Rig now complete

[Gavin1234]

Finally got my autoguiding gear and now have it all connected and working with PHD2 ready for tonight. I’m surprised at how small the guidescope is.

Also got this new laptop which will be exclusively for astrophotography. It’s nice and quick and it has 5 USB ports.

[ZeroID (Brent)]

You know we're expecting astro pix now don't you ?
Looks good, have fun. Welcome to the slippery black hole of astrophotography ...

[barx1963 (Malcolm)]

Nice looking rig!!
Is that the CGX or CGX-L mount? What brand of lap top?
Yes the mini guidescopes are tiny. I found they were a little less effective than a larger guidescope or off axis guiding. could never get the guiding figures below about 1.5" RMS, would be interested to see how this one goes!!

Malcolm

[TwistedRider (Drew)]

Nice looking setup.


So cloudy skies tonight then?

[Gavin1234]

Thanks all. Yep cloud everywhere tonight

It’s a CGX mount and the laptop is a MSI GS73

I was very keen to take some images with it tonight so I kind of rushed the alignment and guiding setup. It’s running at 1.5” total rms at the moment but I think I can improve on that by doing a decent alignment and taking some darks. Also the cloud cover keeps tripping the alarm for lost star/change in mass.

I also need to figure out the right gain levels for the longer exposures. I’ve always used 200 gain with 30 second subs. That is a bit much for 5 mins and 15 mins is a white screen.

This is my first image which is very rushed and not processed properly. It’s 4x5min subs.

[barx1963 (Malcolm)]

Thought the lappy looked familiar, just got one of those myself!

Malcolm

[Gavin1234]

The laptop seems pretty good so far. Only had it a few days though.

The cloud has mostly cleared now so the guiding is improving. It’s been between 0.14 to 0.16” rms for the past hour.

I’ve reduced the gain down to 180.

I just took a few 5 min subs of triffid and I’m going to let it run on helix for a while. Hoping nothing gets ruined from moisture or anything.

[xelasnave]

Looking good.
I like the idea of so many usb ports.
Good luck I hope it all works without problems.
Alex

[Gavin1234]

Thanks Alex. Does anyone know if there’s a way to calculate the gain/iso settings for different exposure lengths? Or is it just trial and error?

I want to do 15 min exposures which show up as a white screen on my current setting of 200. Seemed very time consuming if I need to wait 15 min between each adjustment.

180 seems about right for 5 mins on my camera.