What an idiot

[EyeGuy]

Oh my God. First clear, moonless night in forever and I waste the first 2 hours on the Rosette with the damn bahtinov mask on. What a complete tulip.

Barry

[upahill]

Oh dear! We are attempting the same target tonight. I didn't notice a focus slip (dr who to blame) and lost about an hours worth.

[EyeGuy]

The Rosette’s gone behind a tree now, so I’ve moved on to IC443. Should be able to get 4 hours of it. I’ve never tried if before, and I know it’s pretty dim, so I dont know what to expect, but worth a try. Good luck with the rosette.

[upahill]

Thanks, thinking of giving it another hour before packing up - hate having to be up in the mornings but back to work now

[tooth_dr]

One of those nights @EyeGuy

I tried for the HHN but a cloud bank just sat on that part of the sky after one sub. Gave up after an hour. Went to M81 M82 as it was clear. After an hour or so I checked focus - it was slightly out - wasted an hour. Up to this point I had taken only red subs. Decided to switch to lum as guiding etc was good as forecast wasn’t good after 2am. However in APT the default setup on an imaging run is ‘no filter change’ so i ended up taking a further 16 red subs by the time I realised. I changed the imaging run plan, only to get just 4 blue before subs before total cloud cover.

 

[SamAndrew]

Faffed around for ages with a new auto focuser, and finally discovered the settings window was opening off the screen because that's where I'd placed it when I was connected to a monitor earlier in the day. I then managed to knock & interrupt the mount power supply on my first sub ? 

Not too frustrated as I always expect teething trouble with new kit.

[david_taurus83]

It was clearish in Birmingham last night around 7pm but with patchy high cloud. I was itching to set up as Clear Outside showed it getting better around 11pm. In the end I didn't bother as at 8 it was overcast again and back at work in the morning. Ironically, I stayed up until 2am as was hooked on Narco's on Netflix. Went to put the cat out before locking up...crystal clear sky....typical, almost 2 weeks off work and it clears up when the holidays are over. Cold weather now, frosty but still cloud cover

[tooth_dr]

5 minutes ago, david_taurus83 said:

Ironically, I stayed up until 2am as was hooked on Narco's on Netflix. Went to put the cat out before locking up...crystal clear sky....typical, almost 2 weeks off work and it clears up when the holidays are over. Cold weather now, frosty but still cloud cover

I've done this a few times, sat up late, and looked out and it was clear! Waste of a night, feeling tired the next day, and no images to show for it!

[Vixen4eva]

Mint here last night and i made the most of it!!! Got 4 objects under my belt and a first for me the Seagull Nebula. Don`t usually go for anything that low but it was unusually clear so thought why not. Even parts of Puppis were visble so out came the binos!!

Alan

[Xiga]

16 hours ago, tooth_dr said:

One of those nights @EyeGuy

I tried for the HHN but a cloud bank just sat on that part of the sky after one sub. Gave up after an hour. Went to M81 M82 as it was clear. After an hour or so I checked focus - it was slightly out - wasted an hour. Up to this point I had taken only red subs. Decided to switch to lum as guiding etc was good as forecast wasn’t good after 2am. However in APT the default setup on an imaging run is ‘no filter change’ so i ended up taking a further 16 red subs by the time I realised. I changed the imaging run plan, only to get just 4 blue before subs before total cloud cover.

 

You did better than me Adam, lol. I traveled home and got set up (in total, a 2 hour operation) only for the clouds to suddenly appear just as i was about to start imaging (funnily enough i was also after the HH myself). I persevered up until about 2am before giving up. Ended up with no useful subs (not even a single one, lol), got to bed around 4am, got up again at 8, and have been knackered all day! ? 

I suppose they can't all work out, lol. 

[EyeGuy]

Great to see other people make cock-ups too. Misery just loves company!

I’ll have to post the bahtinov image of the rosette tomorrow for the hell of it. It’s actually more recognisable than I would have thought. Should be worth a giggle at least.

Barry

[tooth_dr]

5 hours ago, EyeGuy said:

Great to see other people make cock-ups too. Misery just loves company!

I’ll have to post the bahtinov image of the rosette tomorrow for the hell of it. It’s actually more recognisable than I would have thought. Should be worth a giggle at least.

