Skywatcher AZ GTI mount owners thread

[bomberbaz]

Looking clear here guys, hopefully going to get a few subs of M13 with new OTA on mount, tracking will be restored and can compare my M13 result with the old 50mm OTA results.

[Priesters]

“Looking clear here guys” @bomberbaz

I don’t live so far away from you Steve and I was thinking the same thing.  But then you had to anger the cloud gods didn’t you 🙄

Edited May 24, 2022 by Priesters

[AstroNebulee]

53 minutes ago, bomberbaz said:

Looking clear here guys, hopefully going to get a few subs of M13 with new OTA on mount, tracking will be restored and can compare my M13 result with the old 50mm OTA results.

Good luck 👍

[bomberbaz]

1 hour ago, Priesters said:

“Looking clear here guys” @bomberbaz

I don’t live so far away from you Steve and I was thinking the same thing.  But then you had to anger the cloud gods didn’t you 🙄

seems my optimism was misguided, the clouds arrived suddenly and quickly, whiteout now.

Incidentally, whereabouts you at then?

[Priesters]

Rolled in pretty quickly didn’t they 😂. I’m in Colne. That’s Pendle Hill you can just about make out in the picture.

Edited May 25, 2022 by Priesters

[Elp]

Finally got to test this frankenstein of a cobble, the two lenses are a 135 and 200mm Takumar, paired with the cameras they are a close enough match where I can combine RGB and any other channel via the 183mm Pro:

 

[AstroNebulee]

21 minutes ago, Elp said:

Finally got to test this frankenstein of a cobble, the two lenses are a 135 and 200mm Takumar, paired with the cameras they are a close enough match where I can combine RGB and any other channel via the 183mm Pro:

 

Really nice setup you have there 👍, nice to see the az gti sporting a dual rig. How did your testing go? It looks fairly lightweight too.

Edit... Just read your other thread now, really very interesting indeed, it's going to prove a stunning little setup 😊

Cheers 

Lee 

Edited May 27, 2022 by AstroNebulee

[Elp]

Thanks, been building up to it for years tbh, never really used the dslr so while it was sitting around with the 224 I thought might as well try something else, this one I can assemble indoors and carry out with all the cables/power packs/asiairs much easier than my main setup.

[bomberbaz]

On 25/05/2022 at 07:03, Priesters said:

Rolled in pretty quickly didn’t they 😂. I’m in Colne. That’s Pendle Hill you can just about make out in the picture.

In colne, do you ever do visual or you strictly imaging?

[Priesters]

Spent a couple of years doing visual and really enjoyed it but got to the point where I realised my eyesight was the limiting factor - didn’t matter how good my eyepieces / diagonals were, I couldn’t improve on the experience so sold them, remortgaged, and moved solely to imaging.     Am still a long way off feeling like a proper imager as don’t really have the time to post process.  Definitely miss visual though and still have a small 90mm mak on a table top dob for the occasional peek at the moon.  

Edited May 27, 2022 by Priesters

[Priesters]

And finally, first light for the portable kit 😅.  No APODS at risk here but very happy I can pick the whole rig up in one go and pop it in to the garage after the session.

 

[AstroNebulee]

5 hours ago, Priesters said:

And finally, first light for the portable kit 😅.  No APODS at risk here but very happy I can pick the whole rig up in one go and pop it in to the garage after the session.

 

Stunning work for your first light 👍 That's the beauty of the az gti set up can all be carried in and out in one go. Really pleased you've got out to test your setup and you will be itching to get out with it again 😊

[AstroNebulee]

Finally managed to get the scope out last night to test my backspacing which was at 62.5 mm and has been adjusted to 63.5mm! (yes I know a lot but its what works to a point) will check the subs on the laptop later but weren't looking to bad on the phone screen zoomed in. I was testing on Vega and surrounding stars for this. 

Had first light with my Astronomik L3 filter and wow it really made a difference tightening up the stars and cutting down the blue/purple fringing, whereas before some stars would of been a blob now they are tightened up and close stars split easily. So I'm chuffed with it and worth every penny. (once again will check the subs on the laptop later)

Then had a few subs on M57 to test then settled in on NGC 7000 for a while. The az gti was performing great with guiding ranging from 0.7-1.7 rms so couldnt be happier, not always going to work so well but conditions were very good last night. Not astronomical dark I know but was not to bad. 

