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I had a bit of a breakthrough moment last night when I finally got platesolving working under APT. Slewed to various objects in Stellarium then platesolved them pretty quickly in APT - wonder why it's taken me so long to get round to it! Anyway, after 90 minutes of adding data to my M81 folder I thought I'd have another play with the GOTO's in stellarium and practice the platesolves. After a handful, Goto's were very nearly landing right on the spot BUT around 1:30am I thought I'd take a look at the moon. Pointed to it in Stellarium, clicked current object then slew and watched as the mount failed to point within 5 degrees of the moon. It ended up pointing much further west and lower in the sky. Odd. A subsequent click on Capella brought that star right into the centre of the frame. Targetting the moon once again brought the scope pointing further west - looked like exactly the same spot as before. My coordinates in Stellarium match those in EQMOD and the time is picked up from my laptop. Anyone else see this sort of behaviour using stellarium? Graeme
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I have graduated to APT and for the most part it is working. I can plate solve and autofocus with a skywatcher 150p and canon 550d. Pictures are also fine. The issue I am having is with dithering and PHD2. PHD2 works find with other software but for some reason, despite playing with settings I cannot get it to dither properly with APT. Issues have been: • the dither starts but does not stop; • the dithering stops after the new exposure starts; • APT says the dithering has stopped but the graph on PHD2 seems to suggest it hasn't. I have seen other threads and have played with settings but am having no luck. Any inspiration would be greatly welcomed! Thanks Simon
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I use the Celestron AVX mount and I also use Astrophotography Tool when imaging. When I start my imaging session I will undertake a two star alignment then move to my target and THEN platesolve to ensure I have the object centred. My question is do I need to bother with two star alignment (or any other Celestron alignment for that matter)? My thought would be to Polar align then take a shot of Polaris and plate solve this, sync the result to the mount then “Goto” from there. The only issue I have is when you switch the mount on and enter time/date etc it asks you to do a star alignment so how do I ignore this or do I do just that, ignore it! Sorry for the rambling question. john -
I have yet to be entirely happy with the focus on my pictures. When cropping them quite heavily (I use a DSLR, so smaller DSOs need a bit of cropping) the stars always feel a bit bloaty and look out of focus - much more than the image from the full frame. I have been using the focus aid in APT, checking out the FWHM tool. I don't know much about the science behind it, but my understanding is that the number needs to be as low as possible. Last night I was focussing and tweaked it down to around 1 to 1.5 - obviously it was fluctuating with the atmosphere/interference, but I thought that it was a pretty good score. I locked the focus very carefully, making sure that I didn't change the figure - I usually tighten half-way, check the value and then re-do it (if needed) before locking it down completely. I only twigged tonight that DSS shows a FWHM maximum on the light frames after it has checked them and, when I looked for the images I took last night, the FWHM figures were coming out at over 4.5. I am presuming that this is far from ideal focus, but is also a long way from what I thought it was. Is there any relation between the FWHM measurements in APT and DSS? Is there a reason for the discrepancy or am I just going to need to be even more careful with focussing? Are there vital settings in APT that I need to set? Will check for more scope related settings next time I get out. Might also need to get the Bhatinov mask out rather than relying on just APT Focus Aid. Thanks, as ever, for any thoughts
