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Skywatcher AZ GTI mount owners thread


AstroNebulee

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42 minutes ago, AstroNebulee said:

Looking really nice! When you fit an osc going from a dslr they seem incredibly long hanging out the back. I'm sure you got the spacing right just may need a tweak with some shims. It's taking me a while to get my back spacing sorted, need more tests when the weather allows. 

Look forward to your first light 👍

I got lucky with my setup in that the scope, FF and thats it for length. Screwed the female M42 thread of the camera to the M42 on male FF and bingo. The FF is dedicated so you would expect results to be pretty decent just off the back of that.

However feel as though I need a long exposure image to double check for vignetting and curvature though thus far the maximum data collected has been around an hour on any one target and with the 50mm aperture using no longer than 2 minutes.

I think I need at least 3 times that data at longer exposure to get a solid image.

M31 being both big and bright seems the obvious choice. 

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2 hours ago, bomberbaz said:

I got lucky with my setup in that the scope, FF and thats it for length. Screwed the female M42 thread of the camera to the M42 on male FF and bingo. The FF is dedicated so you would expect results to be pretty decent just off the back of that.

However feel as though I need a long exposure image to double check for vignetting and curvature though thus far the maximum data collected has been around an hour on any one target and with the 50mm aperture using no longer than 2 minutes.

I think I need at least 3 times that data at longer exposure to get a solid image.

M31 being both big and bright seems the obvious choice. 

Sounds excellent and at least you've a matched FF which is the best way possible. Be interesting to see when you do your tests to check for curvature and vignetting but I suspect they will be spot on. 

As you know with my set up of mismatched FF and scope it's not the best by a long shot and always fighting something on it. Currently my back focus is around 61mm and even longer if you measure from the actual glass of the ovl FF to sensor! And still a slight sensor to close result hence a 0.5mm extra shim to test. Add into tgst the sensor tilt I have its a pain to slowly alter each time. 

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First light with the new 533MC Pro last night.  Very impressed!  I haven't had a chance to process the data yet but thought I'd show a quick comparison below (also @Lee_P from my other thread about mount v camera).

On the left a single raw, unprocessed 2 min sub from my modded DSLR taken 3 nights ago, ISO 800.

In the middle a single unprocessed 2 min FITS frame from the 533 taken last night.  Gain 101, temp -10C.  (Image viewed via ASI's FITS viewer, saved as a png).

On the right, the same FITS frame with a simple debayer via ASI's FITS viewer (again saved as a png).

Bortle 5/6 skies, no filter used.

I was in two minds to go after M101, M51 or M81/82 last night, decided on M81/82 to compare with my DSLR results from the other night and to avoid a meridian flip.  I'm glad I did as I think as a comparison the (initial) results are very interesting.  It also looks like I have back focus nailed.

The AZ GTi itself performed very well - frequently guiding below 1 arcsecond, with an average probably around the 1 mark.

A solid start - will post the final processed image later.

compared.jpg

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2 hours ago, herne said:

First light with the new 533MC Pro last night.  Very impressed!  I haven't had a chance to process the data yet but thought I'd show a quick comparison below (also @Lee_P from my other thread about mount v camera).

On the left a single raw, unprocessed 2 min sub from my modded DSLR taken 3 nights ago, ISO 800.

In the middle a single unprocessed 2 min FITS frame from the 533 taken last night.  Gain 101, temp -10C.  (Image viewed via ASI's FITS viewer, saved as a png).

On the right, the same FITS frame with a simple debayer via ASI's FITS viewer (again saved as a png).

Bortle 5/6 skies, no filter used.

I was in two minds to go after M101, M51 or M81/82 last night, decided on M81/82 to compare with my DSLR results from the other night and to avoid a meridian flip.  I'm glad I did as I think as a comparison the (initial) results are very interesting.  It also looks like I have back focus nailed.

The AZ GTi itself performed very well - frequently guiding below 1 arcsecond, with an average probably around the 1 mark.

A solid start - will post the final processed image later.

compared.jpg

 Brilliant you got first light with your 533 mc pro last night. Superb images so far. Can definitely see how much more detail and cleaner the image is. That's the big thing I found moving from dslr to dedicated astro camera. 

Great to hear the az gti guided so well too 👍

Cheers 

Lee 

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Had a play this afternoon from my first light with the new camera last night.

Deep Sky Stacker remains somewhat of a dark art to me, I need to work on taking my calibration frames with the new camera and I don't really like how the background colour turned out, however I'm still pleased the image and is my best shot of M81/82 to date by quite a long way.  I'll still re-work it at some point if only to sort out the background and will hopefully get more clear nights soon to at least double the integration time.  Some of the stars could do with a touch up too.

Other than a slight crop to remove a few stacking artifacts around the edges the image isn't otherwise cropped.

125 x 2 min light frames (I binned 25 due to satellites and a rapidly approaching dawn); 4hrs 10mins total integration.

