The AZ GTI Forum

[modest nebula]

I used to get a regular bonus every 3mths at work but they changed it to a yearly bonus due next March, which means I'll get an obscene pay packet that mth. I figure I might get a decent refractor

[low mural]

Nice! A good time to make a purchase too!

[modest nebula]

note sure what to get. They're all very expensive

[low mural]

I have been thinking about dipping into planetary tbh

If I can get a decent mak and stick it to my rig, I can just choose to have planetary or deep sky nights

Just switching the cameras up

[modest nebula]

btw, this EXOS2 with onstep is working well. I'm getting .80" reliably all the time

[low mural]

Yeah they are 😂

[low mural]

Nice! I bet it's a lump compared to the az-gti. I do miss the GTi for that reason 😂

[modest nebula]

yes. I have to remove the weight & camera before I move the mount. It's now a 3 step process rather than 1 😄

I still have the az-gti though. Not got rid of it. I'll eventually have the choice of 2 setups

[low mural]

Yeah that's a good idea! I wish I had afforded to keep the azgti tbh. Having two setups is really ideal when clouds are tied to the UK skies 😂

[low mural]

So much for clear skies 😭

[modest nebula]

it's crystal clear now, but in 30mins I'll get blanket cloud

however tommorrow night and sunday night will be clear for me

[low mural]

Clear for me now! Time to setup!

[modest nebula]

yeh I'm just waiting for a bit more dark

[modest nebula]

What's your target tonight?

[low mural]

I've gone for something a bit different. Ngc7822

Started imaging now because I'm impatient af 😂 guiding is at a stable 0.50!!

[low mural]

Kinda helps that I'm very close to Polaris 😂 guiding is at 0.38

[modest nebula]

did you see that Nebula Photos video about Polaris?

[low mural]

I haven't, is it about the IFN around it?

It's a great idea for a remote astro image night. When I go camping next, I will bring my telescope and tripod and give it a go

[modest nebula]

yeh

[low mural]

Still early days and need to figure out the reason for the halos. But here is 2 hours data on ngc7822 so far

[modest nebula]

looking good so far

[low mural]

Anyone imaging tonight?

[azure solar]

Finally yes, adding some time to the elephant trunk

Not that I couldn't image in the recent days, I had no time

[modest nebula]

I'm imaging too. Another late one. 3 nights in a row 😮

[low mural]

Nice! Yeah I missed last night as I was knackered 😂 seems to be a bit of high cloud my way at the moment but guiding is at 0.35 so can't be doing too bad.

[modest nebula]

I made a big mistake last night. paused the imaging to go refocus the guide camera, then got the guiding working great, then took me an hour to realize I didn't restart the imaging camera 😮

[low mural]

Just guiding for no reason 😂 oops!

[modest nebula]

yeh but it was perfect guiding

[low mural]

Ahhh who needs a final image if you guide graphs are perfect!

Yeah I'm seeing some thin high cloud through the guide camera and it's shot up to 1.2 and losing the star. hoping it'll pass

[modest nebula]

1.2 isn't bad at our focal length

[low mural]

I'm getting some hazy subs though probs don't help that's it not fully dark yet

My target is annoyingly on the Heathrow flight path which may be the cause

[modest nebula]

I'm on the Gatwick and London City flight path. I get a ton of planes

[low mural]

To be fair I'm quite lucky in Newbury. It's very rare to get anything overhead. Just occasionally a Heathrow one to the north of the skies

I'm not going to go ham on this target though. This will probably be my last night on it and then I'm going to move onto something else

I haven't shot the north America nebula in a long time. I think the last time was when I was using the celetron travel scope and a canon 450d

Might give that a go

[modest nebula]

that's a nice bright target

my guiding not great tonight. I'm about 1.20" but it's good enough for 1.95 HFR which is about as good as I get, ever

that's on 5min exposures

[low mural]

2.20 HFR is my best 😂

Having to pause my imaging 😭

[modest nebula]

I'm spoilt with the focuser

[modest nebula]

How's it going now?

[low mural]

On and off tbh 😂 managed to get about 25 mins in and then the cloud layer came back across the northern part of the sky. I used that opportunity to refocus and I'm back to imaging again. Not sure how much of the data is going to be salvageable to be honest!

Has it been pretty clear for you?

[modest nebula]

yeh it's clear but not sure seeing is great

guiding isn't great but the subs are ok I think

[low mural]

Yeah I agree on the seeing. it's cleared up a lot for me now though

If I can get at least another 30 mins of data I'll be happy

[modest nebula]

I just noticed that "multistar" was turned off in PHD2. Not sure when that happened but I've been 1-star guiding for a while

[low mural]

I always had to one star guide when I was using apt to be fair, it was horrendous. But a lot better with multi star!

Do you ever use the warming feature in Nina or do you just gradually creep up the temp of you sensory before bringing it in?

[modest nebula]

I just shut the pc down tbh

[languid wing]

i either pull shut the mini pc off or my sequence ends and it parks and warms my camera

have no clue what it does tho icl

just reduce cooler power?

[low mural]

Wow you guys are brave haha

I usually change the cooling target from -10 to 0 and then switch off 😂

[languid wing]

i don’t rlly see the problem with it, the warning feature does the same thing as if i pulled the cable out of my camera

(which i have done)

i don’t actually have a az gti im just here cause why not

[low mural]

Some people have experienced damaged sensors from huge temperature fluctuations.
Anyway.. That's a wrap for me. Total 4 hours on ngc7822 is good enough for me. Time for bed 😴

[languid wing]

gn, didn’t know about that temp flux, i’ll be more careful then.

[low mural]

Not sure whether to gamble on tonight 🤔

[modest nebula]

I've had 3 nights in a row @ 3am and it's forecast for spotty cloud tonight, so I'm having a beer

next outing will be back on the az-gti. I want to dial it in before Wales B1

[low mural]

Nice, when do you go out again? Fingers crossed the weather is on your side

[modest nebula]

last week of Aug

I bet it's cloudy the entire week

[low mural]

Hopefully not!

[low mural]

Well for 4 hours of data, I'm quite happy with that 👍🏼

[modest nebula]

it's looking good!

[modest nebula]

I couldn't get my Sadr mosaic looking good yet (mosaicing artifacts) but here's pane 3. It's such a pretty area of the sky

[low mural]

Beautiful!

Just come back from the Royal Opera House. Went to see Brian Cox and Daniel Harding: Symphonic Horizons. Was fantastic!

[modest nebula]

yeh but I've got to get MUCH more data. I stretched that one way too far

[potent turret]

I cant wait until full darkness comes in lithuania so i can start imaging!!

[modest nebula]

I finally sussed how to do mosaic without any major artifacts using Siril (with a bit of help from MS ICE). I'm not too happy with the way I processed this so I shared my data for others to try.

[potent turret]

My old 30 min test on the elephant trunk nebual in bortle 3-2. with stock sony a-6000 and roki 135mm f2.8. and az gti what do you think?

[modest nebula]

nice!

[potent turret]

thanks

[low mural]

That's some lovely detail!

Is the halo annoying you though 🙈

[low mural]

Dispite it being a bit windy out there, I am getting some clean NGC7000 data!

[modest nebula]

yeh. I should have removed it from the O3 data before I started. Perhaps I'll start again one day

[modest nebula]

Nice! I'm trying Iris Nebula. It's going to be BAD from my area but I want something to compare against when I go to Wales (assuming it's not cloudy for a week!)

[low mural]

Yeah would be good to get a comparison

Clouds have just started rolling over for me 🙄

Looks like it may be temp though!

[modest nebula]

grrr I just did an hour without turning the cooling on. I was wondering why I was getting so many hot pixels

[low mural]

Still cloudy for me. Going to use this time to take some fresh Darks

Hopefully it will clear in the next 30 mins

[modest nebula]

Touptek might finally have fixed HDR mode on my camera 😮

[low mural]

Awesome! You have been waiting a while for that!

excuse the hot pixels. Did a quick stack of just the 25 min of data whilst I was waiting for clouds. Wow theres a lot of detail in this target!

Clouds have gone! lets go!

[modest nebula]

it's looking real good

I look at posts like this on Cloudy Nights and it makes me wonder why I bother 😮 https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/932528-pickerings-triangle/#entry13616016

[low mural]

I get what you mean haha

But they are our images and we should be proud of them! 😂

[modest nebula]

this HDR mode is letting me get 5min exposures on Andromeda with good stats

ignore the HFR history graph. that was for a different target

[low mural]

Nice, would the core not be blow out still?

[modest nebula]

a little

[low mural]

Be interesting to see a processed version of it. I have always found the core of m31 tedius

I'm knackered, think I will pack up for the night. Got a good 1.5 hours of data

[modest nebula]

I'm doing it just to test this HDR mode

I jsut wanted a bright broadband target

[modest nebula]

Meh, well perhaps my exposures were a little long. However, it's proven that HDR mode is now working. My flats, darks & biases applied ok which they didn't before, and the stretching went ok. If I'd want to get a LOT more data if I wanted to make a good job of this target but I don't, so I wont. As a test, it's done the job.

[modest nebula]

I got 2hrs on Iris, one hour I forgot to turn on my cooler so it's noisy as hell. But, I've got just enough to show me that it might not be a complete dead loss from my b6/7 sky and perhaps worth pursuing. I'll discard the duff data and put another 3-4hrs on it and see where I go from there

[low mural]

The other detail is nice though. I think m31 deffo requires some masking and blending when it comes to the core

[low mural]

Yeah I think with enough decent data you could get a good result! Would be interesting to see the comparison hopefully if you get good skies at the end of the month

So Ngc7000 is a very pleasing area of sky! The detail for 1 hour and 15 mins of data is insane

[modest nebula]

Yeh, it's worth spending some serious time on. I've worked out that I generally need ~10hrs for mine to look good

[modest nebula]

super guiding tonight!

