Skywatcher AZ GTI mount owners thread

[ScouseSpaceCadet]

Just now, TerraC said:

Thank you guys.  I'll keep plugging away and see how I can improve with more experience.  I'm just amazed what I can see with this little rig.     Sneak peak but this is 3hrs of 40sec subs of the Rosette nebula.  I've a feeling i've overdone this one with the processing to see what I can drag out of it but i'm amazed I could even see this.  I couldnt even check I had it lined up correctly with a 60sec sub as visually I could see nothing from the frame.  I think it's pushing the boundaries a little bit. 

 

 

To be honest you really should start a thread in one of the imaging sections. A pic of your whole kit, a list if it, how much it cost, the results achieved , the usual ap technique blurb so this is not missed.

All the ap rigs in this thread are fantastic for newcomers with some brains, a willingness to learn and limited budgets. I keep banging on, but interesting, educational & enjoyable astronomy does not need to cost a mint or require a 30kg setup..

[bomberbaz]

20 minutes ago, ScouseSpaceCadet said:

To be honest you really should start a thread in one of the imaging sections. A pic of your whole kit, a list if it, how much it cost, the results achieved , the usual ap technique blurb so this is not missed.

All the ap rigs in this thread are fantastic for newcomers with some brains, a willingness to learn and limited budgets. I keep banging on, but interesting, educational & enjoyable astronomy does not need to cost a mint or require a 30kg setup..

Spot on SSC, TerraC has managed what I am hoping to be able to do with a similar setup although mine will be guided so maybe I can build upon it.

Very impressed and hopefully he can build on that. 

[AstroNebulee]

45 minutes ago, TerraC said:

Thank you guys.  I'll keep plugging away and see how I can improve with more experience.  I'm just amazed what I can see with this little rig.     Sneak peak but this is 3hrs of 40sec subs of the Rosette nebula.  I've a feeling i've overdone this one with the processing to see what I can drag out of it but i'm amazed I could even see this.  I couldnt even check I had it lined up correctly with a 60sec sub as visually I could see nothing from the frame.  I think it's pushing the boundaries a little bit. 

 

 

Excellent image @TerraC your set up is making me jealous now 😁, what do you use for processing may I ask 

[AstroNebulee]

37 minutes ago, ScouseSpaceCadet said:

To be honest you really should start a thread in one of the imaging sections. A pic of your whole kit, a list if it, how much it cost, the results achieved , the usual ap technique blurb so this is not missed.

All the ap rigs in this thread are fantastic for newcomers with some brains, a willingness to learn and limited budgets. I keep banging on, but interesting, educational & enjoyable astronomy does not need to cost a mint or require a 30kg setup..

Plus 1 for @TerraCstarting a thread of their own with their set up. Totally agree you don't need to spend a fortune to achieve great results in astrophotography, like all of us in this thread, I think we all like the challenge and pushing the boundaries, mine is down to portability mainly and can lift my set up and kit down stairs to the communal area outside. So these brilliant evoguide setups are even more portable astrophotography rigs, well impressed 👏

 

[TerraC]

14 hours ago, ScouseSpaceCadet said:

To be honest you really should start a thread in one of the imaging sections. A pic of your whole kit, a list if it, how much it cost, the results achieved , the usual ap technique blurb so this is not missed.

All the ap rigs in this thread are fantastic for newcomers with some brains, a willingness to learn and limited budgets. I keep banging on, but interesting, educational & enjoyable astronomy does not need to cost a mint or require a 30kg setup..

I'll see if I can put something together after the weekend. Hopefully get some pics of the rig in daylight and I can explain what i've done to mount the tower and scope.  Go to work in the dark and get home in the dark right now.   Great for AP when it's clear.  Shove the gear outside as soon as I get home, up and running in 20mins then leave it going for a few hours.

Hopefully might be able to grab a picture of the setup in action on Friday.  Forecast so far is clear but not sure what my next target/victim will be yet.  I'll have a look on telescopius and decide.  It might be more integration time on the Orion and running man.  I'm on the edge of Bortle 5/6 - I cant shoot anything to the East due to Bortle 9+ city light pollution.  North is restricted to above 28deg by houses.   I'm ok South to north west.   Went on a bit of a recce last Thursday to a Bortle 3/4 zone around an hour away from me.  Sky was fantastic.  Future plan is to grab the AZ-GTI rig and set it imaging for 2hrs, then grab some fish & chips nearby whilst trying NOT to look like a dogger  

I'd like to try Bodes galaxy but feel I may need to step up with a barlow on this little 50mm.  It was small when I tried to image it with my Startravel 102 last year.  