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I spent the full night out last night and got 6 hours of Ha lights on the Bubble and the Horsehead. Reasonably pleased with the results, but even though I followed my usual process and got good focus statistics in APT, I am slightly out of focus with roundy stars and some are even slightly donutty. Samples are attached below. Problem: - After getting close to spot-on focus, the APT Bahtinov Aid showed a focus distance oscillating from -0.02 to +0.02. Seeing seemed good to the inexpert eye. Not so sure about transparency as there was some thin, wispy cloud throughout the night. So, I started the night's imaging with focus 'Close' rather than 'On' focus. - Different subs show different quality stars, ranging from small donuts to circles. Background information: - HEQ5 Pro Rowan; SW Esprit 80 with field flattener, SW stock manual Crayford focuser; ZWO EFW Mini; Baader 1.25" 3.5nm Ha filter; ZWO ASI1600MM Pro binned 1x1 @ -20c. - AA Starwave 50mm guidescope with ZWO ASI290mm Mini guidecam binned 2x2. - All subs are 300s, gain 139, offset 10. - Polar alignment with Sharpcap to 17 arcsec ("Excellent"); capture with APT; guiding with Phd2. Focus with Bahtinov mask and APT Bahtinov Aid. Stacked in DSS with Darks, Flats and Dark Flats. - Mount is well balanced in RA, but is very camera-heavy in Dec. - PHD2 guiding was around 2"/px. Imaging pixel scale is 1.9"/px. Questions: - Do I put the round stars down to seeing, given that the Bahtinov Aid focus distance was bouncing equally above and below zero? - Can poor seeing cause the donut stars? - Would an electronic auto-focuser do any better in this situation? - Would the Seeing Monitor in Sharpcap give useful information? I didn't think to use it last night. - Could my guiding performance, and possibly the Dec balance, have affected the image quality in this way? - What are my options in future - abandon imaging for the night? Bin all images in software 2x2 or 4x4 to sharpen the stars at the expense of lower resolution? - Other suggestions? Sample 1: Detail from a single 5-min sub of Bubble nebula at 100% showing round stars, and a blurred bubble. Sample 2: Detail from a different sub of the Bubble nebula at 400% showing donuts Sample 3: Detail from a 5-min sub of the Horsehead nebula at 100%, showing both round and donut stars Finally, both images stacked, calibrated and stretched, scaled to 4x4 in Gimp. 28x300s Ha on bubble, 22*300s Ha on horsehead.
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After some trial and error I'm getting some very good guiding results with PHD2 now. 60mm guidescope and ASI290MM mini camera. The M42 image taken late March was 12 x 15 second exposures taken manually with my dslr / C8 and a stopwatch. Stacked in DSS and played with a bit in GIMP. On the night I couldn't get APT to register the camera - turned out to be the mini USB cable (although later trials point to the socket in the camera being a bit loose too). Bought an iOPTRON iPOLAR that arrived on Friday and had a play with that which has resulted in near perfect polar alignment. 2 star alignment and an additional 2 calibration stars on my Advanced GT mount means I'm getting very accurate GOTOs now and PHD2 (through the ST4 port on the ASI camera) seems to be guiding very well. Last night after more cable faffing I managed to get everything working together to the point where I felt confident enough to leave it running by itself for an hour and a half (45 minutes of 180 second exposures plus 3 minutes each exposure to save the file - I've since found out I shouldn't have noise reduction switched on in the camera - DOH!) so M51 is 15 x 180 second @ ISO 800 lights and 5 x 180 second darks. A little manipulation in GIMP and I think it's come out very well. Obviously still have a lot to learn and I'm going to have to start taking much longer exposures but I'm quite pleased with these 2 pictures. Graeme.
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Hello, So I thought I would share some screen shots of my XP SP3 Virtual Machine that I have setup for Astro Imaging. The nice thing about putting all the software into a Virtual Machine is that I can move it about between different laptops. VMware also allows you to remotely connect and disconnect USB sockets, which is hand when you want to restart a usb camera. Lastly I can put the VM to sleep and start it up so as to keep everything as is. Some screen shots of the different aspects of the VM with a custom red theme. EQMOD, Astro Tortilla, PHD2 EQMOD, Stellarium (Stellarium Scope to control EQMOD) EQMOD, APT (Focus aid and other tools) Hope you take some inspiration
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Hi All, For what has seemed like forever, the clouds finally parted late last night and the Orion constellation was very clear from my balcony. I had a brief window of opportunity earlier this week and had difficulty focusing on stars at all using my DSLR (Canon 450D) and APT. Last night was a breakthrough; I was able to capture starlight in APT liveview and even bring the stars into (significantly better) focus! I now face my next challenge; I am unable to focus sharply on any of the stars. Using my telescopes focusing wheel I seem to get only blurry spots of light coming through, despite very carefully adjusting the wheel for quite some time. At the risk of embarrassing myself, I've attached the images of Rigel and Betelgeuse I captured last night (on both long and short exposures, details