Getting back up and running - software from scratch

[rocketandroll]

Hi all

Well, I haven't been on SGL for about 7 months since a number of technical problems and general apathy forced me out of the hobby.

I am now settled in my new house (which I might be able to do a little imaging from the garden of, as I have a lovely summer house with mains power at the end of the garden :-) ) and keen to get back on the horse as it were...

So... I had to sell a load of my astro gear at the start of the year for financial reasons, I'm now able to buy some new gear... here's the set up as it stands and the planned purchases:

Mount: Sold my HEQ5, need something bigger to handle my Orion 8" Newt, NEQ6 is the plan unless anyone has any suggestions of a better mount for under £1K. Planning to upgrade again to something on a permanent pier in a year or two when we buy a new house which will be even more remote and can have a permanent obsy.

Scopes: My beloved Megrez72 plus the 8" F6 Newt for now.... need something inbetween the 350mm and 1.4m focal lengths of those two but again, next year maybe :-)

Guiding: ST80 and (now fixed) SX Lodestar guide camera.

Imaging: My trusty Eos 500D for now, may invest in a CCD next year.

Software: Dunno.

I want to do it properly this time.... I have the chance now to set up a more permanent imaging rig which I don't need to lug about so much... with that in mind... I am keen to get this right.

Using the above set up, and wanting to be able to computer control my imaging runs a lot more precisely (I was still 'manually' aligning the scope on targets before using the go-to function) I want to know what people's recomendations would be for software so that I can get the rig set up and polar aligned... then run everything from the computer, ie: select a target, frame the target, take test images and view them on the screen from the EOS (ie: control the camera from the computer too) and then programme a run, including parking the scope afterwards so I don't need to worry about it running itself into the mount or burning out the CCD imaging the dawn sun by accident if I leave it overnight.

What would people recomend?

Thanks all!

Ben

[Arushin]

Hi all

Well, I haven't been on SGL for about 7 months since a number of technical problems and general apathy forced me out of the hobby.

I am now settled in my new house (which I might be able to do a little imaging from the garden of, as I have a lovely summer house with mains power at the end of the garden :-) ) and keen to get back on the horse as it were...

So... I had to sell a load of my astro gear at the start of the year for financial reasons, I'm now able to buy some new gear... here's the set up as it stands and the planned purchases:

Mount: Sold my HEQ5, need something bigger to handle my Orion 8" Newt, NEQ6 is the plan unless anyone has any suggestions of a better mount for under £1K. Planning to upgrade again to something on a permanent pier in a year or two when we buy a new house which will be even more remote and can have a permanent obsy.

Scopes: My beloved Megrez72 plus the 8" F6 Newt for now.... need something inbetween the 350mm and 1.4m focal lengths of those two but again, next year maybe :-)

Guiding: ST80 and (now fixed) SX Lodestar guide camera.

Imaging: My trusty Eos 500D for now, may invest in a CCD next year.

Software: Dunno.

I want to do it properly this time.... I have the chance now to set up a more permanent imaging rig which I don't need to lug about so much... with that in mind... I am keen to get this right.

Using the above set up, and wanting to be able to computer control my imaging runs a lot more precisely (I was still 'manually' aligning the scope on targets before using the go-to function) I want to know what people's recomendations would be for software so that I can get the rig set up and polar aligned... then run everything from the computer, ie: select a target, frame the target, take test images and view them on the screen from the EOS (ie: control the camera from the computer too) and then programme a run, including parking the scope afterwards so I don't need to worry about it running itself into the mount or burning out the CCD imaging the dawn sun by accident if I leave it overnight.

What would people recomend?

Thanks all!

Ben

Hi Ben,

I have just started using the full version of Backyard EOS which I think is great. Others prefer differn software but you can give it a try for free.

Tony

[r3i]

If £1K is your budget for the mount then the NEQ6 is a very good plan. If you're always going to have a laptop available for controlling the mount you can save a few quid and get the Syntrek version, then buy an EqDir interface.

For software, how about:

1: EQMOD for the PC - Mount interface

2: Cartes du Ciel for the planetarium

3: PHD for autoguiding (assuming it works with your Lodestar - be surprised if it didn't).

4: Image capture - I use a CCD so can't comment on the software to use with your Canon, but I'm sure others will help out.

[Jessun]

PHD does work great with the Lodestar. Using PHD you can drift align too very easily I've been told. (I don't bother as I don't do long enough subs to suffer from drift).

I used APT for capture with a Canon, and loved it. http://www.ideiki.com/astro/

Cartes de Ceil keeps coming up as a great program.

An NEQ6 sounds like the best option as others have suggested. I wish I had one!

[Dipper]

Have a look at ACP software. http://acp.dc3.com/index2.html

It controls virtually anything you have in your observatory: the mount, the camera, guiding, it also connects to weather stations and can open the dome roof for you. I'm not using it myself but watching the video of the features I was impressed.

[r3i]

Have a look at ACP software. http://acp.dc3.com/index2.html

It controls virtually anything you have in your observatory: the mount, the camera, guiding, it also connects to weather stations and can open the dome roof for you. I'm not using it myself but watching the video of the features I was impressed.

Interesting, never seen that software before. However it aint cheap, the basic licence costs $695 . CdC + PHD + EQMOD = $0

[Dipper]

Yeah, the price is not a joke. At least they give you a two month time for trying it for free. Not sure if all options are bundled though.

[rocketandroll]

Thanks all

I'm in no rush, may be a month or two before I can really splash out on the NEQ6 as I have other expensive hobbies to feed in the mean-time :-)

I was previously using the HEQ5 which was awesome, but struggled with the big 8" Newt on it, I went from easy 10min exposures with my Megrez 72 on there to 1 in 3 useable 5 min exposures with the Newt... which was frustrating in the extreme.

Yep, PHD works fine with the Lodestar, that's what I was using before everything cr*pped out on me :-)

A single piece of software certainly has appeal.... I must be honest, the hour+ of pfaf setting up numerous home-made bits of software and getting all the physical appartus plugged together and aligned was what kind of put me off getting back into things this last year.... I have limited spare time but a reasonable budget so would rather 'buy my way' out of some of the hassle... if that makes sense. Being able to keep the rig largely assembled and just moving it outside at my house will certainly be a massive improvement over last year when I had to image from my work car park or other remote sites and had to assemble everything from scratch out of my car boot all the time.

Any other thoughts on 'integrated' software solutions?

I am using a DSLR at present but hope to get a high-end colour CCD next year so don't want to have to upgrade everything again.

Ben