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Atik 414EX First light

Marky1973

By Marky1973
in Discussions - Cameras

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Marky1973

Marky1973

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Well, I did finally get my 414EX spacings all correct and have been waiting (patiently) for a clear night. And Lo, here one comes... so I thought I'd christen the little red fellow. 

Typically things didn't quite go to plan and I did have some fun and games getting ARTEMIS to recognise the camera on a couple of occasions, but it got there in the end.

I did spend a long time setting up the tripod and mount as I was pretty sure accurate alignment was going to be necessary to be able to use the SYNSCAN alignment routines. Being used to a DSLR chip, i was going to be missing a bit of FOV for finding my alignment stars. And I wasn't wrong. Fun and games ensued trying to match what I was seeing in ARTEMis with Stellarium. But I did get there and managed to test the camera out on the IRIS Nebula with PHD2 guiding in the background - I was going to try ARTEMIS for guiding, but I don't think I had the right drivers, so left that for tonight. Probably not the best first target, but it was easy to find and its getting late!

This is a 10 minute sub, guided - just a test, but glad at how it came out for a first go!

Capture_001.png

and I did a cheeky 3 minute unguided sub of M92

Capture_003.png

 

A few hours in the cold for a couple of subs... not an auspicious start, but a good chance to get to know the camera and ARTEMIS..... and realise that I am now probably going to have to go "FULL ASCOM" - I have avoided it up to now as "complicated" but I suspect Plate Solving is going to make target-finding a lot easier with a small CCD chip, so that is the next plan. Time to read up on ASTROTORTILLA - presuming it will work okay with ARTEMIS?

The main thing is, it works and the images look very promising - when one sub contains almost as much "image" as a number of stacked images from a DSLR, I know things can only get better! One day,I might even get to use my RGB filters as well!

Actually, the next plan is to go to bed to warm up as PHD is yelling at me now, so I suspect I have started to dew up! Didn't even get around to putting the dew shields on tonight, so surprised it didn't happen earlier.

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Marky1973

Marky1973

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3 hours ago, james_screech said:

If you want a plate solving solution to finding a target I use APT's Goto++ feature with my 414ex, works great, I only need to do a one star alignment on my AVX mount now.

 

James

Hi James, is that the POINTCRAFT update that was delivered for APT last year - in the GEAR menu? Think I'll be onto FLO for an EQMOD cable soon.... :-)

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Marky1973

Marky1973

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2 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

Lots of dusty signal for 10 minutes.

I'm going to assume that's a "good" thing... ;-)

Actually, I am fairly fanatical about that myself, Olly, ever since I read something, somewhere when I got my ZWO for guiding... so always in the same USB ports - I am now paranoid and can't use different ports for fear of everything crumbling around me! I think my problem might have been trying to run APT when ARTEMIS wasn't properly disconnected!

I am sure I will get there, I'm just not the most patient person (yeah, I know - poor choice of hobby!) and get frustrated easily when plans are scuppered at the first hurdle. Then I go through that period of thinking I'm not cut out for this and want to sell everything... and then I get an image, and, even at 3am, in freezing temperatures, I'm ready to get out there again. Even small steps are better than none!

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james_screech

james_screech

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21 hours ago, Marky1973 said:

Hi James, is that the POINTCRAFT update that was delivered for APT last year - in the GEAR menu? Think I'll be onto FLO for an EQMOD cable soon.... :-)

Yes that's the one, it uses one of two external applications to do the plate solving and with the Goto++ after a one star align I usually get to within 50 pixels of the target co-ordinates in two iterations of the goto, image, plate solve, sync cycle. In fact the best I've done is a 3 pixel error in two cycles where a pixel is 3.17" 

 

James

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Marky1973

Marky1973

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Cheers James - sounds like a plan... even if it doesn't much sense to me at the moment... but then I'm the kinda guy that needs to try things in the flesh before I can figure them out! Guess I'm off to order a EQMOD cable!

 

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carastro

carastro

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 I think my problem might have been trying to run APT when ARTEMIS wasn't properly disconnected!

Yes I think that would do it!!  Seem to recall trying to do that myself once.  

Regarding FOV, are you using the ST80 and ZWO for guiding?  I changed at one point to a finder guider and the FOV is much larger and it really helps with FOV and alignment if you don't want to go down the plate solving route just yet.  Not sure if the ZW0 is suitable for a finderscope though, as I have never actually seen one.

Anyway, congratulations on your first light. 

Carole 

 

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Marky1973

Marky1973

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Thanks Carole - yep ZWO and ST80 for guiding - most of the time it works fine, but I have contemplated a finder/guider set-up. The ZWO has a removable nosepiece, so I am sure it would be doable in some sort of configuration. 

