well last night was a complete disaster from start to finish!!

[Wirral man]

right after deleting everything and starting again for some reason it is now working "thank god" that was driving me nuts...anyway thats done now with the point craft will this center a target for me automatically otherwise what is the exact point of it 

[Wirral man]

i anm going to try again tonight just wondering how do i view a sub (fits file) to set up the camera does apt do it?

[spillage]

there are two things it will do for you. you can load a previous image, platesolve the image and then click on solved at the bottom and then gotto+. Apt will then move your scope to the exact position of the loaded image.

Or you can choose an object from the list in apt and the scope will move there for you.

In pointcraft settings there are options on how close you want to be (i have mine set to 5 pixels).

If you need a more detailed explanation let me know.

 

Mark.

 

[Wirral man]

no thanks mark that will do for now lol dont think my head can take any more today.

im going to try again tonight and with what i have learned so far i should do better the only thing left to sort out is my guiding which i still really dont understand why that can be so bad as once polar alignment and star alignment is done why phd2 cant simply just launch and track a star??

[alacant]

2 hours ago, Wirral man said:

how do i view a sub (fits file) to set up the camera does apt do it?

Hi. Yes. APT controls the camera and takes the photo. Don't forget to install the ZWO ASCOM driver.

[david_taurus83]

2 hours ago, Wirral man said:

no thanks mark that will do for now lol dont think my head can take any more today.

im going to try again tonight and with what i have learned so far i should do better the only thing left to sort out is my guiding which i still really dont understand why that can be so bad as once polar alignment and star alignment is done why phd2 cant simply just launch and track

 

Glad you got plate solving to work. It's a real time saver. Regarding PHD, even if you have perfect polar alignment, it still needs to calibrate. That is, depending on the orientation of the guide camera, PHD needs to monitor a stars movement across the screen and work out which way is up, down, left and right. It also needs to work out the distance moved and how that translates to mount movement. If you had a permanent setup and didn't touch the guide camera then you'd only need to do it once. If like my you strip down after every session it's worth doing a new calibration every time.

[Wirral man]

well morning guys last night was a success finally got everything up and running and managed to get some subs, however after getting it all working i do have a couple of questions 1st it about orientation of the camera i just put the camera into the scope but if want to take more subs again does the camera have to be in the exact position as last time with the asi1600mm being round this is not going to be easy maybe put some tape on to mark the points of where it is? 

2nd the guiding stoped my exposures a couple of times with saying guide star had gone to far again i dont see how you can improve on this as it does it all for you so how can you improve it?? anyway thanks in advance for all the help yet again really happy now and should get faster at setting things up..

[alacant]

36 minutes ago, Wirral man said:

2nd the guiding stoped my exposures a couple of times

Set the eqmod guide speed to 0.9 and re-calibrate. Last night was always gonna be problematical; any slight haze lit by the full moon is not a good for guiding- Try lowering the gain on the guide camera when there's a moon. Have you built a dark library? HTH.

[Silvien]

At least you had a clear sky. I was looking forward to the long weekend to do some observation but of course all weekend was about clouds and thunderstorm. And I'm 100% sure that the sky is gonna be clear during the week when I have to work and got chance to have a look. So the weekend was wasted

[Wirral man]

1 hour ago, alacant said:

Set the eqmod guide speed to 0.9 and re-calibrate. Last night was always gonna be problematical; any slight haze lit by the full moon is not a good for guiding- Try lowering the gain on the guide camera when there's a moon. Have you built a dark library? HTH.

well i think so i ran the new wizard and done a fresh start and asked me to cover the camera..do you have any info on my 1st question? thanks

[david_taurus83]

Surely you could use the USB ports, fan, screws etc on the back of the camera as a reference to the orientation in relation to the focuser? Failing that, a bit of marking tape like you've suggested.

[geordie85]

11 minutes ago, Wirral man said:

well i think so i ran the new wizard and done a fresh start and asked me to cover the camera..do you have any info on my 1st question? thanks

Can't you leave your camera attached to the scope? This way you can reuse flats too.

If not it's best to have gone sensor square on, to do this slowly slew on 1 direction whilst doing a short exposure and note the direction of drift. Rotate you camera until the star trail is perfectly horizontal. 

[Wirral man]

36 minutes ago, david_taurus83 said:

Surely you could use the USB ports, fan, screws etc on the back of the camera as a reference to the orientation in relation to the focuser? Failing that, a bit of marking tape like you've suggested.

yes i probably can just wondered if there was any other way will mark it all up 

[Wirral man]

36 minutes ago, geordie85 said:

Can't you leave your camera attached to the scope? This way you can reuse flats too.

If not it's best to have gone sensor square on, to do this slowly slew on 1 direction whilst doing a short exposure and note the direction of drift. Rotate you camera until the star trail is perfectly horizontal. 

no camera has to come off as i box everything up 

[kens]

3 hours ago, Wirral man said:

 

2nd the guiding stoped my exposures a couple of times with saying guide star had gone to far again i dont see how you can improve on this as it does it all for you so how can you improve it?? anyway thanks in advance for all the help yet again really happy now and should get faster at setting things up..

In PHD2 on the Help menu there is an option "Open Log  Folder". Use that to locate the Guide Log from any session you are concerned with and attach it here or even at the PHD2 forum (there is a menu option to upload the files to the PHD2 forum). You might need to zip it up first. The Guide Log gives a comprehensive set of data about your session that can be analysed and in due course you can learn to analyse it yourself. Avoid the temptation to post screen shots, or worse, photos of the screen as they are pretty meaningless.

With the camera orientation it does not need to be perfect but it should be close. Use platesolving with an image from one night to point the scope at the same target. Small differences will be sorted out in stacking.

I take flats every session anyway even with a permanent setup as dust motes move around. At this stage I would advise against sessions covering multiple nights as it introduces some post-processing challenges - especially with severe LP (changing gradients in particular). I restrict myself to different filters on different nights if I get clouded out but often just redo the lot.

[alacant]

1 hour ago, Wirral man said:

.do you have any info on my 1st question

The camera can be in any orientation you like. Choose one and leave it put. Take new flat frames if you see the sensor getting dusty. HTH. 

[spillage]

12 hours ago, Wirral man said:

no camera has to come off as i box everything up  

Try a tipex pen. Just mark the camera and focus tube on the scope then just line them both up. I am sure when you purchase the full version of APT you can platesolve and see the orientation of the camera compared to the solved image with a guide showing you which way it needs to be adjusted. Just checked and its called framing mask.

[Wirral man]

7 hours ago, spillage said:

Try a tipex pen. Just mark the camera and focus tube on the scope then just line them both up. I am sure when you purchase the full version of APT you can platesolve and see the orientation of the camera compared to the solved image with a guide showing you which way it needs to be adjusted. Just checked and its called framing mask.

hi i have bought the full version framing mask tell me more?

[Wirral man]

5 minutes ago, Wirral man said:

hi i have bought the full version framing mask tell me more?

its ok i found it now on apt site thats a really handy tool i wondered how others do multiple nights of imaging and keeping the exact positions, this will be getting used as i have to take down my gear every time which is a pain but where i live there is no chance of me leaving it setup outside.