Award for general Numptyness

[powerlord]

Maybe this can be the thread to document the best...

I've had a few so far... but don't scroll down if you want to guess this one.

Second night ever trying to guide for first time - I've got  a 30mm mini scope, and an ASI224.

I'm having to wack the gain right up and put explosure to 3 seconds to see any stars.. i mean.. it's a small scope but surely.. is it this bad... even focusing is hard. sigh.. another stupid purchase - should have got a 50mm one like a normal person.

I then proceeded to actually get this working, guiding on a star, and shot about an hour of M51.

When packing everything up.. I discovered this.

 

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Edited April 23, 2021 by powerlord

[Dazzyt66]

Last night I used my homemade Bahtinov (cardboard) for the first time. Worked a treat and subsequently checked focus using Ekos Bahtinov assist. Worked a treat.

Went inside, set target as NC1848 - Soul Nebula. Tried to platesolve and failed - never had that happen before? Tried a couple of times and then realised I'd left the mask on the scope! Phew. Close call. I set up my schedule for 4 x sequences of 118x30 seconds stating from 11pm and went to bed...

Got up this morning to see that only 120 images had been taken. Checked the Ekos logs.

The first 2 hours of the sessions failed, the 3rd hour worked and the 4th stopped halfway through cos dawn was coming. Thats OK, I had 120 or so images to stack(?) 

Checked them - the first 30 have half my neighbours house in them, (I'm amazed plate solving worked but it did for the other half of the sky 😂)... the rest have the streetlight lighting up the bottom half of the frame...

Note to self - check where the planned target will be in the sky first! 😒

 

[Dazzyt66]

I know this is an old thread but hey…

Last night I wanted to make use of a gap in the cloud to grab a quick capture of Venus using OAcapture on my pi 4. It was running like a dog over WiFi so I thought - ‘hey, maybe if I turn off this VNC thingy it’ll go faster’ …. Locked myself out of the pi until a mini hdmi adaptor arrives tomorrow 😂😂😂

[Ags]

Try carrying the tripod + scope back in… with the camera USB still connected to the unsuspecting laptop. Kerrrrrash!

[cloudsweeper]

I was out a few nights ago, finished, brought in the 'scope, EPs, and power pack.

Next morning I looked out and saw ............................................... the tripod and GoTo mount on the lawn.  Good thing it hadn't rained!

Doug (rather worried).

 

 

[michael8554]

Hi powerlord

Is that some kind of advanced-concept focus mask ?

Michael

[Ags]

It's a focus mask, Jim, but not as we know it.

[Paul M]

Here's my best "fail". I posted about it at the time:

I did once have my scope away from home and realised while setting up that I'd left the couterweights in the garage!

Luckily it was only my 127 Mak on top of the EQ6, so I hung the wheel change jack off the counterweight bar! It worked.

[Dazzyt66]

On 16/04/2023 at 16:52, Dazzyt66 said:

I know this is an old thread but hey…

Last night I wanted to make use of a gap in the cloud to grab a quick capture of Venus using OAcapture on my pi 4. It was running like a dog over WiFi so I thought - ‘hey, maybe if I turn off this VNC thingy it’ll go faster’ …. Locked myself out of the pi until a mini hdmi adaptor arrives tomorrow 😂😂😂

Well, I fixed it and am now about to try Venus again… 🤞

[WolfieGlos]

Caught 36x 300s subs on M81/M82 and then another 36x 300s subs this morning on Markarians Chain. Slept in the living room after changing target, woke up at 4, perfect skies all night, no clouds, obviously no Moon, very little wind, no trailed images.

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All of Markarians Chain....Out of focus.

 

Even more annoyingly, I did the same thing on exactly the same target last year! I even made a mental note to re-check focus, and this morning I forgot to do it. Last year, I gave up on the target, putting it off until this year.......

Perhaps I should invest in an auto-focuser ! 

Edited April 20, 2023 by WolfieGlos

[knobby]

Can't remember the precise details but @Blazar and myself were scoping out (pun intended) a darkish site together ... we were both still new and were eager to try guiding. Steve forgot his camera and cables, I forgot my guidescope !

We did cobble together  a working set up with part of his rig and part of mine though 🙂

 

[wesdon1]

On 23/04/2021 at 16:05, Dazzyt66 said:

Last night I used my homemade Bahtinov (cardboard) for the first time. Worked a treat and subsequently checked focus using Ekos Bahtinov assist. Worked a treat.

Went inside, set target as NC1848 - Soul Nebula. Tried to platesolve and failed - never had that happen before? Tried a couple of times and then realised I'd left the mask on the scope! Phew. Close call. I set up my schedule for 4 x sequences of 118x30 seconds stating from 11pm and went to bed...

Got up this morning to see that only 120 images had been taken. Checked the Ekos logs.

The first 2 hours of the sessions failed, the 3rd hour worked and the 4th stopped halfway through cos dawn was coming. Thats OK, I had 120 or so images to stack(?) 

Checked them - the first 30 have half my neighbours house in them, (I'm amazed plate solving worked but it did for the other half of the sky 😂)... the rest have the streetlight lighting up the bottom half of the frame...

Note to self - check where the planned target will be in the sky first! 😒

 

@Dazzyt66 Hi Dazzy! Would you be so kind as to tell me where I can get the plans to make my own cardboard Bhatinov Mask please? I know they're relatively cheap to buy but I haven't got around to buying one yet, and your idea/inevntion of making your own from cardboard is a brilliant idea! Thanks!

Wes, Liverpool ( Bortle 7 *apparently?? More like Bortle 99'000 with the damn white LED street lamps that blaze down on my gear! LOL ) 

[wesdon1]

LOL I recall with sadness, about 2 months ago, I spent almost 5 hours in the freezing sub-zero cold gathering data on the Leo Triplet, only to discover the next morning that I had accidentally deleted all my data from my Laptop!!?? I was devastated!! Haha!! I was trying to delete older files because my Laptop was running so slowly after my imaging session ( I was starting to look through my subs in anticipation of processing/stacking them all the next day after work ) and somehow, such the dope that I am, I managed to delete the whole nights data!! ( and I couldn't retrieve them from the Recycle Bin because I have the settings on my Laptop to permanently delete when I delete things, just to save me having to delete stuff twice, and to try help Laptop stay fast, because it's a slow Laptop in the best of circumstances, it only has a crappy processor and 80GB total storage space ( I recently purchased extra storage space by way of a SONNICS SATA 500GB storage device )

What a monumental IDIOT I am!! haha!! 

Wes Liverpool ( Bortle 7 )

[Dazzyt66]

9 minutes ago, wesdon1 said:

@Dazzyt66 Hi Dazzy! Would you be so kind as to tell me where I can get the plans to make my own cardboard Bhatinov Mask please? I know they're relatively cheap to buy but I haven't got around to buying one yet, and your idea/inevntion of making your own from cardboard is a brilliant idea! Thanks!

Wes, Liverpool ( Bortle 7 *apparently?? More like Bortle 99'000 with the damn white LED street lamps that blaze down on my gear! LOL ) 

@wesdon1 here’s the link to the site and instructions I used 😊 I eventually did buy one but my cardboard version worked great too!

https://www.deepskywatch.com/Articles/make-bahtinov-mask.html
 

Good luck!!

Daz