Out of focus stars across the FOV

[teoria_del_big_bang]

Well good luck, update the thread with your final version and results, it may help somebody in the future.
I was very frustrated how little info I could find online about this, even Altair's own website.
This lack of info seems to be a repeating issue with a lot of astro gear, well that's what I have noticed anyway often having to find things out on various forums rather than a comprehensive instruction document.
Maybe we all should be geniuses before venturing into Astronomy 🙂 

Steve

[Astropedro]

32 minutes ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

Well good luck, update the thread with your final version and results, it may help somebody in the future.
I was very frustrated how little info I could find online about this, even Altair's own website.
This lack of info seems to be a repeating issue with a lot of astro gear, well that's what I have noticed anyway often having to find things out on various forums rather than a comprehensive instruction document.
Maybe we all should be geniuses before venturing into Astronomy 🙂 

Steve

Completely agree Steve.  I never like asking for help as I feel that this is stuff I should just know, but after weeks of spending night after night after night trying diferent things and tweaking here and there, I had to reach out as I was getting nowhere.  

I think the core problem here was no instructions or diagram or even an image of the correct orientation of the reducer is provided when supplied with this scope.  But believe me, if I get sharp focus tonight.....all is forgiven and I'm not looking back. 😊😊😊

Hope it works.....fingers crossed.

[Astropedro]

So just to clarify,  here's how I have it now.

Reducer orientated the correct  way.  The other end of the reducer also has a removable adaptor that I mistook for being fixed.  Took some separating!  Once off I could remove the knurled adaptor and apply both to opposite ends.  This then threaded onto the rotator the correct way round.

Now I have the spacing as follows as correct if the knurled adaptor is part of the reducer spacing which I'm lead to believe it is.  If it isn't, I will remove the 15.5mm m48 to t2 adaptor and use an adapter I've ordered and some small spacers I already have to make up the 55mm.

1. 15.5mm m48 to t2 adaptor.
2. 11mm t2 spacer
3. 2mm t2 male to male adaptor 
4. 20mm filter wheel.
5. 6.5mm to sensor.

Total..........55mm

if knurled adaptor is part of the 55mm, and I'll know pretty quick when imaging I guess.........then ill space without the 15.5mm m48 to t2 adapter and use the one I've ordered which will look something like this.

1. 15.5mm knurled adaptor. 
2. 2mm m48 to t2 adaptor (arriving tomorrow....I hope 🙂)
3. 11mm t2 spacer.
4. 20mm filter wheel
5. 6.5mm to camera sensor.

Total.............55mm

If either works..................there's a bottle of Cava in the fridge that I'm going to crack open and neck.......😊😄

Edited March 30, 2022 by Astropedro

[Elp]

If you want to be more accurate add 0.3-1mm onto the 55mm to account for the filter itself. For simplicity I use +1mm.

[Astropedro]

19 minutes ago, Elp said:

If you want to be more accurate add 0.3-1mm onto the 55mm to account for the filter itself. For simplicity I use +1mm.

Thanks Elp.

[Astropedro]

Clouds.............😪😪😪

[Astropedro]

Well.  I finally got a window of a few hours on Thursday night last week.  I had the reducer on the right way and the stars came into focus across All of the field of view, even if they were a little misshapen  at the edges.  Guessing I'll need to play with the spacing to get it perfect.  I then spent 4 hours battling guiding and plate solving. 

The guiding would not calibrate.  It appeared that it simply would not nudge the mount east.  No matter what I did I couldn't seem to overcome this problem.  Tried clearing the calibration data and flipping and eventually after the 3rd or 4th reboot, it started tracking.

So then i turned my attention to the platesolving problem.  Even though everything was now in focus, the asiair would not platesolve.  I tried slewing to allsorts of targets........."Platesolving Failed".  I eventually looked at the focal length that the asiair plus had assigned to my setup and I realised it had inputed 434mm which is 14mm over the focal length of the telescope.  This must have been done when the reducer was on the wrong way round.  So I erased the value and platesolved again letting asiair recalculate the focal length.  In less than a second........"Plate Solving Succesful "........😊😊🤣🤣🤣😪😪

So at 1.30 in the morning with my EAF achieving good focus and the heq5 tracking reasonably well,  I thought I may as well try and capture something before I call it a night and the clouds roll in.  I slewed to The Pinwheel Galaxy and set the camera to take 5 x 180s exposures in Lrgb and Ha.  The clouds began creating havoc half way through the red filter sub's but I had 5 of everything else except the HA so I called it a night.

I was happy to be finally imaging with a fully working setup and I was loving the Asiair Plus with its simplicity and automation.  It's been a long road to get to this point and I would like to thank anyone and everyone who has advised me in anyway.

So the below image is M101 taken at F5.6 with The Zwo Asi 183mm.   180s exposures x5 in luminance, green and blue, 180s x 2 in red.  Processed in Startools which I had never used before and found to be quite good.  For less than an hours data, I'm a happy chappy......😊😊😊😊

Edited April 4, 2022 by Astropedro

[geordie85]

It's always nice when things finally start working like they're supposed to.