Skywatcher AZ GTI mount owners thread

[Elp]

I went to a bortle 4 recently, even in narrowband the amount you can pick up is insane. You also see properly the effect of the moon practically washes out the entire this case south half of the sky and makes the milky way non visible.

Edited August 9, 2022 by Elp

[geeks]

22 hours ago, geeks said:

Have managed a couple of evenings with the GTi now. Guiding is a bit off but I will tweak that where I can. Two pics, Andromeda 120 x 1min (no filters) and Soul Neb 45 x 3min (Altair Triband). Both on a Altair Astro 60EDF with a 0.8 reducer and an Altair Astro 533MC Protech

Added to my Soul Nebula last night and I think I am ready to call this one done. 
SH2199 - The Soul Nebula 91 x 3 mins, Altair Astro 60 EDF with 0.8 Reducer, Altair Astro Triband Filter, Altair Astro 533mc Protech

[AstroNebulee]

6 hours ago, StevieDvd said:

Surely if you flip it then it would mimic the view from the opposite side - wonder if that would plate-solve!

I only mean flip and rotate the image for aesthetics on the final processed image as I think it looks better, but that's just my opinion. So I'm not sure why you'd get plate solving involved. 

I run the image through Astrometry.com and works it out. 😊

Lee

Edited August 9, 2022 by AstroNebulee

[AstroNebulee]

2 hours ago, geeks said:

Added to my Soul Nebula last night and I think I am ready to call this one done. 
SH2199 - The Soul Nebula 91 x 3 mins, Altair Astro 60 EDF with 0.8 Reducer, Altair Astro Triband Filter, Altair Astro 533mc Protech

I really love your soul nebula image, its fantastic. I'm hoping to give this a go as my next target 😊

Lee 

[geeks]

2 hours ago, AstroNebulee said:

I really love your soul nebula image, its fantastic. I'm hoping to give this a go as my next target 😊

Lee 

Thanks I am very pleased with how it came out especially given the limitations of the setup. I am currently stripping out the HA/Oii from it so I can do a "Hubble pallet" version of it too.

Good luck with your run I hope it turns out well

[knobby]

6 hours ago, geeks said:

Added to my Soul Nebula last night and I think I am ready to call this one done. 
SH2199 - The Soul Nebula 91 x 3 mins, Altair Astro 60 EDF with 0.8 Reducer, Altair Astro Triband Filter, Altair Astro 533mc Protech

Cracking image, I did this in Ha last year with my gear, I love the small ' fart ' at the bottom left, always makes the schoolboy in me smile 😂

[Elp]

That small fart would be astronomically one of the largest ever

[Ags]

Oh, AZ GTi

Why oh why

Do you make me cry?

My AZ GTi seems to have picked up a "tock" in the AZ axis. Every second the scope snaps left slighty causing half a second of vibrations. This makes it pretty useless for tracking photographically or visual, and I am using it without tracking. Tell me there is an easy fix!

[bomberbaz]

what is with this mount of my, poor Ags above is developing a hiccup whereas mine, after months of poor tracking (average would have been 1.5) is running at under 1 for most of tonight. I am doing nothing different.

I would point out I have also just ordered a new one, fgs 😱🤣

Steve

 

[bomberbaz]

1 hour ago, Ags said:

Oh, AZ GTi

Why oh why

Do you make me cry?

My AZ GTi seems to have picked up a "tock" in the AZ axis. Every second the scope snaps left slighty causing half a second of vibrations. This makes it pretty useless for tracking photographically or visual, and I am using it without tracking. Tell me there is an easy fix!

Buy mine of me and use it to fix yours ! 👌 😂

(see my other post just above) 😉

[Elp]

My gti2 makes a knocking noise at times whilst it's tracking, luckily mine atm doesn't have any effect on the guiding, been working around 0.7 tonight. Maybe there's a meshing issue between the gears, I've never opened mine to check. Could be something is catching inside @Ags.

Edited August 10, 2022 by Elp

[AstroGS]

The AZ-GTi has been an absolute gem whilst being on holidays in Greece.

Managed over 5 nights to capture over 250 frames of 300secs, with PE averaging at 1”. It managed a weight of approx 3.5kgr very well and the combination with a RedCat51 and the ASI533MC was perfect.

 

 

Edited August 10, 2022 by George Sinanis

[bomberbaz]

I thought I would have a go at something a little different. Only about 40 minutes data and had to manually process it although Siril did help with background. Quite tricky.

Anyone identify it?

[Priesters]

Barnard’s E (142)?

[Pixies]

1 hour ago, Priesters said:

Barnard’s E (142)?

