Synguider through Finderguider problems...

[MikeWilson]

Change of plan - Clouds have come in... so packing in. All in all, a pretty good night (but now that I've locked the focus on the finderscope, I reckon I can still maybe get this working with the finderguider....)

Despite the delightful reports of finder/guiders working well, I'm not convinced.

I am currently attempting to image M42 (yes, it's popped up over the fence - but it's directly in the line of sight of a sodium lamp [the lamp is in the same FOV!!!]). I'm waiting for M42 to get a little higher in the sky but until then I've left the scope taking 2 minute images and guiding with a 2 second exposure. It needed 2 seconds as anything less wouldn't find a star (!). Maybe it's the street lamp throwing the guider off?

[AndyUK]

Yes, I have the mount balanced sligttly east-heavy, but I think you could be right about the guidestar being too bright. The problem is reducing the exposure to bring the brightness down also increases the chance of chasing the seeing...

As it happens (clouds aside!), the seeing for me was pretty fair tonight (as witnessed with the webcam shots on the moon), but the guys earlier in the post noted that it's best to have a c 2s exposure, which I reckon means possibly having to possibly hunt manually for smaller stars (ie mag 6+?). Still there's nothing more I can do tonight (other than stack my mosaic panes!), so I'll leave the finderguider experiment for another night...

[AndyUK]

Despite the delightful reports of finder/guiders working well, I'm not convinced.

Me neither, but until I can afford the guiderings, it's all I have!

I am currently attempting to image M42 (yes, it's popped up over the fence - but it's directly in the line of sight of a sodium lamp [the lamp is in the same FOV!!!])

It sounds as though your garden is very much like mine... I only just managed to finish taking the 13x2 minute AVI's (and had to stand on a chair to shade the streetlight off the lens). Still 2s will ensure you're not chasing the seeing...

I'm looking forward to seeing your M42 - If the clouds had stayed away (and the finderguider had been kind to me), I was hoping to have a crack at the horsehead nebula, maybe using Alnitak as guide (although I have a suspicion that it may have been way too bright). Still, there'll be other nights...

[MikeWilson]

The stars will always be there...

Now the guiderings are very expensive. I'm not sure that you'll need them and re: 2 second exposures - in a light polluted garden under moonlight I have repeated the test on a lighter star field (just somewhere south of Cassiopeia, the best generally nondescript area I could see) and captured a 5 minute exposure there. When I did M45 I used 1 second exposures and I'm now doing M42 with 2 minute exposures.

But each time the BRI value was c. "10". When I had BRI in the 80+ region I was getting very erratic guiding.

[AndyUK]

That's VERY useful to know Mike - I've had the BRI at around 50 which may explain the problems with the finderguider (although again the 102 locked solid for 20+ mins...) Anyway, I'll have a crack at it again next time and reduce the BRI to c. 10 - That just might be the key (fingers crossed!)

[MikeWilson]

I know what you mean by locked as the same thing happened to me.

I went outside and all i could hear was the crunching noise of the mint dec axis motors struggling. I immediately lept onto the power switch and turned it off (the power light was flickering and the hand controller had gone dim). The guider wasn't reponding and so I tried numerous attempts to reactivate the guider to no avail. Likewise I attempted to slew the mount and it wouldn't respond while the guider was still connected.

Since the ST80 had condensation inside it (normal or not?) and ice outside it I called it a night and brought all the kit inside almost breaking my back on the way!

Inside, I tested the mount. It was working fine although perhaps a little more crunchy than before...

[simon84]

Excellent result there Mike, bit of processing on that image and you'll have yourself a real nice image.

Sounds like things went well last night, unlike Spurs.....sounds like you might have a power issue there Mike, they start doing all sorts of strange things when your battery starts running low.

Andy, whats the diameter of the tube on your 102? I've got a single guide ring here, its complete with 3 tipped screws, but you might be able to find a second one on the astroboot or sticking an add in the wanted section.

I dont know how much smaller your bit of sky is compared with the ST80 but I'd be surprised if it was enough to warrant the need for guide rings. If your in a light polluted area trying sticking to targets nearer the zenith away from all the sky glow. The moon dosnt help at the moment either, I rarely go out imaging when the moon is around.

[AndyUK]

Hi Mike

Since the ST80 had condensation inside it (normal or not?) and ice outside it I called it a night and brought all the kit inside almost breaking my back on the way!

. Another good buy I made recently was a couple of Dew-Not heaters (one for guidescope and the other for imaging OTA - Modern Astronomy do them). Okay, all in all it cost just under £60 (including a splitter), and it will take up an extra 1.2A but although I haven't been able to use the pair together yet, they certainly do what they say.

Sly -

Andy, whats the diameter of the tube on your 102? I've got a single guide ring here, its complete with 3 tipped screws, but you might be able to find a second one on the astroboot or sticking an add in the wanted section

I've been looking at either 125 or 130mm rimgs... I've been looking on Astroboot for some weeks now, but I haven't found anything yet...

