First venture out.

[Ande]

Having recently acquired some new gear, I managed a very tentative trial run this evening. It was all very “amateur hour” as I fumbled about in the dark with lots of unfamiliar stuff.  A bit pleasure and pain. I was delighted to have managed my first polar alignment, which appeared to be fairly accurate. Although it was a frustrating affair trying to line it up with the Skyguider Pro, which has the annoying habit of pulling everything off course and away from Polaris as soon as you try to tighten, and lock things into place.  I ended up having to pretty well tighten things up before adjusting, and then fight through the now tight assembly. I’m pretty sure that can’t do  things any good.  I shall invest in the Williams Optics replacement wedge assembly, which is supposed to be a substantial upgrade.

 Next up was trying to get centred on a target, with an unfamiliar tripod, mount, ball head and camera, whilst in complete darkness because I’ve managed to lose my red torch.  It was quite unnerving not knowing what nut loosened what, lol. Every adjustment had me clinging onto the camera just in case.  So, eventually I managed to get the Orion Nebula framed quite nicely, and took a few pics.  Because I hadn’t figured out how to activate bulb mode on the new camera, a Canon 80D, without holding my finger on the shutter button, I was limited to 30-second exposures or less. So I experimented a bit between 15 and 30 seconds, with different ISO settings, but never considered changing from F2, as my poor brain was feeling under siege. I don’t know how you lot do it, lol.  
 

So a few pictures of the Orion Nebula were obtained. They certainly won’t be winning any awards, but I’m quite pleased with them as they are my first ever Astro shots. The focussing was definitely out as all the stars are a bit snowball-like.  But I’ve learned some stuff, so that’s a good thing. Need to purchase a Bhatinov mask, and also take the plunge and try and get my head round the software side of things. Upgrade the mount to the Williams Optics wedge, so polar alignment isn’t so hit and miss. And figure out how best to operate the new camera. 
 

A bit of a comedy of errors for the most part.  I wanted to capture the Pleiades after my Orion session, but the ball head reached it’s limit before I could frame it. Pretty sure all I had to do was loosen the clutch, swing the whole thing through 90 degrees or so, and realign the ball head, but my brain was addled, out there in the cold and dark. So I decided to play it safe, and come back inside before anything expensive fell off 🤣. I’ll have more time when I get back home, and will be able to setup properly during daylight in preparation. I should have a lot more confidence then that things are as they should be. Setting up in the dark this evening was a bit of a worry.  More positives than negatives though, so that’s progress in my book

Edited December 20, 2020 by Ande
Typos

[nephilim]

1 hour ago, Ande said:

Having recently acquired some new gear, I managed a very tentative trial run this evening. It was all very “amateur hour” as I fumbled about in the dark with lots unfamiliar stuff.  It was all a bit pleasure and pain. I was delighted to have managed my first polar alignment, which appeared to be fairly accurate. Although it was a frustrating affair trying to line it up with the Skyguider Pro, which has the annoying habit of pulling everything off course and away from Polaris as soon as you try to tighten, and lock things into place.  I ended up having to pretty well tighten things up before adjusting, and then fight through the now tight assembly. I’m pretty sure that can’t do  things any good.  I shall invest in the Williams Optics replacement wedge assembly, which is supposed to be a substantial upgrade.

 Next up was trying to get centred on a target, with an unfamiliar tripod, mount, ball head and camera, whilst in complete darkness because I’ve managed to lose my red torch.  It was quite unnerving not knowing what nut loosened what, lol. Every adjustment had me clinging onto the camera just in case.  So, eventually I managed to get the Orion Nebula framed quite nicely, and took a few pics.  Because I hadn’t figured out how to activate bulb mode on the new camera, a Canon 80D, without holding my finger on the shutter button, I was limited to 30-second exposures or less. So I experimented a bit between 15 and 30 seconds, with different ISO settings, but never considered changing from F2, as my poor brain was feeling under siege. I don’t know how you lot do it, lol.  
 

