Messier 1

[Hughsie]

The last time I was able to get outside and image was in September 2019. A combination of illness and bad weather managed to scupper any chance of getting the telescope out. In the meantime, I threw myself into learning Sequence Generator Pro and automating my gear so that I can control all aspects (other than dragging it out into the garden from the garage) from the comfort of indoors.

The main purpose for last night was to test run SGP, acquire the step sizes for my motor focuser and then to test run a short image session to ensure the image sequencing, plate solving and guiding all came together.

The bad news is the clouds managed to spoil any serious imaging and the Moon was at 62% illumination. The good news was my H-alpha filter was in the filter wheel and Messier 1 was ideally placed.

The attached image is made up of 30 minutes of integration time (my shortest so far!);

Lights 6 x 5 mins

Flats 25

Dark Flats 25

Darks 25

 

Equipment

William Optics Z103ED
ZWO ASI1600mm Cooled Pro
Baader 7nm H-alpha filter
SkyWatcher NEQ6R-Pro
Sequence Generato Pro

 

Exposure

Gain 139, Offset 21

I will certainly be revisiting Messier 1 in the near future.

John

[Paul M]

That's nice and I like the wide view. I love the Crab; one of my favorite DSO's..

It looks just like what it is, a star that went BOOM!   

[Rodd]

Great detail--is this a crop?  target looks big.  How did you set the offset at 21--I have the pro version and the offset is pre-set and not changeable.  Perhaps ma different driver?

Rodd

[Hughsie]

22 hours ago, Rodd said:

Great detail--is this a crop?  target looks big.  How did you set the offset at 21--I have the pro version and the offset is pre-set and not changeable.  Perhaps ma different driver?

Hi Rod, the image is a crop due to the fact that I haven’t got my spacing on back focus dialled in yet.

In regard to the offset, I use the native zwo driver for the camera. This allows you to go into each sequence in SGPro, select the gear icon then the event settings where I can then set gain and offset. Helps as I use different gain/offsets for narrowband filters.

Here is the link https://astronomy-imaging-camera.com/software-drivers the top drivers are native (as described on the site) and allow the offset to be changed, the camera drivers further down for the 1600 are ascom which don’t let you change the offset.

John

Edited January 7, 2020 by Hughsie

[Rodd]

1 minute ago, Hughsie said:

Hi Rod, the image is a crop due to the fact that I haven’t got my spacing on back focus dialled in yet.

In regard to the offset, I use the native zwo driver for the camera. This allows you to go into each sequence in SGPro, select the gear icon then the event settings where I can then set gain and offset. Helps as I use different gain/offsets for narrowband filters.

Here is the link https://astronomy-imaging-camera.com/software-drivers the top drivers are native (as described on the site) and allow the offset to be changed, the camera drivers further down for the 1600 are ascom which don’t let you change the offset.

John

Wow--thanks John--I have been scratching my head about the offset thing ever since I got the camera.  I am  not a computer person at all.  If I down load the native driver will I see any issues?  I use Maxim DL.  Do I have to uninstall the previous driver?  I don't think I would feel confident in finding it and probably would uninstall some other needed thing.  My camera is not working right and I think it might be a driver thing.  For example, if I switch to camera 2 (Lodestar 2x) to take a sub to use as a guide scope, it stopped producing wide field subs and now only produces guide FOV subs (much smaller)--but worse than that, if I take a sub with camera 2 outside of guiding, I will have to reboot the computer in order to get Maxim to work.  If I close Maxim and restart it-it does not fix the problem--only if I reboot the computer, which, as you can imagine when imaging how much of a pain that is. 

Is there any chance there will be a compatibility issue with the native driver and Maxi9m, or my camera. 

there's light at the end of the tunnel!

Rodd

[Hughsie]

Hi Rod.

I have just migrated across from Astrophotography Tool (APT) to Sequence Generator Pro (SGP)so don’t have any hands on experience with MaximDL. What I can say is when I originally got the ASI1600mm I downloaded the ascom driver from the site I mentioned above and used the Ascom driver in APT. Like you I was scratching my head as to how to change the offset. Then I moved to SGP and faced the same issue.

I was then watching on YouTube a video posted on Chucks Astrophotography channel and he mentioned he was also having a similar issue and someone suggested he download the ZWO native driver and use this to ‘talk’ to the acquisition software and he was then able to change the offset.

Im no rocket scientist and share the concerns you have raised about changing drivers and uninstalling old ones so I just downloaded the native driver and told SGP to use this instead and it worked. As the driver is from ZWO I can’t imagine it will cause issues with the ASI1600mm but I can’t answer as to whether MaximDL will communicate with it. Perhaps your question posted in the software section of the forum might generate some useful info about this and the issues you are facing with your camera 🤔

[Brian28]

Hi John , nice image .. I’m down in south Essex and like you have been hampered with the weather.. and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better ..  ☹️
 

Again , nice image though ..  Brian 

[Hughsie]

Thanks Brian.

Might be able to sneak out for 2 hours on Friday before it clouds over just to finish off the testing.

Appreciate your comments and always enjoy your images.

John

[Brian28]

2 hours ago, Hughsie said:

Thanks Brian.

Might be able to sneak out for 2 hours on Friday before it clouds over just to finish off the testing.

Appreciate your comments and always enjoy your images.

John

Thanks John .. Not sure I will set my gear up outside for a possible 2 hours , but will keep an eye on the weather just in case the window widens . As for testing .. I have my gear basically set up in my workshop , and I fire it all up now and again just to check everything is still working .. I have turned off automatic updates on my laptops as I found this did cause connection issues with drivers etc , which is a real pain .. 

let’s hope for some clear skies soon ..   Brian 

Edited January 9, 2020 by Brian28

[Hughsie]

Just need to dial in the back focus so shouldn’t take too long. Then I can get ready for the wind, rain and snow at the end of the month 🙄

Edited January 10, 2020 by Hughsie