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Showing results for tags 'focus'.
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apt Achieving focus with ASI462CC
Adaaam75 posted a topic in Getting Started Equipment Help and Advice
Friends, I am struggling to understand why the camera view of my ASI462 on the laptop whilst trying to achieve focus using a Batinov mask on APT is extremely laggy (the image updates once every 15 seconds) rendering it impossible to achieve focus. The laptop is new and powerful, the APT software is up to date (the camera might not be but should that matter?), and when I plug the camera directly into the laptop it gives me a view a live view without lag! Please provide me with the obvious noob answer as it will help me get the desired focus for lunar and planetary imaging. Unless there is another way that you can recommend? Clear skies. -
Hello. I own a 250pds (1200fl (f4.7)) and an Asi 485mc (2.9um pixels) and for some reason I cant get it to focus. I am collimated with a laser and the atmosphere was not too bad. I also have enough room with the focuser to move it past proper focus and far out. Though I still cant get the image to look sharp. I get that I am a little oversampled but the stars are huge and the object is fuzzy. The scope was also properly thermally acclimated so I really can’t think of anything that could be causing this. Thanks!
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Hello. I’m looking for suggestions please. I bought an artificial star so that I could collimate my Celestron 8 Edge HD in comfort during the day. I have a pretty long garden and set up my scope at one end and initially a bright target light on a step ladder at the other to get everything lined up. This was about 120’ away from the scope. I got tantalisingly close to focus, but it would simply not rack out any further. Sadly, I can’t increase the distance between scope and target. Is there anything else I can practically do to make this work please? TIA. Image train: 8 Edge HD > 0.7 Reducer > ASI 533MC EDIT: sorted now thanks. Just ordered an Ocal Colimator.
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Hi, been trying a few times to image with a Coronado PST and cannot get focus. With the ZWO 224MC I tried printing a "low profile nosepiece" found on the internet and that didn't work - the camera looks like it needs to go further into the eyepiece holder - some people have managed to get it to work I don't know how. So I modelled another low profile nosepiece which has a 4mm depth groove around the bottom of the nosepiece face so it can sink into the Coronado eyepiece holder 4mm more - nope still no focus. People have suggested unscrewing the lens part of a barlow out and using that with the camera nosepiece, tried a 2x Meade telenegative and a generic 5x - nope makes it worse. So today I tried a DSLR connected to a t nosepiece extension tube and ran into the same issues. I don't know how people are managing to image with this scope - I know it's not designed to be imaged with but it is something I wish to do considering others have managed it. On another note, how clear is surface detail visually on a PST, I can manage to see sunspots but no light/dark granular structure, with the focus ring dialled all the way to the left I can see prominances, sunspots with the ring dialled more to the right though most of the time its all a red blur - checked the ITF and that's clear (it's the newer type PST). -
Having searched for a while I managed to acquire the legendary Pentax Asahi SMC Takumar 6 element 135mm f2.5 m42 lens to use for wide-ish images, I've also got a 200mm f4 to try. I'm using it with a modded Canon 600D. I'm wondering if there is a way to improve the infinity focus, the below was shot at roughly f5.5 with the 135mm to reduce star bloat (around a 10 image stack of 30s each, no calibration frames), but the focus is still off despite the lens being at it's infinity focus stop with the focusing ring. It could be the m42 to ef adaptor I have maybe too thick/thin (though I don't really see how much thinner/thicker it can be to make a difference), the lens is fully home against the front face of the ring and the ring is fully connected to the DSLR body. Any suggestions or is this the best I can expect from such an old and wide-ish lens? The image has been level stretched around 3 times, and the red channel brought down in line with the green and blue.
