My first light for EAA

[Jules Tohpipi]

Having been inspired by this EAA forum at SGL, and after much reading, I had my first attempt this week. The images may be crude but nonetheless I'm completely overjoyed to get it working and capturing images on the first go. Previously over the years I've been purely visual - mostly on 8 or 10 inch dobs. More recently with lighter instruments for my back.

My kit this time was AZ-GTi in alt-az mode, Sky-Watcher Star Travel 102 refractor and a ZWO ASI585MC camera. Ran the SynScan app on my iPhone to align and point the telescope and a USB cable from the camera to SharpCap Pro on my laptop (for the image capture part only). 

The night was intended to be baby steps, proof of concept stuff i.e. does the camera and software work, can I get any kind of image at all.  

Generally speaking it couldn't have gone any better. Within a few minutes I had images of the moon. Within 30 mins I had a few brief short-exposure live stacks of M13 and M92 which I've posted below. Then the mount started mis-behaving unfortunately.

Didn't really concentrate much on the camera Live Stack settings in SharpCap at this stage (which were probably all over the place as per under-exposed moon!) nor use any filters nor any post processing. The images posted below are simple screen grabs (from pressing Print Screen after opening the .fits files in ASI FitsView - the crop shots viewed 1:1).

Anyhow, deeply thanks to everyone for getting me to this point by the sharing of your experiences and knowledge here at SGL. This will open a new dimension of observing for me and I couldn't be more thrilled

 

 

 

  

 

Edited May 27, 2023 by Jules Tohpipi

[PeterC65]

Way better than my first attempt at EAA!

 

[Jules Tohpipi]

Thank you very much Peter - that's a compliment indeed!

I think some good fortune was involved. Plus, I was able to use the craters of the moon as a nice sharp focusing aid before it went dark.

Last night didn't go so well, though. All because I tried getting too fancy for this second attempt. Used the PC version of SynScan Pro and interfaced with Stellarium to drive the AZ-GTi. So far so good. Then downloaded ASCOM drivers and successfully connected the mount to ASCOM Device Hub. Next downloaded ASTAP and star file for plate solving and SharpCap confirmed succesful install to the right PC location. After this my luck ran out - because couldn't get SharpCap Pro to see the AZ-GTi. I kept getting an ASCOM driver error (forget the exact words) and lost the rest of the session. Was so nearly there! But I'll try troubleshooting indoors now instead. I'm hoping the plate solving will improve the speed and accuracy of finding targets.

 

Edited May 29, 2023 by Jules Tohpipi

[PeterC65]

Rather than pressing Print Screen, you can get screen shots directly from SharpCap by pressing the Snapshot button if you just want a single frame (of the Moon say) or by clicking Save then Save with Adjustments when live stacking. Doing this saves an image at the full resolution of the camera which is likely to be better than the screen resolution.

You've gone for the full software setup then! It's what I use almost. I can't get the PC version of SynScan Pro to work on my laptop so I just use ASCOM to control the mount from both Stellarium and SharpCap. The process of connecting the mount can be a bit fiddly. The mount ASCOM driver can be controlled by two pieces of software at the same time but I find that ASCOM only fires up when you start SharpCap, so my procedure is:

• Start SharpCap.
• Connect it to the mount, this will fire up ASCOM.
• Check it has connected by slewing the mount under SharpCap control a little.
• Start Stellarium.
• Connect it to the mount, this will connect to the already fired up ASCOM.
• Check that Stellarium shows and controls the mount position.

This usually works but sometimes I have to repeat the process.

If you are using the PC version of SynScan Pro then make sure this is connected to the mount first then use the ASCOM driver for SynScan Pro rather than the one that directly drives the mount. So the order of kit is Mount - SynScan Pro - ASCOM - SharpCap / Stellarium.

It is well worth trying out as much as possible in daylight.

 

[Jules Tohpipi]

Thank you so much for this because I really need and welcome the help!

I’m away from home this week so will be trying your advice next week when back. 

Actually, on the first night I did try using the Snapshot button. But the png images seemed to be black and white rather than colour (despite the RAW8 setting for the live stack). This happened also when doing a straight capture video of the moon (non-stacking). A brief Google possibly suggested de-bayering issues? A topic I’m generally familiar with from non—Astro photography.

I really need to have a proper read still about image settings with Sharpcap - most of my efforts so far have been on getting any kind of image with the various software and hardware. 

Edited May 30, 2023 by Jules Tohpipi

[PeterC65]

Getting black and white when you are expecting colour is almost always a debayering issue. You can tell for sure by zooming in and if you see a checker board then debayering is the culprit. in the Camera Control Panel, Debayer Preview should be set to On.

The SharpCap manual is very well written and I would recommend studying it from cover to cover. It took me three days to do it but it's been worth it as even if I can't remember the details I know what's possible and where to look. I have a shortcut to the manual on my laptops desktop.