Need help with my step by step instructions please

[ianpwilliams]

During my session, would it be ok for me to switch off the mount and rest my scope on my toolbox (ensuring that the camera and focuser did not move), and then take my flats and darks? That would make holding the laptop in place a lot easier, and I could also then start putting my tripod and mount away during my Darks.

[carastro]

Yes, you don't need the mount running to do darks and flats.  I'd suggest do your flats with the mount in the home position as the scope will be fairly upright. the flats will only take a minute or two.  Then you can remove the camera, put the cap on the end and do the darks with the camera sitting somewhere safe while you de-rig.

Carole 

[ianpwilliams]

Yes, you don't need the mount running to do darks and flats. I'd suggest do your flats with the mount in the home position as the scope will be fairly upright. the flats will only take a minute or two. Then you can remove the camera, put the cap on the end and do the darks with the camera sitting somewhere safe while you de-rig.

Carole

I was kind of hoping to for the flats with the scope on the toolbox, as holding the laptop to the scope is tricky when it's high up, especially for 4 minutes (50 Flats, 5-second intervals, roughly 4 minutes). But I would have to brought careful not to move the camera and focuser then. Maybe I need some kind of 12v-powered light box like you have that I can just put on the end

[D4N]

Sometimes I take my scope off the mount for flats, my focuser locks so it's not going to move.

TSED70Q, iOptron Smart EQ pro, ASI-120MM, Finepix S5 pro.

[ianpwilliams]

This is my flats arrangement:

I bought an EL panel and put it inside a shallow box. I did actually also put a sheet of opaque perspex over it to keep it rigid.

I cut a hole the size of my aperture in the lid

This is it mounted on the scope.

I can add sheets of paper to dim the light inside the box.

It's cardboard but I keep it in a plastic bag and indoors so the damp doesn;t affect it.

I actually use this now for CCD camera imaging, previously with my permanent set up I used to use a DSLR and sky flats.

Looking back that doesn't look too complicated, and it would be great to be able to take Flats more easily. Do you have any links to any of the stuff you used?

Also, I read online somewhere that it's best to keep the scope pointed at the target object when taking the flats, presumably because it means nothing's moved, and the orientation of the scope is the same, which sounds sensible.

[D4N]

In theory yeh but if you have been imaging it for six hours it's slewed right across the sky and done a meridian flip in that time anyway.

I'm sure the mirror flip on a DSLR does more to bounce dust on the sensor than moving the scope carefully.

TSED70Q, iOptron Smart EQ pro, ASI-120MM, Finepix S5 pro.

[Mick J]

You can look at these panels/posts

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/218434-heads-upvery-cost-effective-led-dimmable-flat-screen-panel/?hl=%2Bhuion#entry2345341

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/223215-dslr-flat-frames-light-box/?hl=%2Bhuion#entry2402085

I am sure there are others options, these may be helpful. 

[ianpwilliams]

Interesting. £20 is better than £60! Will do some research.

[ianpwilliams]

My upgraded HEQ5 Alt bolts arrived today. Presumably I need to grease them up somehow, but with what, and how?

Also, is it possible to get upgraded Az bolts?

[Thalestris24]

My upgraded HEQ5 Alt bolts arrived today. Presumably I need to grease them up somehow, but with what, and how?

Also, is it possible to get upgraded Az bolts?

You shouldn't need any grease. Yes you can get Az bolts too - if you need them.

Louise

[carastro]

Most people I know either return their mount to park, or position the telescope so it is pointing to the zenith to take their flats.

I used Earlsmann El panels for my flats panel.  The bigger they are the more expensive they get.  I think I paid somewhere in the £60 mark for an A5.  They were very helpful and put a cigarette lighter plug on the end and made the cable at the length I requested.

The box was just a stationery box I had lying around.  When I made one for my newtonian, i used a pizza box and that worked well.

Carole

[D4N]

I have to commend the recycling but does it still smell of pizza?

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[carastro]

No it wasn't greasy.  I got the idea from some-one else who had done the same thing.

Carole

[ianpwilliams]

Well that was an "interesting" session.