Barry

This is why I will always watch the first sub and check it and make sure it dithers properly and initiates the second sub ok. Otherwise I’d have a few more errors to post up. 

[MartinFransson]

That thing, what did you call it...? "clear, moonless night". Sounds somewhat familiar but I can't seem to remember what it is...

Sorry about your wasted time, though ?

 

[eshy76]

Oh no...I feel your pain - the last clear night before Christmas, I had a the Heart Nebula lined up and was all set up at 6pm...except it only took me 3 hours to get polar aligned! I just couldn't find Polaris in the polar scope - the first time that had happened to me. 

Still eventually got a few hours of subs, but the frustration at losing imaging time led me to...an impulse purchase of the Polemaster....of course clouds ever since! Tonight is looking decent for London, so I might get to test it out finally.

[EyeGuy]

19 hours ago, eshy76 said:

Oh no...I feel your pain - the last clear night before Christmas, I had a the Heart Nebula lined up and was all set up at 6pm...except it only took me 3 hours to get polar aligned! I just couldn't find Polaris in the polar scope - the first time that had happened to me. 

Still eventually got a few hours of subs, but the frustration at losing imaging time led me to...an impulse purchase of the Polemaster....of course clouds ever since! Tonight is looking decent for London, so I might get to test it out finally.

I feel your pain. I actually had a very similar experience with polar alignment out at a dark sky site last year, and at 55 degrees north, it gets back breaking looking through that scope. You will not regret getting the polemaster. Extremely easy and extremely quick.

Barry

[upahill]

I got to waste a few hours last night too - Waiting for the cloud to clear, imaging anyway to catch any subs and spot when the skies cleared up. I had already aligned on my target during a clear patch so knew when I started to see some nebulosity it was clearing up.

Eventually I started getting plenty of stars but no nebulosity - assumed it was just patchy cloud. 3 hours later I realised that during dithering PHD was throwing one and I had drifted about two fov onto a nice clear patch of sky.

Could have stayed up and rescued a few hours but decided a rage quit was more appropriate and went to bed.
 

[carastro]

Set up last night after bringing everything in from the campervan (after being at Astro camp).  

I have tried to do the Witch head from Astrocamp but it's just too big for my Mono cameras, so I thought I would give it a go with my DSLR which I haven't used for donkey's years apart from the odd widefield and special event.

It's probably too faint from SE London  and a DSLR but thought I'd give it a go.
Also testing out my SW130PDS which I have had a lot of trouble re-collimating after it got itself way out.

Also using EQMod which I don't use on a regular basis.

PA went OK with Polemaster. 

EQMod would not load properly so spent ages trying different com ports only to realise I hadn't switched the mount on Duh!  USER ERROR NUMBER 1.

Tree in the way, so was darting around between branches trying to find my alignment star and get it in focus.  Gave up on close star to my target, and went to another constellation.  But can't get focus with DSLR, coma corrector and correct spacer.  Ended up having to remove the spacer, so that's going to do wonders to the corners of the image = NOT!!!

I shall have to try this again with my small refractor, will get more in the FOV anyway, but one step at a time and no problems getting focus with that.

OK, so I get focus, find my target, which has now left the trees, start guiding and start to image.  

Take a note of Teamviewer code and retire indoors.

Can't access the Obsy laptop because it's got a different version of TV on it. (why can't they make TV backwardly compatible).  Spent ages trying to find an older version of TV as even the one on the laptop in the obsy is an older version.

Finally get it downloaded only to find the mount had reached the meridian and had stopped slewing.  Duh!  (I didn't set any limits on EQMOd so must be by default).

Stop guiding, go back to park, re slew to target from opposite side of meridian, but can't see anything.  Hmmm, cameras are now behind the dome so I have got to go out there anyway and move the dome. !!!!

Back to indoors, and re-find target (had to slew around as there is cone error).  Start it up again but find the DSLR is not downloading the images I planned but only 5 second images.  

Errrr!!  Been so long since I did any DSLR imaging, that I had set the exposure length to be the interval length, and vice versa no flippin wonder USER ERROR NUMBER 2   So changed that and seems to be working OK now.

FINALLY!!!!

Only managed just over an hour and then it clouded up.  Looked at the guide screen and I can see the tops of trees so its time to pack up anyway.