of ISO and exposure are detailed in the image titles). This is as sharp as I can them. Is there anyway I can fine tune the focus? I've seen AP videos on Youtube where jam jar lids have been glued to the focus wheel or motorized focusers attached. Are these gimmicky or do they make a significant difference? I should mention that I don't yet have a tracking mount: I've eyed the Skywatcher AZ-GTI wi-fi as good candidate for my first meaningful mount (with the EQ wedge coming shortly after). Having emailed a number of retailers it seems these are in very short supply, here's hoping stock replenishes post-Christmas! I think this will let me get to grips with the equipment I have right now, definitely would like to get a sharper image, even if I'm only capturing star trails. to capture the images shown below I used: - Celestron 100AZ (100mm Aperture, 660mm focal length) - Canon 450d - Barlow lens x2 (Celestron) - APT (connected DSLR directly to laptop via USB) - Stock Celestron Alt-Az Mount All the best. Single__0049_ISO400_0s4s__20C.CR2 Single__0034_ISO1600_30s__20C.CR2 Single__0027_ISO1600_30s__20C.CR2 Single__0012_ISO1600_1s__20C.CR2 Single__0011_ISO1600_30s__20C.CR2
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Hi So, tonight was my first clear night in months. Got all set up. Went to use APT to capture images to polar align the mount, could see nothing. Just black. I don't know if it was APT playing up or if I was doing something wrong. The histogram showed data, so i moved the white / black points but still got nothing. Just grainy black. Annoys me that there is no auto stretch... Went back to the old faithful Nebulosity, and captured a preview. Stars were seen! So, seems that APT was having issues. Then the clouds rolled in. Another night bites the dust. My question is: do people use APT or something else for CCD images? I've heard good things about SGPro, but not sure. I like the sequencing / filter wheel control offered by something like APT or SGPro rather than nebulosity. What are people's thoughts? Thanks Joe
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Setting up all the software on my win10 laptop and getting things to talk to one another is a nightmare. I'm starting a new thread, so I can post all the problems I am having, one at a time, so issues don't get confused. This will also hopefully help anyone coming to similar situations later, as the problems and answers will not be interlaced. First issue: APT does not detect ZWO camera. I have got the camera (ZWO) drivers installed and sharpcap can see it and will connect to it properly. However, when I try to connect the camera in APT, the only CCD options it gives me are SBIG (which it isn't), QSI (which it isn't) and ASCOM. Now it shouldn't need to use an ascom driver, because the proper driver is installed, but I give it a go anyway, and this just offers me 2 simulators and 3 QHY cameras (I have one qhy driver installed for the guidecam .... I'll get to that later!). I have disconnected both the filterwheel and guide camera from the camera hub, so they cannot be interefering with the process. I am at a total loss ... any suggestions? Thanks.
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Hi, I am at the moment trying to set up "Dithering" on my APT. I am presently using a Canon 600D, with Orion ED80 Refractor, mounted on my NEQ6PRO. Please note, I have not yet progressed to Guiding - NO GUIDING Do I basically select "APT Dithering" and maybe leave all the other settings at Default? Most grateful if anyone can let be know which settings I might need to adjust, and to what values. Finding it all a little bit confusing ! Many Thanks Steve
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Currently setting up a pi4 with indigosky which will be run via APT , running win10 and the the latest APT Beta release 3.75.2 , now I can connect to indigosky server via browser , but I can’t connect via APT indigo control panel throws up an error can’t connect to indigo or indi server server address is default Indigosky , server port 7624 , on pressing navigate server error says dns address can’t be found , has anyone been successful in connecting to indigosky via APT running win10.
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I had wanted to get plate solving working in APT , after getting a bit puzzled by it downloading both plate solving applications ASPS -all sky plate solver and platesolver2, finally deleted PS2 and managed to configure ASPS and solve an image posted on APT forum ,so in theory this is ready to use within APT ,i found this article on APT forum which you may find useful if you fancy giving it a try http://astropetros.eu/wp/?p=669 just tried solving an image i had ,didn`t have correct path for ASPS so sorted that ,retried and success it solved .
