Skywatcher AZ GTI mount owners thread

[AstroNebulee]

4 hours ago, AstroNebulee said:

Your image is stunning 😍, and if you've just started processing then your final images will be amazing. I just faff my way through but slowly learning how to do it better, thank you for your kind words 👍

Had a play with my ngc 7000 this afternoon, 2.5 hours combined. Jury's still out on it atm. 😬

Will get more data to add when possible. 

[bomberbaz]

22 minutes ago, AstroNebulee said:

Had a play with my ngc 7000 this afternoon, 2.5 hours combined. Jury's still out on it atm. 😬

Will get more data to add when possible. 

That's excellent that Lee, you have captured some very good structure in that. If I had to be picky I would say the stars could do with sharpening up or making a little brighter, you must have a filter for that, haha.

But overall and bearing in mind how far you have come it's top notch. 

[tompato]

Quick question for the owners of the Az-Gti, how do you power it? Batteries, rechargeable batteries, power supply, power station/pack?

[AstroNebulee]

14 minutes ago, bomberbaz said:

That's excellent that Lee, you have captured some very good structure in that. If I had to be picky I would say the stars could do with sharpening up or making a little brighter, you must have a filter for that, haha.

But overall and bearing in mind how far you have come it's top notch. 

Thank you Steve that's very kind of you 😊, I can see what you mean with the stars, I kind of like it soft and muted and not take away from the nebula. I only fudged it combining the individual stars and starless images, I'll have a go moro and see if i can learn it 😂. Thank you again Steve 👍

[AstroNebulee]

9 minutes ago, tompato said:

Quick question for the owners of the Az-Gti, how do you power it? Batteries, rechargeable batteries, power supply, power station/pack?

I have powered it by a talentcell battery pack (only the size of a cigarette packet) available on amazon before and lasts amazingly long between charges but now power it by the mains via an asiair pro. 

Cheers 

Lee 

Edited June 3, 2022 by AstroNebulee

[herne]

1 hour ago, tompato said:

Quick question for the owners of the Az-Gti, how do you power it? Batteries, rechargeable batteries, power supply, power station/pack?

Don’t use rechargeable AA batteries, they won’t give sufficiently stable power.  At home I plug mine into the mains via a 12V 5A power supply.

Edited June 3, 2022 by herne

[LaurenceT]

1 hour ago, AstroNebulee said:

I have powered it by a talentcell battery pack (only the size of a cigarette packet) available on amazon before and lasts amazingly long between charges but now power it by the mains via an asiair pro. 

Cheers 

Lee 

That's what I use, works perfectly.

[AstroNebulee]

23 minutes ago, LaurenceT said:

That's what I use, works perfectly.

I've just checked mine, not used it since last year to power my dew heaters back then and still got full charge, so definitely recommend if not going the mains power route. 

[Elp]

3 hours ago, tompato said:

Quick question for the owners of the Az-Gti, how do you power it? Batteries, rechargeable batteries, power supply, power station/pack?

Mains or Celestron Lithium LT, so compact I've bought two.

[tompato]

Is there any difference between the Lithium LT 6.1ah and the newer Lithium LifePO4 7.2ah batteries other than the capacity/price slightly?

Are they different types of battery, I couldn't quite tell?

[Elp]

Not sure, I know with the LT you can't use the 12v out and usb at the same time, but I did read that it falls within the parameters for carry on flights if you're so inclined but that can change. I even use them to power my asiair and gem.

[badhex]

5 hours ago, tompato said:

Quick question for the owners of the Az-Gti, how do you power it? Batteries, rechargeable batteries, power supply, power station/pack?

I have used both AAs and the smaller of the two Celestron LiFePO4 battery packs. The AAs are super helpful for being away and now wanting to take a heavy battery pack, but obviously great to have the extra capacity and features of the battery pack. The Red light is very helpful for setting up. It's got a pretty finicky port cover that can easily break - although mine hasn't as I've been super careful - and it stupidly doesn't allow charging from USB at the same time as powering the mount. That said if you have some sort of unit like a dew heater controller or similar that may not be an issue for you. 

[happy-kat]

from my little googling when I choose Lithium LifePO4 it uses less precious metals has a good power curve takes x4 times as many charge cycles over it's life, I worked out the powertank 7ah I got would cost approximately 13p per charge for it's total life use.