[potent turret]

gonna image elephent trunk nebula with my roki 135 and sony a-6000 tonight

[modest nebula]

And this is what almost 6hrs gives me. I'd want that same amount again to get rid of more noise

[low mural]

That's a huge difference!

[modest nebula]

Yes, and I can barely see anything on the live stack. It's not until I get it in Siril that those dust clouds start to come out

[potent turret]

I could only get 1 hr 20 min of integration time on elephant trunk nebula, in bortle 2 but its ok im going to get more integration time. i made i quick proceses with siril and gimp and it looks okay for that much integration. im gonna try this night to get more.

i cropped weirdly but its ok

[queen thicket]

Thee beautiful Andromeda Galaxy.
49 x 120 (1.63 Hour's). 30xFlat's & Dark Flat's.
Stacked with Astap.
✅ 72ed
✅ Zwo 585mc
✅ Svbony ir/UV Cut
✅ Phd2
✅ Nina
✅ GraXpert
✅ Siril
✅ Astrosharp
✅ LR

[modest nebula]

nice, but where's the stars?

[low mural]

Very happy with my 3.5 hour result on ngc7000!
I may move on to giving the Andromeda galaxy ago again this year!

[modest nebula]

nice work!

[queen thicket]

Very nice. Love the framing too.

[queen thicket]

Thanks. I was debating if to keep the stars. My HFR wasn't good so starnett didn't do a perfect job. Maybe I'll add and see what I can do with them.

[lament lion]

Can always do the same framing and do some exposures to get stars and star colors then remove the original and add the new stars in after you align the star images to match

[queen thicket]

I still have the star's. I'll post a reply with the and you can see what you think. 🙂

[azure solar]

You can do blind dither in nina but the camera has to be connected and in a sequence

[modest nebula]

and if you use EQMOD or Green Swamp Server you can get NINA to trigger the camera via the snap port. I don't know if you can also do that with Synscan driver

documented here https://nighttime-imaging.eu/docs/master/site/advanced/bulbshutter/ . GSS also support snap but has different commands to EQMOD https://greenswamp.org/?docs=gs-server-overview/snap-tab

[azure solar]

By connected I mean in a way that nina can download images

I've never used the sharpcap sequencer but I'd expect it to have the same issue

[modest nebula]

The way I'd do it is to get an EQMod cable to connect my computer to the az-gti (rather than wifi), then use EQMod ASCOM driver or preferably Green Swamp Server ASCOM driver instead of the Synscan driver. I'd then configure NINA to send the correct command to EQMod or GSS to trigger the camera that's connected to the snap port. I'd also install the Direct Guider in NINA so I can do blind dither after each shot

[trim seal]

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004439806229.html?spm=a2g0o.detail.pcDetailTopMoreOtherSeller.2.472boSGVoSGVB4&gps-id=pcDetailTopMoreOtherSeller&scm=1007.40050.354490.0&scm_id=1007.40050.354490.0&scm-url=1007.40050.354490.0&pvid=570a2d66-7aea-4a9b-8f97-88f100068f37&_t=gps-id:pcDetailTopMoreOtherSeller,scm-url:1007.40050.354490.0,pvid:570a2d66-7aea-4a9b-8f97-88f100068f37,tpp_buckets:668%232846%238114%231999&pdp_npi=4%40dis!GBP!45.94!45.48!!!57.23!56.66!%402103890117237559278055681e1700!12000037788175635!rec!UK!3736986301!XZ&utparam-url=scene%3ApcDetailTopMoreOtherSeller|query_from%3A

does anyone have any experience with the ali express wedge?

[azure solar]

It's the exact same as the skywatcher wedge

Also you can cut down the link at .html

[trim seal]

perfect.
ah thanks. i didnt know that. will do that in future

[tough scaffold]

Nice sub)

[languid wing]

na but fr nice detail

[modest nebula]

ok I'm done with this from my b6/7 area.

[azure solar]

that's really good for the bortle level

[modest nebula]

hmm I say "done" but I never truly am 😄

[modest nebula]

I made this recently & gave it first light last night. It worked perfectly! It's a MyDewcontrollerPro3

[azure solar]

oh that's pretty cool, fully diy?

[modest nebula]

yes. Wasn't too hard to do either

[azure solar]

current wip

waiting for someone to apply blurx for me so I can process it properly

[modest nebula]

nice

[tough scaffold]

What it does? Automatic heater with humidity temp sensor or what?

[modest nebula]

yeh, it has a humidity and temperature sensor for ambient and a temperature sensor for each scope. It then works out the dew point & keeps the scopes 3deg above dew point

runs on an arduino & you can connect to it via bluetooth. You can either run the app or use an ASCOM driver to show stats in NINA

[lament lion]

Ok give me a min I’m starting my computer up

[azure solar]

thanks

[lament lion]

Ok I’m downloading it now, will do blurX do you need anything else while I have it

I have also both starX and noisex

[lament lion]

Oh wow I love that

[tough scaffold]

nice, do you have some extarnal bt module? Cant see it. I prefer esp32 modules already with buildin wifi or bt

[modest nebula]

yeh the bt module is the blue module to the right of the arduino. And yes, there's a variant of this with ESP32. Perhaps I should have used that instead

https://sourceforge.net/projects/esp32-dew-controller/

[trim seal]

does anyone happen to have the length of the threaded clutch shaft thingy? ive managed to get a 3x35 cap head in for now but would like something more proper

[modest nebula]

anyone imaging tonight?

[azure solar]

clouds clouds clouds

but I might get a chance in two days

[modest nebula]

I'm trying an odd target - NGC 6914

never done that one before. It's both an emission and a reflection nebula

[azure solar]

that one looks sick, I don't think I can shoot it from b8 tho

I'm debating if I want to keep adding time to M33, it looks great already at 6.5h

I could add some Ha considering how much moon we'll get in a couple of days

[modest nebula]

it looks great as-is to be honest

[modest nebula]

This is first night's data. I need to do one more evening on narrowband, then I need to do 1 or 2 more evenings on broadband on a dark night to get that reflection nebula part

[azure solar]

Looking good so far

[modest nebula]

yeh, good progress so far. I think this HDR mode on my Touptek is finally working ok

[low mural]

I had a lot of haze last night due to the winds blowing from north America. It almost looked cloudy. That with the moon made it impossible to get good subs so I bailed and got no imaging done 😅
I may seek out M31 again next, have not shot it with the Uranus C Pro and looking to add some Ha data in it too

[modest nebula]

yeh, I experienced that too. my subs were disappointing. However, i got so many of them that I got some usable data in the end

For example this is a 10min sub!!

[low mural]

Looking clear tonight. Hoping to take some Ha of M31. what methods do people use to align Ha to RGB?

[queen thicket]

I think I was out the same night. Really bad conditions. Almost like thin orange haze.
I set up anyway and decided to wait.
I took the opportunity to test some thing's out and stayed up until 02:00.
After some tweaking and care I Got the best guiding I've ever had and shot 60x60 then flat's and dark flats the next day.
Happy with this.
Don't think I'll be adding to it as open clusters isn't something what I'm into.
585mc, 72ed, phd2. Nina and Astap for stacking.

[modest nebula]

nice

anyone imaging tonight? It looks real clear

[trim seal]

Is it viable to use the az gti with synscan pro app, D3100 and an intervalometer without nina?

I'm stuck with this camera for the foreseeable

[modest nebula]

wow nice!

[modest nebula]

with a polar wedge or alt/az?

[queen thicket]

Cheers

[modest nebula]

now keep that up all evening, especially at zenith 🙂

[queen thicket]

I'm thinking of setting up and giving the Bubble another go.

Only myself stopping me, tiered.
It's looking good for the seeing tonight.

[modest nebula]

I learnt long ago, don't let tiredness or apathy cheat you out of a decent sky. You'll regret it when you don't get another for a month

[queen thicket]

That's true.
I have nothing for the next week.

[trim seal]

wedge should be here by the weekend

[modest nebula]

the wedge will let you get longer exposures but it will be tricky to align without an astro cam & software like NINA

[trim seal]

ill need to sell this camera before buying whatever the canon equivalent is for £100-150 i guess

[low mural]

I'm imaging M31 in Ha tonight. Hoping I will successfully merge it with an RGB image 😂

[queen thicket]

All setup ams struggling with moon light. Doh

[low mural]

Yeah it's pretty bright tonight! Thankfully I have gone Ha so it shouldn't affect me too much

[modest nebula]

yeh I'm doing 7nm narrowband so it doesn't affect me much

[low mural]

I think the L-enhance does about 10nm. I'm tempted to through some Oii in my overall image. Let's see if I can succeed with the Ha composition first perhaps 😂

[modest nebula]

I'm trying a different approach tonight - many 60sec subs instead of my usual 5 or 10min subs. I will get a slightly less SNR overall but much more dithering which will let me do a proper 2x drizzle

I might switch back to my usual approach for the final 2hrs so I can compare the results

[queen thicket]

Ok.. So because of the moon harsh light I've decided to give the ir720 filter a bash with 300's.
Nothing serious.. Just playing around tonight.

[low mural]

Are you still shooting ngc6914?

[modest nebula]

yes

it will take me at least one more night because I have to get broadband, and too much moon for that now

[low mural]

And clouds have arrived! 2 hours of data in Ha, I'm happy with that.

