QM 😉

Well Happy to say my guiding is back to normal again, realized after some investigations I had changed some settings when doing a new profile and messed things up also the advice given about my pulse guide settings was very helpful and corrected that so everything is behaving itself again. Sheesh this hobby can drive you nuts some times but then again I'm sure we have all been there pulling our hair out over some unticked box we forgot to check. Thanks for you help guys much appreciated as usual.

It would be helpful to hear from others who have this camera as to what settings they use for Gain Offset and Binning. I have only used a set of darks far when stacking my images and to be honest they are coming out so clean compared to my old Canon 450d it makes processing them pain free. You can see more of the images I have taken with the Altair Astro Hypercam 294c fan cooled camera on my blog www.astrocasto.blogspot.com if your thinking of getting one and want to see the images I am getting with my eq5 pro and my sky watcher 130pds. I use a zwo ISI 120mc on a sky watcher finder scope for my guiding. I'm also using my Astronomic 12nm H-Alpha Filter that I rigged up so I can use it with the camera by making my own adapter for it as this filter was the clip in one for the Canon 450d. Combining the images in Ha with RGB data worked great with the dslr but is even better with the new 294c.

I have the fan cooled one but it does not seem to make a significant difference to be honest.

A bit more investigation showed that the pulse guide settings in eqmod were set to a pulse of x0.10 much to low according to the recommended setting so will change that to x0.90 and looking back at my original setting screen shots from several months ago several things had got changed. Hopefully that will bring all back to working order again. Phd is a great bit of software and I have used it for years but when things go wrong it can be a real pain in the astro fingers crossed that all will go well just need the pesky clouds to go away now. I wouldn't have minded so much but having just spent a lot of dosh on a new camera PHD going wonky was the last thing I needed. Will let you know how I get on

Right now I get what your saying at first I thought it was a setting in PHD that controlled this. No joy tonight as the cloudy weather continues but soon as I get a clear patch again I will try all of the above and let you know how things go. Guiding Rate The Pulse Guide Rate can be set between x0.1 to x0.9 of the nominal tracking rate at increments of 0.1 independently on each motor (RA or Dec). The rate sliders will determine how quickly the mount can move to correct a guiding error. The EQMOD Project EQASCOM & Autoguiding Setting the rate “high” will cause the he mount will move much quicker in response to guiding pulses. This may seem desirable however if the error is small the guider will have to issue correspondingly short pulses. If the resulting pulse width is less than the 50ms minimum imposed by EQASCOM there could be an over correction. Set the Rate to low and corrections will take longer so there is more chance that the guider will always be chasing the error rather than correcting it.

Ah right thank you I will check that out in eqmod cheers 👍

Ok Im confused now . Reading the help file it says this about the guide speed setting. 5. Mount connection pane: mount guide speed. This is another area that seems to cause confusion. The guide speed is a parameter set in the mount or in the mount driver, it's not something controlled by PHD2. PHD2 never sets the mount guide speed, it only reads it. It is usually expressed as a multiple of the sidereal rate and is typically in the range of 0.5x - 1x sidereal. Despite what you may read elsewhere, it's usually best to use guide speeds in this range rather than much lower speeds. Higher guide speeds can help to clear backlash more quickly and may help to overcome stiction problems. If you say 'yes' to the connection option prompt, PHD2 will attempt to read the current guide speed from the mount. If this fails for some reason, you'll need to enter the guide speed manually. PHD2 uses this value to automatically set the calibration step-size and to aid in checking calibration results; but the guide speed information is not important for the actual guiding. If you're using different guide speeds on the RA and Dec axes, enter the larger value. If you really can't determine what the guide speed settings are in the mount, leave the setting at the default value of 0.5X. This pane also has a checkbox regarding the presence of high-precision encoders in the mount. These devices are sometimes included on expensive, high-precision mounts, and you are likely to know if you have them. Most users will leave this box unchecked. You mentioned this in your reply RA Guide Speed = 1.5 a-s/s, Dec Guide Speed = 1.5 a-s/s Needs to be at least 7.5arcsec/sec That very low rate made it difficult for PHD2 to correct guide errors. So how do you change the guide speed??

It has been quite a journey for me to finally reach the stage of getting a dedicated astro camera and I went for the Altair Astro Hypercam 294c fan cooled camera last month after much consideration. This is an image of the Horse Head nebula taken a few nights ago combining 50 3min subs in H-Alpha and the same with just RGB data. The Filter is the astronomic 12nm H-Alpha filter used before in my Canon 450d and I did a diy adaption to get it in front of the new cameras sensor so no need to get a 2 inch filter. Setting were a gain of 900 binning at 1x1 and offset at 100 using APT to managed the camera. Might try NINA one day but for now happy to carry on with the set up I have. Mount is the Sky watcher eq5 with the synscan up grade and a sky watcher 130pds brilliant little telescope after using the 200p for many years this little gem is proving itself to be a fantastic bit of kit. Clear skies everyone QM The Horse head Nebula.psd

