More Lunar..

[ZeroID]

Better weather, 2 x Barlow, better processing and you get this. Still a ways to go to really get it right and a nice cold still night would be just magic but more than happy with the hardware now.

[EricB]

My favourite area of the Moon! You are right, it's better than the last ones.

Do you use Sharpcap? What settings did you have for this capture?

On Sharpcap when the seeing is good, I increase the gain to around 30ish and set the gamma on 50. This works well with the ASI. Watch the exposure to avoid overexposed areas (easily said than done).

I am off to set up my scope and give the Moon a go tonight. It's a bit windy and looks unsettled here, I am not hoping for much. But no pain, no gain!;)

Cheers,

Eric

[ZeroID]

Using FireCapture that came with the camera, Gamma 50, gain is almost zero, 5 ms exposure @ about 28 fps. Probably more a limitation of the USB to download them, camera gets to 60 on USB3 supposedly.

I underexposed and used brightness\contrast to set levels. Took a number of 300 frame vids, this was just one of them.
Nice area for sure. I don't know the moon but it caught my attention when I was scanning around for somewhere.

FireCapture also shows the camera chip temperature, does Sharp cap do that? I intend to peltier cool the camera later so very useful to know the delta T and stability.
I close the Ob door to shut out the breeze, surprising how much of a difference it made.
I also had to cut away some carpet that was touching the pier base. Everytime I moved the pier picked it up !!

EDIT: I think the max exposure time using FireCapture is 3600 seconds, 1 hour. I want to try this out on DSO's.
Also want to see if I can get the Autoguide function working.
Pretty clever wee beast if you ask me.

[EricB]

Well, last night was as waste of time. The image wobbled like crazy. I ended up deleting all my AVIs.

I use Firecapture for planets. I like its look, the interface and some of the functions.

With Firecapture I get to about 67 fps on USB2.

You will have to tell us more about your peltier cooling upgrade, I am interested.

I am not sure if SharpCap shows the camera chip temperature. I will have to check.

Cheers,

Eric

[ZeroID]

Basically the Peltier mod will be using a 40 x 40mm 60-72 watt peltier unit sandwiched to the back of the camera with a modified PC CPU Heatsink on the heat output side. I'll insulate the camera side and front with a thick neoprene casing ( beer can holder LOL ).
I can drive the peltier with a modified PC power supply on the 5volt line which should theoretically give about 30 watts of cooling to start with. If that works I'll look at higher voltages if I need lower temperatures. Depending on the temp delta and heatsink suitabilty I can upgrade with higher capacity sinks or with enough temp output to a thermoliquid cooled unit. I have some substantial copper based units with a perfect 40 x 40 footprint and heaps of fins and room to add a fan or two. With an EQ6 and just the Lunt on board weight loading isn't a consideration.

Geez, I'm having fun playing with this wee thing, it's been a great new toy so far and I've only just started.
Deep view DSO's are the big target, hence the cooling requirement.
I may have to beef up my pier a bit as well to reduce any vibration at thekind of image scale and exposure times that will require.