[modest nebula]

I'll be good for another few hours apparently

[modest nebula]

The emission nebula part is looking good now. I just need to get broadband for those 2 reflection nebulas

[trim seal]

Anyone have experience with the ali express star watcher az gti tripod?

[azure solar]

which one is it?

[trim seal]

https://a.aliexpress.com/_Evwohlb

[azure solar]

it's just a normal skywatcher tripod, it's good

price is good too, 70-ish with shipping is cheaper than locally

[tough scaffold]

How do you get so much blue at m33? I made photometric color calibration at siril and i get colors like this

[azure solar]

pixinsight 🤷‍♂️

my color calibration in siril also sucked

checking it again it's actually very similar

[tough scaffold]

similar to mine? so you stretched blue channel separately?

[azure solar]

yeah no, I checked the stack again and the colors were closer to blue

let me grab as screenshot

this is stacked in siril and calibrated with spcc

[tough scaffold]

ok, thx

[modest nebula]

SPCC in Siril 1.3 dev is a game changer. That'll get the colors bang on. Send me your stacked sub and I'll do it for you

[tough scaffold]

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/dg4sypd6xg9h8s52xh6z9/result_33600s.fit?rlkey=6x73z145s43folm6wyefzj1nz&st=gd8903f7&dl=1

[modest nebula]

IMX533, right?

ok a 294

[tough scaffold]

294

[modest nebula]

One is Graxperted, one isn't https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-mcu-KbSmPde0sr6u4ymdHcSAwn6OSym?usp=sharing

this is ASIFitsView autostretch on the Graxperted one

[tough scaffold]

thx, qick process give me this. I stretched blue and it looks easier to get blue colors out of your version

[tough scaffold]

@modest nebula can you give me link to 1.3? Can't find

[modest nebula]

1.3 is not released. You have to build it yourself. It's not as tricky as it seems provided you follow this EXACTLY https://siril.readthedocs.io/en/latest/installation/windows.html#building-on-windows-with-msys2

[tough scaffold]

thx

[modest nebula]

I just wrote a new filter for Siril

[tough scaffold]

sick, is it done with c?

[modest nebula]

yeh

that green box is an ROI - a feature of Siril I never even knew about

you can make a selection, convert it to an ROI, so filter previews only work in that small area. Once you hit "apply" it will apply to the whole image

[tough scaffold]

nice. I hate c))

[modest nebula]

it's not the most user-friendly

takes me 10x longer with c

although tbh, some of it is learning to navigate Siril source code

you have to modify like 10 files just to get a dialog box 😮

[low mural]

Clear skies tonight! Hoping to get some broadband data on M31

[tough scaffold]

@modest nebula Do you have any experience with narrowband spcc? Does it work well with sv220?

[modest nebula]

yes, works well

[tough scaffold]

what do you put at Green Bandwвith? same as Blue?

[modest nebula]

yes

OIII overlaps green and blue

[tough scaffold]

thx

and i got a crash after autostretch . Seems not very stable

[modest nebula]

the dev build is generally ok but is by definition not stable

you could use it for SPCC & then go back to 1.2 for other stuff

[low mural]

Still very early days. Only an hour of RGB data and still figuring out how to put the Ha in 😂

[modest nebula]

Looking real nice. Btw did you ever get that new scope you were talking about?

[low mural]

Nope.. the Mrs intervened and insisted the money went towards the wedding next year 😂🤣😭

[modest nebula]

Gosh women can be so unreasonable

My bonus changed this year from quarterly to yearly so I'm going to have a ton of cash in March that I don't know what to do with. I dislike star spikes so I guess it's going to be an overpriced refractor

[low mural]

Buy me and you a telescope 😂

What refractors you been eyeing up? Askar?

[modest nebula]

yeh mostly

problem is, they all come in around 3x the price of a newt once you get a reducer for it too

I really dislike star spikes though

[low mural]

Yeah is it worth it though 😂 or maybe Schmidt Cass?

When will they start building flatteners in like Redcar does

[modest nebula]

this is tempting until you realize it's f6 https://www.firstlightoptics.com/askar-telescopes/askar-71f-flat-field-apo-refractor.html and they don't sell a reducer for it yet

[trim seal]

We want f as low as possible?
What impact does lower/higher f have

[low mural]

F/6 isn't horrendous though, we are shooting at F/5 with the 50ED. I'm not sure if the mathematical light gathering difference but I don't think you would notice too much

[modest nebula]

ChatGPT says "This means that the f/6 astrograph requires 1.5625 times the exposure time of the f/4.8 astrograph."

so, f6 would take 50% more time than our Evoguide

[low mural]

Oh wait,who needs math when you have AI 😂

[modest nebula]

so really, an Askar or similar with reducer comes in around £1k-£1.2k

[low mural]

So every 3 f6 photos equals 2 F5 photos?

[low mural]

It's probs not that simple 😂

[modest nebula]

but I've not spent any money on my MG this year, so perhaps I can justify the extravagance

[low mural]

Yeah that's nuts... You would certainly see image quality difference with a quad though

Well considering our scope is not even meant for main imaging 😂

[modest nebula]

It means if I want to get 10hrs on a target, I need to get almost 16 instead

[low mural]

The extra 6 hours for decent image quality is probably a reasonable sacrifice

Aren't hight F stop scopes more likley to stay in focus or have I made that up?

I suppose having an auto focuserit wouldnt matter anyway

You would need to remake one though 😂

I'm probably looking at at least a year before I can think about a new scope, meaning I miss next galaxy season again 🙄 maybe I'll get lucky 💸

[modest nebula]

the Onstep controller I bought for the the EQ5 has a focuser built in. I just need to add a stepper motor & a belt drive. That Gemini focuser is only like £70 anyway as an alternative

[trim seal]

Eq wedge is here finally

[trim seal]

i have a usb cable for the az gti also now.
i can connect to the mount via synscan app using wifi and cable after downloading the serial drivers.
i can only seem to connect to the mount with nina via wifi

[azure solar]

use gss to connect to it with the cable and see if it works better

[trim seal]

Will that still allow use with nina?

OK I can connect with the cable using gss

Ahh I got it connected to nina via gs drivers

[azure solar]

you're using an azgti right? there are a couple of things to change in gss for it

[trim seal]

yea. im going to look for a youtube guide

[azure solar]

Cuiv has a full setup guide for the azgti, I followed that for mine when I had it

[trim seal]

Perfect. Thank you

[bright vale]

I use a swsa gti not the AZ but I have a problem where my RA is pretty stiff so it is hard for me to balance my mount. is it normal for the ra to be stiff or not?

[modest nebula]

Yes, for azgti at least

[bright vale]

Do you have any tips for balancing then?

[lament lion]

Loosen up the clutch and see which way it falls to then either push forward or backwards depending on what side is moving

[bright vale]

Uh yes but since the dec is so stiff I can move the counter weight like 5-10cm without the mount moving

So its hard for me to properly balance

[lament lion]

Is everything tighten down even tight on the tripod, might be some play happening somewhere

Ahh I’m dumb I’m thinking the azgti not the star adventurer gti, that’s a my bad, so there might be a little play in the gears I know mine had that problem and I just balanced it the best I could even if there was slight movement I just went with it anyways and guiding was still vary good

[bright vale]

Yes

[bright vale]

Ahh oke, usually my guiding is also pretty good (0.7-1.3 arcsec) but yesterday it went crazy

[lament lion]

Yeah those numbers was around what I was getting, there might be a video on how to tighten the gears inside I know cuiv did one but for the azgti but I didn’t look for the gti

@bright vale https://youtu.be/_nZr6yJWqOo?si=svKsOPZwMVoc7MDZ

[bright vale]

Thankyou!

[queen thicket]

Have you heard of the "pencil technique"?. I haven't used it as my guiding is good at sub second guiding.

The technique is basically where you can ballance the Ra of the az-gti on a table while the scope of hanging off. The Ra is balanced with a pen. This way you can adjust the counterweight as good as the az-gti will allow. Hang on I'll try and find a photo.

https://youtu.be/6VkiJo3okSs?si=eOuC_1CNOVyaEVEW

Hope this helps. You'll need to find out what axis your setup is NOT performing well in. Always ballance the Dec "camera heavy".

[queen thicket]

@bright vale have you enabled the encoders?

[languid wing]

@livid glacier look into this forum, it’s about your mount

[bright vale]

looks nice, but this isn't possible with the swsa gti, sorry

[bright vale]

sorry idk what those are

[queen thicket]

The skywatcher star adventurer wouldn't need any special techniques.
Both axis are free rotating (smooth)

[bright vale]

yea the swsa 2 is free rotating but my problem is that the gti's ra is so stiff so its hard to balance right

[queen thicket]

Yes I understand that.. I have the az-gti for the last 4 years.
I understand your issue. This is why I said abiyt the Pen solution.

What's actually wrong with your ballance

[bright vale]

I don't see how I can do the pen solution with the swsa gti

[queen thicket]

You won't

[modest nebula]

It's pretty dark here

[worldly igloo]

Just some questions for anyone, I’m currently using the az gti in eq mode controlling it with an eq mod cable through NINA, I’m currently trying to see if I can guide does anyone have an idea how I can set up guiding for the az gti?

[queen thicket]

Yes. It's easy. Use a guidescope on top of your main imaging scope and use a guide camera connected to that.. The use phd2 software and then link that software to nina. Cuiv the lazy geek on YouTube will be a great place to learn hot to get everything talking to each other.

[queen thicket]

I don't think your far from my location. South East.

[worldly igloo]

So I don’t need a direct connection between the guide camera and the mount with a cable? That’s all I really wanted to know tbh

[queen thicket]

No. That's an st4 connection.. Not recommended. Just use a USB cable to your laptop 😊

[worldly igloo]

Great, Thank you!