Hi Michael Thank you for taking the time to look at all that for me much appreciated. To be honest I have never really had any issues with PHD before certainly not like this so tended to just switch it on and let it do its thing. I will have good read through the help files as you suggest. Just to pick up on what you are saying, RA Guide Speed = 1.5 a-s/s, Dec Guide Speed = 1.5 a-s/s Needs to be at least 7.5arcsec/sec That very low rate made it difficult for PHD2 to correct guide errors. The guide speed you are pointing out here is that the button next to the stop button you are talking about which I normally have set to 1.5? To correct a south drift you needed to guide north, not south!! So the drift wasn't being corrected!! Ok I will try that next time this is what being dyslexic does to my thinking reversing the order of information which can be very frustrating at times. You Calibrated at Dec = 59.3 deg, it's best to Cal at near south and within 20 degrees of Dec = 0. Yes I should have done that I do normally but this time just wanted to get on with it before the clouds came in again. Next clear night I will have another go and post the log file and take a few more notes if things don’t go to plan. Again thank you for taking the time to look at all this it is much appreciated. QM

Ok guys Here is the log from my last session as requested no chance of doing a polar alignment at the moment but as the mount is in a permanent position and had a very good polar alignment I am not keen to have to polar align it all over again. However I know have a full licence for sharp cap that came with my new camera so might try that out for polar alignment if that is the issue as it seems to have good reviews. Cheers QM PHD2_GuideLog_2022-11-25_130955.txt

I got this message after calibration was done so I'm assuming my polar alignment is out again sigh I hate polar alignment

Thank you for the helpful advice my mount is a skywatcher eq5 mount with a 130pds and guide scope. I will do some more tests and get back to you on the results but this is the first time I have ever seen this when guiding and found it quite strange that making Dec move in south rather then auto got it guiding again also you need to know that I am dyslexic so not great with non visual instructions

I did clear my calibration and went through the wizard again to start afresh haven't checked my guide log yet but so long as I change the Dec correction to south the guiding last night was fine which has me baffled thought it might be the cable at first but as it guided ok when set to south I guess the cable is fine. I read on the posts here that setting the Dec to south and making sure the polar alignment is spot on solved the Dec dropping off so my next port of call will be the polar alignment. I'm also considering getting a mini pc to avoid having three ten foot cables running from my shed extension to the roll off observatory. One day every thing will work flawlessly, yeah right and pigs will fly 🙄

And by that I mean it was working just fine but now for some weird reason it only works correctly if I change the Dec guide command to south. It used to work fine in auto but the last few nights has decided to turn evil on me. I'm assuming it's polar alignment any one else had this issue or am I cursed?

Old post but having just got one and used it for a few weeks here is my opinion on it. Great camera I love it wanted to upgrade from a Canon 450d which I have used for ages and this was a good price with a nice big sensor virtually no amp glow and the images I have taken with it so far have exceeded my expectations for sure. I'm using a 12nm H-Alpha filter with it at the moment with a gain setting of 900 and offset of 100 with 3 min exposures and that is working well for me when combined with RGB data I found it frustrating with so few good reviews on it and very few that showed you the pictures so here are some of the images I have taken with it so far for those that are thinking of getting one I have the fan cooled version and its great. Highly recommended for the quality of the images and the price and performance. Actually I lie its not the 269c mine is the 294c which is about 100.00 quid cheaper but still pretty awesome I think. Rosette Nebula 294c.tif

Interesting thread, I have just purchased the Altair Astro Hypercam 294c fan cooled camera because it was 600.00 and at my budget. This is to move up from using a Canon 450d and many years of using a DSLR. Having been already baffled by the many new things to puzzle over, gain, offset, binning etc I just went out a few nights ago to try it out. I have to say I was blown away by the difference this camera produced even though I have not fully got to grips with it I could see that this was a real game changer from using the DSLR. For example just using only 10 of the fit files it produced on the subject of the Orion Nebula and stacking them in deep sky stacker with no calibration frames at all I was able to get this image. Yes I know its colours are not quite right but I am colour blind and this was a very quick process in PS. But having used a dslr for a long time this was amazing the noise level was virtually gone compared to my Canon 450d and not having to keep changing battery's was great and also focusing was so much easier to do. This image was not even trying compared to what I normally do and with the addition of a Ha filter the potential for much better imaging is now a reality. Ok so its not the more expensive cooled version but that does not really matter to me as my set up is permanent and I can do my darks the same night. So I have to say I absolutely love this camera and very glad I have made the jump from my beloved Canon 450d.

Haven't posted an image on here for a long time but have moved house and got a nice dark sky to play with now so this is what I have been up to using a modded canon 450d an Astronomic 12nm Ha filter and my new 130pds on the trusty eq5 mount. 50 3min sub in Ha and 30 in RGB for combined final image. Clear skies QM

That's great advice Martin especially the fov size didn't consider how much its going to reduce my field of view which is quite a bit looking at those specs. I recently got the 130pds because I wanted to capture bigger targets and it was the ed80 or the 130pd. I have had an ed80 before and I have to say I prefer the 130pds it works really well on my eq5 mount. Reducing the fov size with this camera kind of sucks really. Mmm I'm going to have to think this one through a lot more its quite a bit of money to be spending and I have got to make sure its what I need that's half of my fov gone which is not what I want at all oh poo sticks that was about the fov of the 200p which having used it for 13 years I'm not keen to go back to that fov size again sigh..