My target was the Pleides. I'm confident that my polar alignment by eye was spot on (in fact weirdly the small circle was already in the right place based on PolarFinder - I didn't have to rotate the RA at all), but then when doing various 2-star and 3-star alignments, sometimes the star was slightly out, sometimes it was way out, and sometimes I had no clue what I was looking at.

Eventually I managed to target the Pleides with GOTO, and I even managed to get a 90-second sub with no star trails. I then attempted to get cocky and go for 120 seconds. But then the clouds rolled in. The FLO weather website and all the other websites I checked had said totally clear skies from 8pm onwards, but from what must have been 7:30pm-8:30pm it was blanket cloud.

So I waited around for a while, eventually it cleared, but then something was out on the polar alignment, so I tried various alignment stars again, then back to the Pleides, and all of a sudden I couldn't do more than 30 seconds without star trails.

So I ended up taking twenty 30-second Lights, about 20 Flats, and maybe 10 Darks (I have a library of Bias now for each ISO, so I can use all 201 of them). I'm not expecting much to be honest, but I just hope I managed to salvage something from the session. But boy that was tough. I was out there for so much longer than I planned, and I'm frozen!

[ianpwilliams]

...and now I'm back checking weather forecasts again

But of course I have more questions...

1 - As far as I can tell, the camera remote I bought (a third party one, but a good reliable one) doesn't seem to get the inverval length right. I set it to 20 seconds, but I'm sure it wasn't that long. But the sub length was correct. Has anyone else had this?

2 - "3.Choose stars for 2-star alignment. a)Choose 2 stars on the SAME side of the meridian as your imaging target. E.g., at this time of year for the East choose from Capella, Aldebaran, Alpheratz or Dubhe or for the West choose from Vega, Altair and Deneb. Delta RA should be 3 to 9 hours, Delta Dec should be 10 to 30 deg" - What is Delta RA and Delta Dec? Is this what Stellarium will display them as?

3 - "4.Choose stars for 3-star alignment" - should these be on BOTH sides of the meridian? Should they be different to the stars for the 2 star alignment?

4 - The power setup on my mount is REALLY fragile (it's no wonder that it kept resetting in past sessions). As discussed it's the cigar connector part. The slightest movement sets it off, despite me taping the connectors to hold them in place. Does anyone have any links for alternatives?

5 - Looking at my polar alignment steps:

4.Line up Polaris perfectly on the central cross hairs using the Alt Az bolts
5.Move Polaris up in the polar scope by turning the Alt bolts. Polaris should now be on the edge of the large circle, and directly above the cross hairs
6.Rotate through RA until the smaller Polaris target circle is directly over Polaris at 12 position
7.Use a polar finder program to find out what Polaris position is in
8.Rotate through RA using the setting circle to position the smaller target circle where Polaris should be and lock your clutch[
9.Use the Alt Az bolts to position Polaris in the small target circle

Are steps 5/6/8 actually required? At the very least I surely don't need step 6?

6 - I've seen pictures of people's mounts online where their SynScan handset slides neatly into a nice little holder on the tripod leg. Does anyone know where I can somethine like this? I could really do with two actually - one for the handset, and one for the camera remote.

7 - "2.Repeat step 2 until Mel Maz error is less than 30 arc seconds (SynScan should tell you what the Mel Maz error after each 2-star alignment)" - should the two stars be different each time? In which case I would want to have multiple pairs of stars ready?
 

[ianpwilliams]

Here is my Pleiades effort, if anyone would like to have a play around with it. I don't know why but my stacked TIFF is a lot less impressive than a single sub, even though it's an unmodified DSS stack. Maybe there might have been an issue with the flats/darks/bias? I did check the histogram for the Flats, and they seemed fine to me. Or maybe the stack is fine and just needs the data bringing out. Either way, 30 seconds didn't give me much to play with really. But I will be getting back out there and trying again as soon as possible. 60 seconds is a bare minimum. Beautiful stars though.

One sub:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/o27wk0njbau9moe/IMG_1355.CR2?dl=0

And the stacked TIFF:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5l4xei40qntspn4/DSS%20TIFF.TIF?dl=0

[carastro]

I think many of your problems will be eradicated if you could get mains power outside and a laptop to capture images.