Stacked in Siril with Bias, Darks and Flat frames.  I did try DSS but I'm still doing something wrong with it plus the calibration frames have room for improvement.

AZ Gti; ASI 533MC Pro; William Optics Z61ii; ASI 120MM mini guide scope; Astro Essentials 30mm f4 guide scope; no filters; Moon 48%.

Stacked and pre-processed in Siril; finished in Photoshop.

PS siril all processed.jpg

Edited by herne
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25 minutes ago, herne said:

Had a play this afternoon from my first light with the new camera last night.

Deep Sky Stacker remains somewhat of a dark art to me, I need to work on taking my calibration frames with the new camera and I don't really like how the background colour turned out, however I'm still pleased the image and is my best shot of M81/82 to date by quite a long way.  I'll still re-work it at some point if only to sort out the background and will hopefully get more clear nights soon to at least double the integration time.  Some of the stars could do with a touch up too.

Other than a slight crop to remove a few stacking artifacts around the edges the image isn't otherwise cropped.

125 x 2 min light frames (I binned 25 due to satellites and a rapidly approaching dawn); 4hrs 10mins total integration.

Stacked in Siril with Bias, Darks and Flat frames.  I did try DSS but I'm still doing something wrong with it plus the calibration frames have room for improvement.

AZ Gti; ASI 533MC Pro; William Optics Z61ii; ASI 120MM mini guide scope; Astro Essentials 30mm f4 guide scope; no filters; Moon 48%.

Stacked and pre-processed in Siril; finished in Photoshop.

PS siril all processed.jpg

Very nice indeed 👍, for your first attempt with your new astro camera, lovely detail and colours in M81 too.  4 hours is a good amount of data. The background colour looks ok to me on my phone, your right the stars need a bit of tweaking but good colour in them, maybe an ir uv cut filter to help. Should be proud of it nice work. 

Edited by AstroNebulee
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3 hours ago, herne said:

Had a play this afternoon from my first light with the new camera last night.

Deep Sky Stacker remains somewhat of a dark art to me, I need to work on taking my calibration frames with the new camera and I don't really like how the background colour turned out, however I'm still pleased the image and is my best shot of M81/82 to date by quite a long way.  I'll still re-work it at some point if only to sort out the background and will hopefully get more clear nights soon to at least double the integration time.  Some of the stars could do with a touch up too.

Other than a slight crop to remove a few stacking artifacts around the edges the image isn't otherwise cropped.

125 x 2 min light frames (I binned 25 due to satellites and a rapidly approaching dawn); 4hrs 10mins total integration.

Stacked in Siril with Bias, Darks and Flat frames.  I did try DSS but I'm still doing something wrong with it plus the calibration frames have room for improvement.

AZ Gti; ASI 533MC Pro; William Optics Z61ii; ASI 120MM mini guide scope; Astro Essentials 30mm f4 guide scope; no filters; Moon 48%.

Stacked and pre-processed in Siril; finished in Photoshop.

 

 

Yes nice effort there but on my big pc screen it just looks slightly grainy. I think it is just a bit over stretched but if you have the data you have a comparison to redo it. 

Also agreed with Lee about the IR/UV cut filter. I made a recent post about that and the difference with and without the filter was very noticeable. I have the astronomik L2.

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33 minutes ago, bomberbaz said:

Yes nice effort there but on my big pc screen it just looks slightly grainy. I think it is just a bit over stretched but if you have the data you have a comparison to redo it. 

Also agreed with Lee about the IR/UV cut filter. I made a recent post about that and the difference with and without the filter was very noticeable. I have the astronomik L2.

I actually intentionally left some graininess in the background as I don’t like it too flat but all part of learning with the data from a new camera 👍.  Definitely a lot of learning points and like you say good to have a comparison image now -  a decent enough starter for 10 but plenty of room for improvement.

Will keep the filter in mind cheers.

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1 hour ago, bomberbaz said:

Bought so.e new cables ( shorter) to tidy things up. Quite pleased with the end result, cures my ocd for now. 

20220510_152018.thumb.jpg.3cd23d5f47c7f2ef5d65aa858588a76d.jpg

20220510_152108.thumb.jpg.ef34fb2bb1518fdc39ed33702c637461.jpg

Very nice and tidy indeed, great job. 👍 Do you not get any snagging with the mount power and eq mod cable. 

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4 minutes ago, AstroNebulee said:

Very nice and tidy indeed, great job. 👍 Do you not get any snagging with the mount power and eq mod cable. 

Cheers Lee, I like tidy.

Re snagging; I always watch it onto my desired target and so far I have not had any problems. Remember once on target it ain't going to move (or shouldn't) in dec.

Also there is a lot more free cable than there looks to be and it can go 180 degrees either direction although I can't for the life of me think why it would ever need to go that far.

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2 minutes ago, bomberbaz said:

Cheers Lee, I like tidy.

