New Scope, no improvement! Help?

[richaddis]

3 hours ago, michael.h.f.wilkinson said:

Here are four images taken with a webcam (which should be a step up from a phone camera), through my Celestron C8 (the older (20 years) 8" brother of your 6SE). The brown cast in the first two was through lack of IR filter

 

Here are three more recent ones taken with an ASI120MC through the same scope:

The upgrade of a camera can certainly help, and an SCT is certainly a decent planetary imaging scope. Seeing was awesome in the latter Mars and Jupiter shots

 

Wow, the ASI120MC made a huge difference! Amazing images. 

 

Well guys I decided to retire the iPhone, bite the bullet and buy the ASI120MC. I guess I can return it if I'm unhappy with the results. The wife doesn't really have to know, right?

 

Thanks so much for all the advice, I'll post the results here...hopefully they'll be worth posting!

3 hours ago, rockystar said:

I notice you are in the Wirral, there are a couple of astronomy groups over that way, Chester Astro for example meet in Delamere Forest. Maybe try and get to a meeting? I find that most amateur astronomers are very keen and willing to impart their knowledge & wisdom and willing to share equipment.

I'll look into that thanks! Would be ace to meet some other fellow Astrophotographers!

[johnfosteruk]

Good decision. With regards to processing install wine on your Mac. You will then be able to run Windows software. Wine is free so nothing to upset the wife there

[MarkVIIIMarc]

I second, third or fourth the phone camera part. For terrestial photography my 4 year old 10010102mp (I forget exaxtly) Galaxy Note II is NOT as good of a camera as this 4mp Cannon my wife has or a few real cameras. 

Now the dedicated cameras don't play Madden Mobile as well as my phone.. ..

[richaddis]

18 hours ago, johnfosteruk said:

Good decision. With regards to processing install wine on your Mac. You will then be able to run Windows software. Wine is free so nothing to upset the wife there

Running through the insane set of Terminal commands to install Wine as we speak. I'll give Registax and AutoStakkert a go if I manage to get them up and running!

 

2 hours ago, MarkVIIIMarc said:

I second, third or fourth the phone camera part. For terrestial photography my 4 year old 10010102mp (I forget exaxtly) Galaxy Note II is NOT as good of a camera as this 4mp Cannon my wife has or a few real cameras. 

Now the dedicated cameras don't play Madden Mobile as well as my phone.. ..

It's nice to be able to use your phone. Simplistic set up...just the scope, eyepiece, phone and you. 

 

It's going to be a more complex setup when I have the Mac outside with me too and I'm trying to guide the scope referring to a separate monitor but I'm up for the challenge!

[LukeSkywatcher]

Glad you decided to ditch the phone for imaging (although i think your images are really pretty good considering). The problem isnt the scope, its everything else that is happening when you take images (phone,local weather conditions etc). There can be so many things that will conspire against you and mess up an image.

I'd like to know how you feel the scope compares "visually" against the other scope as there is not a lot of difference between a 5" and a 6" scope in aperture. I went from a 5" scope up to an 8SE and the improvement in image when looking through the scope was vast. I cant see it being so different between both your scopes.

[johnfosteruk]

1 hour ago, richaddis said:

Running through the insane set of Terminal commands to install Wine as we speak. I'll give Registax and AutoStakkert a go if I manage to get them up and running!

Is that with home brew? It's bonkers isn't it

[richaddis]

2 hours ago, johnfosteruk said:

Is that with home brew? It's bonkers isn't it

Yes! No idea why someone can't just develop software that does all of this automatically!

[johnfosteruk]

to be fair once it's installed it's a breeze, it just works. You may need to install some runtime libraries for the astro tools. Use winetricks for this, it's part of the Wine build you're installing.

Also, if you're launching from command line it'll pay to set up some alias commands, I use Oh-My-Zsh which has a ton of other useful features if you're a regular terminal user.

[richaddis]

10 hours ago, johnfosteruk said:

to be fair once it's installed it's a breeze, it just works. You may need to install some runtime libraries for the astro tools. Use winetricks for this, it's part of the Wine build you're installing.

Also, if you're launching from command line it'll pay to set up some alias commands, I use Oh-My-Zsh which has a ton of other useful features if you're a regular terminal user.

Actually I'm not a regular terminal user and although I've managed to load Registax and AutoStakkert, I can't seem to load and video files into them... They just don't load, nothing happens! I also have the problem that once I've run the setup executables, I don't know what the file name is installed as so I can't relaunch the app without running the installer again! Where do they store? I can't find the "Program Files" folder.

 

Beginning to think that this Wine business may be a bit too complex for me.

 

Have you used Lynkeos? Is it any good?...

[johnfosteruk]

16 minutes ago, richaddis said:

Have you used Lynkeos? Is it any good?...

I struggled to get good results with it. 

You should find your wine apps in ~/.wine/drive_c, which is why I suggest setting up aliases to save typing long commands every time. I'll do you up a guide tonight if you want. 