Edited June 4, 2022 by happy-kat

[herne]

I finally managed to get out a couple of nights ago and wanted to push the AZ Gti a bit.  I've taken individual 10 minute subs before but never a full night's session, so that's what I did.  I also wanted to get back to some nebula hunting which is a little tricky at present - I have great views North, South and West but East tends to get blocked by my roof, however as it doesn't really get dark until 11ish that's just about the time some eastern nebula pop above my roofline, so I managed to get a good 4 hours of data.

Below is a single uncalibrated 10 minute sub of the Sadr region, straight out of the camera as a FITS file but saved as a png to share, so completely untouched and unprocessed.  Honestly the AZ GTi continues to surpass my expectations - I'm super impressed it can handle not only a single 10 minute sub but an entire night's imaging run.  I'm seeing some hot pixels and stars are bloated somewhat so I doubt I'd be using 10min subs much in future (although processing will help there), but as a test for the mount actually being able to handle that length of sub (guided) without star trailing I think is pretty nice.

I haven't processed the finished image yet, will share when I do.

Set up used:  WO Z61ii; ZWO 533mc Pro; ASI Air Pro; L-enhance filter; Astro essentials 30mm mini guide scope; ZWO ASI 120mm mini guide camera; AZ Gti eq mode.

[AstroNebulee]

2 hours ago, herne said:

I finally managed to get out a couple of nights ago and wanted to push the AZ Gti a bit.  I've taken individual 10 minute subs before but never a full night's session, so that's what I did.  I also wanted to get back to some nebula hunting which is a little tricky at present - I have great views North, South and West but East tends to get blocked by my roof, however as it doesn't really get dark until 11ish that's just about the time some eastern nebula pop above my roofline, so I managed to get a good 4 hours of data.

Below is a single uncalibrated 10 minute sub of the Sadr region, straight out of the camera as a FITS file but saved as a png to share, so completely untouched and unprocessed.  Honestly the AZ GTi continues to surpass my expectations - I'm super impressed it can handle not only a single 10 minute sub but an entire night's imaging run.  I'm seeing some hot pixels and stars are bloated somewhat so I doubt I'd be using 10min subs much in future (although processing will help there), but as a test for the mount actually being able to handle that length of sub (guided) without star trailing I think is pretty nice.

I haven't processed the finished image yet, will share when I do.

Set up used:  WO Z61ii; ZWO 533mc Pro; ASI Air Pro; L-enhance filter; Astro essentials 30mm mini guide scope; ZWO ASI 120mm mini guide camera; AZ Gti eq mode.

WOW 10 minutes guided subs with Your AzGti, it's a lovely image for 1 unprocessed sub. It's got me thinking when astronomical darkness returns to try at least a 5 min sub as a trial. 

Nice work 👍

Edited June 4, 2022 by AstroNebulee

[herne]

A quick and dirty process of 19 x 10 min subs (3 hrs 10 mins).  I'm sure I could do better but limited time at present.  I discarded 5 subs due to clouds - another negative of using such long subs: that's almost a quarter of the total integration time gone.  Ouch.  Interestingly there were quite a lot of satellite trails apparent in other subs but DSS successfully deleted them.

Note - this stack uses light frames only.  No darks, flats, bias or dark flats used.  Again, part of the testing.

Stacked in DSS, processed in Photoshop.

[AstroNebulee]

17 minutes ago, herne said:

A quick and dirty process of 19 x 10 min subs (3 hrs 10 mins).  I'm sure I could do better but limited time at present.  I discarded 5 subs due to clouds - another negative of using such long subs: that's almost a quarter of the total integration time gone.  Ouch.  Interestingly there were quite a lot of satellite trails apparent in other subs but DSS successfully deleted them.

Note - this stack uses light frames only.  No darks, flats, bias or dark flats used.  Again, part of the testing.

Stacked in DSS, processed in Photoshop.

Looking very good and clean dispite no callibration. Be interesting to see what the calibration would add if you do it again. 👍

[herne]

3 hours ago, AstroNebulee said:

Looking very good and clean dispite no callibration. Be interesting to see what the calibration would add if you do it again. 👍

Yeh for sure, it’s an interesting experiment though.  As you say, the image is clean (probably cleaner with greater integration) and cleans up nicely in Photoshop as part of my noise reduction workflow there.  Hot pixels are gone, no sign of vignetting and stars have a nice shape (albeit somewhat bloated).  It’s the first time I’ve tried processing with no calibration frames and I quite like the result.  It helped having no moon on the night though I’m sure.