Love this hobby.

Carole 
 

 

[upahill]

2 minutes ago, carastro said:

Can't access the Obsy laptop because it's got a different version of TV on it. (why can't they make TV backwardly compatible).  Spent ages trying to find an older version of TV as even the one on the obsy is an older version.

Seems like you had a right time of it too. Doesn't help that its cold this time of year either.

I used to use Teamviewer but got fed up of quality problems and random disconnects. I now use TightVNC - its so much faster and more reliable. Quality is better too.

[carastro]

Lol,

I normally find Teamviewer works just fine.  Can't remember why I had a different version on the obsy laptop, might have been when I was having a TV session with some-one else, but why they can't all work with each other is very annoying.  Can't complain though since it is free.   I shall now have to check the TV version on my other imaging laptop to make sure that's also the same.

I've tried ordinary VNC in the past and it didn't work very well.   I am not great at stuff when it doesn't work, so I go with the easy life = if it works just leave it be.  

Carole 

[eshy76]

3 hours ago, EyeGuy said:

I feel your pain. I actually had a very similar experience with polar alignment out at a dark sky site last year, and at 55 degrees north, it gets back breaking looking through that scope. You will not regret getting the polemaster. Extremely easy and extremely quick.

Barry

Well the skies cleared up at about 9pm for a few hours...and the Polemaster made the pain (literally) go away! My PHD2 guiding also was the best ever for me, down from around 1"-2" RMS to 0.3"-0.5" with the CEM25P. Got some subs in on M45 past the meridian.

I initially, when starting out on this hobby, enjoyed locating Polaris and putting it just so in the polar scope...but now with a fully loaded OTA and a tripod plus pier extension which puts the scope in between getting on my knees and standing up to look through it...the Polemaster is extravagant, but a keeper!

[carastro]

Yes, Polemaster is a great add on, I bought it after fracturing my knee as kneeling is now quite difficult for me due to the metal plate in my knee area.  

Though why Skywatcher couldn't put a right angled lens on the polarscope in the first place, is beyond me.  They add all these extra tweaks and fancy ideas to the design, but the one thing that causes so many people difficulties they completely ignore.

Carole 

[eshy76]

1 hour ago, carastro said:

Yes, Polemaster is a great add on, I bought it after fracturing my knee as kneeling is now quite difficult for me due to the metal plate in my knee area.  

Though why Skywatcher couldn't put a right angled lens on the polarscope in the first place, is beyond me.  They add all these extra tweaks and fancy ideas to the design, but the one thing that causes so many people difficulties they completely ignore.

Carole 

Yes coming into this hobby really this year, I'm surprised that, unlike everything else, polar alignment on mounts is still relatively "un-automated" or just inconvenient. As you say, right angled polar scopes would make a lot of difference. But also some sort of motorised alignment instead of the azi-alti bolts shouldn't be too hard to implement?

Of course the ultimate goal would be a self-aligning mount...I think only the Avalon Merlino obsy does that? Hmm, combine GPS, absolute encoders and platesolving and all you would need are Ascom-connected altitude/azimuth motors...?

It doesn't seem impossible to do, but in the meantime, the Polemaster is a convenient step until the dream becomes reality!

[astro mick]

On 02/01/2019 at 07:11, tooth_dr said:

One of those nights @EyeGuy

I tried for the HHN but a cloud bank just sat on that part of the sky after one sub. Gave up after an hour. Went to M81 M82 as it was clear. After an hour or so I checked focus - it was slightly out - wasted an hour. Up to this point I had taken only red subs. Decided to switch to lum as guiding etc was good as forecast wasn’t good after 2am. However in APT the default setup on an imaging run is ‘no filter change’ so i ended up taking a further 16 red subs by the time I realised. I changed the imaging run plan, only to get just 4 blue before subs before total cloud cover.

 

Good fun is,nt it.

Mick.

[carastro]

Quote

Good fun is,nt it.

Yup!

[smr]

Not long after I got my HEQ5 Pro and actually came to use it for the first time a few months ago everything went brilliantly the first night. The second night out with it I set everything up, couldn't see Polaris, could not see Polaris at all. Could not work it out at all either. Packed everything up and then realised I hadn't rotated the Dec axis. ?