69boss302

update: It seems I was missing one of the extensions on the camera. I remeasured everything, got some help from the ZWO forum and found I forgot to add one of the extensions on. Ill give it a try tomorrow night if the weather cooperates!

here are two almost full size images I took this week, maybe it helps to show whats going on.  Youll have to remove the s from the https since its my server at home.

https://maxboostracing.com/astro/andromeda.jpg

https://maxboostracing.com/astro/orion.jpg

I currently have 16.5 and the 21mm on it now and have it set to 11.4mm on the flattener but still getting the images above.  I dont think its tracking as the center of the images are crystal clear

Note Their docs say 11.4mm but it didnt seem to help anything.

Ive spent the last 2 nights trying to adjust m field flattener. I have a William Optics Zenithstar 73 and the 73a adjustable flattener (not reducer). It is asking for a 55mm back focus, so I add the two extensions it comes with, add it up, and Im 19mm short. So I screw it in to the 73a at the 19mm mark and it should be OK. Well its not.  I tried a half turn one way, then a full turn the other way and was making no difference.  So I went to the extremes and went all the way out and took a picture (at the 20mm or so mark) and then screwed it all the way in to the 5mm mark... and there was absolutely ZERO difference. Apparently thats not where you adjust a field flattener?  The two shots below are at the extremes, but show no difference. What am I doing wrong?

1 hour ago, almcl said:

Bob 

Here's an alternate rendering, this time in StarTools.  Like Pixinsight, it has a trial version, but is significantly less expensive if you purchase a full licence.

I think you need to take flats and am not sure that 5 darks are actually helping, maybe try stacking without darks and see if that makes a difference?

 

Wow, also a beautiful result! (Will I get kicked out of here if I say its a 'stellar' result?)   I will look at that software as well. And thank you for taking the time to show me the image's potential. With the processing you guys have accomplished really makes me see I need to make more adjustments!

bob

53 minutes ago, powerlord said:

I'd recommend Affinity Photo. It's easy to use and learn (unlike PI), it's cheap (unlike PI), and it's imho just as powerful, arguably more so. Certainly I forced myself to try PI (yuck yuck yuck), went through the tutorials, etc.. and sure you can get good results with PI. I then went and did the same images in affinity using the techniques in the tutorials - and got the same results if not better. Oh and you can just download a trial - rather than having to persaude a bunch of backwards paranoid mathematicians you are a real person before they bless you with an evaluation licence.

you may pick up a slight bias I have here.. sorry about that, but I have no time for PI at all at any level. It's truly abysmal software from a UI/UX viewpoint, from a 'devs are all mental' viewpoint, from a licencing model viewpoint, and from a cost viewpoint IMHO.

Don't feel you need to get sucked into it just because others are doing it is all I'd say, it's use is not required to create top level images by any means. Just my 2c.

 

@powerlord  I can tell you're really on the fence here, when you make a final decision, let me know!!!      Funny you mention the licensing thing. When I went to their web site even that was confusing and the needing to apply for a license was a little off-putting.  Ill definitely take a look at Affinity, thank you for the recommendation.

Bob

24 minutes ago, AKB said:

 

 

PS: I used to live in Brookfield CT, near Danbury, and worked in Ridgefield.  Beautiful place, especially this time of year.

I just noticed this!  You sure made a substantial move to the UK!!!   This is a beautiful place this time of year, and nice and dark!!

@AKB Appreciate the kind words!  I do see a lot of good results from people with Pixinsight, maybe I need to put down the money for that, even though its a little spendy. But when comparing it to the investment in the gear, it seems trivial.  Thank you for the tips, I really appreciate it. 

I do need to work on my flats/darks.  They turn in to a single .fit file, which I suppose is OK, then I import them into DSS as that single file.

Ill watch some youtube videos on Pixinsight and see how that works. 

Bob

@AKB , after looking at the file and processing it, do you care to make any recommendations on how I capture?  Longer light frames? Shorter? I know I need more of them, this was only about 5 hours worth.  Clearly I need to improve my dark/flat/bias frames as well as my flattener alignment.

Wow thats far better than I got out of it. Care to share your flow, or your apps used? And yes, this was my second night out taking pictures ever!!!! For being my 2nd night I am pretty happy to be honest. Im slowly dialing it in   Thank you for this, I like it a lot. I need to learn the technique.

bob

Autosave.tifOK here is one of my files. I stacked them in  Deep sky stacker, but not sure if I even did that right    50 lights, 100 bias and I think 5 darks.  When I bring it into Siril, I dont have any luck at all      I absolutely have to adjust my field flattener still, it looks like its too close to the sensor, but every night I get it a little closer.

Would love to see what you guys can do with this! Itll help me determine if I need to improve shooting or processing.... (or both).

Thank you!

bob

7 minutes ago, Budgie1 said:

As @scotty38 says, the image straight out of DSS isn't stretched, so you won't see many stars and little to nebulosity or galaxy (if that's what you're imaging). 

Once stacked, it needs to go through post-processing using software like GIMP, Photoshop, PixInsight, StarTools, Astro Pixel Processor and others. This is where the "magic" happens!

If you want to upload one of your stacked files straight out of DSS (in FITS or TIFF format) then we can have a look and see whether the debayer is correct in stacking and also show what it can look like after post-processing.

If you have PhotoShop then here's a basic tutorial I used when I started: https://www.astropix.com/html/processing/digtechs.html

Martin, thank you for this! I will absolutely watch this! When I get home from work I will try and upload a stacked image to see what can be done with it Thank you!

