Guiding conversion project for 200p and EQ5

[Quatermass]

Using a standard 2x barlow for this one. And heres my M101

[badgers]

Hi badgers, have you tried the Xbox live cam, I don't know how it would compare to a QC4000, but at only £5 on amazon it would be worth a go. There is some info on here for modding them and I think Gina has tried it for guiding.

Thanks for the tip, and yes I definitely thought about it.

Actually the quick cam pro 4000 has a pretty good sensor, and considering I found it lying in a drawer its not half bad.

The dark frames and turning on 2x2 averaging or 3x3 median noise reduction in PHD looks very promising already on some tests tonight.

Just need some stars to point it at now!

I drove home via the countryside from work today, I've sussed out a couple of dark rural spots for some imaging nights when the weather improves.

Not sure how likely I am to be arrested/stabbed/shot though. You guys done any imaging in the countryside ?

[badgers]

Using a standard 2x barlow for this one. And heres my M101

That's lovely QM.

I didn't know you could do imaging like that with a Barlow, doesn't that dramatically push up how long the exposures should be ?

Edited March 5, 2012 by badgers

[Quatermass]

That's lovely QM.

I didn't know you could do imaging like that with a Barlow, doesn't that dramatically push up how long the exposures should be ?

Sorry bit confusing the way I put that I meant I used the barlow for the planets and camera for M101.

I have often been out in the fields around where I live to find a nice dark site where I could image a galaxy or the milky way. One word of warning its can get pretty creepy late at night and you may get a few monkjacks small deer creeping up on you. They did that to me the last time I was standing in a field in the middle of nowhere and scared the life out of me, take a big powerful torch with you and baseball bat just in case.

[pixueto]

Hi guys! Here I am testing PHD with my webcam in the main scope first. Seems to be guiding but the graph looks like the Alpes. Any suggestions from you guys with the same setup?

[Quatermass]

Hi Pix

You will need to practise a bit with the setting a few night so see what works for you. Taking darks helps as did reducing the RA aggressiveness down to 55 and getting a sharp star or sometimes a slightly blobby one.

Here was my graph when I got it working..

[RikM]

Hi guys! Here I am testing PHD with my webcam in the main scope first. Seems to be guiding but the graph looks like the Alpes. Any suggestions from you guys with the same setup?

So long as your stars are round, forget about the graph.

[themos]

So long as your stars are round, forget about the graph.

Is that right? How about if my stars are round but bigger than they should be?

[RikM]

Is that right? How about if my stars are round but bigger than they should be?

Fair point but I have not seen that with my images. If the seeing is good, I can have quite a lumpy graph and small tight stars or conversely a flat graph on a poor night and star are all spikey rather than smooth. Other than when it throws a tantrum and guides the scope into the floor, I haven't seen a correlation between a flat graph an a sharp image. Other things always seem to have more of an effect.

Of course I could well be wrong and I'll happily be corrected but that's the way it's seemed to me.

Edited March 11, 2012 by RikM

[themos]

I think it's hopeless to try and work out correlation between the FWHM on the long exposure and qualitative features of the guiding graph. Maybe worth collecting some numbers such as RMS guiding error though... sounds like a difficult discipline

[pixueto]

Do you think that the fact that I was using it with the 8'' main scope can have an effect on the smoothnes of the graph? Can't wait to start using it with the finder and see if the stars come up round in the picture once I take photos.

[Quatermass]

The best advice I guess is to heed what those who have been using phd for a long time have said, if Rik is saying the graph is not that important so long as your stars are ok then I would go with that as he has been using phd far longer then any of us.

[pixueto]

Thanks for your your help guys. I'm waiting for a stellavue f50 finder which takes eyepieces. If I can get the webcam to focus with that I'll let you know if the stars are OK despite that graph.

[Quatermass]

Look forward to seeing how you get on Pix

[pixueto]

First of all congratulations on your new scope QM. I'm so jealous!