I will get around to processing it again, this time spending longer on it (the above took about 20 mins only) and add in some calibration.  I agree, it would certainly be interesting to compare 👍.

Anyway, as a test for the AZ GTi I think it passed with flying colours.

[AstroPhil]

On 05/03/2022 at 16:25, AstroNebulee said:

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. 

Well the rig made it to Chile and back! - some pics here for anyone interested. Loads more to process though!!!!

 

[AstroNebulee]

54 minutes ago, AstroPhil said:

Well the rig made it to Chile and back! - some pics here for anyone interested. Loads more to process though!!!!

 

So beautiful. You have some amazing images Phil. The az gti performed very well for you indeed and really pleased you got some astrophotography on your trip to Chile 👍

[AstroNebulee]

A new firmware is available for the az gti mount via the link below. The new version is 3.39. The new firmware has the added support for some third party applications, whatever they may be. I am still running version 3.36 and haven't seen the need to update to a higher version yet. 

http://skywatcher.com/download/software/motor-control-firmware/

 

[bomberbaz]

cheers Lee for the heads up.  

My own update is as follows, switched the AE mini finder for a WOptics uniguide. There was a collimation issue with the astro essentials one, the uniguide feels like it is a different ball game altogether.

I have also return the horizon 60ed with the comet shaped stars, they are going to look at it and we shall take it from there. However if they cannot find anything wrong with it, I may think about not having it back and seeing what other options are available. 

I have stuck all the old ota (evoguide) and new uniguide onto the AZGti and aim to do some more testing over the weekend, reason to check both tracking and star shapes.  If things are well sometimes its best to leave well alone.

[Elp]

@bomberbaz there are other options out there but have you considered a WO scope? I've never had an issue with my Z61, be it visual, planetary imaging, DSO imaging, solar white light and quark imaging/viewing. It's aperture is small and FL short but it does anything I ask of it quite admirably. And it's perfect for the azgti.

[AstroNebulee]

8 hours ago, bomberbaz said:

cheers Lee for the heads up.  

My own update is as follows, switched the AE mini finder for a WOptics uniguide. There was a collimation issue with the astro essentials one, the uniguide feels like it is a different ball game altogether.

I have also return the horizon 60ed with the comet shaped stars, they are going to look at it and we shall take it from there. However if they cannot find anything wrong with it, I may think about not having it back and seeing what other options are available. 

I have stuck all the old ota (evoguide) and new uniguide onto the AZGti and aim to do some more testing over the weekend, reason to check both tracking and star shapes.  If things are well sometimes its best to leave well alone.

Hi Steve 

Your new WO guidescope sounds brilliant and will definitely see good results with that fine offering. Hopefully they do find that your horizon 60ed has a collimation issue but like you say best to check out other options available to you anyway. The skywatcher evolux 62ed and dedicated flat reducer could be an option around the same price as the horizon 62ed. I'm hearing good things with these scopes. Or for a tad more the the WO zenithstar 61 and dedicated FF. 

I agree sometimes to leave well alone when updating firmware. If it ain't broke don't try to fix it rings well. 

Let me know how you get on with your testing over the weekend 👍

Cheers 

Lee 

Edited June 10, 2022 by AstroNebulee

[bomberbaz]

2 hours ago, AstroNebulee said:

Hi Steve 

Your new WO guidescope sounds brilliant and will definitely see good results with that fine offering. Hopefully they do find that your horizon 60ed has a collimation issue but like you say best to check out other options available to you anyway. The skywatcher evolux 62ed and dedicated flat reducer could be an option around the same price as the horizon 62ed. I'm hearing good things with these scopes. Or for a tad more the the WO zenithstar 61 and dedicated FF. 

I agree sometimes to leave well alone when updating firmware. If it ain't broke don't try to fix it rings well. 

Let me know how you get on with your testing over the weekend 👍

Cheers 

Lee 

This looks a nice option should I require another one. Anyways, lets not jump the gun and wait til they test the returned OTA, good shout though.