Wot Priesters said (B142 and B143)

Edited August 10, 2022 by Pixies

[CKP]

I was taking 30 second exposures last night with the az gti and the heritage 130p ota. The tracking was great with no trailing, but at 9 minutes worth of stacking sharpcap stopped stacking saying it couldn't align?

Does this mean the tracking has started to drift off course? 

Thanks.

[Elp]

Likely, or the stars are streaking so it can't resolve them. Minor drift shouldn't be an issue as long as the target is generally centralised as dithering if used moves the scope around at set intervals to accommodate for walking noise and image sessions with dithering stack fine. I have experienced in the past if the target has moved too much it won't stack correctly, I assume it's because the registration stars the software was using had lost the view of some of them.

[CKP]

8 hours ago, Elp said:

Likely, or the stars are streaking so it can't resolve them. Minor drift shouldn't be an issue as long as the target is generally centralised as dithering if used moves the scope around at set intervals to accommodate for walking noise and image sessions with dithering stack fine. I have experienced in the past if the target has moved too much it won't stack correctly, I assume it's because the registration stars the software was using had lost the view of some of them.

I do centre the target before starting the live stack. What is dithering? Do you pause the stack and recentre the target?

[Elp]

15 hours ago, CKP said:

What is dithering?

If you're using autoguiding to track the stars to keep your target centralised you can specify and set dithering settings, instructions for the mount to move off target a set number of pixels after a set number of images have been taken and it keeps repeating in random directions yet keeping the target fairly centred (eg if set at 5 intervals it will do a dither after every 5 images captured). By doing this it helps to eliminate walking noise where camera hot pixels might be in the same place every time, if stacked without dithering they will appear as banding or lines on the stacked image.

[CKP]

21 minutes ago, Elp said:

If you're using autoguiding to track the stars to keep your target centralised you can specify and set dithering settings, instructions for the mount to move off target a set number of pixels after a set number of images have been taken and it keeps repeating in random directions yet keeping the target fairly centred (eg if set at 5 intervals it will do a dither after every 5 images captured). By doing this it helps to eliminate walking noise where camera hot pixels might be in the same place every time, if stacked without dithering they will appear as banding or lines on the stacked 

Is autoguiding when you piggy back another camera and smaller scope on top of your original scope?

I don't do this, I just line up the target on the live view screen and then hit live stack.

When using the synscan app, when I've typed in the target and found/centralised the target does it automatically track the target?

[StevieDvd]

1 minute ago, CKP said:

Is autoguiding when you piggy back another camera and smaller scope on top of your original scope?

I don't do this, I just line up the target on the live view screen and then hit live stack.

When using the synscan app, when I've typed in the target and found/centralised the target does it automatically track the target?

Yes the piggy backed scope is the guidescope this is linked to the computer which monitors the selected target point and sends small incremental adjustments to keep your main camera/scope centred.

When you do a goto the target ideally would stay centralised - but tracking rate accuracy and poor polar alignment can see the target move out of the centre, so guiding is used to correct that. Mostly used on an eq setup though.

[CKP]

Is there a way to improve the traffic accuracy? I guess the only way to do a more accurate polar alignment would be to do the eq mod?

[Elp]

4 hours ago, CKP said:

does it automatically track the target?

I think on synscan pro in the top right corner of the app there is an "i" icon and if its tracking they'll be an ">>>" next to it, otherwise I think it's in one of the menus where you can set the sidereal type (sidereal, lunar etc) and set the speed which I normally leave on 0.9x. In essence it is only controlling the motor speed to counteract the rotation of earth, an autoguided setup does the same whilst looking at reference guide stars but with better accuracy hence why it's essential for long exposure astrophotography.

[CKP]

3 hours ago, Elp said:

I think on synscan pro in the top right corner of the app there is an "i" icon and if its tracking they'll be an ">>>" next to it, otherwise I think it's in one of the menus where you can set the sidereal type (sidereal, lunar etc) and set the speed which I normally leave on 0.9x. In essence it is only controlling the motor speed to counteract the rotation of earth, an autoguided setup does the same whilst looking at reference guide stars but with better accuracy hence why it's essential for long exposure astrophotography.

I'll have a look next time I'm connected. 

[TerraC]

Question for astroberry users.  Just setting up for the first time.  I have an ASI120MC i'd like to use as a guide camera.  I've plugged this into the Pi and astroberry seems to find it but i'm getting no live video feed and cant seem to capture.  Do I need a powered hub to use this camera or should it draw from the Pi USB in the same way it works from my laptop. 

Trying to work out if it's a configuration issue or hardware power.