Well, I got the Stellavue F50 (straight through version) yesterday. I managed to get focus with the barlow 2X and the webcam pointing to a building about 200m away. However it was foggy and I couldn't really test it on a real star or planet. I used it with an ultima 2X and Tal 3X barlow with 25mm and 10mm eyepieces pointing to buildings and the finder took it! I'm well impressed with this little one. It's a bit heavier than my SW finder but not much. The webcam didn't reach focus as I expected (I didn't buy the adapter they sell for that) but it did confortably with the barlow so hopefully I can get focus and start guiding the next clear night.

Edited March 13, 2012 by pixueto

[Quatermass]

Hi Pix glad to hear your finder scope arrived and is working well for you, I got another 10x50 finder scope with the ed80 so I can fully convert the spare one to full time guider scope now as well. I think we will both find that a webcam will be ok for guiding when we have good clear skies and good stars to pick from but getting those fainter stars may prove harder with out a QHY5 camera.

Its great having new stuff to play with but it sucks when your all excited to try it out and the sky is one big sheet of cloud every night Sigh.. Hoping like you to get some clear skies soon. Next purchase for my ed 80 is the focal reducer to make it a faster imaging scope. As the year goes by I would like to keep refining my set up until I end up with what is ideal, all takes time.

Looking forward to seeing your results when we do get a clear spell.

[pel]

Hi gents ,

Just got the motors for my SW 200p. They are brilliant and I got some half decent pictures of Jupiter, Mars and Venus in average conditions.

I'll be getting the guiding interfaces soon and have already picked out a toilet roll :-)

I've got a question though. The motors don't move the scope very quickly, does it take a while to get from one target to another after selecting in PHD or am I not getting it?

[themos]

PHD? PHD does not do slewing from target to target, only guiding, I thought...

[pel]

Oh ok, so it just tracks essentially?

Edit - I think I need to read up on guiding :-)

Edited March 14, 2012 by pel

[themos]

not even that, it just corrects the tracking.

[pel]

Thanks Themos

[Quatermass]

Congrats on getting the motors all starting to come together for you now mate If you download the gpusp controller from shoestrings download section you can use that to move your mount with its better then phds manual guiding buttons but your motors move quite slowly. I use my finderscope to centre the target then with phd running the webcam I use the shoe string gpusb software to move my mount works well.

Sent from my GT-S5670 using Tapatalk

[pixueto]

I'm so depressed! Tonight I was trying my new autoguiding setup. The stellavue finder pointing towards Alnitak, with the webcam and 2X barlow. PHD found the star and started guiding (the RA graph was very smooth but the Dec one was all over the place). I decided to take a 4 minute sub and see what would come up. I stopped PHD while focusing the camera with the bahtinov but then the hand controller started flashing. It would't guide and the controls wouldn't respond. I started worrying that I might have done something wrong when I modded the controller. Then, it dawn to me that maybe I was running out of batteries.... the computer was next to me and....yes, I did plug the 12V jack in the 6V handset. I fried the chip in the controller. I'm so depressed and I feel so stupid. I'm going to bed.

[Quatermass]

Oh Man Pix that is such a downer after all that work feel so sorry for you mate..

Are you sure its fried mybe it ok if you test it out again.. if not mybe some kind person on the forum has got a second hand controller they can sort you out with. Chin up mate these things happen to us all from time to time many people on the forums have shared horrific accidents and only a few weeks ago another chap had his laptop stolen. Take a look at it after a break and see if its fried but most importantly dont give up you have come this far and done well to get where you are now. Hope you get it sorted soon all the best and rooting for you mate.

QM

[pixueto]

Thank you very much for your words of encouragement QM. I opened the hand controller and it is dead indeed. Did some research and looked for a spare one in the internet. It appears that you can only buy the hole thing; also found some requests from people wanting a controller so chances are that it will be difficult to get a second hand one so I think I'll have to spend £92 on a new one!

There is something still worrying me. When the controller started flashing and it wouldn't track...do you think that's down to the batteries? I had only been using them for a couple of weeks! Before I used TESCO alkaline ones that lasted for ages. The ones I was using yesterday were normal TESCO ones but if that was the problem they run out very quickly. Does guiding uses up a lot of power? On the other hand, I am wondering if the guiding thing made the controller mad.