[queen thicket]

Your welcome 😊

[modest nebula]

Yes I live in Medway. But I'm in Wales at the moment

[queen thicket]

Oh OK. Close ish lol. I'm Ipswich.

[trim seal]

I'm in Hull 😩

[trim seal]

I finally found an stl for the battery cover.

Called 'az gti cup'.
It's so obvious. Why didn't I search for that?

[modest nebula]

were you the recipient of that free azgti?

[trim seal]

I was indeed. Super lucky.
Just accumulating other bits and bobs and I should get to use it in a week or so

[trim seal]

I had to sell my 3100d nikon and bought a d600.
Bought the az gti pc cable. Eq wedge and some other odd bits. Thread adapters etc.
Realised my current tripod is nowhere near up to the task so ordered a skywatcher tripod from ali which should be here next week

[modest nebula]

nice to have you in here. The Az-Gti is great for what it is

[trim seal]

Thanks.
Yea I'm sure I'm going to have good fun with it

[modest nebula]

did you get NINA + GSS set up yet?

[trim seal]

Yea I've got it to a point where I can tell it to take the pictures and how long the exposure is.
Very basic sequence.
I haven't had a chance to mess with the other features.

And I need to do some reading up on things like gain and what it means

[modest nebula]

I don't have a lot of experience with DSLRs, but I bet a lot of people know what gain to run the d600 at

once it's set, you don't change it, you just vary the exposure

[modest nebula]

I combined my NGC6914 narrowband data that I got from my location with the RGB data that I got from Wales. I'll probably fiddle with this some more over the coming weeks but here's 1st cut

[queen thicket]

?. What did miss?.

[azure solar]

Someone gave away an azgti on astro bargains

[modest nebula]

clear tonight \o/

[modest nebula]

trying for a bonkers target - the Garlic Nebula

[azure solar]

never heard of that one

[modest nebula]

It's incredibly faint https://www.astrobin.com/h4rts5/

After an hour, I've barely got a sniff of it

[azure solar]

damn

in b8 that would take me 100h

[modest nebula]

this is after almost 2hrs (starless). Need a LOT more data yet

[trim seal]

Had some pretty clear sky tonight and some unexpected free time.
Quickly got everything plugged in and out in the garden.
Had a complete brain fart and got absolutely nothing done 🙃
I need to do some reading up on the actual sequence of events.
Like what to set the wedge to.
Polar alignment. Need to work out how to actually do it.
How to then pass that to nina and then what to do from there.
Maybe I should have had a play with just synscan app and alt az first 🫠

[queen thicket]

Been playing with stars this evening. I "think" I've found the settings that I'm happy with using GHS to get my stars better (under control). Thoughts?

[queen thicket]

Welcome and sounds like your getting there. All takes time.
You'll get there.

I would bother with the Synscan app and the alt-az as when it come to learning nina and the eq mode then it will be confusing for you.

Nina won't work with alt-az very well (if at all).
Stick with it and have fun.
Cuiv the lazy geek has some amazing videos explain step by step.
This groups ia amazing too 😊.

[modest nebula]

It looks great!

I simplified my process for star mask. I do a simple manual histogram stretch until stars look visible, then I save as TIF and load into "ImagesPlus" (it's free), I use "Special Functions / Star Size" and reduce star sizes by 1 notch on the slider, then save as TIF. Then I load my stretched starless TIF & stars TIF from ImagesPlus into GIMP and combine the layers (with stars as screen merge function). I can then adjust the stretch with levels or curves.

I also stumbled on another improvement strategy for stars...

extract green layer from your RGB & save as a mono image

load your star layer into GIMP in a layer group, place the G layer above it & set the merge function to "luminance". Using G as luminance tightens your stars especially on the blue layer. Of course, this makes more difference if your scope isn't great 🙂

good for those of us who have achromatic doublets

[queen thicket]

🤔.. Not come across this software.
I think I'm getting green stars in my photo.. Not sure why as I have used the scnr.

[modest nebula]

In fact, I just took that idea a step further & used my narrowband stars as luminance layer for my RGB stars. It tightens them up a lot 🙂

[queen thicket]

That's what I was thinking.
I'm still looking to buy a 7nm filter.
This will help with my star size.
This winter I'm hoping to order one.

[modest nebula]

1hr45mins on sh2-114. I reckon this will look great if I can get at least 12hr on it

[low mural]

A bit of a random question but I don't know where else to reach out to people in the US 😂

I have a $10 Amazon gift voucher which I stupidly bought in error. Anyone US people want it for $7.50? 😅

[low mural]

Wait are you getting clear skies?

[modest nebula]

cloud cover website said it was cloudy. I looked outside & saw stars, so I got a few hours in. I think it was a bit hazy but it was enough to get something

[low mural]

Damn.. lucky! The weather has been terrible the last few days!

[wanton moat]

Is anyone using a redcat51 with their gti here?

[fading fjord]

9k messages to help a man with his polar alignment 🤣

[lament lion]

Wow…

[modest nebula]

He needed a lot of help 😄

[trim seal]

I downloaded the nina 3 star alignment plug in and think I have the general idea of what to do.

If my lat is 53.7 I need to do 90-53.7 = 36.3 and set my wedge to that?

[azure solar]

Set 53

[modest nebula]

yes, that will get you roughly there

assuming you are using an az-gti with the swsa wedge?

[trim seal]

Yes. Using is a very loose term atm though

So set it to 53 or 36?

[modest nebula]

36

[azure solar]

I've always set it to my latitude, was I wrong?

[modest nebula]

when you use the az-gti on a swsa wedge, it ends up 90deg off, so you have to calculate it as 90-<your lattitude>

even if you get it wrong, the TPP polar alignment will make you fix it

[azure solar]

oh yeah the azgti is a bit weird on the wedge, I forgot

[trim seal]

Perfect. Thanks guys

I'll have a try again tonight if it stays clear

I'll at least try and get some practise with the alignment

So somewhere around there and adjust as directed by nina alignment plug in?

[lament lion]

Yes

[trim seal]

Thanks. It's starting to make a bit more sense now

[trim seal]

Downloaded astap yesterday for the platesolving/alignment
Go to use it now. Forgot to download the star map 🙃

[modest nebula]

every day is a school day 🙂

[trim seal]

OK I've got it trying to platesolve but it fails with every image

Just a loop of exposure. Solving. Solving failed. Repeat

[modest nebula]

Are you using NINA?

if so, make sure your telescope details are correct in the equipment tab

[trim seal]

Yes using nina

[modest nebula]

focal length has to be correct

I assume the preview image looks ok? stars are (mostly) in focus?

[trim seal]

Yes

Well. I think so

Just keeps failing

Don't know what I'm doing wrong

[modest nebula]

does NINA identify a lot of stars in the stats box?

perhaps copy/paste some screenshots?

[trim seal]

Sorry I'm on old laptop outside

This is the image taken when trying to solve

[modest nebula]

what does the stats box show?

[trim seal]

Sorry for the phone pics

[modest nebula]

ok slightly out of focus but not terrible

check these two are correct in the equipment tab ...

Camera Pixel Size
Go to Options->Equipment->Camera section, the pixel size needs to be entered in micrometers.
Telescope Focal Length
Go to Options->Equipment->Telescope section and set the focal length of your telescope in millimeters. The value has to be the effective focal length considering all correctors and optical elements that could shift the overall focal length

[trim seal]

Oh hang on. That stats box

If I take a picture using the imaging tab

It now shows 87 stard

If It takes the picture using the plate solver

In the exact same position

It shows 0

[modest nebula]

ok take a pic in imaging tab that shows 87 stars

then press the plate solve button. it's 4th icon on the top of the screen

does it solve then?

[modest nebula]

18mm lens

?

[trim seal]

18-55

[modest nebula]

ok and what's your current zoom?

[trim seal]

I think I need to zoom a bit I guess?

18

[modest nebula]

ok, and it's a canon 600d?

[trim seal]

Yea

OK I got an error

Fov too large use w08 database

I installed w50

[modest nebula]

apparently 600d should be 4.3um pixel size

[trim seal]

I assumed w50 would include all others

OK I changed to 4.3

W08 downloading now

[modest nebula]

what f-stop is your camera set to?

is it an f3.5 lens?

[trim seal]

It son f3.5

[modest nebula]

if so, put that in the "focal ratio" box

3.5

then go back to imaging tab, press the plate solve button

[trim seal]

Thank you for this btw. I really appreciate it

Oh bah gawd it's doing stuff!

I don't have time to do any flats or anything now but it's doing things!

[modest nebula]

great 🙂

it's WAYY off

physically move your mount rather than use the adjusting knobs

[trim seal]

The up/down is moving the wedge?

[modest nebula]

altitude is up/down, so wind the screw in the wedge or adjust the length of the legs to point the scope higher

az is left right, so rotate the mount left

(quite a bit)

once you get the numbers much smaller, quit out of the alignment tool and start again

and, once you get it nailed, mark the positon of the tripod legs on the floor so you can go back to it quickly next time

[trim seal]

OK I got it down a tiny bit then it kept failing to download from the camera

Then the camera died

😅

I only have one battery too.
Quite annoyed as it is close to perfect conditions but I've learned a lot tonight so thank you for your time

[modest nebula]

it's still cloudy & raining here but apparently will be clear by 11

my alignment should take <5mins to get it perfect 🙂

[trim seal]

Hopefully mine will be somewhere closer to that next time

Hoping it clears up for you

[modest nebula]

yeh it's clearing up. I'll go until 3

such a stupid hobby we've chosen 😮

[trim seal]

Yea haha. I have a 4 month old baby and work tomorrow so I'm not going to make things any more difficult than they already are haha

[modest nebula]

I WFH so my "office" is 10ft away from my bed

btw, tip for you - get one of those cheap USB powered dew heaters off ebay & wrap it round your lens, otherwise it will dew over & spoil your evening

[trim seal]

I'm planning on it.
I'm going to get a cheap intervalometer so I can take the mount and camera away from home with a 12v battery aswell.