Just ordered the EQMOD cable and will look forward to trying that out later in the week. There is always something else to try ! :-) Just trying to stop myself buying a Herschel Wedge for next Monday! :-)

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Uranium235

Uranium235

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Looks like youve got it cracked, also glad to see my old 80ED still doing the business :)

But personally, I really dont think eqmod is essential to get you set up quickly. All thats needed is a quick squint through an RDF or finderscope for the first alignment star, after that everything else falls into place pretty quickly. No need for plate solving, to return to the same spot the next night - just store the current location in the user objects in the handset and use the markers function in Artemis.

You will be glad of the simplicity of it when youre in the middle of a dark field (where things often dont go to plan)... while all around you are fiddling with their software - you would be up and running in a matter of minutes. The simpler you make it, the less there is to go wrong.

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carastro

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But personally, I really dont think eqmod is essential to get you set up quickly. All thats needed is a quick squint through an RDF or finderscope for the first alignment star, after that everything else falls into place pretty quickly. No need for plate solving, to return to the same spot the next night - just store the current location in the user objects in the handset and use the markers function in Artemis.

You will be glad of the simplicity of it when youre in the middle of a dark field (where things often dont go to plan)... while all around you are fiddling with their software - you would be up and running in a matter of minutes. The simpler you make it, the less there is to go wrong.

Man after my own heart.  

Carole 

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Marky1973

Marky1973

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7 hours ago, iwols said:

hey mark glad to see your reaching your goal,is the filter wheel going to get a run out soon:happy6:,im still at the mono/filter colour camera crossroads

Hope to get out tonight and start proper run on a target - a bit restricted in the back garden, but it is easier to manage out there while learning the ropes, so might start with M92 Cluster (or M13 - depending on the angle) and start off with an hour each of LRGB - might need to spread it over a couple of nights as I am knackered tonight! And then just figure out how to process it in PIXINSIGHT- used it for Galaxies so far, so I am sure there are some other "bits" to learn - so back over to Harry's site.

You know you wanna go mono  - are you thinking of a "bigger" CCD to go with the ZWO? 

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Marky1973

Marky1973

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3 hours ago, carastro said:

Man after my own heart.  

Carole 

And he does make sense.... to be honest, without a motorised filter wheel or the right gubbins to connect my focuser to EQMOD, I'm probably not ready for full automation yet, so will stick with the tried and tested methods for now!

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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21 hours ago, Uranium235 said:

Looks like youve got it cracked, also glad to see my old 80ED still doing the business :)

But personally, I really dont think eqmod is essential to get you set up quickly. All thats needed is a quick squint through an RDF or finderscope for the first alignment star, after that everything else falls into place pretty quickly. No need for plate solving, to return to the same spot the next night - just store the current location in the user objects in the handset and use the markers function in Artemis.

You will be glad of the simplicity of it when youre in the middle of a dark field (where things often dont go to plan)... while all around you are fiddling with their software - you would be up and running in a matter of minutes. The simpler you make it, the less there is to go wrong.

A man after my own heart. So many faff-filled software solutions to problems which don't exist if you don't use software to solve them...

Olly

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Uranium235

Uranium235

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Heh heh ;)  you know it makes sense :D

Speaking of which, its lovely and clear out there tonight.... last one to set up and get guiding buys the beers...lol!

Going to try (try being the operative word!) something a bit different tonight, I got the new version of stellarium a couple of weeks ago and it now lists all the LBN and LDN nebulas (along with a load of others... vdb, sharpless etc) so Im going to have a crack at one.... possible fail incoming!

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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2 hours ago, Marky1973 said:

:icon_biggrin:

I'm getting old...

And I'm also up early tomorrow unfortunately...

But looks like a couple more clear nights this week, so fingers crossed.... I will get out eventually!

I've GOT old...

 

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iwols

iwols

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On 4/30/2016 at 14:06, Marky1973 said:

I'm going to assume that's a "good" thing... ;-)

Actually, I am fairly fanatical about that myself, Olly, ever since I read something, somewhere when I got my ZWO for guiding... so always in the same USB ports - I am now paranoid and can't use different ports for fear of everything crumbling around me! I think my problem might have been trying to run APT when ARTEMIS wasn't properly disconnected!

I am sure I will get there, I'm just not the most patient person (yeah, I know - poor choice of hobby!) and get frustrated easily when plans are scuppered at the first hurdle. Then I go through that period of thinking I'm not cut out for this and want to sell everything... and then I get an image, and, even at 3am, in freezing temperatures, I'm ready to get out there again. Even small steps are better than none!

i had the highlited night last night

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