I dont know how much smaller your bit of sky is compared with the ST80 but I'd be surprised if it was enough to warrant the need for guide rings. If your in a light polluted area trying sticking to targets nearer the zenith away from all the sky glow

Well, it's 510mm vs 400mm but my brain can't wrap itself around the maths to calculate the FOV this morning (Dog-tired I think it's called!). I do have a EOS CLS clip filter which gets rid of most of the light pollution, but of course this coupled with an f9 scope is why I've had to moce towards guiding... However, I'm severely hampered with imaging "back garden" DSO's due to obstructions and sodium lights etc (hence needing to "travel") and I sometimes simply have to "grab" what I can see over next door's garage towards the NE quadrant (and if it's too low (like Orion at the moment) I then lose it for a couple of hours behind the house).

Maybe I'm making too much of it, and maybe I'm wrong, but I believe that in order to guide on a chosen object, I think it will be necessary not simply to choose any star in the synguider FOV but one of a low enough mag to enable a high enough exposure and therefore I need an adjustment mechanism(?).

The moon dosnt help at the moment either, I rarely go out imaging when the moon is around

Ditto - the only thing worth imaging really is... well, the moon!

[simon84]

Hi Andy, this single guide ring I have here is 128mm internal diameter, if you want it your more than welcome to it. Its pretty substantial with the ring being 6mm thick and 23mm wide.

PM me your details and I'll stick in the post to you next week. A quick wanted add might turn up a suitable second one. I may be popping over to Bath next Thursday, it would be during the day but I'd be happy to bring that ring and my guiding set up and meet up with you in Bath somewhere to show you it. Let me know what you think and if my trip does happen I'd be happy to arrange something.

Your garden sounds alot like mine, north to north west, back of the house shuts me out with Polaris clearing the roof line by 2 feet, I designed my pier so that I would get it in the polar scope. East is hampered by next doors fence to 40 degrees up.

South east round to south west is my best view with a horizon level of about 35 degrees, Due south there is a tree that shields the sky up to 50 degrees. West is looking towards London with a ton of sky glow. I have three street lights which are below the level of my wall but do give off quite a bit of glow.

Thats the first time I've ever written it down and now I think I'm going to head to the for sale section and sell my gear.....

But, I am moving to a new location next year, my folks have agreed to a permanent site at the end of their garden, with the possibility of an obsy. They have ground level views all around apart from the house which is 80 feet back up the garden, and when your out in the garden at night you cant see you hand in front of your face.

Its only a 30 minute drive away so it will make a brilliant site to image from.

[AndyUK]

Hi Sly - I'll PM you...

[MikeWilson]

But, I am moving to a new location next year, my folks have agreed to a permanent site at the end of their garden, with the possibility of an obsy. They have ground level views all around apart from the house which is 80 feet back up the garden, and when your out in the garden at night you cant see you hand in front of your face.

Its only a 30 minute drive away so it will make a brilliant site to image from.

That is a really lovely gesture of them, SlySi. Be sure that you reward them with good quality images for their walls!

[Deneb]

Wow, where did that come from.

From my time on here I thought you really stuck it out with your unguided imaging and that for me was really inspirational, thats all thats happening here. Just a bit of persverance with something.

Its a bit deflating to have someone who I considered to be someone who's usually a top bloke and really helpful to come back to this thread and read that.

Sorry ! Have I said something wrong ???

Nadeem.

[Deneb]

Anyway...

Says the man who was going through setups like a dose of salts... and had several goes at guiding before a long spell of unguided imaging...

'Several' Where did that come from ? Maybe 2 or 3 - But 7 im sure your confusing me with someone else Peter...

Nadeem.

[Psychobilly]

How does Several suddenly mean Seven? To me it means more than one but an indeterminate number as i had lost count...

several(a): (used with count nouns) of an indefinite number more than 2 or 3 but not many; "several letters came in the mail"; "several people were injured in the accident"

I do know that you were a good source of "nearly" new kit for a while

[MikeWilson]

To bring this back to topic, there is potentially an interesting story here.

Nadeem, I presume that you attempted to guide earlier using a few (several? some? ) of different techniques before giving up and pushing the envelope of unguided imaging before, out of nowhere, starting to guide (successfully) again.

May I ask, did you consider the Synguider at all? If not, is this because you have a computer-based setup and thus could use PHD?

[simon84]

Sorry ! Have I said something wrong ???

Nadeem.

Just felt that it was a pointless comment. "Whatever floats your boat chaps." Why say it at all?

I'm sure with all your experience something with more insight and usefulness could have graced that post, but instead all we got was a really negative, sod you lot, type of offering.

Maybe its me being picky and over sensitive but I thought this forum was a place for help and advice.

[Deneb]

Mike, Bear with me here:

My earlier attempts of guiding work as you could put it were very "premature", due to my lack of guiding know how & not understanding how the guiding mullarky worked. Tell you the truth, I knew good or better results were achievable doing unguided work compared with some of the guided work which is out there (& no offence to you Master guiders) without buying guiding gear, & even upto now I actually refuse to accept that you need to have a guided setup to produce worthwile DSO images.