I just need to wait a little while as I've bought cables, tripod, wedge and all kinds of other stuff in the past month and my wife is starting to ask how much things cost 😅

I need to lay low for a while before I start spending again

[modest nebula]

az-gti has a camera interface built in

just get a cable

[trim seal]

Ah I got the pc cable

That's good to know

Ah no way I missed that on the synscan app. I've just seen it now

I'll have a look on ali express

[modest nebula]

you can configure NINA to send the commands to trigger the camera

[trim seal]

So I could do away with the camera USB into laptop or would I still need that?

Bargain

[modest nebula]

how would NINA obtain the image if you removed usb?

[tough scaffold]

i used 600d in the past before i killed it. There are two drivers for nina. Canon utility and ascom. And Nina pretty often failed to download the image. Ascom driver worked a bit better as i remember. But anyway it was not stable

[trim seal]

It is very inconsistent. I thought it was the cable at first but I tried 3

[modest nebula]

another few hrs on sh2-114. Stil far from done 😮

[trim seal]

You use the az gti for these?

[modest nebula]

I'm just in the process of transferring over to another mount, so half this data was on az-gti, the other on my new mount

but, az-gti is very capable. this new one is similar performance at tracking

this new one is bigger, more stable, and can recover from dither quicker

[lament lion]

don't tease, what mount

also that is coming along vary good

[modest nebula]

It's a second hand EXOS-2 mount with a controller kit https://www.terransindustry.com/en-gb/collections/onstep-v4-kit/products/exos2?variant=42227641385153

it's nothing fancy or expensive, but it's a cheap way to get an EQ5 class mount

[lament lion]

hey it will let you have more flexibility with telescope weight so its a win no matter what

[modest nebula]

Yeh exactly. I plan an upgrade in the spring

[lament lion]

nice, do you know what your going for yet

[modest nebula]

nope, but it will be at least a triplet refractor, probably 80 or 90mm. They're so damned expensive though, although this looks like a good budget option (with a reducer) https://www.teleskop-express.de/en/telescopes-4/apochromatic-refractor-55/all-apos-und-eds-223/ts-optics-photoline-80-mm-f-6-fpl53-triplet-apo-2-5-rap-focuser-3881

but, if I'm going to spend that, why not push the boat out and get something better?

[lament lion]

looks like a good scope looks and size about my old scope just better glass (thanks svbony...lol), yeah you can ask around and see what more knowledgeable people will recommend with that mount

[queen thicket]

Just catching up. I took my lable off as it has No relevance to PA. It's a sticker. Nina or any pa software will inform you what to do.
Sure, you'll need a rough attitude ANGLE though.

I'll catch up sonny. Didn't realise that there was soo much.

[trim seal]

Thank you. I started making progress and my camera died 😅
Was a very helpful few hours though. Learned a lot

[modest nebula]

it's the start of a very slippery slope 😛

[trim seal]

It was actually nice just sitting out in the dark with a brew tbh

[modest nebula]

yeh it starts like that

[tough scaffold]

have entered your gps location at GSS? looks like something wrong. When you connect GSS you mount should be at home position - your lens should roughly point at Polaris and counterweight looking down

you can check you mount position at GSS 3d tab. Shoul look like this

[modest nebula]

clear again tonight \o/

[trim seal]

So I've done reasonably close alignment.

Not too concerned with that being perfect. Just wanted it rough so I can get the hang of slewing to targets

When I tell it to go to say andromeda, it will point way off

Could it be due to wrong side of pier selected?

I can't seem to change that

Meh.
Give up for the night

[tough scaffold]

do you use gss? check 3d tab

once i had my mount upside down there

[trim seal]

I just had a brief look at gss but wasn't entirely sure what I was looking at tbh

I've put everything away now

At least I've managed to use 3 star alignment accurately

[low mural]

Finally out imaging again!

I couldn't get my hfr lower than 2.7 this evening though, perhaps seeing issues

There is forecast aurora tonight though so that may interfere with our imaging 😅

[modest nebula]

mine's ~2 or less 🙂

mind you, I'm on the narrowband filter tonight

[low mural]

Lowest I've ever got is 2.3

[modest nebula]

that's why you need a focuser

[low mural]

Yeah I'm shooting M31 so the narrowband filters off!

[low mural]

I know I'm just not capable of making one 😂

[tough scaffold]

So if your mount goes to wrong point check your location at GSS is correct and and enable 3d tab at options and confirm it points to north

[trim seal]

Thank you. I'll check when I get another clear night. Hopefully soon

[modest nebula]

pff it's early yet

you've got a good 5hrs yet tonight

[trim seal]

I've got work in the morning 😩

[modest nebula]

me too

[modest nebula]

getting there, but it's such a dim target, needs much more data

[trim seal]

That's looking very nice

[modest nebula]

it's still far too noisy. However, check this out. This is one 10min exposure

like I said, it's so incredibly faint

[modest nebula]

I also did this one last night. This is only 85mins using the same equipment

[trim seal]

Looks like another mostly clear night and I have work tomorrow..
Again 🎉

When setting the mount up before i turn anything on. Should I have it straight upright and pointing to polaris? Or does the 3 star alignment remove the need for doing that

Also does it matter if my camera is mounted with it this way

Or should it be this way?

Before I turn it on

Also can my camera dovetail be sideways or does it need to run in line with the lens?

Like so?

It changes the direction of its mount

These are probably really dumb questions, 😅

[tough scaffold]

when you connect GSS, gss thinks that your mount is at home position and looking at Pole. So it's better roughly point your mount to north and then connect.

plate solve and sync will update your position if it was not home

You should enable sync at plate solve tab or at options in nina. Don't remember exactly

[tough scaffold]

I think it does not matter. Also sideways should work, but I have not tested it

[trim seal]

This is how it's looking now with alignment very close

I don't know how it is supposed to look but it just looks very odd to me

[tough scaffold]

it changes angle while polar alignment

if you aligned you can try go to some target

also there is home button at GSS. It should return mount to home position looking at pole

[trim seal]

Thanks. I'll try slew to a target and see how it looks

[trim seal]

So I managed to get it slewing properly. Not much time for imaging so just took 15 darks and 15 lights at 10 second exposures and no trails visible.

Should be able to start to learn the imagine side of it now the mount set up is reasonably well practised

[livid glacier]

hi, i need some major help. i have skymax 127 with az-gti mount, and the skywatcher equatorial wedge thingy. i am having major issues with literally everything.

I am going outside with the telescope, pointing the equatorial wedge north as per an app on my phone. i have it set to my latitude (51). i have the azgti mount set so that the telescope is pointing straight north as well. if i take a picture using nina, astap is unable to solve it. if i slew to vega, i am actually looking at tycho. i am unable to do TPPA because astap cannot solve anything. i have my telescope set correctly to 1500mm focal length and f12.

what am i doing wrong ?

[azure solar]

Astap might not be getting enough stars to plate solve

[livid glacier]

i plate solved it fine online

[azure solar]

Try to turn annotations on so you can see the stars it's detecting

Also switch to hocus focus if you haven't already

[livid glacier]

it is not showing any stars in nina

i honeslty don't know what i'm doing wrong.

[azure solar]

Are you sure focus is alright?

[livid glacier]

yes, because i can plate solve the images online fine

[azure solar]

Does the statistics tab show an hfr value?

Astap is picky, the online solver not as much

[livid glacier]

that's the last screenshot i got before i rage quit and went back inside

https://nova.astrometry.net/user_images/10952424#annotated

that was me slewed to vega

i'm obviously doing something wrong with my initial setup

[azure solar]

Next time switch to hocus focus and see if it helps, you can also change the star detection options so they're more relaxed and even out of focus stars will be detected

[livid glacier]

what is hocus focus - is that a nina thing ?

[azure solar]

Tbf you're not helping yourself by shooting at 1500mm

[azure solar]

Plugin in nina

[livid glacier]

ok. so why isn't astap solving ?

it solved fine when i had the camera in my sv106 "guide" scope

[azure solar]

It still uses astap but the way it detects stars is different

[livid glacier]

ok, i'll try it again tomorrow then i guess 😛

i just wanna be able to look at stars !

[azure solar]

Needs pointier stars, you need to make sure the stats tab shows an hfr value

[livid glacier]

that's as pointy as i can get them

[azure solar]

Then get hocus focus and change the settings a bit, I don't remember exactly what you need to change but it's 1am and my brain is barely working

[livid glacier]

fair - if you remember tomorrow please tag me

i'm new to all of this, like... really new

i'll get hocus focus installed tomorrow as well.

is my initial "point it vagely north" process correct ?

[azure solar]

Yes, the wedge has to be set at 90° - your latitude but other than that you're good

[livid glacier]

minus my latitude ?!

not...

so i should be at 39 not 51 ?

[azure solar]

Yes

#1077178051512774756 message

[trim seal]

I had similar issues. Mine was due to fstop and focal length being incorrect in the equipment options.
Do you have stars when you take a picture out of the plate solver?