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Hi, Sorry if i havent posted in the right place. I am a newbie. I have setup my scope, fixed the back focus so there is travel either way. I can get reasonable focus including using a bahtinov mask. The issue I have is when I zoom in on the camera screen - it does not appear to be in focus. Is this normal? Thanks in advance
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Hi all! Since there is cloudy outside I tried getting a photo of a false star, i.e. a led-lamp that I put behind some alumina foils with a needle point in the foils. Distance is 7 meters. I cannot get anything resemling a star, I just see the secondary mirror holder in (or not in) focus... My equipment follows below... Here are some photos of parts that I have, but I have no clue how to assemble them to get focus. At one point I managed to get pritty decent focus on stars the other night, but I have no memory of how I did 😃 If you could help a lost soul figuring this pussle out I owe you a beer or three! The distances below are approximate in mm, disregarding the "mounting joint screw-thing".. Thank you! Peter W If you This is my equipment: Orion Mount Atlas EQ-G Orion 10'' Newton Astrograph Orion AccuFocus Electronic Telescope Focuser Orion LaserMate Deluxe II Telescope Laser Collimator Orion Collimating Telescope Eyepiece Orion 2" 2x Barlow Lens 6mm Orion Expanse Telescope Eyepiece 12.5mm Orion Sirius Plossl Telescope Eyepiece Orion 2" to 1.25" Precision Centering Adapter Baader MPCC Mark III Multi-Purpose Coma Corrector SBIG STF-8300 SBIG Filter Wheel FW-8 Baader filter 36mm LRGB Set Baader filter 36mm H-alpha Baader filter 36mm O III Baader filter 36mm S-II Baader filter 36mm UV/IR-Cut/L 2" Orion SkyGlow Astrophotography Filter Orion Magnificent Mini Deluxe AutoGuider Package
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Hi All, new user here and proud new owner of an RC6 telescope Im am trying for a couple of days to get the new scope working correctly and I think I’m close. My biggest issue is collimating, witch I managed to get close yesterday while looking at a defocused star. My problem is that I can see a “shadow” of the secondary mirror in my images even though I have good focus. Can someone help me Figur this out? i also added o picture of my focus on a bright star and a picture where the spider veins of the secondary are visible. Thanks for the support and clear skies!
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Last night started off so clear (an unexpected according to CO) so managed to drag the rig out onto the patio. Nebula targets that are above houses and trees are few and far between at moment for me but ad a go at Horsehead initially then Heart. But I was not happy with the images I was getting and a close look showed the focus was not precise, in fact far from it. So using the auto focuser in EKOS I tried tuning it in. But each time I tried it failed. I did look on line for suggested parameters and that was not too useful as there were suggestions to use just about every combination possible. Now, maybe there is a wide range of parameters being used and which you find best may depend on camera and FL of the scope setup, I think I do not understand the mechanism of auto focusing enough, I sort of assumed it just moved the focusser in and out to get the star it had chosen as small as it would go. One thing I did find is that even after trying many different parameters already suggested as the best on-line if the stars had halos due to being a fair way out of focus it never achieved focus at all and basically I ended up manually focusing inwards for a while to see if the image got better, then if not move it outwards, until the stars were pretty much in focus and then an auto focus did pretty well and got the stars pin point. So is that what other people find ? Is that pretty normal for most auto focus algorithms ? Also I thought this might be a good place for people to maybe say what parameters they use in EKOS and mention the scope and camera if that is relevant ? If there is somewhere with this info I apologize profusely 🙂 Steve -
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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I’ve just acquired the above (birthday prezzie!). It’s a nice finder, and a definite boost from the 7x30 bundled with the scope! However, I’m struggling to get anywhere near focus with my Pentax K50 on the end of it... anyone know why? There’s no focus mechanism to speak of, other than the objective lens’ mounting thread... -
Hi all, I've been dabbling for about a year and am having a lot of fun. Nothing too serious and I don't have mega expectations but I'm starting to wonder if my images could be sharper and there's something I'm missing. I'm attaching a picture which is the best 10% of a 3 minute video with 500d 'bolted' straight to the 200p f5 scope. No filters...no barlows...just camera straight on. It's sharpened and saturated after the fact so in every way this is the sharpest I can get it. I've always had the same issue whether it's with a single shot, stacks of shots, or stacked video. Views through the eyepieces (circle-T 12.5/25) are mega sharp! I'm happy that collimation is very good and it was a remarkably clear night tonight. All in all I'd be pretty happy with this image (maybe over exposed a bit...) if the craters with shadows didn't make me want to rub my eyes. Thanks in advance for any thoughts or advice!
