Thoughts on which imaging rigs to concentrate on

[Gina]

Yesterday - SSD installed in my new PC, SSD partitioned with 100MB for /boot, 150GB for / and 99GB as /ssdata, OS and other software installed followed by PixInsight and TeamViewer.  Everything running fine.

[Gina]

Yesterday I installed an SSD in my new PC, SSD partitioned with 100MB for /boot, 150GB for / and 99GB as /ssdata, OS and other software installed followed by PixInsight and TeamViewer.  Everything running fine.

Edited September 6, 2016 by Gina

[Gina]

Now running BPP in PixInsight on the M31 sets of RGB subs.  Red finished and examined and it looks alright so now doing G and B.  Using master Bias, Dark and Flat.

[Gina]

Hmm...  Think I've made a "boo-boo" - just looked in the Blue folder and it's empty - think I've processed the blue on top of the green so I guess the master green light is actually the master blue light.  I'll have to re-do the green then.  Not to worry - processing only took about 15m.  I'll rename the green to blue and do the green again.  Think I'm still half asleep

[Gina]

The RGB images look reasonable but it's difficult to tell if I've lost some of the lighter gradation also the present lights haven't got the information I could do with to make PixInsight easier to use so I think I'll retake them as it won't take very long with 10s exposures or less.  Matching darks won't take long either and doesn't need clear sky.  I may retake other DSOs too to get the required data in the file names.  Most of these were basically test runs anyway but I think I'm about ready to do some real DSO imaging with a view to good final images

[Gina]

I was hoping to do some imaging last night but it was a bit foggy - hopefully tonight though.  I have a list of DSOs I particularly want to concentrate on :-

1. Cygnus Loop - NB
2. NAN & Pelican - NB
3. M31 - RGB
4. IC 1396 - NB (includes Elephant's Trunk)

I'm thinking of 100 subs of each colour with an exposure of 30s with gain of 600 for NB and 10s exposure with 250 gain for RGB.  All hopefully at -25°C if possible but the ambient temperature is still quite high at night and I might have to make do with a few degrees warmer.  I will probably need to redo the bias and dark frames anyway.  I've found the noise is reduced noticeably with every few degrees colder.

The change from 5nm to 3nm Ha has shown really substantial improvements in the images and I'm now thinking I'm being a bit let down by the 5nm SII - I already have 3nm OIII.  The SII is weak anyway and having larger and brighter stars to cope with doesn't help!

[Gina]

I think I'll do flats for all the filters this afternoon - nice and bright so I'll be using low gain anyway.  I'll take bias and dark frames in the same run at the relative high temperature.  As long as temperatures match and the exposure for flats of 32μs for darks then the flats can be calibrated and be applicable for other camera settings and temperatures.

[Gina]

I dunno...  Why is it that the computers behave fine in the afternoon but as soon as we get a nice clear night, all hell breaks out!!!   Well at least with the Win7 laptop in the observatory.  I just can't seem to get CdC to control the mount properly!   Tried rebooting.

Now the Linux Mint desktop has locked up!!!   Should I give up and go to bed??????????????????

Edited September 7, 2016 by Gina

[Davey-T]

I thought at one time my mount was scared of the dark 

Dave

[Gina]

Yes - I see what you mean

[Gina]

After restarting CdC umpteen times I have the Cygnus Loop more or less centred in the frame   Now waiting for the camera to cool before taking 100 3nm Ha 30s subs with gain of 600, the maximum.  Earlier I got the temperature down to -20°C - that will have to do on this warm night!

[Gina]

Now I find the focus has gone out and the focuser USB is not connecting

[Davey-T]

Don't talk to me about focusers, I've wasted a fair bit of clear sky trying to get autofocus to work, the focuser connects to Maxim Sharpstar but winds the focuser in or out non stop, it won't connect to any version of FocusMax although FocusMax connects to Maxim OK  

Have now abandoned autofocus and focused manually.

Dave

[Gina]

Hmmm....  I've given up for the night   There's cloud coming in now anyway!  I had everything set up and working before I went out tonight for a social event.  Got back indoors at 10pm and the sky was clear.  Should have only taken a few minutes to point the rig at the Cygnus Loop and get imaging instead of which, nearly three hours later and still not working   Makes you wonder why you bother... sometimes...

[Demonperformer]

2 hours ago, Gina said:

Makes you wonder why you bother...

