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Anthonyexmouth

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Posted
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Under a arc min is what I aim for..but depends on conditions..might be windy..might have high cloud .. 

I tend to guide if I'm doing 2 min exposures or 15min exposures.. I tend to get the lowest figures I can but without getting too fixated on graphs..

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Thalestris24

Thalestris24

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You want to try and get your PA error to within a few mins of arc, certainly less than 5 otherwise you'll get field rotation with longer exposures. Check it with the drift align tool giving it at least 3-4 mins running time in Az ad Alt and use ~2s exposures. It looks like you have a problem with DEC backlash which you need to sort out as it affects calibration.  It might be caused by balance. Make sure there aren't any cables pulling down.

Louise

ps doing short, unguided image exposures of 10-15s on a bright object is a good way to show up any intrinsic problems independent of any guiding problems.

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spillage

spillage

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when I get a clear night I will run guide assistant and post up the results but I am sure that the PA report there is not that reliable and can be ignored to some what. I have recently got hold of a qhy polarscope and allot of my issues have vanished and I can only praise this bit of kit.  I did try sharpcap but I found it unreliable with my old qhy5.

I have upgraded to a rowan belt mod but on my old neq6 these are the kind of results I am getting. This is from tonight with a poor seeing and only got worse as the cloud rolled in. Its not perfect and I do have backlash in RA, give it time and take time to learn how your mount reacts.

Eggy stars still plague my images so do not feel that you are alone with your issues. If anyone can help I am sure they will step in. After all if knowledge cannot be passed on to other then what is the point of having it.

 

 

guide1.png

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Thalestris24

Thalestris24

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16 minutes ago, spillage said:

when I get a clear night I will run guide assistant and post up the results but I am sure that the PA report there is not that reliable and can be ignored to some what. I have recently got hold of a qhy polarscope and allot of my issues have vanished and I can only praise this bit of kit.  I did try sharpcap but I found it unreliable with my old qhy5.

I have upgraded to a rowan belt mod but on my old neq6 these are the kind of results I am getting. This is from tonight with a poor seeing and only got worse as the cloud rolled in. Its not perfect and I do have backlash in RA, give it time and take time to learn how your mount reacts.

Eggy stars still plague my images so do not feel that you are alone with your issues. If anyone can help I am sure they will step in. After all if knowledge cannot be passed on to other then what is the point of having it.

 

 

guide1.png

Hi

I used to get that with my heq5/belt mod with a tight cluster but to one side on the target. I found that I had to get the balance precisely right (in all 3 axes) then I got the guide stars nicely centred on the target and images were great! :)

Louise

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Thalestris24

Thalestris24

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They can catch - usually it's the RA one which causes problems. I suppose it's a matter of judgement as to whether either are catching/causing a problem. In another thread the poster had a problem with his new heq5 'juddering' and it seems that it was the RA setting circle causing the problem. So many things to go wrong....

Louise

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Anthonyexmouth

Anthonyexmouth

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21 minutes ago, Thalestris24 said:

They can catch - usually it's the RA one which causes problems. I suppose it's a matter of judgement as to whether either are catching/causing a problem. In another thread the poster had a problem with his new heq5 'juddering' and it seems that it was the RA setting circle causing the problem. So many things to go wrong....

Louise

i followed the astronomyshed setup video. RA is nice and loose. 

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newbie alert

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13 hours ago, spillage said:

when I get a clear night I will run guide assistant and post up the results but I am sure that the PA report there is not that reliable and can be ignored to some what. I have recently got hold of a qhy polarscope and allot of my issues have vanished and I can only praise this bit of kit.  I did try sharpcap but I found it unreliable with my old qhy5.

I have upgraded to a rowan belt mod but on my old neq6 these are the kind of results I am getting. This is from tonight with a poor seeing and only got worse as the cloud rolled in. Its not perfect and I do have backlash in RA, give it time and take time to learn how your mount reacts.

Eggy stars still plague my images so do not feel that you are alone with your issues. If anyone can help I am sure they will step in. After all if knowledge cannot be passed on to other then what is the point of having it.