So a few pictures of the Orion Nebula were obtained. They certainly won’t be winning any awards, but I’m quite pleased with them as they are my first ever Astro shots. The focussing was definitely out as all the stars are a bit snowball-like.  But I’ve learned some stuff, so that’s a good thing. Need to purchase a Bhatinov mask, and also take the plunge and try and get my head round the software side of things. Upgrade the mount to the Williams Optics wedge, so polar alignment isn’t so hit and miss. And figure out how best to operate the new camera. 
 

A bit of a comedy of errors for the most part.  I wanted to capture the Pleiades after my Orion session, but the ball head reached it’s limit before I could frame it. Pretty sure all I had to do was loosen the clutch, swing the whole thing through 90 degrees or so, and realign the ball head, but my brain was addled, out there in the cold and dark. So I decided to play it safe, and come back inside before anything expensive fell off 🤣. I’ll have more time when I get back home, and will be able to setup properly during daylight in preparation. I should have a lot more confidence then that things are as they should be. Setting up in the dark this evening was a bit of a worry.  More positives than negatives though, so that’s progress in my book

Hi Ande,

Great to hear you've managed to get out just hours after the arrival of new kit, it usually takes at least a month for the new kit/ cloud bank curse to lift 😬

Any first AP image is a positive step as you've captured 'something' & it can only get better from here in. 

I've yet to try my lens as I'm still waiting for the camera (a modded EOS 650D) but very much looking forward to first light with it.

The first time you actual get out & start is always a headache of errors, things not working, forgotten things & things generally not doing as they're told. It gets easier as you go on.

You mentioned about setting up in daylight, that's always a great idea as you can get a proper procedure going & an order of doing things. The more streamlined your session is the more time is spent gathering those photons rather than faffing with forgotten end caps etc 😂

Try stopping the lens down to 2.8 for now or even 4.0 as it'll make focusing much easier & you can then concentrate on other things such as nailing PA & framing your subject. Stellarium if you use it (it's a free app) has a great feature where you can put in your lens/ camera/ scope details etc & it'll give you a precise view of what can be framed with the given equipment & how it will look. Planning future projects is a great thing to mess around with on those cloudy nights.

I know you said you didn't want to use a laptop but if you do decide to go down that then Sharpcap (another great piece of software) has a fantastic polar alignment tool, although I've yet to use it, I know a few who do & swear by it. Sharpcap is free but to get the PA tool you need the premium version but for £10 a year it'll be money well spent.

Anyway, well done on your first outing & do let us all know how you get on. As your now ahead of me with regards to using the Samyang, I'll be asking you for advice next time around 🙂

Edited December 20, 2020 by nephilim

[Ande]

Thanks @nephilim. Yes, I definitely captured “something”. In fact, looking at the best of the pictures from last night, “something” flatters it somewhat 😆.  I was very surprised to learn that a 30 second, single exposure at F2 is enough to blow out the Orion Nebula. I had the ISO cranked up to 100 as well, expecting hardly anything to get through. I shall definitely heed your advice though, and stop the lens down a bit next time, and see what joy that brings me.

Stellarium is a program that I have on both my phone and iPad. And I have had a play around with the telescope simulator view. Very handy indeed. Regarding the polar alignment, I have the Polar Align Pro app that I am very happy with. It allows me to use the exact same graphic as the Skyguider reticle, which helps enormously.  

I shall dig the laptop out later today, and certainly check out Sharpcap. I will also endeavour to download, and have a play with Deep Sky Stacker.   Not looking forward too much for that, as I watched a few tutorials and none of it seems very intuitive to me.  Also need to consider a photo-editing package. Would PC or Mac be the better option? I have a Mac, a fairly competent gaming rig used for flight simulators, or my i5-based laptop. 
 

I am very much interested to hear your verdict on the lens once your camera lands. Good gear, plenty of experience and dark, Cumbrian skies sounds like the perfect mix

[nephilim]

3 hours ago, Ande said:

Thanks @nephilim. Yes, I definitely captured “something”. In fact, looking at the best of the pictures from last night, “something” flatters it somewhat 😆.  I was very surprised to learn that a 30 second, single exposure at F2 is enough to blow out the Orion Nebula. I had the ISO cranked up to 100 as well, expecting hardly anything to get through. I shall definitely heed your advice though, and stop the lens down a bit next time, and see what joy that brings me.

