Finally got my new equipment working well enough to get a first light last night. A mere 40mins of data, but it's just nice to be imaging again. Haven't been out under the stars in over 4 months!
The Avalon is going to take some tweaking. Even with an RMS of ~0.6", I got eggy stars in 3/13 subs (not used in this integration).
The ZWO 174MM looks to have been a good choice. Never seen so many stars through an OAG.
It is great to hear Lee that you had a chance to use your telescope and that the new mount and new guide camera are working well. Stars in your image of the Carina look really good and you resolved more stars than I managed with my gear - differences in our images can be easily spotted around the main star for example
As for tweaking, I think once you find optimal settings in PHD2 and proper balance, the mount should work even better.
Unfortunately, it seems that weather won't be good for imaging for at least a week...
Not as much time as you put in Lee, but I was just doing my first narrow band test and working on dithering to allow processing out of some sensor artifacts.
I had some balance problems, and this resulted is some weird guide graphs from Metaguide, but I am pleased with this quick test and that dithering worked so well.
For a short 40 minutes it is really nice and smooth Lee. Once you get it running nicely (more time under the stars) hopefully you won't have as many rejects
It is great to hear Lee that you had a chance to use your telescope and that the new mount and new guide camera are working well. Stars in your image of the Carina look really good and you resolved more stars than I managed with my gear - differences in our images can be easily spotted around the main star for example
As for tweaking, I think once you find optimal settings in PHD2 and proper balance, the mount should work even better.
Unfortunately, it seems that weather won't be good for imaging for at least a week...
Thanks Suavi! Yours looks sharper to my eye, even with the loads of decon I did on mine. I'm wondering whether differences in stars you note is mostly due to bandpass; I shot mine with 7nm vs your 3nm.
And yeah, you can usually tell when I start to get my equipment working, because the clouds roll in until something breaks again ;-)
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Originally Posted by glend
It looks as if we were all imaging the same object last night. I was out testing my mono Canon and have a Ha test image here:
Not as much time as you put in Lee, but I was just doing my first narrow band test and working on dithering to allow processing out of some sensor artifacts.
I had some balance problems, and this resulted is some weird guide graphs from Metaguide, but I am pleased with this quick test and that dithering worked so well.
That's awesome Glen! I've got an old Nikon D5100 and my wife has an old D50 laying around that I consider ripping apart every so often. Everyone seems to be modding canons though, so I'm not sure how "monofying" a Nikon would go. I think JTW were doing it for a while so it has to be possible.
Main thing is the cooling though and it looks like you've nailed that.
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Originally Posted by multiweb
That's a fantastic shot Lee. One of the best. Right up there.
Thanks Marc! I reckon I can do better, but it's not bad for a quickie.
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Originally Posted by Ryderscope
A good catch Lee, it's nice to see the Carina images rolling out again.
Thanks mate!
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Originally Posted by Atmos
For a short 40 minutes it is really nice and smooth Lee. Once you get it running nicely (more time under the stars) hopefully you won't have as many rejects
Cheers Colin! Not sure what it was, but the mount seemed to be struggling. Even though the total RMS was around 0.6" I was getting some large excursions, and the two 15min subs I did had eccentricity in the 0.6 - 0.72 mark.
I had craploads of loose cables, and I'm not sure about my polar alignment as I was getting some unusual results in PHD, so it could have been bad alignment, crosstalk, cable drag, who knows.
Thanks Suavi! Yours looks sharper to my eye, even with the loads of decon I did on mine. I'm wondering whether differences in stars you note is mostly due to bandpass; I shot mine with 7nm vs your 3nm.
And yeah, you can usually tell when I start to get my equipment working, because the clouds roll in until something breaks again ;-)
I did not adequately balance my mount so tracking was not so good and stars are not that great - my mount works much better and tracks consistently with a sensible but noticeable East-heavy load arrangement.
I found that cable management is very important, so important in fact that I have been getting infinitely better results by just leaving the QHY power cable lose due to its weight and thickness. With the EQ6 the cables always seem to be hanging over or across something. The USB cables don't matter but the heavy QHY 9-pin power cable caused a lot of grief for me for a while. I was having trouble with 300s exposures and actually figured that I was having a lot of differential flexure. Left the power cord lose one night as a test and it fixed my issue. RMS didn't change (very slow movement/drag) but now I am back to getting better 1200" than I was on 300". A regrease did help too.
Point being, sometimes good cable management is just having no cable management
I did not adequately balance my mount so tracking was not so good and stars are not that great - my mount works much better and tracks consistently with a sensible but noticeable East-heavy load arrangement.
Yeah, 3nm Astrodons are definitely keepers
Ah ok. I certainly couldn't tell, looks great to me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Atmos
I found that cable management is very important, so important in fact that I have been getting infinitely better results by just leaving the QHY power cable lose due to its weight and thickness. With the EQ6 the cables always seem to be hanging over or across something. The USB cables don't matter but the heavy QHY 9-pin power cable caused a lot of grief for me for a while. I was having trouble with 300s exposures and actually figured that I was having a lot of differential flexure. Left the power cord lose one night as a test and it fixed my issue. RMS didn't change (very slow movement/drag) but now I am back to getting better 1200" than I was on 300". A regrease did help too.
Point being, sometimes good cable management is just having no cable management
Awesome. The main thing for me is that I just switched a bunch of stuff over to andersons from cigarette plugs, and the power leads aren't quite long enough, so some stuff is taking a little weight. Need to rig something up on the top of the scope rings so I can have fewer cables going everywhere and make sure nothing is taking any weight.
Cheers mate :-) I love both the Esprit and 674. Great buys imo.
I think I've discovered the likely cause to the guiding issues. This afternoon I went to attach my rig runner to the Esprit tube rings, and unclutched the mount to see if the power cord for the dew heater controller was long enough to reach the rig runner in all orientations. When I did so, I noticed that the RA balance was way off. Unclutched DEC and the same.
I believe these mounts are especially sensitive to balance, and this probably explains the issues I had the other night. I guess we'll see.
I thought I'd balanced everything when I took it up earlier in the day, but clearly I didn't.
Well done on finding a likely cause of substandard tracking Lee. I am confident that you will be very happy with your new mount's performance when you find optimal balance for it.
Well done on finding a likely cause of substandard tracking Lee. I am confident that you will be very happy with your new mount's performance when you find optimal balance for it.
Thanks Suavi The mount is still a WIP heh... some things never change.
That's a fantastic shot Lee. One of the best. Right up there. 