Good to see the summer triangle (see dodgy phone shot), milky way and popping my head around the corner of my imaging area Scorpius was rising nicely (better phone shot) just a pity my scope view is blocked on this part of the sky. Sadly I had to pack up and come in at 1.30am as I had to be up early this morning. Now I'm a glasses wearer I can see so much more clearly into the night sky and made sitting out with my set up more enjoyable to just gaze clearly at the stars. 

Hoping to get out again tonight if it stays clear but high cloud looming in, will see. 

I hope others managed to get some clear skies with their az gtis 😊

Cheers 

Lee 

Edited May 28, 2022 by AstroNebulee

[Priesters]

5 hours ago, Priesters said:

And finally, first light for the portable kit

Guiding was ok last night, but what about this backlash 😱.  Is that normal for an AZ GTi?

 

[bomberbaz]

My efforts, only 27 minutes of data before i got too tired and fed up of cloud causing issues. There is a bit of star trail I know, I will go through the subs again and try to remove the culprit(s) then stack again but just sticking this up as a foretaste. Much more data needed to get a decent image but it's a start.

On the blown out image I have placed a small arrow on to show IC1296, a 15th magnitude galaxy, pretty amazing from 27 minutes.

The tracking issue was the RA & DEC Aggr settings in tracking in the ASI Air app, they were set to 100%, once I dropped them it started tracking again. I found the best to be 35% for both and was tracking at about 1.5, sometimes less. Happy enough with that but I know there is some fine tuning to do on my guiding (exp, possibly focus, exp time and so on)

[AstroNebulee]

3 hours ago, Priesters said:

Guiding was ok last night, but what about this backlash 😱.  Is that normal for an AZ GTi?

 

I don't know how to interpret the backlash window there, but I had some backlash in RA and Dec with mine and tuned the meshing of the gear motors on both following Cuivs video and other tutorials. 

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/668785-adjusting-backlash-on-skywatcher-az-gti-mount/

This is my thread on it. 

 

Cheers 

Lee 

Edited May 28, 2022 by AstroNebulee

[AstroNebulee]

2 hours ago, bomberbaz said:

My efforts, only 27 minutes of data before i got too tired and fed up of cloud causing issues. There is a bit of star trail I know, I will go through the subs again and try to remove the culprit(s) then stack again but just sticking this up as a foretaste. Much more data needed to get a decent image but it's a start.

On the blown out image I have placed a small arrow on to show IC1296, a 15th magnitude galaxy, pretty amazing from 27 minutes.

The tracking issue was the RA & DEC Aggr settings in tracking in the ASI Air app, they were set to 100%, once I dropped them it started tracking again. I found the best to be 35% for both and was tracking at about 1.5, sometimes less. Happy enough with that but I know there is some fine tuning to do on my guiding (exp, possibly focus, exp time and so on)

Brilliant Steve, so pleased you got the scope out and testing even though the blooming clouds curtailed your session. It's great your tracking issues are solved now and the fine tuning can begin, as you know I'm still fine tuning mine haha. The RA and dec aggression can change from session to session depending on conditions but you've the rough ballpark figure now 👍. Plus thanks for keeping me company haha. 

That was a great spot with IC1296, I had to really look close on my phone. 

At least during the summer months with no astronomical darkness the tests aren't taking up to much imaging time and will all be sorted for when the proper darkness returns late July. 

Cheers 

Lee 

[knobby]

5 hours ago, AstroNebulee said:

Finally managed to get the scope out last night to test my backspacing which was at 62.5 mm and has been adjusted to 63.5mm! (yes I know a lot but its what works to a point) will check the subs on the laptop later but weren't looking to bad on the phone screen zoomed in. I was testing on Vega and surrounding stars for this. 