Stellarium is a program that I have on both my phone and iPad. And I have had a play around with the telescope simulator view. Very handy indeed. Regarding the polar alignment, I have the Polar Align Pro app that I am very happy with. It allows me to use the exact same graphic as the Skyguider reticle, which helps enormously.  

I shall dig the laptop out later today, and certainly check out Sharpcap. I will also endeavour to download, and have a play with Deep Sky Stacker.   Not looking forward too much for that, as I watched a few tutorials and none of it seems very intuitive to me.  Also need to consider a photo-editing package. Would PC or Mac be the better option? I have a Mac, a fairly competent gaming rig used for flight simulators, or my i5-based laptop. 
 

I am very much interested to hear your verdict on the lens once your camera lands. Good gear, plenty of experience and dark, Cumbrian skies sounds like the perfect mix

I'm slightly biased when it comes to post processing as I've always used a windows PC & Photoshop for this. There are many different software packages. I'd ask the question on the forum although that will obviously give you a big list of favorites based on the software others use but will probably provide a Mac option aswell. The ones I know about are all for Windows as I've never used a Mac. Aside from Photoshop, there's GIMP which is free & apparently quite good & Pixinsight which I've heard is more complicated than Photoshop but I've never used it.

Although I've long being interested in astronomy, I only bought my first scope back in around 2011. I had no idea AP was actually accessible to mere mortals until I joined SGL, so my kit wasn't suited to it & after trying & failing many times I ended up just throwing in the towel. Its only in the last few months that I've been able to build up a suitable kit for AP & now just have the camera to buy in a couple of weeks time. So really, although I've a little bit of experience & a lot of reading behind me on the subject, I'm still really a total novice.

Sharpcap is the way to go imo after seeing a lot of great reviews using its PA tool. As for Deep Sky Stacker & post processing I've found this site really good for practicing these things although you do have to have your own editing software & have already downloaded DSS. Its basically whole sets of data from DSO's including calibration frames which you can then stack & process yourself so its great practice for when you get your own images. http://www.remote-astrophotography.com/cgi-bin/Fits.pl 

As for the Cumbrian skies, I'm very lucky to live in a Bortle 3 area & my village only has 1 street light which is well out of the way from me. Its that dark that I have to use a headtorch at night to get to the car. I'm actually in the North Pennines AONB (but for some reason my address is still Cumbria) & with the area having the AONB tag it means there will never be any sudden floodlit buildings popping up as LP levels are kept at a bare minimum.

 

[rickwayne]

You realize you are the ONLY astronomer ever who would characterize a session as a "bit of a comedy of errors", right?

My criterion for success is a bit like the pilot's "any landing you can walk away from" -- any session where I don't actually cause my gear to emit smoke, or have to pick up equipment off the concrete, counts as a success. (TBF, as pilots my wife and I did try for a higher standard than "did not crash this time".)

And iOptron were amazingly tactful about replacing the burnt bits inside my CEM25P, I have to say.

If I may be so bold as to offer suggestions:

1. Write (and rewrite, and re-re-rewrite) a checklist. I'd offer you one but of course gear varies, and so does what different astronomers consider "obvious". The exercise itself will help you more than the piece of paper anyway. BIG lesson from aviation. It has been eight years and I can still recite our Cardinal's pre-engine-start checklist from memory -- but we still used the paper copy every single time.
2. Plan the flight, fly the plan. Go through the moves you'll make in advance, try to think it through.
3. Take your time in the field. I always feel pressured not to waste precious  dark-sky time, but it takes a lot longer to reshoot. Again like aviation, or rock climbing if you prefer. Anywhere your body or gear goes, your mind should have already gone. If the dark and late hour have you thinking slowly, it's OK to move still more slowly.
4. See if you can find a magic zone for your alt-az locks -- enough not to slip, but not so tight that you can't overcome it. 
5. If you're unfamiliar with red-dot sights for shooting, their huge advantage is that you needn't align your eye and peer through them. You can keep both eyes open looking at the entire starfield, and move and tighten the ballhead so that the dot moves into the right spot in your field of vision. You can buy one with a little machined-aluminum widget that mounts it on your camera's flash shoe for US$30 from Amazon. Try "Astromania red dot sight flash shoe" in your favorite shopping search engine. This saved me thousands of dollars, in that otherwise I'd have been hurling expensive gear into ravines and setting even more fire to it.
6. You mention shooting at a very high ISO, and then cite 100. ????? Actually it's a brilliant idea to set the ISO at 6 bazillion or so -- I don't remember, maybe Canons can do eight or nine -- for quick snaps to get the framing right. Then your checklist will remind you -- right? -- to set it back to the imaging ISO of 400 or 800 or whatever you use.
7. Until you get an intervalometer, a remote, or computer control, your camera's self-timer will work amazingly well. 

