First image with my new mount

[Anthonyexmouth]

i wanted to use the polar align feature in sharpcap. but mak 90 FOV is too narrow i think and until i get a finder/guide scope im out of luck. might have to pop up to FLO and grab an ed80 ds-pro 

[spillage]

I think I would want to get a guidescope/finder and guide cam first.

[Anthonyexmouth]

Well I was thinking I could use my asi290 on the finder that comes with the ed80

[spillage]

Sure flo also stock the adapter to convert the finder into a guider.

[Anthonyexmouth]

2 hours ago, spillage said:

Sure flo also stock the adapter to convert the finder into a guider.

I saw it on their site but wondered if I could just use the 1.25" nose on the camera instead of wasting money on what will hopefully be a temp solution until I can afford an ed50

[spillage]

I think the finderscope has the wrong back on it and only comes with the viewer like eyepiece. As you are not too far away I would pop into flo and have a chat as I am sure they will advise you what is need and a best.

[Dragon_Astro]

You'll still need the adapter to fix ur cam onto the finder, once it's on the ed80.

As Spillage has said, there's nothing for the 1.25" nose to go into on the 9x50 Finder.

[Anthonyexmouth]

On 18/07/2018 at 23:47, spillage said:

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).

 

when i had APT and stellarium running last night, i could sync pointcraft in APT and stellarium would move position but i couldnt make stellarium move the mount, should i be able to do this?

[spillage]

No sure on that one. That is a setting you need to make in stellarium and not related to APT. Have a look here about 1/4 of the way down.

[Anthonyexmouth]

i can get stellarium controlling the scope and i can get APT doing it but dont understand what they do when both running as when that happens i can get APT up sync with stellarium but cant get stellarium to make the mount point anywhere

[spillage]

That sounds very odd. I would jump on the APT forum and ask there. I find IVO the developer very helpful and quick to respond.

[david_taurus83]

I know some people prefer Stellarium, I did too but struggled to get it working properly with Eqmod. So I installed CdC and it's much more simple. You just press Connect Telescope and away you go. I still use Stellarium as a reference and just type targets into CdC and press Slew.

[Anthonyexmouth]

13 minutes ago, david_taurus83 said:

I know some people prefer Stellarium, I did too but struggled to get it working properly with Eqmod. So I installed CdC and it's much more simple. You just press Connect Telescope and away you go. I still use Stellarium as a reference and just type targets into CdC and press Slew.

i dont have a problem with stellarium, works perfectly on its own but dont understand how it works with APT. 

[spillage]

exactly as above.

They should work independently unless apt is trying to send commands to the mount at the same time?

If you start stellarium first then apt and connect to the mount without any platesovling can you then move the mount in stellarium? 

 

[david_taurus83]

2 hours ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

i dont have a problem with stellarium, works perfectly on its own but dont understand how it works with APT. 

I could get it to control the mount but after a PlateSolve in APT I couldn't get it to sync to the correct coordinates.

[Anthonyexmouth]

I can plate solve in APT and when I sync I see stellarium shift to that position but that's all it does. It's like there's only one way communication. 

[david_taurus83]

20 minutes ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

I can plate solve in APT and when I sync I see stellarium shift to that position but that's all it does. It's like there's only one way communication. 

That's further than I could get. What do you mean that's all it does? When you click on a star afterwards and hold Ctrl 1 does it not slew to the target?

[spillage]

Thats right apt will only send the position to stellarium when you sync. Its like an automatic star alignment, in cdc it also passes over the sensor position and size so you can see exactly what will be captured on the sensor. This allows you make adjust the mount positon or sensor to how you want.

[Anthonyexmouth]

No, it will if I just have stellarium scope and stellarium running but if I've got apt plate solving only apt can move it but stellarium does register the movement

[spillage]

Okay do a platesolve on a star , sync it then in stellarium click on the star to make sure its in the target and then ctlr + 3 to align the star, if you do this with a few starts then when moving the scope via stellarium will become more accurate.

The point of using platesolve is to do away with having to manually align the scope, Doing this just allows you to choose a target quickly that is not in the APT objects list. Although you can manually add locations to custom object list or using store after a platesolve of an image (full version) for future use.

I sure I have posted a couple of custom lists on here before that you can import into apt giving you a larger choice of targets although I know some of them were not correct and need editing.

When I am running my kit I only really use my todo list as I only have a few target on the go.

 

Hope this helps. Maybe I need to try this myself.

 

 

 

 

 

[Anthonyexmouth]

In stellarium ctrl + 1 and ctrl + 3 do nothing. But the sync after plate solve does move the cursor in stellarium

[Marci]

(Deleted: I missed a post, rendering comment irrelevant)

[david_taurus83]

20 hours ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

In stellarium ctrl + 1 and ctrl + 3 do nothing. But the sync after plate solve does move the cursor in stellarium

Maybe give CdC a go? It's not as 'pretty' as Stellarium or Sky Safari but it work's and when we have precious clear skies here surely getting everything to work is what matters?

 

If your planning on imaging then tbh you don't really need either as APT has a list of popular targets. Last week I captured both M16 and M17 in the same field of view. I used APT to PlateSolve and position on M17 and the only thing I needed CdC for was to pick a star roughly in the middle of the 2 objects and slew to it. Hey presto, both now in the frame. On the second night I simply used a frame from the first night as a reference and APT automatically took exposures, plate solved and moved the mount until it was bang on the same position as the first night! No need for CdC. Perhaps use it to guide you to a target not in the APT list but after you've captured it once you can use APT to PlateSolve it's way back to it night after night.  APT really is an under valued software imo.

[Anthonyexmouth]

I get that most of the work will be done under APT but theres obviously some comms going on between stellarium and APT and being able to pic a target in stellarium and then back to APT to plate solve and align would be the ideal situation. primarily for the feel of stellarium and the fact that APT doesnt do planets or moon. 

[david_taurus83]

Maybe it just doesn't work the way you want?