I know what you mean though, in all of my hobbies i've ran to a strict budget of barter, trade, beg steal or borrow.  Well not quite steal   I enjoy the make do and mend approach.  I 3D printed a bahtinov mask for the 50ED a couple of weeks ago with my sons 3D printer - then put it in my back pocket and promptly sat on it and broke it. So I made a new one with flexible TPA filament - works a treat and cant break this one. 

Ray

 

[TerraC]

14 hours ago, bomberbaz said:

Spot on SSC, TerraC has managed what I am hoping to be able to do with a similar setup although mine will be guided so maybe I can build upon it.

Very impressed and hopefully he can build on that. 

Have a few ideas to band about.  I have a raspberry pi spare which i'm thinking of going with astroberry and linking things up. 

I'm considering buying a 72ED in the future (probably next year) and turning the 50ED back into a guidescope. 

I also have the option of playing around with a mini guider on the top of the 50ED and trying to utilise a bresser camera my son has on his microscope setup.  Wondered if I might be able to use it to PA and guide the 50ED. 

Ray

 

[TerraC]

14 hours ago, AstroNebulee said:

Excellent image @TerraC your set up is making me jealous now 😁, what do you use for processing may I ask 

I've just used an old copy of photoshop from my photography hobby days but a couple of weeks ago I purchased Star Tools after playing around with it to get a feel.  It does a faster job of auto develop than me stretching levels and curves over and over.   I now use both together to tune and tweak but i'm still learning techniques and experimenting.

I had a little laugh when I saw the software someone had used on an absolutely amazing photograph I saw a couple of weeks ago.  Certainly fantastic image no doubt and used some top end £££'s worth of kit to capture it.  What made me laugh is the 2 or 3 software tools they had used cost more in total than the 3 telescopes I own.    

Ray

 

[bomberbaz]

3 hours ago, TerraC said:

Have a few ideas to band about.  I have a raspberry pi spare which i'm thinking of going with astroberry and linking things up. 

I'm considering buying a 72ED in the future (probably next year) and turning the 50ED back into a guidescope. 

I also have the option of playing around with a mini guider on the top of the 50ED and trying to utilise a bresser camera my son has on his microscope setup.  Wondered if I might be able to use it to PA and guide the 50ED. 

Ray

 

Stick with the 50ED and get one of these to mount a miniguide scope

Bracket system for Skywatcher Evoguide 50ED - Astrokraken.fr

[AstroNebulee]

4 hours ago, TerraC said:

I've just used an old copy of photoshop from my photography hobby days but a couple of weeks ago I purchased Star Tools after playing around with it to get a feel.  It does a faster job of auto develop than me stretching levels and curves over and over.   I now use both together to tune and tweak but i'm still learning techniques and experimenting.

I had a little laugh when I saw the software someone had used on an absolutely amazing photograph I saw a couple of weeks ago.  Certainly fantastic image no doubt and used some top end £££'s worth of kit to capture it.  What made me laugh is the 2 or 3 software tools they had used cost more in total than the 3 telescopes I own.    

Ray

 

I am a star tools owner too and love it. Like you I find the stretching of the image much easier than I used to in photoshop. Like yourself I use ps for the odd tweak of a high pass filter on certain areas. I sometimes use topaz denoise if it needs it. 

I know what you mean with some of the software setups, as much as the price, I don't think my brain could cope with all the processing and programming modules side of things. One day I may go there when I've grown an extra brain haha. 

[TerraC]

2 hours ago, AstroNebulee said:

I am a star tools owner too and love it. Like you I find the stretching of the image much easier than I used to in photoshop. Like yourself I use ps for the odd tweak of a high pass filter on certain areas. I sometimes use topaz denoise if it needs it. 

I know what you mean with some of the software setups, as much as the price, I don't think my brain could cope with all the processing and programming modules side of things. One day I may go there when I've grown an extra brain haha. 