You are in luck that IMO the very best software for stacking and processing runs on Mac OS, Windows, and Linux. Those would be:

•  SiriL (far and away the most powerful free solution)
• Astro Pixel Processor -- what I use, full-featured and IMO the single best solution for beginners
• PixInsight -- legendarily powerful, with an equally legendary cliff-like learning curve

There are plenty of other packages which all have their adherents. I would not recommend anything other than APP to someone just starting out.

Finally, as you may have noticed, this little avocation has a few non-intuitive quirks and complexities (in the sense of "Donald Trump and Boris Johnson have a few personality flaws"). While you can learn it by ramming into each one and solving it in turn, your head will probably thank you for a subtler approach. Jerry Lodriguss has several good books for beginning astrophotographers including ones specializing in DSLRs. Charlie Bracken wrote my favorite all-rounder, The Deep Sky Imaging Primer, and Steve Richards' Making Every Photon Count is reputedly quite good. If you equip yourself with the well-rounded knowledge these authors can impart, you'll have a solid framework into which you can slot your ongoing learning.

Welcome, and I salute your courage! There's a lot to learn, which is what makes this so endlessly fascinating. Well, that and the flashy cars and girls.

[Ande]

6 hours ago, nephilim said:

I'm slightly biased when it comes to post processing as I've always used a windows PC & Photoshop for this. There are many different software packages. I'd ask the question on the forum although that will obviously give you a big list of favorites based on the software others use but will probably provide a Mac option aswell. The ones I know about are all for Windows as I've never used a Mac. Aside from Photoshop, there's GIMP which is free & apparently quite good & Pixinsight which I've heard is more complicated than Photoshop but I've never used it.

Although I've long being interested in astronomy, I only bought my first scope back in around 2011. I had no idea AP was actually accessible to mere mortals until I joined SGL, so my kit wasn't suited to it & after trying & failing many times I ended up just throwing in the towel. Its only in the last few months that I've been able to build up a suitable kit for AP & now just have the camera to buy in a couple of weeks time. So really, although I've a little bit of experience & a lot of reading behind me on the subject, I'm still really a total novice.

Sharpcap is the way to go imo after seeing a lot of great reviews using its PA tool. As for Deep Sky Stacker & post processing I've found this site really good for practicing these things although you do have to have your own editing software & have already downloaded DSS. Its basically whole sets of data from DSO's including calibration frames which you can then stack & process yourself so its great practice for when you get your own images. http://www.remote-astrophotography.com/cgi-bin/Fits.pl 

As for the Cumbrian skies, I'm very lucky to live in a Bortle 3 area & my village only has 1 street light which is well out of the way from me. Its that dark that I have to use a headtorch at night to get to the car. I'm actually in the North Pennines AONB (but for some reason my address is still Cumbria) & with the area having the AONB tag it means there will never be any sudden floodlit buildings popping up as LP levels are kept at a bare minimum.

 

I did look at Photoshop as an option, but the subscription model doesn’t sit particularly well with me. I’ll take a look at some of the other options mentioned. I did download Deep Sky Stacker this morning, but not sure when I’ll get a chance to gather enough images to test it out. Although the link you posted sounds a great solution in the meantime.  I can pull up something on YouTube, and then try to replicate the steps using those sample images.