[tough scaffold]

@livid glacier try biggest base for astap D80, if you not use it . Check pixel size and focal length is correct at nina. Also you can run astap without nina and select your image and play with settings and see what astap says

[livid glacier]

so astap was able to solve with images captured through my SV106

but seems to completely fail at those captured through my Skymax 127

only thing i changed was the focal length and ratio of the scope

[livid glacier]

in nina ? i've never had stars highlighted. it shows star COUNT, but never highlights them

[trim seal]

I had to download a smaller astap catalogue

Star # would show but plate solve failed everytime

[livid glacier]

yeah, i dunno what to other than maybe attempt to use another solver

[modest nebula]

clear tonight \o/

[livid glacier]

yeah, cba to go outside though 😛

[trim seal]

Did you change f and focal length to suit the other scope?

It must be a settings issue if it works with the other scope

[livid glacier]

yeah. so when i had it on 200 f4 with the SV106 it solved fine. if i have it on 1500mm f12 it doesn't solve on the Skymax 127

would the camera affect the focal length ?

[trim seal]

I think so

I'm a complete noob but I'd imagine so

[livid glacier]

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/zwo-cameras/zwo-asi-120mm-mini-usb-20-mono-camera.html i'm using one of these in the back of the scope

i suspect it's the camera then affecting the focal length

maybe it'll be better if i put it in the 90 degree mirror piece, cos it goes in quite far when put into the back of the scope - a lot further than any of my eye pieces

so i bet that's teh issue. i bet using the camera in the back of the scope like that makes the focal length something dumb like 1365.7mm

[trim seal]

I may be completely wrong tbh though lol

[livid glacier]

i mean it makes sense

i shall ask elsewhere

[modest nebula]

as long as you set the pixel size correct, it should be ok

[livid glacier]

hmm, definitely got the pixel size correct

cos, as i said, it solves fine on the guide scope

just not on the main scope with the same camera settings (with scope focal length and ratio adjusted)

i wonder if i should be using the extender that came with it

OK so i had the extender ON it

maybe that was the problem

maybe i will go out later then 😛

[modest nebula]

you should go out now 😛

[livid glacier]

i am waiting for chicken burgers

[low mural]

Moon is killing my M31 subs this evening but going for it anyway 😂

Should give me 5 hours of broadband data to go with my 2 hours of Ha data

[modest nebula]

I'm on NGC7822 tonight

https://astro.wheep.co.uk/livestack/

I will continue sh2-114 another time. I'm 9hrs into that one and it need another 9

[low mural]

First process. Need to do better tbh . Putting the Ha on is such a pain 😂

[queen thicket]

I'm trying to catch up on the comments.. But I believe that your using a very small sensor AR 1280 * 960.. Together with a long focal length will cause major issues. Your star database to Platesolve will have to be the biggest one.
Make sure you have downloaded the correct Platesolve database.

[livid glacier]

that or buy a different camera 😛

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/zwo-cameras/zwo-asi-585mc-usb-3-camera.html would this be a better option for the main scope ?

can you use multiple cameras in NINA ?

[azure solar]

Still a very small sensor with small pixels

[azure solar]

You can have multiple instances of nina opened

[livid glacier]

can they both control the scope at the same time ?

what's the best camera to use for the scope do you think ?

[azure solar]

wdym?

[azure solar]

533 at least, I'm not sure you can use anything bigger

[livid glacier]

as in, can i guide it from one instance of nina using one camera, then use another instance to capture images ?

[azure solar]

guiding is handled by phd2

[livid glacier]

i don't have that 😛

533 is bloody expensive

there a cheaper option ? 😛

[azure solar]

it's free

[azure solar]

not really

[livid glacier]

damnit 😦

[azure solar]

the 585 would be usable with a smaller telescope but at 1500mm you're asking for trouble

[livid glacier]

ok, i was gonna buy a Wildcat 51

i just wanted to capture planets as well

[azure solar]

for planets you can use the mak just fine

[livid glacier]

yeah, but i'd need an expensive camera to take pictures

dunno where to go from here really apart from spending a grand on a camera 😐

[azure solar]

I would get a 585 and a small telescope with a short focal length so you can do both dso and planets

something like the evoguide 50 which has been tried and tested here

[livid glacier]

is the wildcat 51 good ? i like the look of it

[azure solar]

you mean the redcat?

[livid glacier]

yeah

[azure solar]

it's one of the best

[livid glacier]

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/william-optics/william-optics-v3-redcat-51-wifd.html

and one of these https://www.firstlightoptics.com/zwo-cameras/zwo-asi-585mc-usb-3-camera.html

[azure solar]

yeah, but if you can get cooling it's worth it

guiding might be necessary on the azgti

[livid glacier]

can i guide with the main scope and camera ?

[azure solar]

no

[livid glacier]

ok, so i guess my plan for the 127 is to put the camera back in the guide scope. align it with the main scope

[queen thicket]

This is my thought as to why it's not platesolving

This is M13 with the 1500mm Mak AND the 1280*960 resolution of his zwo 120mc-s. AND the smallest of the Messier objects M57.. Crazy fov, thus why it's Not platesolving.

This is the same 1500mm Mak and a 585mc sensor

So although a wider fov I believe that the 585mc sensor "should" Platesolve ok with the biggest Astap database.

@livid glacier do you heve photo of your setup?

@livid glacier this is with my Sony apsc sensor (crop sensor, so mirrorless camera) on your Mak : M13

[livid glacier]

camera is put into the back of the 127

so the 120mm isn't to be used in the back of the scope ?

[modest nebula]

from last night

[livid glacier]

very nice 😄

this is the best i can do so far:

but that's not with AZGTI mount

[azure solar]

if it's supposed to be guiding it has to go on the guide scope

[livid glacier]

the 120mm is a guiding scope only then i assume ?

[azure solar]

it's intended for guiding but you can use it however you want

[low mural]

This is nice, how much data?

[low mural]

Do you guys reckon I keep getting more data on this?

[modest nebula]

6hrs

[queen thicket]

The 120mc-s or the mm (as both have the same resolution and sensor size). It's designed as a guide camera and therefore performs best as one.
Your scope is a Planet scope.. So putting the two together will dauwe issues with Platesolve and tracking (tracking as you'll need to be alot more accurate with pa and leveling of your tripod) basicly what I'm trying to say is that your gear is Not very forgiving with your fov.
Put your zwo 120 on the guidescope and use another camera for the 127mm (Mak). Is the zwo 120mm the only canera you have?

@livid glacier so putting it all together and the advise from everyone on here do you think you'll be able to get it all going?. You'll need all the software ready and all the settings correctly in the software.

[livid glacier]

no, i understand it wont work, hence asking for camera recs 😛

as i said i'll put the 120mm back in my guidescope, make sure it's lined up to the main scope

then consider getting a camera for the main scope

[queen thicket]

Lined up, yes but not perfectly. Mine is roughly aligned.. It dont matter it it's not looking at the same area of stars.

[livid glacier]

yeah, i wanna get it roughly lined up

basically so i can say "go to saturn" and it will

[queen thicket]

A GOTO command is via the main scope so any instruction from any software will use the main scope and Platesolve from there. Once PLATESOLVED nina will sync the mount to tell the mount where it is (kinda like a 3-star alignment but without the hassle of doing one and therefore more accurate.

The guidescope has nothing to do with the pointing accuracy.

Hope that makes sense 😊.

[livid glacier]

ok, so how do i do polar alignment without a camera in my main scope ?

this is what i am confused about

if i have a camera in my guide scope, how can i align my main scope ?

i thought the whole point of a guidescope was to guide the main scope to a position

[queen thicket]

When I first started out I wasn't able to use my Sony and nina (or any other astrophotography software).. But I found a way.
I used my zwo 120mc-s in the guidescope and asked nina to use the guidescope as the main scope. This allowed me to Polar Align my mount and THEN I'd connect my Sony to the main scope and then use an intervaloniter to twke the images.

So to answer your question.. Its always best to use a camera on the main scope to Polar Align but if you can't then just use the guidescope.

[queen thicket]

Use a distant object like a tower block or a building that far away and just align them the best you can.
The other way is to use the moon to align them both. When I shoot a target like M27 I can see them both on the fov. My guidescope is slightly off but it don't matter.
All the guidescope AND camera is doing is sending small corrections to the mount.. It dont been to be perfect, just near as.

[livid glacier]

ok, cos i was able to polar align on my guidescope previously

[queen thicket]

Yes. With a little bit of thinking and fooling nina into thinking it was your MAIN scope.. Yes.

Remebwr 1) level tripod (as best you can)
2) Ballance (canera heavy with the az-gti)
3) pa with your GUIDE CAMERA

BUT

When you buy a main imaging camera you can forget this way of doing it, so don't get to set in your ways 😊.

Make sense?

[livid glacier]

totally, thanks 🙂

i just need to get to a place during the day where i can see about a mile

then i can align both scopes as best i can

[queen thicket]

It looks like you have the same guidescope as me. The Svbony sv106 and at 240mm f4 it's a great scope, although NOT for imaging. All you'll need to do it use an eyepiece IN YOUR MAK and look at a bright star and then ALIGN your guidescope to that star too using the 6x adjusting thumb screws on the guidescope rings. 😊

Remeber ballance the guide ballance too (if you can slide the guidescope up or down then then will help)

[queen thicket]

Yes. Or even in the back garden and use a TV aerial? Something that a decent distance.

[livid glacier]

yeah, SV106 guidescope

i'm having issues actually seeing stars in the eye piece, i think it's either my eyes, or i'm not using the eye piece correctly. i need one with a bigger rubber part i think

using a 25mm eyepiece

find it hard to line my eye up with it, but then i always had that issue at school with microscopes and with binoculars

i need a larger eyepiece i think maybe ?

hence why i wanted to use cameras

[queen thicket]

@livid glacier will reply soon.. Just have to pop out for a little while.

