Skywatcher AZ GTI mount owners thread

[AstroNebulee]

6 hours ago, RayWUK said:

Yes the above frame is a bias frame with the lens cap on @0.001 sec.

Below is a dark frame @120secs. 

 

 

You can edit the exposure time by ticking the box next to the exposure time, I used to do it with my Canon 600D I think I used 0.00032 or something, the asiair will tell you the minimum if you go to quick. As said before don't worry about taking darks with your 600d they don't do anything and may make your image worse, save your time and grab more light frames instead. Just take lights, flats, bias. Can't remember if I used to shoot flat darks with my Canon 600D or not.

Regarding the noise in your images as you say, can you try stacking and processing without the darks. 

With your flats have you tried adding a t shirt stretched over the scope end or a few sheets of blank paper to diffuse the led screen a bit. 

I know I use a 294mc pro, but with my led light panel set up I always try to shoot 2 sec flats and get the histogram to just below halfway. I use my led screen (with mod casing seen on sgl) on lowest setting and blank paper sheets to get to the desired histogram and 2 sec exposures. After testing this, I can now keep the led panel set up the same and just pop on the end of the scope at the end of an imaging session and fire off 30 of them. 

 

Edited March 3, 2022 by AstroNebulee

[Elp]

Bit stumped really, the LED panel is flat isn't it with no bowing in the centre? Your lights seem to be filling the frame so I wouldn't have thought it was camera related.

[AstroPhil]

On 27/02/2022 at 16:45, Elp said:

It was windy last night and I was getting 7-12 typical average guiding, it was awful and couldn't really image anything. So I tried m45 pleiades at 10s subs which just about worked. Any other target other than m42 Orion nebula in such conditions I think would be impossible.

I suspect this was my issue as well! Once the skies clear I'll have another try - cheers all for the great suggestions; excellent thead!

[RayWUK]

On 03/03/2022 at 14:10, Elp said:

Bit stumped really, the LED panel is flat isn't it with no bowing in the centre? Your lights seem to be filling the frame so I wouldn't have thought it was camera related.

I'll have another go with flats with a different light source, I also have another DSLR that will fit to my scope (although not the ASIAIR) so will try a few flats with that and see if i get the same problem.

Looks like it might be clear for a bit this evening so will try and get some more subs of the Heart nebular.

[Elp]

White t shirt method works well.

[AstroPhil]

On 27/02/2022 at 15:56, AstroNebulee said:

Really pleased you've got vthis mount now, it's a beauty. Regarding your poor guiding, I suspect the poor PA and windy position wouldn't of helped you in your guide rate. I use my set up in EQ mode via an asiair pro so can't be of much use with the raspberry pi and I'll get around 0.5-1.5 guiding on a good night. Could you send a picture of your set up. 

Cheers 

Lee 

Hi Lee, here's a setup picture (the guidescope is going to get moved at some point to the other side of the lens, opposite the RPi, to impove the centre of mass). The setup is probably too heavy for the tripod, but am hoping it'll still be useful for an ultra portable rig....

[AstroNebulee]

2 hours ago, AstroPhil said:

Hi Lee, here's a setup picture (the guidescope is going to get moved at some point to the other side of the lens, opposite the RPi, to impove the centre of mass). The setup is probably too heavy for the tripod, but am hoping it'll still be useful for an ultra portable rig....

It's a lovely set up there Phil, I love what you guys are doing with the evoguide and lenses. Regarding set up weight I use the star adventurer tripod that you can buy with the az gti and the total weight on the set up is near 6kg! The scope, guidescope, asiair and 294mc pro all come to 3.9kg but add on the 2 kg of counterweights takes me quite high. 

[AstroPhil]

Yep: on paper the fotomate tripod should just about cope with the weight, but using the tripod head to get the latitude angle makes it a bit less stable! I actually have a spare sywatcher tripod, but no wedge, so I guess I'll have to make a trade-off between solid AltAz or dicey Equatorial at some point!!!

[AstroNebulee]

1 hour ago, AstroPhil said:

Yep: on paper the fotomate tripod should just about cope with the weight, but using the tripod head to get the latitude angle makes it a bit less stable! I actually have a spare sywatcher tripod, but no wedge, so I guess I'll have to make a trade-off between solid AltAz or dicey Equatorial at some point!!!

Hopefully a wedge will become available soon and your there with sturdy eq mode 👍

[RayWUK]

At last a nice clear still night, a good chance to see if the stiffness in the mount is affecting the guiding (previous attempts were all quite breezy and non conclusive). So far looking good (i think). 

[Elp]

Decent guiding figures I think

[RayWUK]

8 hours ago, Elp said:

Decent guiding figures I think

Over 2 hours it seemed to hover in the range 0.8-1.5 with the occasional excursion out to approx 2. The RA axis seemed to take a bit longer than the DEC to recover so i might tweek the max RA timing from 500ms to 600ms and see if it improves.

[AstroNebulee]

12 hours ago, RayWUK said:

At last a nice clear still night, a good chance to see if the stiffness in the mount is affecting the guiding (previous attempts were all quite breezy and non conclusive). So far looking good (i think). 

Really nice guiding figures Ray, I'd be delighted eith those on the az gti 👍

[Ed the Fox]

Took the scope out last night for the first time in ages using electric for the first time and an older phone as my current phone is now android 12 and the skywatcher app no longer works. 