A couple of years ago I spent a week in Alston, Cumbria. The whole area was stunning. If you live anywhere even close to that in beauty then you are a lucky individual.  The skies were amazing, like the skies of my childhood, when light pollution was nowhere near as bad as it is today.  Be very interesting to see what you are able to capture come the glorious day.

 

[Alien 13]

9 minutes ago, Ande said:

I did look at Photoshop as an option, but the subscription model doesn’t sit particularly well with me. I’ll take a look at some of the other options mentioned. I did download Deep Sky Stacker this morning, but not sure when I’ll get a chance to gather enough images to test it out. Although the link you posted sounds a great solution in the meantime.  I can pull up something on YouTube, and then try to replicate the steps using those sample images.

A couple of years ago I spent a week in Alston, Cumbria. The whole area was stunning. If you live anywhere even close to that in beauty then you are a lucky individual.  The skies were amazing, like the skies of my childhood, when light pollution was nowhere near as bad as it is today.  Be very interesting to see what you are able to capture come the glorious day.

 

Affinity Photo is a good alternative to Photoshop and is reasonably priced, it is quite popular with members on this site.

Alan

[Ande]

2 hours ago, rickwayne said:

You realize you are the ONLY astronomer ever who would characterize a session as a "bit of a comedy of errors", right?

My criterion for success is a bit like the pilot's "any landing you can walk away from" -- any session where I don't actually cause my gear to emit smoke, or have to pick up equipment off the concrete, counts as a success. (TBF, as pilots my wife and I did try for a higher standard than "did not crash this time".)

And iOptron were amazingly tactful about replacing the burnt bits inside my CEM25P, I have to say.

If I may be so bold as to offer suggestions:

1. Write (and rewrite, and re-re-rewrite) a checklist. I'd offer you one but of course gear varies, and so does what different astronomers consider "obvious". The exercise itself will help you more than the piece of paper anyway. BIG lesson from aviation. It has been eight years and I can still recite our Cardinal's pre-engine-start checklist from memory -- but we still used the paper copy every single time.
2. Plan the flight, fly the plan. Go through the moves you'll make in advance, try to think it through.
3. Take your time in the field. I always feel pressured not to waste precious  dark-sky time, but it takes a lot longer to reshoot. Again like aviation, or rock climbing if you prefer. Anywhere your body or gear goes, your mind should have already gone. If the dark and late hour have you thinking slowly, it's OK to move still more slowly.
4. See if you can find a magic zone for your alt-az locks -- enough not to slip, but not so tight that you can't overcome it. 
5. If you're unfamiliar with red-dot sights for shooting, their huge advantage is that you needn't align your eye and peer through them. You can keep both eyes open looking at the entire starfield, and move and tighten the ballhead so that the dot moves into the right spot in your field of vision. You can buy one with a little machined-aluminum widget that mounts it on your camera's flash shoe for US$30 from Amazon. Try "Astromania red dot sight flash shoe" in your favorite shopping search engine. This saved me thousands of dollars, in that otherwise I'd have been hurling expensive gear into ravines and setting even more fire to it.
6. You mention shooting at a very high ISO, and then cite 100. ????? Actually it's a brilliant idea to set the ISO at 6 bazillion or so -- I don't remember, maybe Canons can do eight or nine -- for quick snaps to get the framing right. Then your checklist will remind you -- right? -- to set it back to the imaging ISO of 400 or 800 or whatever you use.
7. Until you get an intervalometer, a remote, or computer control, your camera's self-timer will work amazingly well. 

You are in luck that IMO the very best software for stacking and processing runs on Mac OS, Windows, and Linux. Those would be:

•  SiriL (far and away the most powerful free solution)
• Astro Pixel Processor -- what I use, full-featured and IMO the single best solution for beginners
• PixInsight -- legendarily powerful, with an equally legendary cliff-like learning curve

There are plenty of other packages which all have their adherents. I would not recommend anything other than APP to someone just starting out.

