ASI294 MC Pro First Light: Andromeda

[feilimb]

I went for a big upgrade from my DSLR (Canon 450d) to a ZWO ASI 294 MC Pro, and had some lovely clear skies the day after it arrived. The moon was big enough at around 60% and Andromeda is on the side of my garden with most light pollution but I wanted to give it a go anyhow. 

I use Indi & Ekos running on a Raspberry Pi 3, and I succeeded in capturing light frames but for some reason I could not get the temperature control going.  It's strange Indi was telling me that the cooler was running at 100% power, but the sensor temperature was just the ambient temperature outside on the night regardless of what I tried to set it to.  In the end I just captured a bunch of light frames (30 x 2min @ Gain 200) with the sensor at around 8 degrees C.  There are a lot of hot pixels in final image and stars are a bit eggy, but I'm pretty happy nonetheless to have got a result on the first outing with the camera.

I tried the camera the following day inside the house, again connected to the Raspberry Pi 3, but without the mount & guide camera connected to the Pi - and the temperature control seemed to work fine.  Not sure what the issue was on the night but I need to spend some more time figuring it out before the next clear sky!

I took 20 x 20s exposures also and thought I might try some HDR composition when I get time to see if I can improve the core a bit.  20 darks and 20 flats also used, with no bias frames (I probably should take some of these though and integrate them).

Any advice and pointers on the image would be most appreciated!  Note I think the flats somehow introduced an ugly glow mainly visible at bottom left, bottom right and right hand side.  I integrated the same data but without the flats and this glow is not present.

[ebdons]

Hi, this is really good, centre not too overexposed, stars not bad either, I always have issues with M31 core overblown but this is better than my attempt so far. well done sir! Ton

[feilimb]

Thanks for the kind comments actually looking at it again it seems like the stars are far too green, it's a pity there isn't more detail and colour in the galaxy arms, maybe that was partly down to the biggish moon and light pollution (no filter used). 

[Deeko]

On 19/10/2018 at 20:52, feilimb said:

I went for a big upgrade from my DSLR (Canon 450d) to a ZWO ASI 294 MC Pro, and had some lovely clear skies the day after it arrived. The moon was big enough at around 60% and Andromeda is on the side of my garden with most light pollution but I wanted to give it a go anyhow. 

I use Indi & Ekos running on a Raspberry Pi 3, and I succeeded in capturing light frames but for some reason I could not get the temperature control going.  It's strange Indi was telling me that the cooler was running at 100% power, but the sensor temperature was just the ambient temperature outside on the night regardless of what I tried to set it to.  In the end I just captured a bunch of light frames (30 x 2min @ Gain 200) with the sensor at around 8 degrees C.  There are a lot of hot pixels in final image and stars are a bit eggy, but I'm pretty happy nonetheless to have got a result on the first outing with the camera.

I tried the camera the following day inside the house, again connected to the Raspberry Pi 3, but without the mount & guide camera connected to the Pi - and the temperature control seemed to work fine.  Not sure what the issue was on the night but I need to spend some more time figuring it out before the next clear sky!

I took 20 x 20s exposures also and thought I might try some HDR composition when I get time to see if I can improve the core a bit.  20 darks and 20 flats also used, with no bias frames (I probably should take some of these though and integrate them).

Any advice and pointers on the image would be most appreciated!  Note I think the flats somehow introduced an ugly glow mainly visible at bottom left, bottom right and right hand side.  I integrated the same data but without the flats and this glow is not present.

 

Hello, I have just bought the 294MC-Pro too after moving from a Nikon DSLR, a such I have never used camera control software before. If you could share the camera software you are using and some settings for the 294 it would be much appreciated! There are so many tools to choose from, APT, SGP, Sharpcap....Still not settled on one!