Polar alignment, I don;t think steps 4,5,6 are necessary.  

6. just put some self adhesive velcro onto the tripod and handset etc.

Never heard of Mel Maz.

This is your Pleiades image.  Processed in photoshop.  It would benefit from longer subs, but obviously until you have guiding working this is not an option.

Looks very good for length of subs.

Not quite sure what is going on around Electra.  

[ianpwilliams]

Great, thanks for that, a big improvement!

I'm not sure what was happening around Electra either. I though maybe there could be dew somewhere.

The other thing I've noticed about processed Pleiades images is that washout effect around dome of the stars. I always thought that that was going on in post processing, or is that actually there?

I'll be at my dad's place at some point over Christmas, and he has Lightroom, so I'll be playing around with all of my stacks while I'm there.

[Mick J]

That looks good to me, a long way from a couple of weeks ago, you must be pleased and have a idea of where you are and where you need to go next, did you notice this post http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/231470-m45too-soft-and-how-to-get-that-faint-nebulosity-out/  must be warmer in Gujarat but unguided etc.

Well done Ian and Carole for the processing.

[ianpwilliams]

Thanks, although i can't take any credit for the processing, only the legwork of getting the data. But hopefully a new computer and Pixinsight will solve that.

And I'm even more pleased with my Pleaides having looked at that link. He had much more data than me (30 x 3 mins versus my 21 x 30 seconds), and yet my one isn't miles short of his, in my opinion anyway. Of course that just makes me wonder what it would have been like had I been able to do 60 or 90 seconds! But I suppose that's astronomy for you, endlessly striving to improve on what you've got, both in terms of images and equipment!

[ianpwilliams]

Not sure if I'd trust Velcro on Velcro as it would be tough to pull the handset/remote from the tripod leg. Might be worth doing for the battery though. For the handset/remote it would be good if I could Velcro a couple of pouches to the legs which they could slot into, but it's tricky finding ones that are the right size.

[ianpwilliams]

1 - As far as I can tell, the camera remote I bought (a third party one, but a good reliable one) doesn't seem to get the inverval length right. I set it to 20 seconds, but I'm sure it wasn't that long. But the sub length was correct. Has anyone else had this?

2 - "4.Choose stars for 3-star alignment" - should these be on BOTH sides of the meridian? Should they be different to the stars for the 2 star alignment?

3 - The power setup on my mount is REALLY fragile (it's no wonder that it kept resetting in past sessions). As discussed it's the cigar connector part. The slightest movement sets it off, despite me taping the connectors to hold them in place. Does anyone have any links for alternatives?

4 - "2.Repeat step 2 until Mal Maz error is less than 30 arc seconds (SynScan should tell you what the Mel Maz error is after each 2-star alignment)" - should the two stars be different each time? In which case would I want to have multiple pairs of stars ready?

Can anyone help with the rest of these questions?

[Owmuchonomy]

Can anyone help with the rest of these questions?

Well, are you using the method in my original post No 9? There seems to be some superfluous steps in your process now. Also are you using the Handset polar alignment or something else?

[D4N]

1. Normally the interval is from the start of the exposure not the end. Hence if you set 10s exposure with 20s interval there will be 10s between exposures.

2. 3 star alignment being the goto alignment and 2 star being the polar alignment? They don't need to be the same stars, I normally just choose something close to where I will be using the scope.

3. Sounds bad, I'm sure Maplin will have something.

4. It's the same stars and the mount will offer suggestions.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Tinker1947]

1. Normally the interval is from the start of the exposure not the end. Hence if you set 10s exposure with 20s interval there will be 10s between exposures.

2. 3 star alignment being the goto alignment and 2 star being the polar alignment? They don't need to be the same stars, I normally just choose something close to where I will be using the scope.

3. Sounds bad, I'm sure Maplin will have something.

4. It's the same stars and the mount will offer suggestions.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

item 1. with a interval meter set to 10 for exposure and 20 for interval, the interval doesn't start until the exposure has finished, total time 30 seconds....i have 3 of these meters and they all work this way.....