Finally got my new setup working.

[cjdawson]

Hi everyone.

First a bit of background.   Firstly, I'm not really a newbie.  Have been into astrophotography for the past 15 years.  Astronomy for since 2001.   In that time, I've only had one telescope, a Meade LX-90 and I'm very happy with it, so no intention of changing anytime soon.  Over the years, I've done some imaging with a Film based SLR, before switching to a DSLR.  I got into this before books like Making every photo count so had to do everything the hard way.     For a long time, I was using a laptop running windows XP, with a Phillips Tucam Pro II as a guidescope.   However there was a problem with that laptop that meant that it wouldn't run from a  12v battery, it was very tempremental, that's both with a 12v laptop power adapter, and an inverter.   All in all, I got very very frustrated so decided to ditch the laptop.

 

Next up I decided to give a Skywatcher Synguider II a try.   When I managed to get a lock, it worked great and I didn't need a laptop do anything special.  It just worked.    However, getting a lock on a star was the problem.  I mean, it was horrible and I didn't manage to get a lock on many stars - it simply wasn't sensitive enough.

 

So, I embarked on a complete change of tack.  Now have a laptop and use a Starlight Express Superstar as the guide cam.  To add to that my imaging camera is now a ZWO ASI1600MM Pro (Cooled).  Software wise I'm using sharpcap, SGPro and PHD2.

 

Finally, after paying what seems like 5 years of cloud taxes, I've got a night where I can do some imaging in my light polluted skyies.  Tonihgt is the first time that I managed to get everything working together and wanted to do a report on what I found....

 

Setting up.

This was different from before.  I didn't need to use an eyepiece at all this time.  Starting up, the routine changed for me a little bit. decided to try the Polar Alignment took in SharpCap.   Used my guide scope for that, rather than the main scope - which would have created other issues. (clearance and getting to the clutch)

This is the first time I tried the routine and it works great, with my Starlight Express mounted on an ST-80.  4 second exposures plate solved easily, and I was able to use the tool to dial in the polar alignment very quickly and easily.   I found that getting the final bits of the alignment in place tricky, so I'm going to try a using a couple of CD or DVD's to help the RA axis slip more easily.  This is something for fork mounted scopes rather than German EQ style.    The whole process works great though.

 

I normally used an eyepiece for the scope alignment, this time I used only the guide camera.  My finderscope got me close and the guide star was in the field of view.  worked great.

 

Once aligned, I added my Deepsky camera, Then switched over to SGPro, and aimed directly for the horsehead.

In SGPro, I disabled the rotator - as I don't have one.    Then hit start sequence.  Watched as the scope slewed to the right place, then noticed that everything got stuck.    Off I went to the Frame and Focus wizard, and did the focusing.   Doing this from inside my house is a dream.  using my relative electric focusser, to bring the image into focus and watching the HFR takes the guesswork out of it.  I love that.

After getting the focus good, I set the sequence going again and found that the plate solve wouldn't get a success, so went into the control panel and adjusted the platesolve to accept anything within 200 pixels and tried again.   The platesolved worked great.   So off it went to get PHD2 up and running.

 

PHD2 however started playing up.  It would start guiding, but would go crazy and wouldn't settle down.   I tried forcing a calibation and that solved the problem.   Back in SGPro, it didn't want to start the sequence, it was constantly waiting for the autoguider to settle.   So back into the control panel and I adjusted the autoguider to settle to 1 pixel rather than the 0.1 that was set.

At this point, the sequence started running and I got to see the autostretched image as it's running.

Everything worked great, I think I managed to get the luminance images  and some of the reds, before Orion went behind a tree and I lost it for the evening.   SGPro realised this of course, so I was able to stop the sequence and save the progress.  Will be great to pick this up another night to finish getting the data.

 

What to do with the rest of the night?

I've setup a sequence for M95.  With the settings adjustments that I made earlier I didn't need to fight the settings again, simply slew and everything kicked and I'm currently watching the sequence grabbing green data.

 

What's more, this is first light for my new ZWO ASI1600MM Pro and I love how SGPro not only lets me set the temp to -20C and I can see how much (or little) power the camera is pulling.  

 

And of course the final thing is that I'm sat in my front room, typing this whilst running remote desktop to access my laptop with SGPro connected to the scope.

For focusing I'm still using my Meade Electric focusser, but with an extention cable and a control box for the focusser.

 

This setup is everything that I wanted and I'm looking forward to doing the darks and flats tomorrow so that I can process the images and see how my first attempt at M95 turns out.

 

all in all, I can say share several pieces of knowledge....

1. don't scimp on the mount, I've been lucky with my LX-90 that it's stable.

2. Don't scimp on the cameras.   There's no point trying to make do with cheap cameras, I tried using webcams for years and got extremely frustrated because they simply were not able to capture dim objects well enough.    It can waste alot of time

3. The Polar alignment tool in SharpCap Pro is worth the money.   That's now my polar alignment method, I love it.

4. SGPro is a great investment for capturing images.     Plate solving is a game changer, I've got ANSVR installed locally, and have the entire catalog locally, even though I probably don't need everything.