[feilimb]

Hi Deeko, I have actually been using the Indi / Ekos software tool chain (https://www.indilib.org/download.html). In my case I have a raspberry pi 3 running outside connected to the camera, guide cam and mount and all software is running on that. You can also run it off a laptop of course, but it is more popular with Linux based operating systems. 

It is a really powerful (and free) system, but there's a learning curve like with any other. I don't have much experience with the 3 you mentioned, but if you are based on Windows operating system they are probably easier to get up and running than Ekos / Indi. It should be noted that Ekos is a 'full' system in line with SGP which offers a scheduler, internal guiding software (but can also be connected to phd2), focusing tools, plate solving image capture and mount control (plus other features). 

[wimvb]

On 19/10/2018 at 21:52, feilimb said:

I use Indi & Ekos running on a Raspberry Pi 3, and I succeeded in capturing light frames but for some reason I could not get the temperature control going.  It's strange Indi was telling me that the cooler was running at 100% power, but the sensor temperature was just the ambient temperature outside on the night regardless of what I tried to set it to.  In the end I just captured a bunch of light frames (30 x 2min @ Gain 200) with the sensor at around 8 degrees C.  There are a lot of hot pixels in final image and stars are a bit eggy, but I'm pretty happy nonetheless to have got a result on the first outing with the camera.

I also use INDI, but on a Rock64 which has a usb3 port. I need to use a powered usb hub to get the camera (ASI174MM-COOL) to work properly.

You can also check your camera power supply. It should have a current output of at least 3 amps to get cooling to work properly. Avoid using the camera at 100 % cooling power. This won't damage the camera, but there's no margin to control the cooling.

[feilimb]

Thanks wimvb, I may try a powered hub on the next outing, what confused me was that the cooling appeared to work fine when I tried the camera indoors the following day (when it was the only peripheral connected to the Raspberry Pi 3). 

Interesting to hear you use Rock64, lack of USB3 is one of the downfalls of RPi3 but its a shame Rock64 doesn't have an on board Wireless adapter. I find the download speed of the Asi294 captures is still adequate enough, but for achieving focus it is a bit slow. 

[wimvb]

I've never used a Raspberry with built in wifi, so don't miss it. I have wifi dongles, but rather use a wired connection. It's faster and more reliable.

[alacant]

On 19/10/2018 at 21:52, feilimb said:

20 x 20s exposures

Hi. Tremendous. I'd need 20 times longer than that to get anywhere near with my 700d. The 294 is my dream camera. For my own financial well being, you're gonna have to stop posting shots like this!

**We're also indi/ekos and we've successfully run cooled cameras via the usb3, but via a laptop. IIRC and as @wimvb suggests, the power for the camera was supplied by the spare that we carry for the mount ~6A.

HTH and clear skies.

[feilimb]

51 minutes ago, alacant said:

Hi. Tremendous. I'd need 20 times longer than that to get anywhere near with my 700d. The 294 is my dream camera. For my own financial well being, you're gonna have to stop posting shots like this!

**We're also indi/ekos and we've successfully run cooled cameras via the usb3, but via a laptop. IIRC and as @wimvb suggests, the power for the camera was supplied by the spare that we carry for the mount ~6A.

HTH and clear skies.

Thanks Alacant, actually the image at the top is 30 x 2 minutes stacked - when I mentioned 20x20s it was just some extra frames I took as an experiment that I thought I might try for the core area (but I haven't tried to do anything with them yet). 

I've only had the 294 out for a single session since picking it up, but am hugely impressed so far with the step up after moving from dslr. I'd love to try some of the duo narrowband later too when budget allows. 

[wimvb]

2 hours ago, feilimb said:

I'd love to try some of the duo narrowband later too when budget allows.

I'm not convinced yet that these filters are any good. Many targets need different exposures for Ha and Oiii, since the relative signal strengths are so different. So you may end up with either overexposed Ha or underexposed Oiii. And in processing you'll need to extract the two wavelengths, or you'll end up with a HOO palette for every image.

But I'm very willing to be proven wrong on this.