Been there, done that, got the T-shirt ...

[Gina]

I'm not giving up!!

I have a better way of dealing with the several tens of gigabytes I will hopefully capture in a decent imaging run.  I have a 64GB micro SD card installed in my imaging laptop so I can transfer the data to that from drive C: then later take the card and connect directly to my processing desktop to copy the data to HD.  Still an interim measure until I get the RPi and INDI setup going - awaiting good image capture software.

[wimvb]

Good old sneakerware at work

[RichLD]

10 hours ago, Gina said:

Now I find the focus has gone out and the focuser USB is not connecting

Weird isn't it? Last night I was getting quite excited about grabbing some OIII for a Cygnus mosaic I'm working on. Everything has been tickety-boo for months now, no problems whatsoever. I set up last night and:

CDC crashed 3 times when attempting to connect to Ascom

Astrotortilla wouldn't solve and then crashed forcing yet another reboot

My focuser wouldn't connect despite multiple reboots

Then, you've guessed it, the clouds rolled in 

Feeling very disgruntled I tore the rig down and went to bed. My main imaging machine is a Dell netbook running XP (which is normally rock solid)  that I RDP into. I have upgraded to an SSD to cut down on power consumption when on battery in the field, however one caveat of running XP with a SSD is that there is no TRIM support, so I run the Intel SSD Toolbox app every so often to keep the drive healthy. I have done this for months without issue until last night.

I reckon that running the ISSDT app somehow messed up some system files  or drivers - this morning I ran a system restore and Bob's yer uncle, everything is sweet again .

I have no explanation as to why this hasn't happened before - another great example of the logical world of computing exhibiting moody, almost human like characteristics!

The machines are taking over, I tell you - Skynet ahoy! 

Now where's my tin-foil helmet...

 

[Gina]

I'll conquer them yet!!  

Just ordered a 3nm SII 1.25" filter from Ian King to match my 3nm Ha and OIII.  I decided the 5nm non-matching SII filter was going to spoil my NB efforts.  Probably getting to the time to think about selling some of my unused kit!

[Gina]

I think I shall be experimenting with mount control with INDI and RPi 3 pretty soon now.  I have an NEQ6 sitting on its tripod in the living room and a HitecAstro USB to serial adaptor from FLO so just need to connect to a PSU and RPi and can get going.  Might try PixInsight as client as it's already installed on my Linux Mint desktop.

[wimvb]

3 hours ago, Gina said:

I think I shall be experimenting with mount control with INDI and RPi 3 pretty soon now.  I have an NEQ6 sitting on its tripod in the living room and a HitecAstro USB to serial adaptor from FLO so just need to connect to a PSU and RPi and can get going.  Might try PixInsight as client as it's already installed on my Linux Mint desktop.

The PI INDI server is still pretty basic. It assumes that the mount is aligned (polar and goto). But you will have access to a large target database.

There are also a few issues with the INDI client settings. E.g. I had to set your  my elevation (not equal to 0), before setting longitude and latitude, for some odd reason.

I don't know how that works out for all the Dutch who live at an incompatible elevation. (One advantage of having moved to Sweden)

Edited September 8, 2016 by wimvb
whose elevation?

[Gina]

Thanks Wim

As long as I can move the mount about and home it plus (yes) go to a particular target, I shall be satisfied.  I'm fed up with CdC and EQMOD ASCOM crashing and having to reboot and run CDC several times before it will work

I'm at 200m above sea level so that should be alright

Edited September 8, 2016 by Gina

[Gina]

Actually, I wouldn't be too bothered by running a Linux laptop if RPi seems inadequate.  Ditching Windows is my main aim    Using RPi and removing cables is really just the "icing on the cake".

Edited September 8, 2016 by Gina

[Gina]

I have been going through the hard drives in my Win 7 laptop that I'm currently using for astro imaging and deleted lots of old stuff - older images that are worthless compared with what I expect to get from the ASI1600MM-Cool eg. with the Atik 314L+.  I'm keeping some of the 460EX images for now though these are probability of little value.  Actually, I don't now why these are on this computer - I think they are most likely to be copies/backups of what I have on my processing desktop.  Maybe I'll just delete the lot and give myself many GB of free space.

[Gina]

Just deleting obviously poor images has given me about 30GB on each drive so I don't need to go any further - that should easily cope with a night's imaging run