First image with my new mount

[Anthonyexmouth]

ok, set up my new heq5 again tonight, second day owning it. polar aligned well but star alignment is a bit off, not sure what kinda accuracy i should be expecting. only doing 2 star but when i align and adjust with the handset i then go to an object to view and its not very close at all. does the mount learn? i tried the recalibrate with the esc 2 sec press and realign but when i press enter i dont get any conformation, should i? 

anyway. heres a stack of 9 240sec subs iso 800. taken with my canon 760 and 55-250 at 250. still need to work on my focus .will try again tomorrow with my mak 90

 

[Z3roCool]

Hi, I got an NEQ6 end of last year. Not that experienced at all. I found after PA I would slew to a bright star and it would always be off. I use EQMod and Stellarium. I would center the star and calibrate in Stellarium. Would do this on another star and would be pretty accurate. If moving to another part of the sky would be out a bit. Ended up pointing to a star near my target, then calibrate and go to target...usually pretty good.

I am planning on integrating AstroTortilla to Plate solve with Backyard EOS so it all gets done for me (No more nudging the mount around and wasting time).

I think a lot of it has to do with getting good PA. Now use Sharpcarp which is great, can shoot 4-5 min subs with no guiding and get decent stars. In regard to focusing, have you tried using FWHM? It seems  to be very accurate when I have tried (In BackyardEOS). Just focus on star until the number is at its lowest and done.

Again, I am new to all this so take my words with a pinch of salt, learning as I go and these are the bits I have found along the way.

[Anthonyexmouth]

yeah i use that method, i dont think it helps with the focus knob on my mak 90. i use APT. tried BYEOS but at twice the price and same function went for APT, also controls my ZWO camera if needed. ive just paid for the full version of sharpcap so waiting for the next clear night to try the polar assist and also the plate solving in APT. 

what scope do you use?

[spillage]

Hi 

If you use APT then just set up platesolve. It will save you loads of time and hassle. 

[Anthonyexmouth]

set it up yesterday but last night was the first night in ages we had cloud. gonna configure an xbox controller for eqmod today

[Z3roCool]

10 minutes ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

yeah i use that method, i dont think it helps with the focus knob on my mak 90. i use APT. tried BYEOS but at twice the price and same function went for APT, also controls my ZWO camera if needed. ive just paid for the full version of sharpcap so waiting for the next clear night to try the polar assist and also the plate solving in APT. 

what scope do you use?

I use a Canon 7D and Canon 400mm 5.6 L lens. No scope as yet...saving up  Spillage's comment above is a good idea. Forgot that APT does Plate solving.

[Z3roCool]

Just now, Anthonyexmouth said:

set it up yesterday but last night was the first night in ages we had cloud. gonna configure an xbox controller for eqmod today

Yeah, I need one of those. So much easier for small adjustments. Does my head in Alt Tabbing into EQMod to nudge the scope around.

[Anthonyexmouth]

APT being £17 is a bonus too. 

[spillage]

If you use platesolve you will not need to make any adjustments to the mount. I spent ages setting up a ps2 controller then after setting up platesolve realized I had wasted my time with the controller.

The most I have seen it out was about 24000 pixels and within two more solves it was nearly done. I find that a pixel accuracy setting of about 6 is fine. 

[Anthonyexmouth]

1 minute ago, spillage said:

If you use platesolve you will not need to make any adjustments to the mount. I spent ages setting up a ps2 controller then after setting up platesolve realized I had wasted my time with the controller.

How does that negate the need for a controller?

[david_taurus83]

52 minutes ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

How does that negate the need for a controller?

You won't need to move the mount at all. After polar aligning, scope and mount in home position, connect scope in APT, go to pointcraft, select object, (say M57) and hit Goto. Take a short exposure. Hit Pointcraft again, make sure to select object M57 again and hit solve. Once it solves hit Sync and it should correct Eqmod to the coords where your actually looking. Object, M57 and Goto is usually enough then to get you bang on target. If not, repeat the steps.

 

You can even use it to take exposures over multiple nights. Simply load up an exposure from the first night and hit Goto++ at the bottom of Pointcraft. APT automatically moves the mount, takes exposures and plate solves repeatedly until your on target!

 

The trickiest thing about plate solving is setting it up on your PC as you need to specify the paths to the programs and catalogues. For ease of reference, I put everything into the APT folder on the C drive .

[spillage]

Didn't realize you can do that with a previous image. I have always loaded it up, solved it then click solved then goto++. @Anthonyexmouth if you need any help give me a shout and I will do my best to help.

