Guiding a DSLR with EQMOD

[DarkKnight]

Tonight I tried to capture M42 with my Nikon D800 mounted on my upgraded EQ6, using Helicon Remote to view the camera's Live View screen on my mobile phone.

Total waste of time. Glad it only cost me the price of an OTG lead. Too small to see anything big enough to focus on. Glad I've got real short hair as it resisted my attempts to tear out handfuls of it.

OK, Plan 'G', or is it 'H' ????

Let me say at this point that I'm not a cheapskate, just not flash with cash, being retired, and am saving for a 130PDS and a guide scope, which is months away.

In the meantime I'd like to take some photos.

First up I realise I need a laptop, and I'm looking at several S/H units tomorrow. I can then tether my camera to the laptop, zoom in to my hearts content, and have something on the screen big enough to focus the camera on.

I can then use SynScan to guide the mount, or possibly even EQMOD.

So my proposed scenario is to do a 2/3 star alignment (nil visibility to the South Celestial Pole) with SynScan, or whatever EQMOD offers, and I'm assuming I can connect all the components together.

I'm way out of my depth here so any help would be greatly appreciated.

[kens]

Hi Kev, be prepared for more hair pulling

So you've got a good mount and a DSLR camera. I assume you set up the camera only on the mount, which is a great way to start. A 200mm lens will give some nice pics.

To focus you can try just setting at infinity, maybe check in daylight. But a laptop makes life easier. Other ways to focus are to use the moon but you should use a bright star and zoom right in on it (which is where the laptop can help). In due course you might use a Bahtinov mask to focus.

You need to get a reasonable polar alignment at first. As you go up in focal length and exposure duration it will need to get better. Start with the Synscan polar alignment function and iterate till you are making small adjustments on the knobs. 

You'll need to experiment a bit to see how long exposures you can take without star trails. You'll do better near the pole. I'd suggest eta Carinae as a great wide field target. M42 is near the equator so any issues with tracking are at their worst.

Once you know how long an exposure you can take, fire off a series of them and stack in Deep Sky Stacker.

Personally, I think its best to start at short focal lengths and get each bit (focus, polar alignment, expsoure etc...) "near enough" to at least get some pics. Then look at the results and tweak whichever bit needs fixing most. Astrophotography is pretty much a game of perpetual tweaking. And each thing that can be tweaked invariably results in some hair pulling moments.

 

[Atreta]

hi,  

i am too in southern hemisphere and find very annoying to polar align.  i recommend using the darv method,  it helps a lot.  here is a link explaining how to do it : http://www.cloudynights.com/page/articles/cat/articles/darv-drift-alignment-by-robert-vice-r2760

ps: for capturing software i like and use apt, astrophotography tool made by yodda. 

 

clear skies. 

[DarkKnight]

Cheers Ken,

I was actually using a Nikon 300mm f4 with a 1.4 T/C, but it didn't matter what was mounted because I couldn't see through the camera viewfinder, or see the Live View screen, because the blinking tripod legs were in the way, stopping me from getting a half decent look at either. I actually got a shot of the 'Saucepan' with some red showing in the Nebula, but it was way, way OOF. I can't do a polar alignment as I'm blocked to the south so hence the alternative 2 star alignment. If that isn't up to scratch I'll try a drift alignment.

Anyway today I bit the bullet, so to speak, and bought a cheap laptop (Gawd, how do people live with them on a day to day basis, slow as a wet week) and also acquired a tethering program, so I now have a 14" screen to use for focus instead of the tiny little screen the mobile phone offered me.

I've only recently returned home from a trip to the Local    to see my footy team get rolled, so I think I'll postpone any serious testing till tomorrow night.

Thank you for taking the time to comment, and I'm sure I'll have many more frustrating moments.

PS: And I've bought a Bahtinov mask.

[DarkKnight]

14 hours ago, Atreta said:

hi,  

i am too in southern hemisphere and find very annoying to polar align.  i recommend using the darv method,  it helps a lot.  here is a link explaining how to do it : http://www.cloudynights.com/page/articles/cat/articles/darv-drift-alignment-by-robert-vice-r2760

ps: for capturing software i like and use apt, astrophotography tool made by yodda. 

 

clear skies. 

Thanks Frank.

That link looks rather interesting.

[brrttpaul]

Backyard Nikon is good

[DarkKnight]

18 hours ago, brrttpaul said:

Backyard Nikon is good

I'm trying TetherPro tonight.

I'll see how it goes.

[Waldemar]

19 hours ago, DarkKnight said:

 

Anyway today I bit the bullet, so to speak, and bought a cheap laptop (Gawd, how do people live with them on a day to day basis, slow as a wet week)

That is why it is slow... I started out with a cheap slow laptop as well, frustrated the hell out of me.

Now I use a laptop with an i7 processor and I build in a solid state hard drive. Fast as an incredibly clear night...

[Starlight 1]

11 minutes ago, Waldemar said:

That is why it is slow... I started out with a cheap slow laptop as well, frustrated the hell out of me.

Now I use a laptop with an i7 processor and I build in a solid state hard drive. Fast as an incredibly clear night...

Old windows 7 or xp work ok as it do not take a lot just to run programs. here the but? to start puting all the the images in a program like DSS them the power from a hight end laptop

works best with i7 processor and SSHD 64mb ect .

[DarkKnight]

22 hours ago, Starlight 1 said:

Old windows 7 or xp work ok as it do not take a lot just to run programs. here the but? to start puting all the the images in a program like DSS them the power from a hight end laptop

works best with i7 processor and SSHD 64mb ect .

I bought the laptop purely to run a tethering program. I'll look at increasing it's memory from 2Gb to 4/8Gb and also replace the 5400rpm drive with a SSD.

All my image processing is done on my desktop.

[DarkKnight]

Well I swapped the 2GB RAM stick for an 8GB one, fitted a 120GB SSD and did a clean install of W10.

Wow, what a difference. Loaded CC CS6 to see how it ran and it's not all that much slower than my desktop.

And W10 without all the Toshiba bloatware fires up in about 15secs.

All in all a productive exercise at about 1/2 the price for the same performance from a ready made unit.