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Well I've sat outside all night with clear skies.

My newly purchased QHY8L on board my SW200P and what have I imaged. Absolutely nothing!

You know when you wish you hadn't wasted a fortune and stuck with your DSLR.

If anyone knows how to work one of these things it's nearly free to a good home before I smash it up.

Honestly never been so disappointed in all my life. I get images of stars and yep.... That's it. No galaxies no nebs....... nothing.

On a nice note. Was great skies tonight for a change.

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Don't get disheartened mate, it's all fun and games with this hobby. Trust me when i say this, we've all had our fair share of disappointments. Just keep at it and one day you will most certainly produce a stunner.

If you still think it's a total waste of space, look  no further ... i have plenty of space that could do with another scope and camera :D 

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5 hours ago, Stu Wilson said:

Well I've sat outside all night with clear skies.

My newly purchased QHY8L on board my SW200P and what have I imaged. Absolutely nothing!

You know when you wish you hadn't wasted a fortune and stuck with your DSLR.

If anyone knows how to work one of these things it's nearly free to a good home before I smash it up.

Honestly never been so disappointed in all my life. I get images of stars and yep.... That's it. No galaxies no nebs....... nothing.

On a nice note. Was great skies tonight for a change.

How are you locating the objects you are trying to image?

Andy.

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No, all you need for plate solving is an image showing the stars, this can be as simple as a finder scope fitted with a basic camera.

Once you have an image (of the general area of the target) then either All sky Plate solver or if you have an internet connection Astrometry, will quickly tell you exactly where your pointed.

http://www.astrogb.com/astrogb/All_Sky_Plate_Solver.html

http://nova.astrometry.net/

 

For even more fun (!!) I use Cartes du Ciel to interface with my mount - you can load the solved image into CdC and blink it against the background star map.

Which mount do you use??

 

Hope this helps.

 

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10 minutes ago, Stu Wilson said:

Just goto at moment.

I haven't a clue about plate solving.

To do plate solving am I correct in thinking I'd need eqmod for my neq6

You don't need it to plate solve an image but if you want it to point you where you want to be then you will do. It's so much easier and you'll always be on target.

I use stellarium scope with APT and Astrotortilla and it's amazing. By the time I would have done a 3 star alignment with the handset I can already be exactly on target.

I did struggle to get it up and running but once I got everything sorted I haven't looked back. 

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26 minutes ago, Merlin66 said:

No, all you need for plate solving is an image showing the stars, this can be as simple as a finder scope fitted with a basic camera.

Once you have an image (of the general area of the target) then either All sky Plate solver or if you have an internet connection Astrometry, will quickly tell you exactly where your pointed.

http://www.astrogb.com/astrogb/All_Sky_Plate_Solver.html

http://nova.astrometry.net/

 

For even more fun (!!) I use Cartes du Ciel to interface with my mount - you can load the solved image into CdC and blink it against the background star map.

Which mount do you use??

 

Hope this helps.

 

I'm using NEQ6PRO mount

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39 minutes ago, Stu Wilson said:

I'm using NEQ6PRO mount

I've just done the plate solve thing on the net. Wow that is a clever tool.

An even bigger wow is how far I am off target. I'm very confused at mount now as the goto was pretty good for my dslr.

Anyway instead of M51 I'm point at NGC4346

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Have you not got a laptop or pc to connect to the mount? Assuming you have the rs232 serial cable then all you need is a serial to USB cable to connect to the handset, download Eqmod and APT (free but worth the 16 quid if you want to pay) and your nearly there. You can even control the mount from APT. After I polar align I connect everything to my laptop, open Carte du Ciel, hit connect telescope, pick my target, hit slew, open APT, connect to mount, take a 10 second exposure, hit Blind solve, after 10 or 15 seconds it gets a result. Hit sync (in APT) and this sends the correct coords to the mount for where it's actually pointing. It also changes the pointing position in CdC so you select the target again and hit slew. Repeat a couple of times until your happy it's centred where you want it.

 

I also share your frustration with this hobby. I feel I can no longer image from my back garden due to been overlooked by 3 streetlights. So last night I packed the van with gear and headed up to the local hills. Was just setting up and a gang of youths turned up. I decided that it was too busy for my liking so packed the van and came back home very irritated. I've been thinking about that spot for a number of weeks but tbh the skyglow coming over the hill from the north is horrible. But as frustrating as it is, it's a long term hobby and it's something you need to accept that results aren't borne from a few attempts in days and weeks but months and years! Keep trying and you will get the results you want.

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Thanks for your input.

I've now cheered up knowing how far off target it's been.