Had first light with my Astronomik L3 filter and wow it really made a difference tightening up the stars and cutting down the blue/purple fringing, whereas before some stars would of been a blob now they are tightened up and close stars split easily. So I'm chuffed with it and worth every penny. (once again will check the subs on the laptop later)

Then had a few subs on M57 to test then settled in on NGC 7000 for a while. The az gti was performing great with guiding ranging from 0.7-1.7 rms so couldnt be happier, not always going to work so well but conditions were very good last night. Not astronomical dark I know but was not to bad. 

Good to see the summer triangle (see dodgy phone shot), milky way and popping my head around the corner of my imaging area Scorpius was rising nicely (better phone shot) just a pity my scope view is blocked on this part of the sky. Sadly I had to pack up and come in at 1.30am as I had to be up early this morning. Now I'm a glasses wearer I can see so much more clearly into the night sky and made sitting out with my set up more enjoyable to just gaze clearly at the stars. 

Hoping to get out again tonight if it stays clear but high cloud looming in, will see. 

I hope others managed to get some clear skies with their az gtis 😊

Cheers 

Lee 

That's sweet guiding 👍🏻

[AstroNebulee]

Just now, knobby said:

That's sweet guiding 👍🏻

Thank you. It's the best consistent guiding I've ever had and don't expect to get that again haha. Let's hope tonight fairs as good 😊

[AstroNebulee]

Just a quick update as I've had a very quick play on the test data from last night. Small levels and curves stretch, and removed the very slight blue halos from ngc 7000 and left them in on M57 to show the extent they are now, they are so much better than before now I'm using the L3 filter and the stars much tighter. So hopefully when I get more data and do a proper process it will look better. 

M57 15 mins  and ngc 7000 at 38mins. No cropping so showing full frame. 

The stars are still very slightly oval pointing outwards (I'm being very picky now) so changed the backspaing from 63.5mm to 63.8mm so hopefully cure that. Looking to test tonight if it stays clear then all good to go for imaging sessions proper then. 

Cheers 

Lee 

Edited May 28, 2022 by AstroNebulee

[bomberbaz]

52 minutes ago, AstroNebulee said:

Just a quick update as I've had a very quick play on the test data from last night. Small levels and curves stretch, and removed the very slight blue halos from ngc 7000 and left them in on M57 to show the extent they are now, they are so much better than before now I'm using the L3 filter and the stars much tighter. So hopefully when I get more data and do a proper process it will look better. 

M57 15 mins  and ngc 7000 at 38mins. No cropping so showing full frame. 

The stars are still very slightly oval pointing outwards (I'm being very picky now) so changed the backspaing from 63.5mm to 63.8mm so hopefully cure that. Looking to test tonight if it stays clear then all good to go for imaging sessions proper then. 

Cheers 

Lee 

What app did you use for removal of halo's please Lee?

 

[AstroNebulee]

24 minutes ago, bomberbaz said:

What app did you use for removal of halo's please Lee?

 

I use the remove blue/purple halos action in the astronomy tools action set in photoshop cs4 to do it.

Edit... Also on another note the processing software Startools has a fringe killer tool that removes the halos too. 

Edited May 28, 2022 by AstroNebulee
addition

[bomberbaz]

5 hours ago, AstroNebulee said:

I use the remove blue/purple halos action in the astronomy tools action set in photoshop cs4 to do it.

Edit... Also on another note the processing software Startools has a fringe killer tool that removes the halos too. 

You prompted me to have another look at PyAstro tools for gimp, took a while to get my install right but now I have and so I had a play with this mornings image using them.

I used it to round the stars, add a little colour and smooth the image out in general. Top one before.

New effort below using the tools.. It definitely a little tidier and that's without really learning it properly.  Certainly the star rounder could come in handy down the line.

[AstroNebulee]

6 minutes ago, bomberbaz said:

You prompted me to have another look at PyAstro tools for gimp, took a while to get my install right but now I have and so I had a play with this mornings image using them.

I used it to round the stars, add a little colour and smooth the image out in general. Top one before.

New effort below using the tools.. It definitely a little tidier and that's without really learning it properly.  Certainly the star rounder could come in handy down the line.

That's so much better Steve 👍, just takes a little bit of practicing, you'll soon find a good workflow 😊

[bomberbaz]

Apart from the big star bottom right which looks like it's in the middle of an Einstein's cross 😃.

Need to remember how to create a star mask now, lol.