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Hi, i just wanna share a in depth review that i made on how the Primalucelab Sesto Senso works, and how i actually runs an autofocus routine with it. you can watch the whole review on my youtube channel here:
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Hello all, I’m a newbie...that will become very apparent in the next few sentences! I have a Celestron Nexstar 130 SLT and have a desire to take up astrophotography, I started with a few reasonable shots of the moon with my iPhone and have bought a Skyris 236C with no success. I would be greatful for any tips or advise on how to focus the moon for a start, I have uploaded a couple of photos one with the iPhone and one with the Skyris taken at the same time. TIA, Tony.
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Can I reach focus with a DSLR and a focal reducer like with a barlow because my telescope does not have enough inward focus . -
Hi, I bought some Williams Optics Binoviewers. They appear very nice quality but I cannot achieve foucus with them on a 5" Celestron Newtonian, FL = 650MM fr = f5. I have not used binoviwers before today and I bought them primarily for my new telescope which hasn't arrived yet, a Celestron 9.25 CST. I wanted to try the binoviwers out on the 5" today but could not achieve focus. I also tried using the 1.5 x Barlow that came with them. Is there a reason they won't focus? Do you think they will be OK on my bigger scope? Thanks. -
Hi i own Celestron 130EQ which comes with 20mm erect EP and 10mm EP.... i bought a GSO ED 3x Barlow... The focus is not very sharp while using Barlow... Is it the EP at fault ???? Is it worth upgrading to Kelner or a Plossl ????
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Hey there! So if you have a telescope as mentioned in the title, you probably noticed that the focus wheel stops working after a bit. Well If you look under the focuser you can see a small metal piece with 4 screws on it. You need a Philips head screwdriver to unscrew these, WARNING there's a lot of superglue(which actually isn't needed at all) so wear gloves!after you've unscrewed the metal piece a small black 2 ended piece should fall out. If it didn't fall, take it out. Now place your focusing wheels back without that small piece that fell out and screw everything back in. The remaining black piece that fell out should probably be thrown away. Now just don't focus out to the max and everything should work just fine! I hope this helped(btw I'm new here so i might've butchered the terminology) *just let me know -
Hello, I'm getting desperate over this hobby (but I refuse to give up); with every change new problems set in. I purchased a SVBONY SV106 (60mm - 240mm) guide scope to replace a 80mm - 400mm scope, I was using as a guide scope which was installed on the Orion 8 tube rings. I replaced the finder scope with the guide scope. First issue balancing but that one I sorted out. Then I tried to focus the ASI120MM with the new guide scope. For the old one (80x400) , I needed 2 extensions (in fact the extensions are low cost barlows from which I removed the plastic lens) to get focus. To align the new guide scope, I used a 17mm eyepiece and that went ok while pointing at some far away trees. But I could not get the ASI120MM focused on the same trees, not with PHD2 nor with Firecapture; I turned the gain way down, but with or without extensions, no focus. As bad weather is (again) setting in and the scope is permanently outside I had to stop trying. So I take on this break to get some assistance. Anybody any advice on this, for AstroRookie -
Hi, I've got a Skywatcher Heritage 130p reflector, and if i insert anything less than 10mm eyepiece, the image won't get crisp. I guess it's normal, but as I'm very new to astronomy, I'd like to know what the sharpness depends on exactly. Is that the focal length (how fast the telescope is? ) or the size of the mirror and how much light it gathers? Or both affect it the same way? Are things the same with refractors in this regard? Thanks. -
Hi everyone! As I said few days ago in my presentation I recently got my first scope (skywatcher 127) and over the last days I tried to test It. Due to impossibility (temporary) to bring the scope in a decent location to make observations, I had to test it from home through a window (and under the sky of London - not the best at all). So i know that quality is of course affected. On the other hand, I am sure that the performances are worse than I could expect also under these conditions (maybe you will correct me) and would asks for opinions to improve. As a (mainly) planetary scope, I did not have a lot of choice: no Moon, Jupiter and Saturn out of my field of view. I pointed at Mars. First sight, I see the very big central obstruction. I played