Re snagging; I always watch it onto my desired target and so far I have not had any problems. Remember once on target it ain't going to move (or shouldn't) in dec.

Also there is a lot more free cable than there looks to be and it can go 180 degrees either direction although I can't for the life of me think why it would ever need to go that far.👍

It's very tidy, much better than mine. 

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Changed dovetail on main scope. The bracket, which is 3D printed came with a supplied plastic one (see pictures above).

However it was slightly unbalanced and the green one allows me to address this and also looks sohhh much nicer. 

20220510_202658.thumb.jpg.0deff466d38ec7c51acd8ea75a01f1dc.jpg

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10 hours ago, bomberbaz said:

Changed dovetail on main scope. The bracket, which is 3D printed came with a supplied plastic one (see pictures above).

However it was slightly unbalanced and the green one allows me to address this and also looks sohhh much nicer. 

20220510_202658.thumb.jpg.0deff466d38ec7c51acd8ea75a01f1dc.jpg

Your rig is very similar to mine, different guide camera. I'm sure you've mentioned it before but I can't find it, I'm intrigued by the silver plate mounted behind the guide camera for mounting the Asiair. Is this a home made plate?

Did you have any problems with balance on the declination axis with the Asiair mounted at the back?

Edit: just seen your comment about balance better with the new dovetail bar, was the imbalance due to the positioning of the Asiair?

Edited by LaurenceT
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1 hour ago, LaurenceT said:

Your rig is very similar to mine, different guide camera. I'm sure you've mentioned it before but I can't find it, I'm intrigued by the silver plate mounted behind the guide camera for mounting the Asiair. Is this a home made plate?

Did you have any problems with balance on the declination axis with the Asiair mounted at the back?

Edit: just seen your comment about balance better with the new dovetail bar, was the imbalance due to the positioning of the Asiair?

More than likely laurence but it is an ultra light alloy is the plate. (My son works in aerospace industry)

The issue with balance was ever so slight, I mean it  still worked fine but long term imbalance should not be left. If ypu look at the two pictures with differing dovetails you will note it has moved by less than 2cm. 

Regarding the Air+ position, I have seen some rigs that look like a spiders nest gone haywire and that would drive me nuts, haha. 

I wanted it mounting where it was central to all the peripherals so I could keep it tidy.

 

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Happier with this effort from my first light.  Still room for improvement but better I think.  Will hopefully get more clear skies soon to add integration time.

I also just bought this dovetail base from Amazon to attach the ASI Air (or guide scope) as I'm not overly happy with hanging the AAP off the top end of my dovetail bar as I have been.  Will let you know how it goes.  (FLO sell something identical made by William Optics for more than double the price + P&P, so I cheaped out 😅).

PS Siril processed v2 cropped.jpg

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20 minutes ago, herne said:

Happier with this effort from my first light.  Still room for improvement but better I think.  Will hopefully get more clear skies soon to add integration time.

I also just bought this dovetail base from Amazon to attach the ASI Air (or guide scope) as I'm not overly happy with hanging the AAP off the top end of my dovetail bar as I have been.  Will let you know how it goes.  (FLO sell something identical made by William Optics for more than double the price + P&P, so I cheaped out 😅).

PS Siril processed v2 cropped.jpg

I'd love to see a pic of how you use that base to connect your Asiair.

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1 hour ago, herne said:

Happier with this effort from my first light.  Still room for improvement but better I think.  Will hopefully get more clear skies soon to add integration time.

I also just bought this dovetail base from Amazon to attach the ASI Air (or guide scope) as I'm not overly happy with hanging the AAP off the top end of my dovetail bar as I have been.  Will let you know how it goes.  (FLO sell something identical made by William Optics for more than double the price + P&P, so I cheaped out 😅).

PS Siril processed v2 cropped.jpg

Nice details in M81 dust lanes, you've got a great image there 😊

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1 hour ago, herne said:

Happier with this effort from my first light.  Still room for improvement but better I think.  Will hopefully get more clear skies soon to add integration time.

I also just bought this dovetail base from Amazon to attach the ASI Air (or guide scope) as I'm not overly happy with hanging the AAP off the top end of my dovetail bar as I have been.  Will let you know how it goes.  (FLO sell something identical made by William Optics for more than double the price + P&P, so I cheaped out 😅).

PS Siril processed v2 cropped.jpg

Much better than the last one, more natural looking. Would happily have that grace my wall. 

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1 hour ago, bomberbaz said:

Query, if i take barlowed lights, would my dark, flats etc need barlowing too?

I would of thought so. The optical train would have changed so the lights wouldn't match the flats. That's how I see it anyway 😊

Edited by AstroNebulee
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23 minutes ago, AstroNebulee said:

I would of thought so. The optical train would have changed so the lights wouldn't match the flats. That's how I see it anyway 😊

Yeah it's what I was thinking but wasn't 100%. You know when you think you know but your not sure you are right that you know 🤪

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