[livid glacier]

no rush 🙂

[queen thicket]

@livid glacier I think your refering to the "exit pupil" of any given eyepiece.
The "zoom" if any given eyepiece is referred to the "mm" that the eyepiece says.. I am not knowledgeable with visual astronomy or the specs of eyepieces.

The exit pupil is I believe the diameter of the available angle a viewer can move their eye in relation to the light path.

Let me try and find an example 😂 as I'm not sure myself. If you have had issues with optical equipment previously then you may find a bigger exit pupil better.

I'm sure other people can be of more help in there as I don't understand ALOT of it all with visual but I'm willing to learn too 😊

[livid glacier]

other annoying thing is wearing glasses

[queen thicket]

If your using a cheap ep that came with the telescope, chances are that they have a small exit pupil.
I don't recommend cheap ep's fot the Mak OR ANY long focal length telescope

[livid glacier]

yeah i'm using the ones that came with it

[queen thicket]

I was going to ask about if you ware glasses. I "think" you'll be better off with an eyepiece with "longer eye relief". I believe this is right.

[queen thicket]

Not sure where you are located but there are some good brands that are less cost but high quality.

[livid glacier]

UK

firstlightoptics is pretty much the place i order from

[queen thicket]

This is rother Valley optics

[livid glacier]

oh that's nice. is that a good one to use with the Skymax127 ?

also, i was thinking of just getting a mirrorless camera for the main scope - would that work ?

[queen thicket]

32mm is goof with your Mak.. But this is all new to me and you will need to ask these friendly people on here and research yourself.

[livid glacier]

like could i buy a sony alpha and attach it to the scope ? would that work ?

[queen thicket]

Yes a mirrorless Sony like mine would would well as you focus by moving the mirror and NOT the focuser.. So back focus should be an issue. I have a friend that had the Mak 127mm and he uses a Canon M50. But you'll need to work out the adapters.

Nina also works with SOME brands of dslr / mirrorless.

[livid glacier]

nina seems to work with sony's

just a case of working out what attachments i need i guess

[queen thicket]

Yes. I have a Sony mirrorless a6000 and anothough Sony has never liked sharing thier SDK for use with other software.. There are people who have coded thier own software so we CAN use it with NINA. Canon and Nikon are more common and used with astrophotography software.

[queen thicket]

Yes, SOME and only some Sony cameras are supported.

[livid glacier]

https://retro.kiwi/blog/nina-camera-plugin/ oooh

https://github.com/dougforpres/ASCOMSonyCameraDriver/wiki/Supported-Cameras

i shall have a think. that eye piece you linked is 2", which i'd need to get an adaptor for cos out of the box it only supports 1.25" eyepieces

but i have some stuff to do, read, and understand 🙂

[queen thicket]

Yes. I installed this and it works well with a little giggle.

Then I upgraded my gear to the zwo 585mc shortly after.

[queen thicket]

I thought it was 2". My bad. 1.25 tend to be cheaper but, YES do read up 😊

[livid glacier]

what main scope are you using ?

[livid glacier]

cos i am thinking i might get better experience with a Redcat 51

[queen thicket]

This is with the Sony a6000 on my az and the skywatcher 72ed.

[livid glacier]

see, that's the kinda thing i want to do

[queen thicket]

42x60 seconds

When I didn't really know what I was going lol and thus no calibration frames

[livid glacier]

72ed is the same focal length as the redcat 73 i assume ?

[livid glacier]

ok now i'm liking that

cheap too actually

[queen thicket]

The William Optics 73 is 450mm and my skywatcher is 420mm

[queen thicket]

Yes the William will be getter quality but ALL DEPENDS on how far you want to take AP. 😊

[livid glacier]

the Redcats are expensive

maybe i should get a 72ed and give that a go

put the 120mc in my sv106 to guide it, then work out some other camera for the main scope

you have a field flattener on that ?

hmm, i have a canon 450d doing nothing actually...

i totally could use that if i was able to hook it into nina or something. wonder what else i'd need to do that i wonder... 🤔

[queen thicket]

Remember the az-gti has a limit of 5kgs for visual but all of my gear is just over the 5kgs and it's running perfect. As I always say : ballance and TLC are KEY with the az-gti.

I don't have a flattener as the zwo 585mc can get away with it. I don't see any or little weird star's at all edges.

[livid glacier]

looks about right. just need to work out how to hook the 450d up to NINA

that's also a pretty sizable weight. i only have the "stock" one that comes with the skywatcher counterweight kit

[queen thicket]

This is my most recent M31 with thr zwo 585mc. No flattener & the 72ed

[livid glacier]

i mean, i have the 450d already, so might as well use it for something 😛

[queen thicket]

Canon 450 will be good to start off with, as long as it's compatible with NINA. You'll also need to buy the canon to your scope adapter.

[queen thicket]

Perfect.

[livid glacier]

apparently it does support it natively

[queen thicket]

Good news. So that's what you'll ne testing tomorrow. Then you can adjust the settings in nina and test out on a clear night.
Align your guidescope first.

So how about the 450 and the Mak? On M31?

[livid glacier]

ok, it is ordered 😛

oh i could try that, sec

lol, maybe not

awwww yiss

should i use PHD2 (or whatever it's called) for guiding and nina for image capture ?

[queen thicket]

And this is why a zwo 120 will not Platesolve.

[queen thicket]

Perfect.

[livid glacier]

i really appreciate all your time btw, especially answering dumb questions from me 🙂

[queen thicket]

That's the best way to do it.

[queen thicket]

No problem, your welcome.

[livid glacier]

i am in your position when it comes to 3d printing - i answer a lot of the same questions from a lot of new users, so i know what it's like !

it's very interesting to be on "the other side", if that makes sense. AP is something i know absolutely nothing about !

i'll get PHD2 set up tomorrow and work out how to get NINA talking to the 450D (if i can remember where it is). i'll probably buy a dumb battery for it also, then i can plug it into the mains during captures

[queen thicket]

Yes that makes sense.
When I can't got out I love helping people and still being active in AP.
Phd2 is easy and will set itself up.. Its just a matter of tweaking your setting after you ha e learned how yo get the best out of the guiding gear, all takes time.

Yes, install phd2 and leave everything as default until you get out under the stars.
Then you can tun the guiding assistant inside phd2 and it will make suggestions to help you tweak it all.

Find and connect the 450 to nina and then you can take it from there. Keep up updated and we should use private messaging from now on just to keep the az-gti forum clean.

[trim seal]

I'm getting failed plate solving every time again now 🎉

If I use 18mm fl f3.5 it works fine. If I use anything else it fails. Maybe settings issue?

[queen thicket]

@livid glacier let's try and get to the bottom of this. Please send screen shots of your settings and remind us of the gear you use . Thanks

[livid glacier]

would it be better in a different thread rather than here ?

seems the issue is with plate solving on certain setups more than a prob with the az-gti !

[queen thicket]

Apologies, I tend to agree though. My bad.. Thought I'd have known better considering our @livid glacier convo the other day

[livid glacier]

haha, no worries. do you want me to create the thread ?

tagged you both in it

[modest nebula]

If you change your zoom, you have to change the focal length setting in NINA. Probably best to align at the configured settings then change zoom after you've finished alignment

[modest nebula]

I doubt az-gti is responsible for your plate solving issues

[livid glacier]

yeah correct, hence making the other thread to not imply it is 🙂

[low mural]

Anyone gambling the skies tonight?

[modest nebula]

too cloudy here 😦

[trim seal]

I would need to put the camera back in the exact same position after removing and refocusing wouldn't I?

I changed the focal length to 55nm and f4.5 or whatever it was

55mm. Not nm. That's pretty big

[modest nebula]

you're aligning the mount not the camera

[trim seal]

I know but if the mount is aligned by pictures taken with the camera, couldn't the camera not being back in the same position cause issues?

Keep in mind I am quite empty between the ears

So maybe this is a stupid question 😵‍💫

[modest nebula]

no, because the mount is still aligned

perhaps when you do your first go-to, it will adjust position slightly to point the mount at the correct location, but camera orientation won't affect mount alignment

[trim seal]

Ah that makes things much easoer

I'd still prefer if it'd just work when zoomed

[modest nebula]

telescopes don't zoom 🙂

[trim seal]

I mean for the plate solving haha

Id like to be able to set lens to 55mm. Focus. Plate solve

[modest nebula]

then you have to tell NINA that it's at 55mm rather than 18

provided the settings in the hardware tab match reality, you're good

[trim seal]

I tried and it failed constantly.
Maybethe 55mm marker on the lens isn't actually 55mm exactly

[low mural]

Was some good insight for me! Cloudy here now 😂

[trim seal]

Was super clear here. Went and had a brew. Showed my face with the wife for a few minutes. Went outside.
Thick cloud

[modest nebula]

At least you can blame the wife now

[queen thicket]

Always the way. A few years ago it was winter and crystal clear.. I setup and then waiting for complete darkness.. When u went outside again.. A neighbour decided to have a nice warm bonfire.. The smoke was a killer let alone the light from the flames! 😡. 😂

[trim seal]

Ordered a dew heater. Dummy battery. From ali so will probably blow my camera up

Some usb breakouts, barrel jack connectors for my cowboyed 2x USB output on the battery cover Work in progress

And a snap cable for when I'm mobile with no laptop I can sequence with synscan app

[queen thicket]

Oh yes u forgot about the SNAP cable. I used one with my Sony.
GSS will also use the SNAP port on the az-gti (next to the dc input on the az-gti).