Finally, as you may have noticed, this little avocation has a few non-intuitive quirks and complexities (in the sense of "Donald Trump and Boris Johnson have a few personality flaws"). While you can learn it by ramming into each one and solving it in turn, your head will probably thank you for a subtler approach. Jerry Lodriguss has several good books for beginning astrophotographers including ones specializing in DSLRs. Charlie Bracken wrote my favorite all-rounder, The Deep Sky Imaging Primer, and Steve Richards' Making Every Photon Count is reputedly quite good. If you equip yourself with the well-rounded knowledge these authors can impart, you'll have a solid framework into which you can slot your ongoing learning.

Welcome, and I salute your courage! There's a lot to learn, which is what makes this so endlessly fascinating. Well, that and the flashy cars and girls.

I like the pilot analogy. I used to do a lot of paragliding back in the day, and, although not strictly a “pilot”, a lot of the adages still applied. My favourite was, “Better to be on the ground wishing you were in the air, than being in the air and wishing you were on the ground”. I had two occasions where that really rang home, but that’s another story.

When I said the ISO was “cranked up”, it’s just the mad way my brain interprets things. To me, in this instance, up means higher quality, or less noise. I was exactly the same with gearboxes in cars when I was young.....  Because low gears generally meant higher revving, I considered them to be high gears. I confused a lot of people, and found myself constantly confused.  
 

Thanks for the advice. There’s some great stuff in there.  I shall certainly be composing a checklist of sorts.  If it can make things a bit more systematic then I can plod along methodically.

I do have a red dot finder, but will need to work out a mounting solution for it. It’s a Telrad, so quite a lump of a thing. But it’s a great piece of kit, so I’ll accommodate it somehow or other. 
 

I realise I can use the self timer on the DSLR, but not worked out how to incorporate it with Bulb Mode yet. Not sure if I even can. I might draft the laptop to perform this duty, as a stopgap measure until I can get my hands on the ASIAIR. 
 

I will be sure to look into the software suggestions you have given me. Thinking about it, I may scrap the notion of using the Mac. The laptop will be more versatile. The only stumbling block is that I intend to use my IPad with the ASIAIR, and I’m not sure how much I will need to try to transfer data between the IPad and the laptop. My experiences in the past with the PC/Mac relationship have seldom been good ones.

[Ande]

25 minutes ago, Alien 13 said:

Affinity Photo is a good alternative to Photoshop and is reasonably priced, it is quite popular with members on this site.

Alan

Cheers Alan. I shall have a peep. My “to-do” list is growing by the hour 😀

[Alien 13]

10 minutes ago, Ande said:

I realise I can use the self timer on the DSLR, but not worked out how to incorporate it with Bulb Mode yet. Not sure if I even can. I might draft the laptop to perform this duty, as a stopgap measure until I can get my hands on the ASIAIR. 
 

Unfortunately the timer/intervalometer will only work with multiple 30sec subs and the bulb timer only works for single shots, the two cant be combined. A cheap wired intervalometer will be an easy option or try the Canon camera connect app.

Alan

Edited December 20, 2020 by Alien 13

[Ande]

I did have a play with the Canon Connect app, but it seemed very limited. I may well have missed an option that opens up some more commands, so I shall give it another look.

[happy-kat]

StarTools has a mac Apple version and is very capable without a price ouch.

If you have an Android device then DSLR Controller makes an easy canon camera controller for focusing, settings and time lapse.

Use the light histogram to drive what ISO you use for the exposure length you want to use. The peak wants to be clear of the left edge of the histogram. Most cameras have an optimum ISO, find out what that is for your camera.

Enjoy.

[Alien 13]

40 minutes ago, Ande said:

I did have a play with the Canon Connect app, but it seemed very limited. I may well have missed an option that opens up some more commands, so I shall give it another look.

Just tried mine and yes the app is limited and so too the EOS utility on the PC via remote wifi. I tend to use the app/eos util to remotely set the camera and get it focused using the microfocusing options then switch control to a wireless intervalometer (dont like the cold so do everything from indoors).

As Happy Kat mentioned shoot at the cameras optimum ISO which in the case of the 80D is 100-200.