with the knob of the focus to get rid of the big black spot in the centre of my target and here you are the issues that I would like to talk about: 1) the target became very small (ok) but still was not focus (very blurry and not a lot of clues to get atleast the shape of the planet well defined - can imagine to find any detail on it ) 2) Also the colours did not convince me as no other colour than a light yellow was visible 3) Changing the eyepiece (10 instead of 25) for a magnification of 150x did not improve the situation: probably the image was even worse, more blurry with more irregular shape than before, no ability to focus at all. Differences from before : bigger (but still much smaller than expected) and very little variation in colours (I believe I saw a bit of orange). To complete, later, I tried the scope to stars: Orion costellation was visible from my place and tried to all the stars. Although still a bit blurry (the brightest stars), I had impression of more sharp view, differentiation in colour and better shape (stars almost like a dot). Moreover, to give you a final idea, Mars (at the best focus I could get) did not appear that much bigger than Betelguese. What do you think I can do to get better results? Could be a scope problem or some adjustments needed? Unfortunately I have no comparisons. Thank you, Hope I was not too long 😅 -
I acquired a second hand Coronado PST. The focus knob doesn't seem to have any effect on the image and, although it turns, it feels as if something inside the scope is "slipping". Is it worth opening up and taking a look to see the focus knob in action? Is there anywhere that services the PST without sending it outside the UK? Are there any nasty surprises if I open it up (springs, pressure points etc)?
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So my birthday just past so money to splash on astro stuff , i will have my 1000D modded by juan at cheapastrophotography and also have ordered an autofocuser from deepsky dad https://deepskydad.com/autofocuser i know they can be done DIY but this is a neat package and costs about the same as a SW autofocuser and a hitechastro focusmaster and i`m no electronic wizard and pavel seems to have a good product and works with ascom and confirmed it works with APT i will update in a few weeks time when hopefully i will have received and tried out .
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Two questions if I may. 1. Can the three screws marked by yellow arrows in the picture below be used to mount a second finder shoe on the C11 EDGE HD scope, permitting both a straight through and a right angle finder to be fitted? 2. The EDGE has field flattening optics inside; is the distance from the visual back to the chip critical, or by making adjustments to the position of the mirror to achieve focus on a chip say 250mm away from the visual back mean the field will still be flat at that distance? Thanks. James
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Hi all, Absolute newby here - my first foray into astronomy. I bought a Saxon 1400mm 6" refractor secondhand complete with a EQ mount for a bargain price and I'm keen to get it working properly for both planetary and deep space observations. I invested in a few extras such as a laser collimator and a 3x barlow. I think I have a handle on how it all works including the EQ mount. I took the scope out for a test over Easter - which just happened to coincide with a ISS transit of the full moon. Rippa, I thought, that would be great to capture on my first night of observations. The problem I have is the complete inability to focus the scope to anything like sharp enough. I have some photos I took with the scope attached: The scene with the normal camera lens for my daylight practice session A shot of a distant house with the telescope (using a Nikon D7000 on a t-mount adaptor) The same house with the barlow attached A shot of the moon- no barlow - as sharp as I could get it - certainly no way to see the silhouette of the ISS with the scope this out of focus When I was collumating the scope, I noticed a that the reflection on the primary mirror was not a single spot but rather a line ... which means that the laser on the collimator target is a line rather than a dot I confirmed that this is not a problem with the shape of the laser beam coming from the collimator by showing the shape on my hand at a distance of 14m I'm not sure if the distortion of the laser is the fault of the secondary mirror or the lens(es) in the bottom of the eyepiece mount. I'm also not sure if this distortion is what is causing the inability to focus the scope, but I suspect that both issues are symptoms of the same problem. I'd appreciate any ideas on what to do next to resolve the focus issue.
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