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Paulyman
23-09-2018, 10:17 AM
I have been doing EAA with my Evo 6 and Atik Infinity and loving it. Well aside from the Infinity power cord pulling itself out all the time. EAA is great and I love showing things off to my friends and family both online and in person. But I have always wanted to have a go at AP, so I have read and re-read the forums here and slowly zeroed in on the equipment I needed. After nearly 3 months, perhaps more, I finally have my AP rig somewhat operational. It consists of a WO Star 71 sitting on top of a HEQ5 Pro, an unmodified Canon 550D for imaging and a WO guidescope and ZWO 290 Mini for guiding. The aim is to have it all controlled by EQMOD, Cartes de Ceil, Astrotortilla, PHD2 and BYEOS with Sharpcap for polar alignment.


Step 1 was to learn how to polar align using Sharpcap but the HEQ5 died shortly after setting it up the first time! I had to wait a month for a replacement motherboard to be installed, thankfully all seems to be working fine now and I have had two successful attempts at polar aligning. I was suprised just how quick and painless it was to do in Sharpcap and my alignment was better each of the two nights I've been out with it so far. I think with some muscle memory I'll get more confident with the fine adjustments required to get it down to an "excellent" alignment. So step 1 is a success.


Step 2 was to learn how to plate solve, which was a failure on both nights. But the guidescope view in Sharpcap was close enough I could centre my targets anyway. With the test images I took on each night I have since got it solving (I think), so hopefully I will have this sorted out on my 3rd night.


Step 3 Will be to setup PHD2 and get guiding working.


Below is my first light on the AP rig, Lagoon and Trifid, 60x60s subs at iso800 using the rig above unguided and with no calibration frames. It was taken during a 3/4 moon with the moon nearby. Processed in Photoshop.


Full sized image here:

https://astrob.in/full/368196/0/

Gavin1234
23-09-2018, 12:01 PM
Great shot for a 1st light and that fov is huge. Very nice

xelasnave
23-09-2018, 04:54 PM
Great work Paul.
You sure hit the deck running.
That is a terrific image so print it up and hang it someplace so folk realise you are not just a pretty face☺
I have yet to get plate solving to work for me..the software is instaled but so is the focuser control yet both need sorting.
Keep them coming.
Alex

Paulyman
24-09-2018, 02:44 PM
Thanks for the kind words guys.

Paulyman
02-10-2018, 06:46 PM
Quick update on this. I have now successfully got plate solving working with AstroTorilla. It is awesome! So I can polar align quickly and easily thanks to Sharpcap and get an object centered just as easily. I seem to be able to get bewteen 1-2 minute exposures unguided with nice stars, haven't tried for longer yet and haven't needed to thanks to LP and the Moon.

I can't get PHD2 to work though, which says a lot about my abilities given the acronym :rofl:.