Alan

Edited December 20, 2020 by Alien 13

[happy-kat]

10 minutes ago, Alien 13 said:

As Happy Kat mentioned shoot at the cameras optimum ISO which in the case of the 80D is 100-200.

Alan

How does the optimum iso effect the histogram peak on this camera? Is this camera quite different

[Alien 13]

6 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

How does the optimum iso effect the histogram peak on this camera? Is this camera quite different

I dont think it effects how you use the histogram, just means that you may have to expose for longer to reach the same point (which is a good thing as it means better dynamic range). The 80D is unique in the Canon range as it is pretty much ISO invariant which means the data captured in dark areas suffer no noise penalty if you use post processing software to increase levels rather than using a higher ISO, much like a lot of Nikon cameras.

Alan  

[rickwayne]

Ahh, missed that your Mac wasn't a laptop. I've been doing software development on MacBook Pros since 2013, so I just assume.  A laptop is a really good idea even if it's mostly for processing, it's good to have a big screen handy to examine a frame, etc. Of course if your Mac has more snort it still might be the processing platform of choice -- no reason the computer you use in the field and the one you process on have to be the same.

I am a big fan of the little-headless-computer-at-the-scope model. ASI did a pretty nice job with theirs and people seem to like them. Do double-check that it is compatible with your kit, they are a bit notorious for playing nicely only with ASI gear. You may have gathered by now that astronomers strenuously advocate whatever bizarre bits of gear they personally have managed to decipher, so apply a bias factor here.  BUT: I find that you can have a reasonably seamless experience with less money spent and vastly more capability by going with one of the Linux options, either the StellarMate gadget (includes a Raspberry Pi  like the ASIAir, turnkey experience), buying your own Pi, case, and StellarMate OS (around US$120), or buy your own Pi and case and install the free Astroberry server which gives you essentially the same software.

Like the ASIAir, there are mobile apps which you can use to run the widgetry. But you can also remote in from a laptop, desktop, tablet, or phone and use the Pi as a computer in its own right, which I find incredibly helpful. The open-source gear-driver software common to these, INDI, supports just about every piece of astronomical and photographic gear you can think of, including odd bits like weather stations and observatory domes. 

 

[Ande]

12 hours ago, happy-kat said:

StarTools has a mac Apple version and is very capable without a price ouch.

If you have an Android device then DSLR Controller makes an easy canon camera controller for focusing, settings and time lapse.

Use the light histogram to drive what ISO you use for the exposure length you want to use. The peak wants to be clear of the left edge of the histogram. Most cameras have an optimum ISO, find out what that is for your camera.

Enjoy.

Thanks @happy-kat.  I’ll have a play with the camera, and try to figure out how to get the histogram displayed. I’m currently in the middle of a 10-day shift, working away, so am not getting much hands-on time with the new gear.

[Ande]

9 hours ago, rickwayne said:

Ahh, missed that your Mac wasn't a laptop. I've been doing software development on MacBook Pros since 2013, so I just assume.  A laptop is a really good idea even if it's mostly for processing, it's good to have a big screen handy to examine a frame, etc. Of course if your Mac has more snort it still might be the processing platform of choice -- no reason the computer you use in the field and the one you process on have to be the same.

I am a big fan of the little-headless-computer-at-the-scope model. ASI did a pretty nice job with theirs and people seem to like them. Do double-check that it is compatible with your kit, they are a bit notorious for playing nicely only with ASI gear. You may have gathered by now that astronomers strenuously advocate whatever bizarre bits of gear they personally have managed to decipher, so apply a bias factor here.  BUT: I find that you can have a reasonably seamless experience with less money spent and vastly more capability by going with one of the Linux options, either the StellarMate gadget (includes a Raspberry Pi  like the ASIAir, turnkey experience), buying your own Pi, case, and StellarMate OS (around US$120), or buy your own Pi and case and install the free Astroberry server which gives you essentially the same software.

Like the ASIAir, there are mobile apps which you can use to run the widgetry. But you can also remote in from a laptop, desktop, tablet, or phone and use the Pi as a computer in its own right, which I find incredibly helpful. The open-source gear-driver software common to these, INDI, supports just about every piece of astronomical and photographic gear you can think of, including odd bits like weather stations and observatory domes. 

