Weather whinge

[Startrek (Martin)]

Clouds finally cleared at around 11.30pm just in time to start imaging M42
Guiding was poor couldn’t tighten it up but got away with some 2 minute subs
Finished around 3.30am
Glad I checked outside again and didn’t go to bed

[Paulyman (Paul)]

Finally a clear night! Still can't get PHD2 to work, I have no idea what I'm doing and nothing seems to make it want to work. But rather than waste the first clear night in ages I went unguided. Managed 2 hours of 60s subs on M45 which skims my neighbours roof and 2 hours on M42. Had to dump half the M45 subs because of interference from the roof and the neighbours lights. I hadn't realised just how noisy a DSLR would be in this weather, the images have crazy hatched banding if I try and stretch, so I had to be very delicate. Not sure I succeeded but I'm happy as a first attempt. Hoping to get the same again tonight, so I'll be tired at work.

[Startrek (Martin)]

Paul
Im a newbie to guiding and had trouble getting PHD2 guiding working for weeks but now its ok and I’m guiding most times under 1.50 arc sec error depending on seeing conditions etc..occasionally I lose the guide star ( still trying to sort that out )
Are you Ascom guiding direct to the mount or ST4 guiding via the camera to the mount ?
There’s a lot of help out there as well and IIS is a good start to air your issues and get some help
PHD2 have a forum as well to get help but I found websites, IIS , cloudy nights , astronomy books, chatting to my supplier to be most helpful
Good luck and by the way great images keep it up !!

[Wavytone]

Heck... last night I tasted the dark side after 30 years - attached camera body to the MK91 for the first time and I had judged the extension rings correctly - it did achieve focus.

Didn't take a shot though. Another time.

[xelasnave]

I put a cable on the old eq6 mount and did have control via ascom but in an effort to solve a problem that I cant even remember I found a spot and changed the port to four not three..now I can not find where to change it back☺.
PHD was saying its having problems with stars and even if I could fix a star it just would not guide like it just wasnt getting the message.
If stars are the problem I may try this 70 mm guude scope scope but you would think that would not be the problem.
The filter wheel has appeared so hopefully other thing will work out to get on board.
Cant take flat just been making mistake after mistake captured avi files☺ tired and doing stupid mistakes... even though I thought otherwise..anyways the lights and darks have produced an initial pleasing result.
Funny the core which is why I was content with 15 second captures was blown out in the first run..and most photes has the trap well defined so the data is there somewhere.
Alex

[Paulyman (Paul)]

Originally Posted by Startrek

Paul
Im a newbie to guiding and had trouble getting PHD2 guiding working for weeks but now its ok and I’m guiding most times under 1.50 arc sec error depending on seeing conditions etc..occasionally I lose the guide star ( still trying to sort that out )
Are you Ascom guiding direct to the mount or ST4 guiding via the camera to the mount ?
There’s a lot of help out there as well and IIS is a good start to air your issues and get some help
PHD2 have a forum as well to get help but I found websites, IIS , cloudy nights , astronomy books, chatting to my supplier to be most helpful
Good luck and by the way great images keep it up !!

I’m using Ascom. I get the sense it is probably a few different problems all intermingling. After doing some reading I think I may have overlooked how important a good star is for calibration and where those good stars should be chosen in the sky. So that’s step 1 I suppose, get a good calibration and then just let guiding assistant run and see what the logs say.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by Paulyman

Finally a clear night! Still can't get PHD2 to work, I have no idea what I'm doing and nothing seems to make it want to work. But rather than waste the first clear night in ages I went unguided. Managed 2 hours of 60s subs on M45 which skims my neighbours roof and 2 hours on M42. Had to dump half the M45 subs because of interference from the roof and the neighbours lights. I hadn't realised just how noisy a DSLR would be in this weather, the images have crazy hatched banding if I try and stretch, so I had to be very delicate. Not sure I succeeded but I'm happy as a first attempt. Hoping to get the same again tonight, so I'll be tired at work.

Very tidy shots!

[Paulyman (Paul)]

Originally Posted by multiweb

Very tidy shots!

Thanks Marc.