 

 

guide1.png

First thing id suggest is to make sure that you're actually guiding on a star..if you have it looping and move the mount with the manual guide and the stars don't move then they're not stars..just need to adjust the exposure and gain until you have stars...to guide at .37 Rms you're in premium mount country..

That's the first thing id look at

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spillage

spillage

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I took 4 900s exposures on ic1396 no flats darks with this tracking and apart from some issues and slightly eggs stars (due to me messing with dec balance) it was ll good. I am sure the heq5 and neq6 worm gears are similar so if you can do the belt mod and a bit of a hypertune it will work wonders.

Image below has been ran through startools quickly.

 

ic1369Ha.jpg

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spillage

spillage

Posted
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I just have just put a sharpie mark on the mount casing and on the dec casing above the setting circle, so if the circle moves I can still put it in the correct position.

If you are platesolving then you can just roughly put the mount in the home position, take a single shot and then platesolve that.

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Thalestris24

Thalestris24

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Posted
29 minutes ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

i only use the Dec circle to check the home position before switching on. am i doing that wrong?

You can do that, or do as Spillage just said. Platesolving is great but it's probably best to ensure your mount's setup correctly and behaving nicely first.

Louise

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Stub Mandrel

Stub Mandrel

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14 hours ago, spillage said:

when I get a clear night I will run guide assistant and post up the results but I am sure that the PA report there is not that reliable and can be ignored to some what. I have recently got hold of a qhy polarscope and allot of my issues have vanished and I can only praise this bit of kit.  I did try sharpcap but I found it unreliable with my old qhy5.

I have upgraded to a rowan belt mod but on my old neq6 these are the kind of results I am getting. This is from tonight with a poor seeing and only got worse as the cloud rolled in. Its not perfect and I do have backlash in RA, give it time and take time to learn how your mount reacts.

Eggy stars still plague my images so do not feel that you are alone with your issues. If anyone can help I am sure they will step in. After all if knowledge cannot be passed on to other then what is the point of having it.

 

 

guide1.png

Haven't you got DEC guiding turned off there?

Suggests excellent PA

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david_taurus83

david_taurus83

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Posted
16 hours ago, Anthonyexmouth said:

what kind of numbers should i be getting on the PA error?

I use a Polemaster. Expensive but it's the best accessory I've bought for this hobby so far. It's seeing dependant but typical  error is around 1 arc minute and my guiding RMS is around 1 second. That's simply setting up with the Polemaster and guiding straight away. No drift aligning etc These summer nights are too short for that when your setting up and stripping down each session. I've been meaning to compare the Polemaster to Sharpcap for ages so I just might give it a go tonight.

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Anthonyexmouth

Anthonyexmouth

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1 minute ago, david_taurus83 said:

I use a Polemaster. Expensive but it's the best accessory I've bought for this hobby so far. It's seeing dependant but typical  error is around 1 arc minute and my guiding RMS is around 1 second. That's simply setting up with the Polemaster and guiding straight away. No drift aligning etc These summer nights are too short for that when your setting up and stripping down each session. I've been meaning to compare the Polemaster to Sharpcap for ages so I just might give it a go tonight.

would be interesting to see what you think. PA with sharpcap seemed too easy, maybe it was too good to be true. 

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spillage

spillage

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42 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Haven't you got DEC guiding turned off there?

Suggests excellent PA 

Yes I do not really bother guiding dec.

I struggled with sharpcap but I also could not believe how quick I can PA with polemaster. I got lucky and got one second hand for a good price, but I can see why they charge so much for it or should I say I can see why people pay the price they ask.

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david_taurus83

david_taurus83

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I tried Sharpcap first but I got different results when I checked either side of the mount. So I had to try drift aligning. It then became clear I had mechanical backlash problems and the rubbish weather we had in Spring kept cutting short my drift align sessions so I caved and bought the Polemaster. But in the QHY documentation it states to rotate the mount using the handset. When I tried Sharpcap I was loosening the clutches to rotate the mount. I often wondered if this was the mistake I was making. Do you use the handset with Sharpcap?

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spillage

spillage

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When you have ran PA try running PHD with guiding turned off and see how things are and which way RA and DEC drift. If I turn on DEC guiding it make my graph allot worse. If you try the development version of PHD2 then you could try the new ZFilter guiding algorithm seems to be very good so far.

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