 

Thanks @rickwayne  My Mac is getting on a bit now, so certainly no powerhouse. I might be better off utilising the flight sim PC, especially for photo editing as it is fairly fast, with a decent gfx card.

Regarding compatibility, I have been fairly careful to choose components that will operate with the ASIAIR, as that will be the keystone of the entire rig, once I can actually buy one.  I shall also get the ZWO-mini for guiding.  Then, further down the line, I hope to bag a RedCat, because it is an itch that needs scratching. And I would like to think I can then halt any more purchases, and call my kit complete.  Although I can’t promise that I won’t be further tempted by new, shiny stuff 🤣

[rickwayne]

On 21/12/2020 at 04:53, Ande said:

And I would like to think I can then halt any more purchases, and call my kit complete.  Although I can’t promise that I won’t be further tempted by new, shiny stuff 🤣

<SFX: HOLLOW LAUGHTER>HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO!

Oh, you sweet summer child. Y'know, I said something very similar about $3000 ago. Soon to be $5500, I'm ordering a CEM70...

[nephilim]

1 hour ago, rickwayne said:

<SFX: HOLLOW LAUGHTER>HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HOHOHOHOHOHOHOHO!

Oh, you sweet summer child. Y'know, I said something very similar about $3000 ago. Soon to be $5500, I'm ordering a CEM70...

I also used to think the same thing until I sadly realised that shiny AP gear comes before food 🤣

[nephilim]

On 20/12/2020 at 08:52, Ande said:

Thanks @nephilim. Yes, I definitely captured “something”. In fact, looking at the best of the pictures from last night, “something” flatters it somewhat 😆.  I was very surprised to learn that a 30 second, single exposure at F2 is enough to blow out the Orion Nebula. I had the ISO cranked up to 100 as well, expecting hardly anything to get through. I shall definitely heed your advice though, and stop the lens down a bit next time, and see what joy that brings me.

Stellarium is a program that I have on both my phone and iPad. And I have had a play around with the telescope simulator view. Very handy indeed. Regarding the polar alignment, I have the Polar Align Pro app that I am very happy with. It allows me to use the exact same graphic as the Skyguider reticle, which helps enormously.  

I shall dig the laptop out later today, and certainly check out Sharpcap. I will also endeavour to download, and have a play with Deep Sky Stacker.   Not looking forward too much for that, as I watched a few tutorials and none of it seems very intuitive to me.  Also need to consider a photo-editing package. Would PC or Mac be the better option? I have a Mac, a fairly competent gaming rig used for flight simulators, or my i5-based laptop. 
 

I am very much interested to hear your verdict on the lens once your camera lands. Good gear, plenty of experience and dark, Cumbrian skies sounds like the perfect mix

 

On 20/12/2020 at 20:13, Ande said:

I did look at Photoshop as an option, but the subscription model doesn’t sit particularly well with me. I’ll take a look at some of the other options mentioned. I did download Deep Sky Stacker this morning, but not sure when I’ll get a chance to gather enough images to test it out. Although the link you posted sounds a great solution in the meantime.  I can pull up something on YouTube, and then try to replicate the steps using those sample images.

A couple of years ago I spent a week in Alston, Cumbria. The whole area was stunning. If you live anywhere even close to that in beauty then you are a lucky individual.  The skies were amazing, like the skies of my childhood, when light pollution was nowhere near as bad as it is today.  Be very interesting to see what you are able to capture come the glorious day.

 

My ex girlfriends parents live in a farmhouse on the edge of Alston & I know the area well. I'm about a half hour drive from there & very lucky to have very dark skies. The village I live in just below Cross Fell has only 1 streetlight & the need for headtorches to get around at night 😀 The one downside is we also have the Helm wind, the only named wind in the uk & when that comes in you know about it, we get a heck of  lot of 'weather' here but those occasional clear pitch black dark nights, stepping out of the front or back door to a glowing Milky Way with no need for dark adaptation more than makes up for the Armageddon type weather we can get 😂

Edited December 24, 2020 by nephilim