Software needed

[Ghostnotes]

I've been doing some lurking lately but have a question regarding software. Ive been using stellrium and the Canon EOS software utility with my nexstar8. Think ive only used the hand controller 2 to 3 times in 10 years. Im ordering a G11 mount tonight and plan on guiding and AP After I receive it. The other equipment I have is a Canon 60D  Unmodified With a T adapter and focal reducer. I know I need PHD2 and stacking software. I have photoshop and I'm very very good with it.

My question is what other software will I need for guiding and astro photography?  More importantly, which software plays nice with each other. I also plan on getting a guidescope and camera soon, however  I know I'm limited to lunar and solar observing and guiding due to my focal length for the time being.  At this point, I'm just more interested in getting my technique working as opposed to doing any kind of deep sky observing.

[happy-kat]

Hi

You might like this read for using your camera for this type of image capture

https://www.astropix.com/html/equipment/canon_one_to_one_pixel_resolution.html

For lunar / planets processing once you capture your video, you could process that using either registax 6 or autostacker and the output image could be tweaked in registax 6 wavelets and any final tweaks in photoshop.

Deep sky objects processing is  little different, there it is stills and stacked say using either deep sky stacker / SIRIL / sequator other options exist and then the output is processed such as using photoshop.

Have fun

Edited August 19, 2022 by happy-kat

[RT65CB-SWL]

A member or two of my local astronomy society/club swear by PIPP... [not at it] on their M$-Windoze PC's... [except when said OS does an update].  

Edited August 20, 2022 by Philip R

[wimvb]

At the very least you need to be able to set up a sequence of long exposures, longer than the 30 " limit of most dslrs. With what you have you can make a good start. From there on, you can choose to have software frame the object (plate solving), do autofocus, assist with polar alignment, mosaics, etc etc. There are several software packages that will let you automate most of an imaging session, both for MS windows (ASCOM based) or Linux (INDI based).

Edited August 20, 2022 by wimvb

[Ghostnotes]

3 hours ago, wimvb said:

At the very least you need to be able to set up a sequence of long exposures, longer than the 30 " limit of most dslrs. With what you have you can make a good start. From there on, you can choose to have software frame the object (plate solving), do autofocus, assist with polar alignment, mosaics, etc etc. There are several software packages that will let you automate most of an imaging session, both for MS windows (ASCOM based) or Linux (INDI based).

I was wondering if I could plate solve with a DSLR. My bortle scale is 7,so I'll have to get out of the Houston.metro area to get a good view for anything besides lunar and planetary. But thats what I plan to use to get my knowledge of the software and techniques up to speed.

So far i have stellrium, registax and PHD2 ready, however I have never had the need to use them...yet. I've only have done short exposures. I have been satisfied with that up until recently.

[Ghostnotes]

17 hours ago, happy-kat said:

Hi

You might like this read for using your camera for this type of image capture

https://www.astropix.com/html/equipment/canon_one_to_one_pixel_resolution.html

For lunar / planets processing once you capture your video, you could process that using either registax 6 or autostacker and the output image could be tweaked in registax 6 wavelets and any final tweaks in photoshop.

Deep sky objects processing is  little different, there it is stills and stacked say using either deep sky stacker / SIRIL / sequator other options exist and then the output is processed such as using photoshop.

Have fun

That was a good read and informative. 

 

Thanks!

[wimvb]

2 hours ago, Ghostnotes said:

I was wondering if I could plate solve with a DSLR. My bortle scale is 7

Yes, you can. I suggest you do some practice runs with PHD2 from your home, because there is a learning curve for anything astrophotography related. Image a few bright nebulae or galaxies (ngc 7000, the North America Nebula; M31, the Andromeda galaxy), just to get yourself familiar with the software. If you want the full image acquisition suite, check out NINA for Windows, or Kstars/Ekos for Linux. The latter runs on a small single board computer, Raspberry Pi. Very portable, but some knowledge of Linux required. There is/was an image capture program specifically for Canon, called BackyardEos. But I’m not sure if that is still maintained.

[Ghostnotes]

Backyard EOS is still around.Have that also

Since I won't have a guider for the time being and am using my 60D as the imager, am I able to run PHD and EOS utility or backyard EOS , stellarium at the same time? If not, no big deal. I can practice with PHD as needed and then just align and image separately as usual. I know I'm limited until I get a guide setup and using an 8" SCT is not optimal. My main goal at first is software setup and getting it calibrated and talking.

[wimvb]

Without a guide camera, no guiding. You can use a camera for only one purpose, imaging or guiding. I’ve bever heard of anyone using a dslr for guiding. My guess is that the image download time is too long.

[Richard Wesson]

On 20/08/2022 at 17:47, wimvb said:

Yes, you can. I suggest you do some practice runs with PHD2 from your home, because there is a learning curve for anything astrophotography related. Image a few bright nebulae or galaxies (ngc 7000, the North America Nebula; M31, the Andromeda galaxy), just to get yourself familiar with the software. If you want the full image acquisition suite, check out NINA for Windows, or Kstars/Ekos for Linux. The latter runs on a small single board computer, Raspberry Pi. Very portable, but some knowledge of Linux required. There is/was an image capture program specifically for Canon, called BackyardEos. But I’m not sure if that is still maintained.

Also consider APT (Astrophotography Tool). Similar to NINA in that it can set up a sequence, plate solve, plays with PhD and CdC nicely.