3rd try. Comments and suggestions?

[emyliano2000]

8 minutes ago, Peco4321 said:

non technical explanation of how to dither please. 

The guide star is being moved after each exposure causing the resulted image to fall on a different set of pixels each time.

This is sort of what I understood out of it.

[emyliano2000]

3 minutes ago, cjdawson said:

Don't switch up to ISO 1600

Thanks for the advice.

[emyliano2000]

1 hour ago, Peco4321 said:

What equipment are you using

And just to say upgrading the reticle in the polarscope with one from a hm6 polarscope made my life so much easier when I do the PA.

After aligning with the polarscope I did a test 6 min drift alignment to see how acurate it is. The stars hadn't drifted at all away from the lines.

[iapa]

2 hours ago, emyliano2000 said:

It looks like tonight there's gonna be clear skies where I live so I'll give my 4th try a go. I don't think I'll be using mirror lock anymore as it puzzles me. I don't know why but the dslr take 2 sets of shots when I do it, a really short one and the longer one set by me.

 

Keep with mirror lock.

What is happening is

1. 1st click - mirror is being moved out of place
2. 2nd is the shutter opening
3. shutter closing.

There's a short delay between the two to allow any vibration from the mirror lifting up to dampen down.

[cjdawson]

Here's another trick.   Keep the mirror lock, but also turn on the 2 second self timer in the camera.

When you do that what will happen is...

1. 1st click - mirror is moved up.

2. Camera will start beeping, and counting down the 2 seconds.

3. Shutter is opened.

4. shutter closes.

 

This means that if you are using a cable release, you can press and hold the shutter open for 2 seconds longer than the exposure time.    Intervalometers will also work properly.  Again, just add 2 seconds to the exposure time and everything will work just like normal.

[emyliano2000]

14 minutes ago, cjdawson said:

also turn on the 2 second self timer in the camera.

When I do that the self timer is flashing a red light with every beep. Im afraid of any light leakage. I might've not expressed myself correctly. I hope you understand what I mean.?

[cjdawson]

11 minutes ago, emyliano2000 said:

When I do that the self timer is flashing a red light with every beep. Im afraid of any light leakage. I might've not expressed myself correctly. I hope you understand what I mean.?

Just put a small piece of tape over the red light that flashes.   It doesn't flash while the shutter is open, so there's no light leakage.  But covering it over will help with peoples night vision.

[happy-kat]

Surely the self timer trick is for some one with a remote release in their hand doing exposures manually. I thought the OP had a programme managing exposures, mirror lockup and wait times.

[emyliano2000]

38 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

Surely the self timer trick is for some one with a remote release in their hand doing exposures manually. I thought the OP had a programme managing exposures, mirror lockup and wait times.

The hand controller of the autoguider is operating the camera but if I activate the self timer on the camera it's reducing the exposure time and using the self timer too so instead of a 120 sec exposure I will have 118 sec exposure and 2 sec self timer selected from the camera.

[wxsatuser]

The way I have my Lacerta setup.

Camera is 10sec timer with mirror lockup

Lacerta
Wait time =10
Mirror lockup =5
Add 10secs to overall exposure in my case for 5minute exposures it will be 5:10:0
This gives 5 minute exposures, the extra 10secs is between each exposure.
This gives enough for dither and card write on the camera.

[emyliano2000]

1 hour ago, wxsatuser said:

The way I have my Lacerta setup.

Camera is 10sec timer with mirror lockup

Lacerta
Wait time =10
Mirror lockup =5
Add 10secs to overall exposure in my case for 5minute exposures it will be 5:10:0
This gives 5 minute exposures, the extra 10secs is between each exposure.
This gives enough for dither and card write on the camera.

Thanks for the sugesstion. I'll give that a try on the horsehead nebula in half an hour or so.

[emyliano2000]

2 hours ago, wxsatuser said:

The way I have my Lacerta setup.

Camera is 10sec timer with mirror lockup

Lacerta
Wait time =10
Mirror lockup =5
Add 10secs to overall exposure in my case for 5minute exposures it will be 5:10:0
This gives 5 minute exposures, the extra 10secs is between each exposure.
This gives enough for dither and card write on the camera.

Is 15 sec enough for dithering?

[cjdawson]

8 hours ago, happy-kat said:

Surely the self timer trick is for some one with a remote release in their hand doing exposures manually. I thought the OP had a programme managing exposures, mirror lockup and wait times.

The self timer trick is needed when using an intervalometer - those hand operated cable releases that are programmable for a number of long exposures.

[wxsatuser]

7 hours ago, emyliano2000 said:

Is 15 sec enough for dithering?

You may need more but I found mine settled quite quickly and was guiding nicely before each break finished.
I use camera lenses and a Borg 67 FL, all under 300mm focal length, exposures out to 10minutes were perfectly ok.
My guide scope is a 60mm on a side by side bar.

It took a bit of experimenting with all the settings but after a few sessions it was spot on.

[iapa]

21 hours ago, emyliano2000 said:

When I do that the self timer is flashing a red light with every beep. Im afraid of any light leakage. I might've not expressed myself correctly. I hope you understand what I mean.?

A bit of black insulating take to cover that Led will be fine.

When the shutter is actually open that LED is not flashing - its basically giving you a 'count down' to when the shutter actually opens.

Nothing to worry about for your imaging, although it is rather annoying if you are outside all the time - or the neighbours may bleat about it.

[emyliano2000]

A little more work done to the photos ( with my phone ?).

I'm not that proud of wha I've done to M51