[david_taurus83]

39 minutes ago, spillage said:

Didn't realize you can do that with a previous image. I have always loaded it up, solved it then click solved then goto++. @Anthonyexmouth if you need any help give me a shout and I will do my best to help.

Sorry your right, you need to solve it first then put into Solved and Goto++. I only done it Sunday for the first time myself.

[Dragon_Astro]

The polar alignment part of Sharpcap is excellent, takes about 5mins once you've done it a few times and you know what you're doing. Sharpcap also has platesolving too of course, again easy to use

[Anthonyexmouth]

9 hours ago, spillage said:

Didn't realize you can do that with a previous image. I have always loaded it up, solved it then click solved then goto++. @Anthonyexmouth if you need any help give me a shout and I will do my best to help.

How do you get apt and stellarium running together? Trying the plate solving for the first time right now

[spillage]

I think you need to select it from in the settings menu from the top tabs. I use cdc but this is from the apt manual. Not sure with stellarium but I find with cdc you need to connect this before opening apt. This will then allow apt to send your sync's to cdc.

 

Stellarium

Connect to and communicate with Stellarium 0.17 or newer (

http://stellarium.org/

). If Stellarium is installed on the

local machine enter for IP address 127.0.0.1. The default Port is 8090. If Stellarium is on a remote machine set the

IP and Port used there.

Before making a connection there is need to make some configurations in Stellarium:

1.

In Cofigurations->Plugins make sure that "Remote Control" plug-in is configured as "Load at startup" (restart

Stellarium after enabling). After that click on "configure" and enable the options "Server enabled" and "Enable

automatically on startup"

2.

In Cofigurations->Plugins make sure that "Oculars" plug-in is configured as "Load at startup" (restart Stellarium

after enabling).

3.

In "Oculars" configuration go to "Sensors" tab and define a new sensor or edit one of the existing. All the needed

data can be found in the

Object Calculator

(for CCD a connection is needed in order to determine the pixels count)

Enter the number of the sensor in the APT settings. The first sensor is 0, the second 1 and so on (the index is zero

based).

4.

In "Oculars" configuration go to "Telescope" tab and define a new sensor or edit one of the existing.

Enter the

number of the telescope in the APT settings. The first scope is 0, the second 1 and so on (the index is zero based).

 

[Anthonyexmouth]

So I don't use stellarium scope?

[spillage]

just edited my post. you will find this in the tools tab under apt settings. With cdc apt will send over the sensor size and orientation of the camera so when you are on a target you can see how it will be framed. 

[astrosathya]

Onevery simple thing to do before all the plate solving etc. One requires good PA for good tracking. Plate solving is only for accurate positioning. Do a 2 star alignment first, after which the handset normally displays the PA error. Else, go to settings, alignment, polar alignment. Do a PA using the handset instructions. It'll bring you very close. Later, use sharpcap/PHD2 etc for accurate PA. Only then, use some plate solver to go to the object and this time you'll be able to do atlease 180s subs unguided with the HEQ5.

[Anthonyexmouth]

2 hours ago, astrosathya said:

Onevery simple thing to do before all the plate solving etc. One requires good PA for good tracking. Plate solving is only for accurate positioning. Do a 2 star alignment first, after which the handset normally displays the PA error. Else, go to settings, alignment, polar alignment. Do a PA using the handset instructions. It'll bring you very close. Later, use sharpcap/PHD2 etc for accurate PA. Only then, use some plate solver to go to the object and this time you'll be able to do atlease 180s subs unguided with the HEQ5.

I dont use the handset, im operating via eqmod. 

[Gerry Casa Christiana]

20 hours ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

focus knob on my mak 90

You can take a bicycle handle and push it over the top. The wide part of the rubber handle acts as the fine tune easy mod! 

Gerry

[Anthonyexmouth]

6 minutes ago, Gerry Casa Christiana said:

You can take a bicycle handle and push it over the top. The wide part of the rubber handle acts as the fine tune easy mod! 

Gerry

i use a camera with mine so wouldnt be able to have anything pointing back any further. ive found a clothes peg works well for fine tuning, still not easy though. 

[spillage]

I cannot take the suspense anymore. How did platesolve work out?

[Anthonyexmouth]

1 minute ago, spillage said:

I cannot take the suspense anymore. How did platesolve work out?

hit and miss, worked okish with my dslr but sharpcap wouldnt use it for polar assist. no luck with my mak 90 and asi290

[spillage]

Platesolve is no help when polar aligning. That still needs to done in either phd2, sharpcap, polemaster or using the pa scope. I tend to platesolve then run drift align in phd2 and once I'm happy platesove to my target.