Ive actually used my unguiding imaging as a way of understanding what is achievable using a maximum exposure of 2min subs & what else is expected when I started guiding.

My recent arrival into guiding is only to better my images & tell you the truth - I don't see much difference, Now that I have shown what can be achieved Unguided, I hope people can learn from it & try it themselves before running into buying guiding gear to see for themselves what they can achieve before deciding "Do I need to Guide to produce excellent images ?" or "let me see what results I can produce, before I start guiding".

Regarding the Synguider, I was originally deciding to buy the synguider, becuase I had bought my MN190 rougly around that time, I wanted to see what could be achieved using this beast of a scope doing unguided work, so I put the synguider on the back burner for a while. My Friend "JNP" has been going on for a long time why don't you try "Guiding", he actually made a nice DIY 60mm guidescope for me, which he put his QHY5 onto it. After him explaining to me how "guiding" works - that was it ! After doing unguided work (believe it or not thats quite hard compared to this), guiding looked "like a stroll in park".

Due to John already providing me a Guidescope which works with the QHY5, having a sammy netbook which gives me around 6hrs of battery life & my 450D attached to it giving me "on the fly image previews" having a QHY5 attached would not make much difference, even if I was out in the field, either way I would still have to lug out a leisure battery for the mount anyway, & even if the NC10 ran out of juice i've got a NC10 Mobile charger for it.

To me viewing a no. of guiding stars to choose from instead of looking into a small screen & that I just pop the QHY5 into the guidescope, turn on PHD, it just works ! & thats good enough for me.

I give you chaps credit , of having that patience locking into a guide star with a small screen. I think that's enough for now

Nadeem.

[Deneb]

Just felt that it was a pointless comment. "Whatever floats your boat chaps." Why say it at all?

I'm sure with all your experience something with more insight and usefulness could have graced that post, but instead all we got was a really negative, sod you lot, type of offering.

Maybe its me being picky and over sensitive but I thought this forum was a place for help and advice.

I apologise to who I have offended, this was certainly not my attention, sometimes my typing is more dangerous then my mouth...

Nadeem.

[MikeWilson]

Hi Nadeem,

Thank you for taking the time to explain your choices. Not that you owe anyone an explanation of course, but it's always useful to know exactly how someone got to the place they are and the decisions that they took along the way.

Now I have an Acer Aspire One netbook that I could put to use for the task of guiding with a QHY5. However it's not particularly powerful and I don't want to be freezing away and fighting with Windows on what is, a tiny screen.

I think perhaps you've misjudged the Synguider a little. The Synguider falls into the same category of autoguiders that don't have a live view at all, for instance the popular Baader LVI SmartGuider. You don't use the screen to do anything particularly useful as the automatic locking, calibration and guiding do the rest. Focussing you only have to do once and yes, it was a bit of a hassle for the hour or so that it took me.

I feel that by not using a laptop in the field I lose out on the live preview, although when I'm at home I get the live previews during the imaging run in my home office while I'm working on other things. I could use the PC to control the exposures too, but I'm currently trialling a hand controller (thanks to Ant) which I think is the way I want to go. Even though I could be doing more, I want as little superflous equipment as possible for the mobile setup.

Obviously once I go to an observatory in the far off future the design goals will change somewhat

I don't mind not having the full on GOTO provided by EQMOD either. I have SkyGazer on the iPhone and iPad and Stellarium and can usually look up an object from a catalogue. However not having fully convenient slewing did mean that I wasn't able to capture Hartley/2 as it wasn't near any catalogued objects at the time and slewing manually and taking images along the way was tedious to say the least.

I also lose the lovely PHD-style logging, although the display of the SynGuider does show clearly what it's doing. The SynGuider doesn't bong like Maxim (?) when it loses a star either. And once, it did lock up my mount and refused to relinquish control until it was unplugged. The hand controller isn't that responsive either as you have to push the buttons quite hard and wait a second for the command to register on the screen.

However, I gain a system which takes me from scratch (locating a guide star, locking it, calibrating and guiding) 2 minutes at most. It's easy, mostly automatic and I think a preferable situation to using a laptop in the field for guiding. For me, at least.

Although I will reserve long term ownership judgement for another post, I'm impressed with the Synguider and feel that the cost/benefit is about right. If only it could run off 12v without an adaptor or battery bag...

So as an upshot then, it's a self contained guider that does what it says on the tin. It guides without too much fuss. Once you've got it focussed, it's really easy to use.

[planetdnb]

I find the synguider slightly difficult with an eq66 on dimmer stars. I've only used it a few times though and I find that good focusing is essential and you really need a par focal eyepiece to do it properly.

as for under the radar purchases... it's known as a secret bank account (in my case anyway!)

[simon84]

Peter whats the distance from the sensor in the synguider to the 50mm objective lens in your finder scope?

I've got a spare finder scope that I might use with a synguider but I think it might need cutting down a bit. With the 2" to 1.25" adapter in it I've got a length of 176mm from the back of the adapter to the 50mm objective lens.