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Hi there, So I've finally gotten round to setting up APT and Sterallium (via ASCOM) on my laptop for controlling my mount EQM 35 pro. (I got PHD2 working on it a while back). I followed a tutorial on youtbe about doing this using simulators in Sterallium, when doing this pressing control + 1 on the keyboard moves the simulated telescope and everything seems to update in ATP and work fine. The (small) problem I'm having is when i successful connect my own mount in Sterallium (after doing the same in APT) I click on an area and then press the short cut Ctrl + 1, nothing happens, my yellow telescope icon doesn't move to the location, but when I do it in APT, sterallium obviously updates to show the new position. Any idea why the short cut in Sterallium isn't working when connected to my mount? Cheers, Mark
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Hey Guys, I run a Youtube Channel and as part of that I like to live stream the telescope. But the problem is lack of consistency. Equipment: Orion EON 110, Meade 10" SCT Orion Mount - Exos2-PMC. Meade Mount 'push to' alt az with clockwork drive APT, SharpCap, PHD2, Stellarium, ASCOM Hub Focal Lengths Orion 660mm, Guide Scopes 188mm, SCT 2500mm Powered USB for ZWO cameras (120 and 294) Here is what happens: Cameras, sometimes work, sometimes don't. I am not making the mistake of trying to get APT and SharpCap to view the same camera. I used APT for the guide scope and SharpCap for the main tube and the 294. Sometimes APT will take an image, sometimes it will do live view, sometimes both, sometimes neither. It is very distracting to the stream to spend an HOUR turning the computer off and on, plugging, unplugging and replugging the cameras just to get them to image. When I do get an image it plate solves at the NCP, but if you move away, setting the coordinates to the scope position or the object I am looking at, it doesn't consistently plate solve. Sometimes it does, sometimes not. It is completely irregular and can change within a session. Not all three plate solving means even work, for blind solve, ASTAP never seems to work, either in point craft or locally stand alone PS2 and ASPS work intermittently, as above I did download all the catalogs and they are in the default directories. This is very frustrating and I was wondering if anyone else is having this issue or has suggestions. Bob
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How can I set up APT so that it always connects by default to my imaging camera? I have an irritating problem that APT will regularly connect to my guide camera, even though that camera is already connected in Phd2. I have created two APT shortcuts on the desktop, one specifying camera 2 (which usually is the guidecam) and the other specifying camera 1 (which is usually the imaging camera), but it looks like cameras 1 and 2 are not absolutely assigned to the ASI1600mm (imaging) and ASI290MC (guiding). At APT startup, in the log it will say 'Connected to ASI1600mm' and then imediately say 'sensor size 5.6mmx3.2mm'. Then I know I have a problem as it's obviously not the 1600! I can usually sort it out by disconnecting, Shift-Connecting (to get the camera selection dialog), and selecting cameras 1 and 2 until I get the correct sensor size. There must be a better way?
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Having upgraded from canon 1000D to Nikon D5300 how do users of the 5300 find it for Astro I will be using with APT , and how do you take flats as I can’t use Av mode as there is nothing in tools menu to choose no lens , do you use in manual mode and look at histogram ? .
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Hi all, i am experiencing the strangest behaviour between APT and my Canon EOS 550D: When running a plan, the software takes the pause as the exposure (not the exoposure). In the example i'm adding, I would receive 3 pictures whith 3 seconds exposure each instead of 10,20 and 30 secs exposure. Restarts of both camera and Windows did not help. Other functionality (like liveview) is behaving normally. Long exp. control is "virtual". Connection is via USB (only). All help would be appreciated! (SOLVED-see below)
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Startools 1.8 is currently under development, Ivo is currently working a Narrowband Accent" module for duo band users , initial image Ivo has posted certainly looks interesting https://forum.startools.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2225&start=10 Ivo also working on a new deconvolution algorithm so some good things for Startools users to look forward too .