[modest nebula]

NINA supports it too

[trim seal]

So I can use the snap and save the pictures onto the camera instead of the laptop in the garage which would then need putting on a USB and taking to my PC in the house?

[modest nebula]

yeh I guess

[livid glacier]

Didn't have enough weight on my AZGTI, didn't want to order in another one... so went to CAD and made a thingy to use some old dumbbell weights I had on it. Seems like I nailed it !

[modest nebula]

nice!

[tough scaffold]

I have ordered filter wheel and gemini EAF. Filter wheel is Touptek 8x1.25 so maybe too heavy for az-gti. Will see. It was on discount, so i decided to try it.

Would be nice to have askar duoband SII+O3 filter to my setup, but it's only 2 inch

[wanton moat]

High iq move

Nice lil Seestar you got hidden under there

[livid glacier]

shhhh 😉

[languid wing]

looking really solid!

[livid glacier]

https://www.avalon-instruments.com/products-menu/upas/universal-polar-alignment-system-detail i was wondering if something like this existed last night. turns out it does exist !

[languid wing]

Yea, i was gonna make one of my own but it kinda fell through

[livid glacier]

yeah, that's what i was thinking. couple of stepper motors etc

[languid wing]

those are ridiculously expensive and PA isn’t that hard anyway

[languid wing]

it’s difficult to do, you have to be very precise

[livid glacier]

0.9 degree steppers and a large pulley should be relatively accurate

but anyhoo, i managed to get TPPA last night, but then was still off on my slews to targets. then the clouds set in so i had to stop

this is where it slewed to when i told it to go to M31:

which is the same issue i was having previously with the 127, remember ?

where it'd say it was somewhere, but it wasn't. i wonder if the mount is "sagging" ?

[languid wing]

Yea, but the rig to hold it and the force needed to rotate tje bolts is quite a bit

[languid wing]

it’s probably because your polar alignment isn’t spot on, which isn’t much of a issue. Platesolving will fix it. It’s a normal thing

[livid glacier]

yeah, but i was within 38 seconds last TPPA and it still failed to slew correctly

and i couldn't work out how to "correct" the position

[languid wing]

Yea it’s normal, happens to a lot of people

[languid wing]

that’s odd, did u plate solve to m31?

[livid glacier]

it wasn't looking at M31

i TPPA'd, went to home, asked it to slew to M31 and it went there

[languid wing]

What did you use to slew the scope

[livid glacier]

and i had no idea how to say "correct please"

Targets list in NINA

[languid wing]

Yea that’s the problem

u wasn’t platesolving

use framing assistant instead

then click slew and centre

[azure solar]

38 arcseconds of error?

[languid wing]

i think 00”00”38

[livid glacier]

^

[azure solar]

ok, for a sec I thought you meant minute

[livid glacier]

i couldn't work out how to use Framing Assistant. i never saw a Slew and Centre button when i searched for M31 😦

prob doing something wrong

[languid wing]

open nina now and i’ll show u if u can

[livid glacier]

different laptop 😛 and it's all downstairs.

[languid wing]

ah alr

[livid glacier]

but i've got clouds for the next week, so not gonna be able to check if it worked for a looong time 😦

[livid glacier]

oh, do i have to click Load Image ?

[languid wing]

yea lol

[livid glacier]

AAAAH ok, that'll be it then

[azure solar]

from the sky atlas you press send to framing assistant and then slew and center

[languid wing]

I just use framing assistant but yea both will work

[azure solar]

yeah that also works

[livid glacier]

not a very intuitive application 😛

[tough scaffold]

It's also good to know that by default you need internet to Load image. So if you go outside without internet you need to download cache to use Framing Assistant offline

[modest nebula]

I find my targets in Stellarium then tell the framing assistant in NINA to get its target from Stellarium

they're running on different machines too

[livid glacier]

i have internet access in my garden

i've not yet got to the point where i'll be in the middle of a field

and even then i can just hotspot

[modest nebula]

I use a small travel router on my tripod. It will connect my gear to my wifi network when I'm at home, and when I'm away, it will put out its own wifi signal for me to connect to

[queen thicket]

Learn something everyday!

[modest nebula]

if I had a lathe in my garage I would build one of these myself. That's the one tool I never got around to getting

[queen thicket]

@livid glacier its not an easy peice of software to get used to and there is lots to setup first BUT when you do then it will become your friend 😊.

When nina does thr flip (maridian) it's wicked.

Youll get there with Platesolve and you'll love it.

In the options menu there is a little place where you can tell nina the parameters for Platesolve. Make sure these are correct

QQ : although I've set this up as to how I feel is best for me.. How you set your up for the az-gti in regards to the tick boxes?

[trim seal]

How do you get this view?

[modest nebula]

@queen thicket why is your GSS so old?

[queen thicket]

🤔. I didn't realise. Blame the clouds 😂

[queen thicket]

Your Dec guiding and other setting at 70. Any differents?

And does the encoder help turned on?

[queen thicket]

What your version?

[modest nebula]

Mine's 1081

[modest nebula]

I don't think so because PHD2 will just work it out when it does its calibration

[modest nebula]

I read somewhere that encoders help precision but I never noticed any difference

[livid glacier]

oh, this is from me uploading a screenshot of the live view to astrometry online plate solver

i'd like the same kinda view in NINA to be honest, but not sure it's possible

[queen thicket]

Yeah, same for me. I turned them off as I didn't want ANY conflict between software(s)

[queen thicket]

Nina won't provide any information on regards to this.
If you want to display info like this you'll need to use a Platesolve site or software.

This is free and useful when I started out.

[livid glacier]

i think you can do it in Stellarium ?

[queen thicket]

@trim seal

@trim seal

[modest nebula]

Siril will do this too

load image, platesolve & then press the annotation button

[queen thicket]

My bad. Yes, it's a very clean too. Green if I remember right. 😊

[trim seal]

Thanks guys I'll check it out of I ever get a clear night

The need for no cloud makes the whole getting practice in thing very difficult 🫠

[modest nebula]

actually, you can also use a planetarium program like hnsky or cartes du ciel to show this info

they connect to your mount using the ascom driver & then show the current position

in realtime. It's cool watching your mount move on the planetarium view

[tough scaffold]

I turned on encoders once on az-gti and mount slewed to the ground, not to the target. Never used again

[modest nebula]

that's almost certainly not the desired effect

[livid glacier]

in Nina it never highlights the stars for me when platesolving on the Imaging tab

even though i have the little Star button enabled

[trim seal]

You can enable 'annotation' in the options I found

[livid glacier]

ooh, i shall take a look at that then

[queen thicket]

As @zy said.. Then restart nina.

I also found this a weird way / glitch

[livid glacier]

anyone have any insights as to why my tracking seems to be off ? i have my position correct in the mount and nina, i have my altitude set correct. the scope is polar aligned. but when i track a target, it slowly moves to the bottom right of the capture. Notice how it's moved between the shots (about 30 minutes apart).

the mount it set to track, as shown in GSS and in NINA:

[low mural]

@queen thicket Assuming you are not guiding? How sure are you that you are polar aligned? Did you use TPPA?

[livid glacier]

not guiding, no

used TPPA

talking to Karl as well about this in DM's

this is my TPPA results:

[low mural]

I run tppa like 4 times to make sure the results are even. I slew east first time, west second time, east again and west again.

[livid glacier]

i might do that next time then

or just get guiding set up

[low mural]

Yeah a guiding assistant would help determine what's going on. But obv you need a guide cam and scope to do that 😅

[livid glacier]

got all that

just not aligned them yet

[low mural]

Ah nice!

Assuming you checked for cable snags too?

Are you using WiFi or the eqmod cable?

[modest nebula]

I've recently started to run a PHD2 drift align after TPPA to fine tune it

[livid glacier]

eqmod

no cable snags

i need to work out PHD2 then i guess

[low mural]

Yeah I do exactly this! It's really useful

[low mural]

I've never used gss, not sure if there are any settings that need tweaking with regards to tracking rate. But it seems likely to do with polar alignment

[livid glacier]

bet it's this stuff:

still disappearing 😛

i'm gonna stop and realign i think

yeah, had an error of 8 minutes

[low mural]

Yeah 8 mins is quite a bit. What's the target? I can't work it out 😅

[livid glacier]

Cocoon Nebula

what would explain the error you think ?

Karl thinks it was due to me capturing at zenith

[modest nebula]

you're not the only one with problems this evening though. I'm guiding at 0.6" and still I'm getting oval stars

[livid glacier]

i just reslewed and kicked my sequence off again

[low mural]

It's possible. Maybe do a meridian flip?

[low mural]

Yeah seeing is poor I think. My stars aren't great either and I've got good guiding and spent 30 mins refocusing.

[queen thicket]

Oval stars or tracking issue?

[queen thicket]

This is what I also though and mentioned to Rec.
It's passed the maridian and now tracking better.

[low mural]

I got another 2 hours on M31 last night. A few subs will need ditching though I think. It's possible the fog that accumulated this morning was to blame for last night's seeing conditions! I have 7.5 hours of M31 broadband data and 2 hours of M31 Ha data to process this evening!

[modest nebula]

show us the results then 🙂

[low mural]

Tonight!

[modest nebula]

perhaps you can share the data too? I want to translate Pix continuum subtraction technique to Siril

https://www.nightphotons.com/guides/advanced-narrowband-combination

[modest nebula]

I got this last night. I only had about 1hr 45mins of usable data. I normally like to get ~9hrs before I call something done

[low mural]

There are so many different methods it is overwhelming lol. What data did you want? The stacks or individual subs?

I will upload tomorrow

One of many more attempts to come..... I dont think I will get anymore data on it though. Maybe some more Ha.. I dont yet!