5. nothing can compare to sitting in the warmth of my house whilst the scope is capturing the images.    In the past, I used to have to sit with the scope and continuously attend to it.  I don't need to do this anymore.

 

I'm looking forward to processing the captured data and seeing what I can get and improving on the images rather than the ability to get an image.

[Demonperformer]

Congratulations on getting everything working and looking forward to seeing the results. Totally agree about the frustration that is caused by trying to work around rather than with the equipment.

As a matter of interest, why do you use SGP for capturing? Sharpcap does both platesolving (with ANSVR and others) and live-stacking, so what is the advantage of SGP?

[dannybgoode]

Nice write up. It’s good to get everything up and running and as a newbie there is some useful pointers in here. 

I’ve spent several weeks trying to get to where you got in an evening! But I’ve learned a lot and can now trouble shoot little niggles far more quickly than when I began.

Next for me is to try the SharpCap PA routine so it’s good to hear it works.

I’m looking forward to seeing what the image looks like too  

[cjdawson]

The sharp cap pa routine is apparently very similar to how the pole master works.   Wasn’t sure if it would work with my setup, but was very happy to see it working without any issues.    I’m going to have to video the process at some point.

 

as for why I use SGPro.   I’m trying to get my system as automated as I can.   The plan is to switch to a stepper driven focusser.   Also, with my filterwheel in place, it’s muc( more efficient to program in a full sequence with filter wheel changes and let the software do the hard w9rk whilst I sit back and watch the results come in.

[cjdawson]

And here's one of the images that I took.   20*3min luminance subs under light polluted sky.  There was an LED streetlight nearby too, and I think it may have caused glare in the optical train too.

[Demonperformer]

On the plus side, it is clearly the horsehead nebula - being able to identify the target is a good start (you would be amazed at the number of images I have taken where I can't!).

Does that include the darks and flats you were waiting to take? If so, it defnintely looks to me as if your flats are not working, with the overlapping circles at the bottom of the frame. Was everything kept in exactly the same orientation?

Do you have a decent-length dewshield fitted? I find this can do a lot to block extraneous light from nearby LED streetlights.

You are using 3m subs, and this may be part of the problem. The 1600 is very sensitive with very low read noise, and has only 12-bit ADC, so it works well with shorter subs, but the same total integration time. For an hour of L data, I would usually go for 240*15s.

This all sounds as if I am being very critical, but that is not my intent. It is certainly no worse than my first attempt at HH.

[cjdawson]

7 hours ago, Demonperformer said:

On the plus side, it is clearly the horsehead nebula - being able to identify the target is a good start (you would be amazed at the number of images I have taken where I can't!).

Does that include the darks and flats you were waiting to take? If so, it defnintely looks to me as if your flats are not working, with the overlapping circles at the bottom of the frame. Was everything kept in exactly the same orientation?

Do you have a decent-length dewshield fitted? I find this can do a lot to block extraneous light from nearby LED streetlights.

You are using 3m subs, and this may be part of the problem. The 1600 is very sensitive with very low read noise, and has only 12-bit ADC, so it works well with shorter subs, but the same total integration time. For an hour of L data, I would usually go for 240*15s.

This all sounds as if I am being very critical, but that is not my intent. It is certainly no worse than my first attempt at HH.

Hiya

 

First an foremost.   Thanks for the feedback.   It's very useful and is giving me lots to think about.   The image does have darks, flats and darkflats.  It was processed using AstroPixel Processor.    It wouldn't surprise me if the flats didn't work well.  That's something that I'll have to revisit.   I forgot to figure out the correct exposure settings for my flats.  (only every used a DSLR for flats before so was able to get away with putting it on AP and lettings the camera do the work, of course, now I'll have to figure out the correct settings)   Yes the scope was in the same orientation, and same focus setting too.  In fact, it's still at those settings, so maybe I can work on this.

 

Had not thought about using shorter exposures, was thinking of doing the opposite and trying longer.   This is giving me something to think about and an experiment that's worth a shot.   Up to now, I've always thought of exposing for the correct brightness, then stacking to remove noise.   With shorter subs, it sounds like that's not the case anymore.  Certainly something interesting to try out.   I will be very interested to see what happens.

 

I'm extremely happy with the result of saturday's session.  Scope's working, polar alignment is now easy, finding targets no problem, capturing images doable, remote controling telescope from inside house working.    Focusing, working from inside house, still would like to upgrade this bit though.       All in all, the technical problems are all ironed out and that was the main goal, to be able to walk away with an identifiable horsehead is the cherry on top.

 

Hopefully next time, I'll trying to improve the data gathering exercise, and working on the images rather than being stuck on the "can I get an image" problem