Then all hell broke loose. Did a North/level alinement then asked it to go to Sirius. No. The scope pointed down and away from Sirius. Tried again .....no. So just asked it to go to another star instead. Again totally different part of the sky.

So I started to wonder if the phone itself knew where is was in the world. It did but was unable to get a GPS lock. So after disabling the "find my location" on my phone things got slightly better though only once was it in the field of view after asking it to find a target. I will now have to look for another used phone that can get a GPS lock on my position.

A frustrating evening all told.

Edited March 6, 2022 by Ed the Fox

[AstroNebulee]

1 hour ago, Ed the Fox said:

Took the scope out last night for the first time in ages using electric for the first time and an older phone as my current phone is now android 12 and the skywatcher app no longer works. 

Then all hell broke loose. Did a North/level alinement then asked it to go to Sirius. No. The scope pointed down and away from Sirius. Tried again .....no. So just asked it to go to another star instead. Again totally different part of the sky.

So I started to wonder if the phone itself knew where is was in the world. It did but was unable to get a GPS lock. So after disabling the "find my location" on my phone things got slightly better though only once was it in the field of view after asking it to find a target. I will now have to look for another used phone that can get a GPS lock on my position.

A frustrating evening all told.

That's is so frustrating and annoying indeed. What phone did you try this time with your mount? 

[Elp]

This is in alt az mode? Haven't used that mode in a while but as an example in EQ mode if the azgti does not go into the correct home position when you ask it to, any goto will be off. It's starting position (home position) needs to be correct first.

[Ed the Fox]

2 hours ago, AstroNebulee said:

That's is so frustrating and annoying indeed. What phone did you try this time with your mount? 

It was an old Motorola phone I used.

Just an update.....

Had a spare Samsung S6 using android 5.1.1 so I thought I'd give this a try earloer today and again off it went in a different direction to the moon. 

I'm starting to wonder if it has a problem  so I'll be calling FLO in the morning. 

[Ed the Fox]

2 hours ago, Elp said:

This is in alt az mode? Haven't used that mode in a while but as an example in EQ mode if the azgti does not go into the correct home position when you ask it to, any goto will be off. It's starting position (home position) needs to be correct first.

I used North/level alinement to start with in alt az mode.

[Adam J]

On 05/03/2022 at 14:14, AstroPhil said:

Hi Lee, here's a setup picture (the guidescope is going to get moved at some point to the other side of the lens, opposite the RPi, to impove the centre of mass). The setup is probably too heavy for the tripod, but am hoping it'll still be useful for an ultra portable rig....

A 50mm guidescope is serious over kill for a 230mm focal length imaging scope. Get a 30mm and it will solve some issues for you. 

[Elp]

Is it however in the same position it was in the last time you used it as you left it before you switched the power off? I believe it remembers where it was pointing prior so if you don't return it to a "home or zero" position, any following session will seem off.

[AstroNebulee]

3 minutes ago, Elp said:

Is it however in the same position it was in the last time you used it as you left it before you switched the power off? I believe it remembers where it was pointing prior so if you don't return it to a "home or zero" position, any following session will seem off.

Good point indeed, it's been so long since I've used alt az I forgot about that. I think you can clear previous alignment which I think I used to do before starting or ending a session. 

[Elp]

It'll have to be done, and then redo 3 star alignment.

[AstroPhil]

36 minutes ago, Adam J said:

A 50mm guidescope is serious over kill for a 230mm focal length imaging scope. Get a 30mm and it will solve some issues for you. 

Ha! Indeed it is! But, it's also what I have from another setup, and I'm trying not to add more bits-and-bobs to my collection at the moment...!

 

[Ed the Fox]

47 minutes ago, Elp said:

Is it however in the same position it was in the last time you used it as you left it before you switched the power off? I believe it remembers where it was pointing prior so if you don't return it to a "home or zero" position, any following session will seem off.

Ah interesting. The penny drops....

Just had it out within the last 15 minutes and tried 3 times to get the alinement right on the first star. 3rd time I asked it to goto Rigel. Its RA was about 30 degrees off and Dec was about 10 degrees off. So I lined it up on Rigel and then went to Castor and it was bang on, right in the middle of the FOV. In fact everything I asked it to look at was smack in the middle of the FOV.

Now when I'd finished doing this test I just switched off. According to @Elp not the right thing to do at all, so noted sir. I do however move the ota into a different position hence why is was so far out in the first place. 

So may I ask, when I next use it, what do I have to do to "clear the cache" as it where?

[AstroNebulee]

21 minutes ago, Ed the Fox said:

Ah interesting. The penny drops....

Just had it out within the last 15 minutes and tried 3 times to get the alinement right on the first star. 3rd time I asked it to goto Rigel. Its RA was about 30 degrees off and Dec was about 10 degrees off. So I lined it up on Rigel and then went to Castor and it was bang on, right in the middle of the FOV. In fact everything I asked it to look at was smack in the middle of the FOV.

Now when I'd finished doing this test I just switched off. According to @Elp not the right thing to do at all, so noted sir. I do however move the ota into a different position hence why is was so far out in the first place. 

So may I ask, when I next use it, what do I have to do to "clear the cache" as it where?

I think in the alignment screen somewhere is says to clear previous alignment I think, on this page in manual says alignment - reset alignment. I've included the manual to download too 👍

enmanual_20200721 (1).pdf

Edited March 6, 2022 by AstroNebulee