Mav359

mine going now, should be finished thursday

have to say i do like neb i use it for everything now upto & including the pre-processing (stacking, aligning etc). Then i move to photoshop for processing.

I'm going do re-do my BIAS master as well, cant remember if they are temp dependant but it only takes a couple of mins

Will do

I plan to get them done over the next few days. The way i see it is if your exposing for 20mins then your DARKS need to be that length too & if you want 20 of them that's 6.6hrs of DARKS. There are obviously very important but my god are they boring..

If you do your DARKS straight after your session then the chances are that its nearly morning and all you want is bed rather then sitting out with kit waiting for DARKS to finish. Not to mention if you have a regulated camera and use Neb then you probably already have that data recorded anyway, why do it twice.

i think i will stick to the 20 exposures and include the following times.... 1,2,3,5,8,10,12,15,20,25&30

A master BIAS can be re-used so with a DARK library in place it means the session consists of taking your SUBS which is the bit you want to spend your time on and then gather your FLATS 20 of which doesn't take very long anyway.

Hi Guys

I have just had confirmation from Craig Stark that in Nebulosity anyway the CCD temp displayed is the actual temp of the CCD (reported to nebulosity by the camera). So -25c in this case is the actual temp rather then ambient subtracted.

So in my head now it deffo makes sense to create a dark library if you can regulate the temp of the camera so that all SUB's are always taken at the same temp then you only need match the SUB's to the MASTER DARK exposed for the same length of time.

-25c may have been a bit much so i am going to start again & drop the temp to -20c as mark suggests. I think i will increase the amount of exposures to 30 and increase the range of exposure times as well.

Gives me something to do as opposed to cursing under my breath whilst watching the cloud roll by

this is from the manual

Clock / TEC display: In the control panel, Nebulosity can display a small clock

that will show the current time in a range of time formats or show the CCD's

current temperature.

I read that as the actual temp of the CCD, my thinking was that if i could always choose the temp at which the CCD ran i could create a dark library now to save time later, all i had to do then was take my SUBS once the camera reached the desired temp.

Thats obviously with now camera connected during operation though it stayed at -25 and in brackets displayed the cooling power %

So if its 2degrees outside temp then me setting it to -25 means the camera is operating at -23, right? (did seem a bit cold)

Nebulosity has a tempreture readout which the entire time the camera was running read -25. Does that mean that my Dark library isnt accrate as the temp during the day changed.

It certainly looks in Neb that the temp reads the temp of the CCD in degrees.

May have to re-think this Dark library

what difference does that make? i thought the colder the better, less noise, or am i wrong?

Ive been playing with this in Nebulosity and its actually very easy to set the temp. Quite impressed actually set it to -25 and it didn't wander more then half a degree from the target.

Is -25 too low do you think? i have put together a library of Darks all at -25.

Sorry for all the questions but ........

I have a QHY8L which is cooled.

In EZCap (for example) there are three settings....

i) TEC Off = i figured this is just to turn the cooling off

ii) Manual = Does this mean i can set the temp i want the camera at????

III) Auto Control = I figure this is just as it says and will automatically control the temp of the camera

There are also two sliders

i) = On the left, this is a percentage. A percentage of what???

II) = On the Right, a number ranging from -50 to 30

I think that what im seeing is this....

a) the 53% slider is relevent to the power measurement on the bottom bar. Whats the benifit of changing the power?

the -33.1c is the temp of the sensor (seems cold) & is that temp as a result of the slider set to -10, correct? If so why would you set it as cold as poss?

Lastly in Nebulosity (which i'd rather use) i can set the following...

i) AMP Off - dont understand this one

ii) Enable TEC & there is a box allowing me to adjust from 1000 to -273, is this the equivalnt of the slider on the right in EZCap?

Cheers in advance for any help you guys can give

I have a 9.25 its fantastic, just think space, it's not small! & if your not permanently set up in an obs think about having to move it. Its a great piece of engineering but you can't pick it up in one go (60kg ish) as it turns into an octopus and won't go through a doorway.

Imagine what the 11" would be like.... don't be put off though i have zero regrets and with a F6.3 reducer its capable of much more then just planetary imaging.

My skies are in heavy LP, that said i only need a touch of red light just to make that bit easier.

Ive only had to by the socket and matching jack, my dads a plumber so the 1.25" Sweeping T & end stop were only a matter of raiding his van, likwise for the liquid weld, I'm not much of a solderer (learning) though.

Great mod though, looking forward to finishing and using it

Hi James

Loving this so i went out to buy the connectors and bought this...

Size N Coaxial DC Power Jack W/Switch on eBay!

How did you know which of the three prongs to solder the LED too?

Hey Malcolm excellent job very envious...

It looks very professional, are you a tradesman or just an entusiastic DIYer. I'm relativly handy but am concearned that when i eventually start that my level of building knowlege & carpentry won't be up to it.

Also once you hammered the rebar into the ground did you have to level them before the pier went on or does the pier adaptor correct for the level? I want to make sure any pier is level.

Cheers & well done.

This is my Maplins case effort, i bought 2 they are great!