Still a work in progress but I had a play with a re-edit this morning of the same data.    Less Stars - More Nebula..   I think i binned and cropped too much this time though.  I'll keep playing and make a blog thread so i'm not cluttering this one with my prattling    

Ray

[AstroNebulee]

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/390295-yes-another-great-orion-nebula/?do=findComment&comment=4207965

Edited February 5, 2022 by AstroNebulee

[RayWUK]

Finally got the AZ-GTI out for its first imaging session on Sunday night. Unfortunately things didn't go well. I upgraded the software for the ASI pro a few days ago and had all sorts of problems which i won't got into here (unless someone really wants to know), suffice to say an hour or so of clear sky was reduced to a few minutes of imaging.

On the positive side given the stiffness in the RA i was getting guiding down to 1-1.5" on both axis. There were a few bumps to about 4" but there was quite gusty wind around so i'll see what its like on a calmer night before stripping.

One problem i had occasionally was when using the GOTO from ASI pro the scope proceeded to point towards the ground. Never did get to the bottom of this so if anyone has seen this and knows the solution i'd be happy to know.

Anyway, this is what i got: 3 subs of 120secs, the last of which had thin cloud creeping in. Still learning with APP and StarTools.

 

[Elp]

You've got a result, and it's a good looking result so well done.

Regarding the scope pointing down issue I posted a step by step on page 12 of this thread, you may be having a similar issue.

Your guiding RMS doesn't seem too bad, I normally get around 1.5-2.5" and the imaging is fine, on the rare occasion it's gone down to 0.5" but that's not the norm.

[AstroNebulee]

24 minutes ago, RayWUK said:

Finally got the AZ-GTI out for its first imaging session on Sunday night. Unfortunately things didn't go well. I upgraded the software for the ASI pro a few days ago and had all sorts of problems which i won't got into here (unless someone really wants to know), suffice to say an hour or so of clear sky was reduced to a few minutes of imaging.

On the positive side given the stiffness in the RA i was getting guiding down to 1-1.5" on both axis. There were a few bumps to about 4" but there was quite gusty wind around so i'll see what its like on a calmer night before stripping.

One problem i had occasionally was when using the GOTO from ASI pro the scope proceeded to point towards the ground. Never did get to the bottom of this so if anyone has seen this and knows the solution i'd be happy to know.

Anyway, this is what i got: 3 subs of 120secs, the last of which had thin cloud creeping in. Still learning with APP and StarTools.

 

Brilliant to hear you got the your set up out on Sunday, it's a brilliant image Ray, you got your target, well done 👏 also these subs can go towards your next imaging session on the great Orion Nebula too. Elps advice on the scope pointing down is great and will hopefully sort your issue out. The guiding you were getting is super too, I'd definitely settle for those figures with the az gti, like Elps I can get down to 0.5-0.8 on some occasions but that's with still air but normally around what you've been getting 👍. I find star tools a lovely piece of software to use and so easy too. You're well on the way now Ray 😊

[RayWUK]

2 hours ago, Elp said:

Regarding the scope pointing down issue I posted a step by step on page 12 of this thread, you may be having a similar issue.

Thanks for that. I'm assuming (maybe incorrectly) from what you suggest is that the home position is the position of the mount when first switched on. That makes some sort of sense as i had to reboot every thing at one point and i think the mount wasn't pointing at the NCP and that may have been where things went haywire. I'll give it another try on the next clear night and follow your procedure.

In fact i've just tried it indoors without the PA, just lining up roughly with a compass, and the mount is happy slewing back and forth to where SkySafari  expects targets to be. 

Edited February 8, 2022 by RayWUK

[Elp]

Hopefully you've sorted it. I define the home position as counterweight bar pointing down, telescope directly on top of mount, telescope pointing to Polaris (so near enough pointing to +90 degrees declination and north). Not sure if the azgti by default registers it as the home position once power is switched on.

[TerraC]

Still need to sort out a blog but here's my take on Orion and running man from the weekend with the 50ED.  Unguided, rough PA. 3hrs and some Startools magic. 

 

[AstroNebulee]

3 hours ago, TerraC said:

Still need to sort out a blog but here's my take on Orion and running man from the weekend with the 50ED.  Unguided, rough PA. 3hrs and some Startools magic. 

 

Great image and lovely colours in there. What length were your subs being unguided. As you've a lot of detail in there 👍. Not a criticism but is the focus out a bit? 

[TerraC]

24 minutes ago, AstroNebulee said:

Great image and lovely colours in there. What length were your subs being unguided. As you've a lot of detail in there 👍. Not a criticism but is the focus out a bit? 