[richaddis]

4 minutes ago, johnfosteruk said:

I struggled to get good results with it. 

You should find your wine apps in ~/.wine/drive_c, which is why I suggest setting up aliases to save typing long commands every time. I'll do you up a guide tonight if you want. 

Thanks man, I appreciate the offer but I don't know whether I'll be able to even load the content into either of the softwares because right now, it's not working and I can't figure out why!

[richaddis]

Has anyone managed to use the ASI120MC with a Mac? Oacapture is the buggiest software I have ever experienced and there doesn't seem to be any other Mac Webcam software that recognises the camera!

[CraigT82]

3 hours ago, richaddis said:

Has anyone managed to use the ASI120MC with a Mac? Oacapture is the buggiest software I have ever experienced and there doesn't seem to be any other Mac Webcam software that recognises the camera!

Lots of people on this forum are using that camera on a Mac successfully with oacapture.

I think it's already been pointed out that the issues you're having can be caused by using a usb2 camera in a usb3 port on the MB air. Have you checked your ports?

Repeateadly posting the same thing in different threads slagging off the free software isn't going to win you any friends here, especially as the author of oacapture is a regular of the forum and has repeatedly tried to help you with your issues. 

 

[richaddis]

1 hour ago, CraigT82 said:

Lots of people on this forum are using that camera on a Mac successfully with oacapture.

I think it's already been pointed out that the issues you're having can be caused by using a usb2 camera in a usb3 port on the MB air. Have you checked your ports?

Repeateadly posting the same thing in different threads slagging off the free software isn't going to win you any friends here, especially as the author of oacapture is a regular of the forum and has repeatedly tried to help you with your issues. 

 

I have checked my ports yes. I have a MacBook Pro 2012 with USB 2 ports and I have purchased an ASI120MC USB 2 camera. 

 

I wasnt aware at the point of posting this that the developer or oaCapture was a member of this forum, I apologise to him for insulting his application, he has been very helpful since in trying to help me fix my problem. 

 

The reason I posted this twice was because I posted it here and then realised that it should've been posted in the Software Forum so I reposted. 

 

I'm sorry if I offended you somehow. Just trying to find out if anyone was experiencing the same problem as me and if anyone knew a fix.

[CraigT82]

39 minutes ago, richaddis said:

I have checked my ports yes. I have a MacBook Pro 2012 with USB 2 ports and I have purchased an ASI120MC USB 2 camera. 

 

I wasnt aware at the point of posting this that the developer or oaCapture was a member of this forum, I apologise to him for insulting his application, he has been very helpful since in trying to help me fix my problem. 

 

The reason I posted this twice was because I posted it here and then realised that it should've been posted in the Software Forum so I reposted. 

 

I'm sorry if I offended you somehow. Just trying to find out if anyone was experiencing the same problem as me and if anyone knew a fix.

Sorry...No offence taken by me.Can't speak for the author of oacapture though!! No really  I'm sure with his help you'll be able to get the new camera working properly.

Just a thought, are you able to revert back to Yosemite with time machine back ups? Maybe give that a try if you can.

The only other thing I can think of is to keep an eye out on for cheap netbooks, I picked up a little Lenovo 2in1 tablet for next to nothing The owner said it had slowed down so much it was unusable and wanted rid of it so I took it and reinstalled Windows.  I have sharpcap on it which runs my camera at 60fps on Jupiter plus I can also use it with other free Windows programs like PIPP, Autostakkert and registax, though it does take a while to work through big videos. Best thing is now I don't have to take my MacBook outside to get all dewed up! 

 

[richaddis]

2 hours ago, CraigT82 said:

Sorry...No offence taken by me.Can't speak for the author of oacapture though!! No really  I'm sure with his help you'll be able to get the new camera working properly.

Just a thought, are you able to revert back to Yosemite with time machine back ups? Maybe give that a try if you can.

The only other thing I can think of is to keep an eye out on for cheap netbooks, I picked up a little Lenovo 2in1 tablet for next to nothing The owner said it had slowed down so much it was unusable and wanted rid of it so I took it and reinstalled Windows.  I have sharpcap on it which runs my camera at 60fps on Jupiter plus I can also use it with other free Windows programs like PIPP, Autostakkert and registax, though it does take a while to work through big videos. Best thing is now I don't have to take my MacBook outside to get all dewed up! 

 

I'm really reluctant to use Windows for any of my Astrophotography as I've had such bad experiences before! I do know that that hinders me though as the majority of the software is developed for Windows.

James has been trying to help me with the problem and he says he's experienced it before. Hopefully we can get to the bottom of it so that I don't have to send the camera back!

i don't think that restoring an old time machine backup will bring back Yosemite...I don't think it's that easy to downgrade OS. I think it'll just restore the backup over El Capitan.

Maybe the graphics card in my Mac is too old?...

[mak90fan]

What a fantastic array of images, Mars has to be favourite! Well done!