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Hi Everyone, I have been trying to connect my QHY FW2 to APT and even though it establishes connection, I am unable to rotate the wheel with the software. No clue whats happening. The wheel is powered, connected to CCD and APT. But nothing after that. Someone please help
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Hi all, Can anyone please point me to a clear and complete set of instructions for both setting up and using the MGEN-II autoguider with Astro Photography Tool. I need to start right from the beginning. Many thanks Martyn
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I have got a problem with my QHY5L-ii. (1) It works with Sharpcap - so it cannot be the hardware or connections per se. (2) When I try to run PERecorder I get a black screen and the 'configure' button tries to configure my main ZWO camera (which is not connected). Previously it was automatically connecting to the camera in the laptop, which I have now disabled in Device Manager. (3) When I tried to run it in APT, it was not recognized. I discovered I needed an ASCOM driver so downloaded and installed both (capture and guide) from this page (V0141). Now the camera is recognized and appears to work, except that no image is captured [nothing covering front of camera!]. I have followed through the instructions on this page, and (except for the camera selection not being IC8300 - it is "QHY5LII-C-6117d81029b92212") everything goes fine until I click 'start', when it starts going through the motions (on the log screen), but nothing is produced. The preview screen is on(fit) and I have also checked the saved files (which are blank). As both APT & PERecorder are ASCOM-related, my guess is that, if I can cure either (2) or (3) above, the other will be cured as well. And I would also guess that more people are using this camera on a regular basis with APT than PERecorder. Therefore, if there is anyone who uses this camera on APT, who can offer any pointers as to where I may be going wrong, I would be most grateful. Thanks.
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Hello guys and girls, these are the first adventures of a new CCD user. I hope you'll have a bit to laugh i bought a used QHY8 from a fellow stargazer. It arrived yesterday. It was missing the documentation (but in the documentation was not part of the deal, so that's okay). After quite a while I got everything running (the Camara needs two power sources). As the weather was good for the first time in years, I immediately set up in my garden at 11 PM. First I was struck by a faulty USB cable - it took me about an hour and a half to isolate the problem as it was not constantly failing but intermittantly freezing the software and/or windows. But after that, i was able to shoot a few short moon sequences with APT. However, the result was less than optimal. I was getting pesky little black squares. I suspected something with debayering and asked APT's Ivo and the qhyccd forum for help. Ivo answered within about 30 mins, and after 2 or 3 messages everything was clear: the debayering settings in APT refer only to the display within APT, not to the saved images ! (I hear the more experienced SGLers ROFLing) After some updates and mouseclicks, i got nice little stacked images of the full moon. The next problem was the cooling: the unit cooled very well when connected straight to a power source, but with the QHY power converter in-between the cooling was mediocre (guessing from the outside temp of the casing). Also, the unit stubbornly said it was running at 25C, but the pictures were ok (yes, i know, moon pics dont have to worry about SNR, but still, they were ok, some test darks at 30 secs were also very ok). Well, to cut a long story short: the QHY8 does not have a temp sensor!!! Its supposed to cool straight away at max power. APT (and other software) is somehow getting wrong temp values. Finally, i used the QHY power converter for the sony chip and a second power supply for the cooling. The finding: the cooling via the QHY power converter was much weaker- even the fan went at a little lower rotation speed. Running through the second power supply, the unit cooled great. Possibly one of the cables was mistakenly sent instead of the original one- it looks suspiciously thin for a cable that is supposed to be transferring 36 watts at 12 volt. So, after several hours of silently swearing, everything works! Yay!!! PS: the suspiciously thin 36 watts cable (the cross diameter of the plug is 2.5mm):
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Hello, Just got a new (secondhand) EOS 6D and decided that the area around Pleiades is very good test The first light was ruined by clouds (no surprises here) but last weekend was way better. Clear sky, no wind, temperature around -13C... So here is my image named "Ice and Fire" Very busy part of the sky between the famous Pleiades and California. Details in short: 6D (unmodified), 51x180s, ISO 2000, 10 sky flats, no darks, Samyang 85mm at f/4, EM-200, no guiding, APT dithering (direct mount control), APT, PI.
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I've been trying to image a couple of galaxies per night, one pre and one post flip. On early Saturday morning at 1:30am I changed over to M82, and acquired 63 x 3 mins subs, OSC, totalling 3 hours and 9 minutes of data. Camera: ZWO 2600MC at -10 deg C, gain 100, offset 50 Telescope: Skywatcher 250PX (blue tube), 1200mm F4.7 Mount: Mesu e200 Guiding: ZWO OAGv2, 290MM, PHD2 Filters: None Software: APT for capture, APP and PS for processing I havent really had a chance to get much use out of this camera since I bought it in December, and I havent processed many OSC images before. I've a bit of work to do, but still very happy with the quality of the data for just 3 hours of integration time. I would like to add some Ha to this, but purposely didnt bother during the recent clear spell, as it was moonless nights and I gathered some broadband data on other targets instead. CC welcome. Adam
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