These were 40sec unguided at Iso400.  trying to balance light pollution and exposure.   If I go to 60sec the exposure seems a bit too high.  I wonder if a CLS filter may be of some use. 

I think the focus may be out a little.  I have a home made bahtinov mask but the helical focusser on the ED50 does seem a little tricky to me.  It looks like i've nailed it on a test star but then I think it's a little soft when I process.   I may have been a little too agressive on the noise reduction with startools too on this one.

Ray

 

 

[AstroNebulee]

19 minutes ago, TerraC said:

These were 40sec unguided at Iso400.  trying to balance light pollution and exposure.   If I go to 60sec the exposure seems a bit too high.  I wonder if a CLS filter may be of some use. 

I think the focus may be out a little.  I have a home made bahtinov mask but the helical focusser on the ED50 does seem a little tricky to me.  It looks like i've nailed it on a test star but then I think it's a little soft when I process.   I may have been a little too agressive on the noise reduction with startools too on this one.

Ray

 

 

Still a great image Ray, keep at it, I'm really impressed with what your set up is getting, can't wait to see more. 

A filter maybe of some use to add more contrast but you may have to image for slightly longer to allow those photons through the filter. 

[RayWUK]

7 hours ago, TerraC said:

Still need to sort out a blog but here's my take on Orion and running man from the weekend with the 50ED.  Unguided, rough PA. 3hrs and some Startools magic. 

 

Great picture Ray, and just shows what a difference another 2hrs 54mins makes on my 6min effort. I'm still a novice but would have thought StarTools would have reduced the gradient down the left side a bit more. The 'wipe' tool has done a really good job of cleaning up light pollution from my first two images.

RayW

[happy-kat]

Nice to see another of your images with this little cracker.

Edited February 10, 2022 by happy-kat

[TerraC]

On 09/02/2022 at 16:47, RayWUK said:

Great picture Ray, and just shows what a difference another 2hrs 54mins makes on my 6min effort. I'm still a novice but would have thought StarTools would have reduced the gradient down the left side a bit more. The 'wipe' tool has done a really good job of cleaning up light pollution from my first two images.

RayW

Think I may have got it a little better with this one?    Well that's odd, i cant really see it on my screen but when I upload the pic here the obvious light pollution then apears.. 

Where does one start a sort of blog on SGL? I dont seem to be seeing a members gear area.  Or do I just create a new topic in say Discussions>Mounts or Discussions>Telescopes?   Worried i'm cluttering this AZGTI thread with only a tenuous reference to it now  

Edited February 11, 2022 by TerraC

[AstroNebulee]

4 hours ago, TerraC said:

Think I may have got it a little better with this one?    Well that's odd, i cant really see it on my screen but when I upload the pic here the obvious light pollution then apears.. 

Where does one start a sort of blog on SGL? I dont seem to be seeing a members gear area.  Or do I just create a new topic in say Discussions>Mounts or Discussions>Telescopes?   Worried i'm cluttering this AZGTI thread with only a tenuous reference to it now  

It's probably when you upload it appears more on devices and such. As when I upload any images to here or other sources then the image degrades a bit so yours could be doing the same. I'm sure someone who knows about uploading files will advise better. 

Regarding starting your blog you can put it in places you suggested and start a thread there, but don't leave us completely 🥺

[TerraC]

31 minutes ago, AstroNebulee said:

It's probably when you upload it appears more on devices and such. As when I upload any images to here or other sources then the image degrades a bit so yours could be doing the same. I'm sure someone who knows about uploading files will advise better. 

Regarding starting your blog you can put it in places you suggested and start a thread there, but don't leave us completely 🥺

I'll still be in here regularly.  No doubt i'll have lots of questions when I start guiding and get the GTI linked to the pi  

The main thing I had a problem with initially for the pi.  I understand you link the GTI to the astroberry hotspot so that it can still be used at remote locations.  However I was following a tutorial which showed you had to link the astroberry to your home wifi and get it all updated.  This then meant you had to link the GTI to your home wifi too which for me taking the setup out and about wouldnt work. It'd mean a configuration change again depending if I was at home or out on location.  

I think I probaby need to setup astroberry.  Link it to my wifi and install the updates etc.  Then go back, disconnect from my wifi and use the astroberry server again. Link AZ-GTI to astroberry and I should be able to take the whole lot anywhere away with me. 

I need to find a way of mounting the pi onto the tripod too - in my case a little more difficult because the spare unit I have is a Pi400.     

Ray