1 hour ago, scotty38 said:

There is a lot to this of course but I assume the iPad was showing you a debayered and stretched image which the raw fits will not be. Until they are debayered they are mono images as such. Are you using calibration frames too?

That is correct, and yes I took all my calibration frames too.

2 hours ago, GoldTop57 said:

Bob - I've found Siril to be very good for stacking.

Thank you! I have played with that and like it very much. I do have a couple of quirks with it...for example saving my image I need to do it in 16 bit tiff, because if I save it as 32 bit, it looks terrible for some reason.  Also my snapshots that are in my 'working directory' are nowhere to be seen! But other than that, I have had good luck, thank you for the recommendation.

bob

One thing Ive noticed, is that looking on youtube and other web pages, processing DSO images has mainly been gray scale with filters.  With some really good OSC cameras on the market today, they are becoming more prevalent. I recently got a 2600MC pro OSC since Im just starting out. I figured Id keep it simple with no filters etc.  Using AA+ for my shooting plan, the images look amazing! It does a live stack as the images roll in and the end result was fantastic.  Well I remove the USB drive and load them in to my PC and they dont look anything like what I saw on the ipad. 

I run them through Deep Space Stacker and that made them worse.

So I guess my question is.... With a decent color OSC what is good stacking/processing software, or are there an decent videos out there that dont assume Im gray scale with a bunch of filters? Id love to process what I have so it looked as good as it did on my ipad.

Thank you!

bob

The other thing, is I have the RJ connector from the back of my guide cam going right to my EQ6-R Pro mount, as well as the USB from the AA+. I dont think I need both, I think I just need serial. Maybe it was getting confused.

@budgie1 Thank you for that. I did see that the lat/long did auto fill but I did not notice if it was correct or not. If it is not, I will 'synch' it.  I will also check for home, Im betting that was it, I never did check or set home position.

bob

UPDATE:

I had moderate success tonight! But something is still wrong. With you guys help and the manual, (which I didnt know existed...thank you again) I solved all my issues above!   With newly gained confidence, I took my rig and set it up outside. It was a nice clear and warm(ish) night.    I leveled my tripod, and rough align NCP with my EQ6-R Pro.  When it got dark, I did my focusing, which worked like a champ.  Then I did my PA, which I think went well. I got the smiley face and fireworks.  Awesome! Now I click on objects, Select something big, bright and obvious, M31. Welllll my mount skews down into the weeds and is pointing at my neigbors lawn.

Set everything back to zero, bring my mount manually to vertical, and do a PA again.  Same thing.  Well I thought maybe M31 is below the horizon, but it wasnt. So I selected California Nebula. This time it was pointing at my shoes but I knew right where it was in the sky.

What does this mean? Is it possessed?  Do I need to start drinking?

Side note:  Wifi Station mode is pretty good... but not great. I think I need a higher gain antenna. If anyone has recommendations Id love to hear.

Bob

8 minutes ago, GoldTop57 said:

You need to choose EQMod Mount in the Telescope field. Let me know if that doesn't work.

That worked!! Thank you!  When I selected that, baud rate allowed me to select 115,200 and it connected right away. It also solved the lat/long issue, it auto filled! Thank you!

bob

9 minutes ago, GoldTop57 said:

How have you connected to the EQ6R -  via the handset port (EQMOD cable - 9800 baud) or the mount's USB port (USB 2.0 Type A to B cable 115,200 baud)?

I am connecting via the mounts USB port via Type A to B cable.

 bob

21 minutes ago, Scooot said:

Have you got this.

https://astronomy-imaging-camera.com/manuals/ASIAIR_User_Manual.pdf

Well who knew... thats awesome, thank you for this! No, I actually dont have it, I thought what came in the box is all it offered. Thank you much, Im sure itll answer all my questions!

bob

I finally got in my ASIAIR Plus today and set it up. The documentation it comes with is non existent and the in app help is even worse.  So needless to say the setup didnt go very smoothly at all and was wondering if any of you guys have gone through the same teething pains.  Heres what Im having issues with:

-The initial set up screen asked for lat/long and to use location services while using. I enabled that but it never filled in my lat/long. And it seems I cant go back there to find out where to set that up again!

-Its not finding my EQ6-R Pro. I selected Skywatcher SynScan but no luck.  The baud is showing at 9600 and I cant seem to change that, as I believe it should be 115,200.  I have the serial cable plugged in to a USB2 port on the AA+ and also tried plugging it into the back of my ZWO 2600 main camera

-It is not recognizing my ZWO EAF.    I also tried plugging that in to the main camera and the AA+ itself.  It does work with my laptop and APT etc.

-WIFI Station mode...  I can connect directly to it just fine. If I go into station mode, it can connect to my house wifi OK, but then when I go back in the app it tries to find it via SSID ASAIRxxxxxxxxxx   and will never find it even if my ipad is now on the house wifi (same ssid).

Obviously Im doing something wrong in all of these but just cant seem to figure it out quite yet. Any tips are much appreciated!

Bob

Thanks GoldTop57

From what I understand is the first 100 worldwide are being delivered Nov 2021, which seems a little strange but is what it is.   I have been considering getting a Pro in the mean time, as I think the connections and learning curve will be essentially the same, so it wouldnt be like starting over again...

Not sure if this is allowed here... 

Does anyone know of a place that may have the ASAIR Plus in stock and not for 2-3x retail?  Ive had mine on order forever and about ready to bail on it unless I can find an alternate source. Or possibly when general availability will begin? If its soon I guess I can hold out a little more...

Thank you

Bob