My evening of Woe!

[Ant]

Right, this evening didn't have any idea's of getting a great image or anything. Just wanted to get things set up a little better and have a practise.

The plan was to find a guide star with the guide scope, then use the cross hairs in K3 to manually guide on... Then take an image through the 300D, but with the remote capture feature.

Need to do a little practise with this as nothing went right.

I spent a while polar aligning, and although not drift aligned I felt that I had made a pretty good job of it!

Then found a nice bright star (deneb) in the guide scope and then attached the TOucam - could I get the damn thing to focus? Not a hope. After about 30 - 40 minutes gave up. All I can assume is that the FOV is small with the toucam and my estimate of what was central in the EP was wrong... Could have used a higher power up with a barlow - but that has only just occured to me!

So next up thought that I should be able to push 1 minute unguided, maybe even try for 2 minutes and see what happened. Then realised that laptop didn't have the canon drivers installed or the remote capture program. So sat and installed them (wished I hadn't), I was then able to connect to the camera - but the remote capture wouldnt work. It kept coming up with the message capture cancelled by the camera! - any idea's what that means? Tried turning everything off, reconnecting etc etc

So gave up with that as well.

Then went back to the good old fashioned IR remote and watch to time the exposures. Did a 1 minutes and the image was quite badly trailed (far worse than last night), so left it for a bit and tried again and exactly the same thing happened.

So I'm going to have to start from the ground up. See if I can see what is going on.

Anyone have any words of wisdom?

Ant

[russ]

Anyone have any words of wisdom?

Give up :D

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Nil illigitimatum carborundum mate.

In a way its good that poo happens when its not getting dark enough for serious stuff (unless its Eagle Neb. time ) but just getting it wrong is practise. You can think about what went wrong and get your head round why it went wrong and what needs to be sorted, so its kind of good that way.

A lot of stuff can be tested during daylight and because I have the luxury of a shed, I can test stuff with the lid on. Testing is the biggest thing with imaging as its kind of - failure, failure, failure, worked, same again, same again, same again, bored now so I'll try something else, failure, failure, worked, same again, same again, etc.

You might look at Rog. (I've picked on him because he gets the results and posts all the details, I do the same but don't own up to the fact ) and notice the "same setup as before" bit and just dismiss that. It's not because Rog. is idle, it's because it worked. Changing setups is a step into the unknown with imaging, and if you are guiding its a whole new set of things to get right.

I'd call it an incomplete sucess and wait until next time.

Captain Chaos

[Triskellion]

Just a thought but have you got the settings on the camera set to pc connection? im sure you have but thats all i can think of if the camera is denying access. Its in one of the main menus. If its any conselation im having the same problems at moment. If i set up my cam and pc in the lounge and set it to do say 10 long exposures automatically with dslrfocus it works a treat. If i set it up outside on the scope all nicely focused etc then it just wont do anything longer than 30s. its really starting to p me off now. Just gotta keep pluggin away though mate and all the trouble will make it more worth the trouble when it comes right.

Good luck

andy

[MartinB]

Sorry to hear about that Ant. It all sounds horribly familiar and best to be philosophical as KK suggests but not easy. Can't advise re DSLR but as for the guidescope and the toucam - were you using a diagonal. You might not have enough focus travel without.

[Ant]

I think that part of the problem is that I have no finder, so I cannot be sure that the star was actually in the FOV - it should have been but without having the focus point known or the position of the star I could have been there all night.

My next plan is to get the scope out during the evening and get a rough focus point by using the furthest thing I can find. This although not perfect should be close enough to at least show a out of focus circle on K3.

The Dslr thing I will get working, I've had it working before no worries, but before I had DSLRFocus, now for some reason it isn't installed!!!

Andy, I don't recall having to set the 300D to PC connect - although that may well have been the issue. I'll have to go throigh the menu's tonight and see what I find. I think it might be more to do with the fact that I had it set for IR REMOTE - when I was actually controlling it by USB! Doh... Thats only just occured to me. Boy will I be annoyed if thats the problem . If I have any good idea's I'll share them...

Martin, I tried it with the extension tube that comes with the scope, without the extension tube, with both the extension tube and diagonal. Without both. I know it comes to focus I've imaged (not very well) both venus and Saturn thorugh the scope.

Cheers for the comments - except Russ's of course Think he just wants the ED80 back

Ant

[Helen]

Once read 'there is no failure only feedback' I think there are a few of us going through a 'lots of feedback' stage at the moment!

Helen

[Ant]

Oh yeah, I've got enough "feedback" for all of us at the moment!

Just installed Polarfinder (a program that shows you where polaris needs to be in your polar scope) thats the tracking issue sorted .

Looks like I made a school boy error, still not sure how as I don't feel that I'm stupid... but polaris appears to have been around 2 degree's out. Thats almost a releif!

So just to connect the camera and get webcam to focus in the guide scope and I'll be a happy chappy.

Ant

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

I suspect that you'll need quite a bright star to get an image with a Toucam if your guide 'scope is very slow. Mine's f/8 and thats quite challenging. I aim it by using an EP (Actually I've got three to choose from!) in the guide 'scope to centre the star before putting the webcam in there. Usually its quite a tedious job getting the guide star to show up, but I've learnt not to try "moving about a bit" to find it as that is counterproductive.

Using a very bright star (usually the alignment star) first gets the webcam focused, then I have to not quite put the EP in so as not to lose the webcam focus position. Very fiddly, but its easier to focus a 20mm Plossl than a webcam just for centreing the guide star.

Captain Chaos

[Ant]

OK then, lets start again with a question...

How easy / hard is it going to be getting a guide star with a 80mm F/11?

The answer is going influence my purchasing over the next few days...

Ant

[russ]

Have you not got a cruddy old 5mm plossl with a really restricted FOV. If it's centered in that, it will be in the Toucam. Bung a parfocal ring on the 5mm too and you should be sorted everytime.

Or am I missing the point?

Regards

Russ

[Ant]

I'm sure that given enough practise and , as you say russ, a higher enough power EP, I can get a star onto the chip...If I can get a planet on there then a star should be no problem.

If CC is correct and he has a challange with a F/8, having a F/11 should be really fun! bearing in mind that the Toucam is not modified. How bright would the star need to be to get it onto the laptop screen. The quality of the image is unimportant, being able to see it is important.

Ant

[GazOC]

I'd guess a cheap Atik focal reducer might help?

[Ant]

As this is goign to be manually guided by muggins here, I wanted the extra FL.

Ant

[GazOC]

Guess you'll have to do it the 'old fashioned' way?

[Ant]

what illuminate reticle and sitting in uncomfortable position...?

I think not.

It'll be get the best polar alignment I can and limit the exposures to just below the trailing thresh hold.

Ant

[daz]

Welcome back to the joys of imaging!!

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Wish I could help work out what an f/11 'scope and Toucam can manage, but it doesn't get dark and I don't know the names of most of the stars. I go for stuff about Mag. 4 at a guess, might be Mag. 6 even.

Kaptain Klevtsov