Installing software and setting up for imaging.

[Gina]

Well... it's all working again The mount is back on on com 3 and working fine from EQMOD ASCOM and CdC though the search for the com port still doesn't work. Not a problem, I can just set it to 3. The Atik and Lodestar cameras are working fine though the Lodestar being given the full daylight is overloaded. I can put a NB filter in the 314L+ light path and then a few thousands of a second exposure is alright.

Here is a picture of some cattle in the next field taken with the Atik 314L+ with 105mm lens @ f4 and 3nm OIII filter The hedge is actually in better focus than the cattle but I just captured the image without touching the focus (it's as it was from last night's Ha imaging).

[Gina]

The new laptop has behaved itself and has been working properly since last night. So the imaging run completed and finished about half hour after dawn exactly as planned Phew! At last!

Last night was good for imaging apart from a "one day from full" moon and I managed an all night run of the Cygnus Loop in widefield with OIII NB filter - once it had risen out of the trees etc. I only lost 2 frames to poor guiding otherwise 15m exposures were fine and guiding worked well.

Here are a couple of screenshots taken of the remote desktop in TeamViewer, one showing the imaging run proper taking 15m (900s) subs and the other after I'd been taking 5s exposures for checking focus using FWHM (I checked focus after several 15m image subs). I think the increase in FWHM on the bright star was caused by slight blooming with the long exposures.

BTW... The result of last night's imaging can be seen in the "Imaging - Deep Sky" forum.

[Gasman]

You prefer PHD for guiding Gina?. I`ve been using Astroart5, well sort of!!, the target star keeps wandering off screen I`m sure I`ve not got some parameters right but I think I`ll give PHD a shot!. I`m using the Lodestar guide camera.

Steve

[Gina]

You prefer PHD for guiding Gina?. I`ve been using Astroart5, well sort of!!, the target star keeps wandering off screen I`m sure I`ve not got some parameters right but I think I`ll give PHD a shot!. I`m using the Lodestar guide camera.

Steve

I'm used to PHD - it's what I've been using all along. I have AA5 but not decoded it yet Have to say, upgrading from QHY5 to Lodestar has made an enormous difference And the new laptop get through the Calibration phase of PHD very much faster.

[andyo]

H

Please ignore the above post as it no longer applies - finger trouble - and I can no longer edit it.

I have the USB hub plugged into the left hand side USB port and the USB-Serial EQDIR box plugged into the RHS USB port. The devices are now being recognised Here are the new USB View and Device Manager screenshots :-

Hi Gina I have just read this thread so don't know if you sorted this problem out.I had similar problems a while back and found the following helped.I don't know if you have enabled your laptop to display hidden devices doing this will make it easy to clear unused com ports and make it easier to allocate com ports for devices if you havnt this will help

To clear old com ports for windows 7, as windows xp method wont do it on 7.

To permanentely display the phantom devices in device manager first right click computer>properties>advanced system settings>advanced tab>environmental variables at the bottom. Click new and put in variable name box the following devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices then put 1 in the variable value box then ok and out.now click start right click computer>properties>device manager>view>show hidden devices then find com ports right click on each of these and uninstall restart computer and that should sort it.

Also If you unplug the device and plug it into a different usb port then it is likely a different comm port will be allocated to it,this is also the case if you swap them about on a hub.I tend to keep all my devices labelled and plugged into the same usb slot this stops new com ports being allocated and reduces the chances of com port clashes.Another thing I found useful was to click start type device into the search box then under control panel click change device installation settings and then under do you want windows to download device driver software click the no box and then the box stating install driver software from windows update if not found on my computer.

You may already have done this but if not this may help

[Gina]

Thank you Andy It's all settled down now and - so far - starts up fine each time. I still need to reboot to clear com port lockup sometimes but it reallocates the EQDIR device back to the same com port so not too much of a problem. Shouldn't need to do that really.

I've copied your instructions to Notepad and saved in my Documents folder for future reference.

[IanL]

That was the problem! Well, put it this way... I checked laptop OS time and it was wrong in spite of setting it up when I set up Windows Internet Time was set up but to the windows server which didn't work - changed it to time.nist.gov and it then worked. So that could have been why CdC sent the scope to the wrong place.

Only just caught up with this thread, but one problem with Internet Time in all variants of Windows is that it only synchronises the system clock once per week, which may not be sufficient if your laptop's clock runs a bit fast or slow. This article explains how to force the system to synchronise more frequenty:

http://www.pretentiousname.com/timesync/index.html

If you are leaving the thing switched on constantly, then the 'On a Schedule' setting is probably the way to go, and set it to sync late afternoon before you start imaging. If (like me) you start the laptop up each time out, then it is probably better to use a different setting rather that 'On a Schedule'; can't remember exactly what the option is but there is one to run a scheduled job when events occur, and one of the events is "On Startup" or similar.

[Gina]

Thank you Ian

[ncjunk]

Reading your thread brought back all those nights i thought "i'll just go and image.." and the laptop died or the usbs stopped working.

Glad it looks like it's sorted.

Sent from my GT-I9003 using Tapatalk 2

[Demonperformer]

Wow, just read this thread for the first time.

Glad you have now got it working, but it sounds like it was an horrendous job. And that in an obsy.

I am due to be purchasing an NEQ6 in a few weeks (if I can persuade Santander to let go of MY money!) and was thinking 'I only need the syntrek 'cos I will always have the laptop connected' - after reading this thread I am not so sure, as I will have to set it up every session and if it is this much of a nightmare getting it to work I will never get any imaging done!

[Gina]

It's not usually that bad - thank goodness