I don't think I'd of been too cheerful with my gear out near any youths either.

Yeah I need the eqmod cable.

Any idea where to get one online for a sensible price?

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The Eqmod cable is around £40 delivered from FLO. This connects directly to the mount bypassing the hand controller. Alternatively, you can get a Serial to USB cable which lets you connect via the hand controller. I got one from Amazon for £15 and it worked every time. I now have the Eqmod cable as I only use the handset to slew the RA when using the Polemaster to polar align. If going down the laptop or PC control route, you need to factor in where your laptop is going to be situated. If your leaving it by the mount outdoors, then you only need to ha've sufficient battery or power supply. If you want to run a cable indoors then distance is a factor. USB hub, active USB cables for distances over 5m etc...

 

Picture attachef of the Serial to USB I had that worked fine

Screenshot_20180421-104356.png

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I don't plate solve because I'm an old-fashioned so-and-so and can't be bothered to faff around with more software! All I ever do is a decent polar alignment, a star alignment on a star near my target and a slew to it. I use the camera with virtual crosshair on the capture screen to get the star alignment accurate and after that my target is on the chip. Sure, I mostly use a pair of premium mounts but our EQ sixes work like this as well. I'm a bit bemused by the way everything has to be done by computer these days.

By all means get into plate solving but you don't have to. If you synch your mount on a star near the target then do a go to you should be laughing.

Olly

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I’m with Olly on this one. My set up is capable of all kinds of clever plate solving, but imaging time is so precious, I sync on a single star, align and focus on another close to my selected target, then I’m onto that and imaging.

I will get into plate solving at some point, but it will be when I can stay up all night and not have work the next day....

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I am with Tomato on this one. For those of us who have to set up and take down equipment a practiced routine is essential if imaging or viewing time is used to the full. And its also true that when a new piece of equipment or software is introduced it usually impacts on that routine.

I have lost entire nights because of ignorance stack up. You have to think through (usually next day after a kip) what went wrong and what needs to be done for the next session. 

But you do make progress.......

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For me plate solving is like any other tool available to me. I don't use it just for the sake of using it, I use it because it makes sense for me to use it (dual scope/mosaics/multi night imaging). Specifically it saves me time when setting up, allows me to achieve greater accuracy in framing (including camera rotation) and therefore gives me more imaging time and more usable subs. Personally I didn't find it particularly difficult or time consuming to setup and can certainly be phased in over a few sessions if not working correctly first time. As has been mentioned above there are perfectly good ways to do without it so there is always that backup to fall back on if things don't work out.

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If I'm imaging the same target over several nights I Synch on a nearby star, but goto the ra and dec from a platesolve of the offset framing of test shots on the first night.

And I would also platesolve test shots if rotation of the camera is required.

Michael 

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Another +1 for platesolving.  AstroTortilla was good but now I mostly use the Goto++ platesolving routine built into APT.   I can go and put the kettle on and by the time I'm back, the target is dead-centre in the frame.  Nice.

 

However, for those nights when I fancy a bit of good old visual astronomy, I hardly even bother with polar alignment.  Star hopping is fun!  (But not with a camera...)

 

regarding eqmod cables - I tried with a serial/usb cable via the Synscan Handset but found it a bit flaky.  the full EQDirect USB-to-mount cable is far more stable.  The proper cable was more expensive than the serial/usb version but well worth the extra money.  (Over the last 12 months, I have definitely learned that in AP, it's worth spending the larger sum of money, just once.  I'm losing count of how much cheap/plan-B stuff I have replaced with the real McCoy.  Buy once, cry once is my new motto)

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+1 for platesolving to save frustration. In my simplest (non-goto) setup I have taken the sd card from my dslr to my laptop to check the location of the exposure  on astrometry.net. I did this with the back eye galaxy, with some (beginner's) success. My problem was finding the target through the EP, but then having to do a bright star focus when I switch to the dslr... Platesolving meant not changing the image train.

As to your frustration at missed nights because of new tech teething problems, I get that at every upgrade and think it is par of the process - if it was easy, we'd get bored ? 

If you've bought kit that you know will produce improvements, keep trying - it will come (probably following some sage advice from the forum ?) . 

Good luck. 

I have to say I'm at the budget end of the spectrum, so my motto is 'Build your own. One of them has got to work eventually ?' 

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Hi,

I get around some of the issues by not having goto -- the only issue is, my brains go to garbage while trying to find things. My standard procedure is star hop and find with eyepiece, then put in the camera. Using a stubby telescope and DSLR helps though.

And yes, that was a dreadful pun. :D 

John

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