Test Image from Orion SteadyStarAO unit

[Luke Bellani]

Hello All,
A little over a week ago I mentioned that I had purchased the Orion SteadyStar Adaptive Optics Unit in the hope of improving the quality of my astrophotos.

I have an older (black) EQ6 mount and although I have tried just about everything short of re-building it from the ground up, unfortunately it still has enough PE to make it difficult to end up with nice round stars when using exposure settings greater than one or two minutes.

After several days of poor weather, finaly, the sky cleared enough a couple of nights ago for me to capture a couple of half decent test images.

Well to cut a long story short, just let me say that I am VERY happy with the operation of the AO unit and although it was rather expensive, it is still far a lower cost than a new higher quality mount.

I think that for me, it has transformed my ability to do astrophotography with the EQ6 mount.

If interested, you can view a test image at this location.

It is a combination of three 10 minute frames of a part of the Lagoon Nebular, captured with a 250mm GSO RC scope @ F8 and QSI520ci camera.

The frames were captured with Nebulosity and a small amount of processing done with PixInsight. No bias, dark, or flat frames were used.

http://picasaweb.google.com.au/11147...09302617732178

I would be interested in what people think.

Cheers,
Luke

[telemarker (Keith)]

Hi Luke, well the stars certainly look round so thats definitely a bonus. I'm curious about these or the Starlight Xpress equivalent. How's the software side of things - easy to run? Does it run under proprietary software or can you control it from other software via ascom.

[Luke Bellani]

I had a look at both units before deciding on the Orion AO.

Both looked good and were reported to work well. Cost is about the same. The Orion is cheaper if you take the cost of the guide camera into account.

There were two main reasons I chose how I did.

1. I wanted a wider selection of guide cameras. SX is made to be used with the SX Loadstar. Is is not really a drawback because the Loadstar is one of the better guide cameras and I may actually end up getting one myself to replace the Orion StarShoot Guider.

2. The SX AO uses a RS232 serial interface and the Orion AO uses a USB2. I've had enough of serial to USB adaptors and my PC has only one serial port and I need it for the EQ6.

The SteadyStar comes with its own very good control program and this is being and well supported.
It's very easy to use, works well and is stable.

It would be a good idea to read the unit's User Manual to get a better feel on haow it all goes together and works.

The only fiddly bit was getting the guide camera to be parfocal with the image camera, but after a bit of messing around with various spacers, some of which are supplied with the AO unit, there's no need to change anything unless you decide to change cameras.

Finding a guide star can be a bit of a problem unless the guide camera is a sensitive one.
The StarShoot seems to be OK but I think that the Loadstar would be better.

As far as I know, you can only control it via the Orion software at the moment. This may change in the future.

Cheers,
Luke

Originally Posted by telemarker

Hi Luke, well the stars certainly look round so thats definitely a bonus. I'm curious about these or the Starlight Xpress equivalent. How's the software side of things - easy to run? Does it run under proprietary software or can you control it from other software via ascom.

[JohnH]

Luke, what exposure time did you use and what was the magnitude of the guide star?

[TrevorW]

Luke you need to post a larger image to judge corner to corner star roundness

[terrynz (Terence)]

Luke you need to post a bigger image and to really compare you need to load an AO image and non-AO image.

Also SX have gone USB on everything over last year and you don't have to use the loadstar.

cheers
Terry

[Luke Bellani]

Hi John,
Sorry for late reply.
The exposure was 250mS and the star magnitude? Now that is a good question because I don't really which star it actually was. I just picked the first star I found in the field of view of the OAG.
I expect that it would have been around mag 8 judging by it's apparent brightness, but I can't be sure.

Cheers,
Luke

Originally Posted by JohnH

Luke, what exposure time did you use and what was the magnitude of the guide star?

[Luke Bellani]

Hi Trevor,
OK. I'll see what I can do.
Cheers,
Luke

Originally Posted by TrevorW

Luke you need to post a larger image to judge corner to corner star roundness

[Luke Bellani]

Hi Terry,
I'll see what I can do about some comparison images, but a 10 minute non AO image from my EQ6 will have very oval stars and no discernable nebuloisity.

I just looked on the Starlight Express sight and their SXV-AO unit uses a RS232 serial port for control.

Cheers,
Luke

Originally Posted by terrynz

Luke you need to post a bigger image and to really compare you need to load an AO image and non-AO image.

Also SX have gone USB on everything over last year and you don't have to use the loadstar.

cheers
Terry

[Phil Hart]

Luke

Can you set it to use integrations of say 1-3 seconds so that it is guiding the mount but not having any AO effect? That way you can do a comparison that just looks at the AO effect?

Phil

[Luke Bellani]

Hi Phil,
Yes it can be set to integrate at just about any rate.
The integration rate is dependant on the guide camera frame rate.

However, I know how my EQ6 performs with straight guiding (c.r.a.p). That's why I spent the money on the AO unit.

I'm happy to provide comparison pics of before and after (when the rain stops ), but I don't have to convince myself of the benefits.

I want to be able to do some narrow band imaging. That means subs of 30 minutes. No way with my EQ6 without the AO unit.

It's not just a matter of getting round stars. That can be done with integration rates of 1 second if the mount's PE is slow changing, but the real benefites are in higher resolution and this can only happen with correction rates of 7 per second or higher.

There is a lot of information in the SteadyStar user manual, that can be downloaded from the Orion web site, that explains the pros and cons of this type of AO system and what is can and can't do.

I would advise anyone considering buying one to read both the SX and Orion manuals first and then read of others experiences with Active Optics.
That's what I did and I didn't find a single negative report from owners. In fact, quite the opposite.

Cheers,
Luke

Originally Posted by philiphart

Luke

Can you set it to use integrations of say 1-3 seconds so that it is guiding the mount but not having any AO effect? That way you can do a comparison that just looks at the AO effect?

Phil

[Insane Climber (Jason)]

I think you guys are missing the point. 10 min subs unguided. I wish i could do that. A bit of processing and im sure you will make nice images. Well done

Cheers
J.Green

[JohnH]

Originally Posted by Luke Bellani

...a 10 minute non AO image from my EQ6 will have very oval stars....

I assume you meant guided but not AO guided - in my case I get little squiggles if I try 10 mins unguided - with a G11 at 1.4"/pixel.

Just as a matter of interest - were you guiding with a guidescope or an OAG? In moving to the AO unit you have eliminate differential flexure as a source of error which is quite common when working with DSOs at high resolutions....a nice side benefit of the AO unit.

Regards,

John

[dcalleja]

10mins unguided is pretty amazing

[Luke Bellani]

Hi John,
Yes that is correct.
Before I got the SteadyStar, I guided with a guide scope side-by-side with the main scope. Usually I guided either with K3CCDTools or PHD Guiding.

Both of these programs did a good job of it, but due to the nature of the PE profile of my mount, any subs over 5 minutes would run into the spot on the worm gear cycle that could not be responded to quickly enough by the guiding program to maintain round stars.

With the AO unit, the guide camera MUST see the corrections being and so the OAG must be used.

The software includes calibration routines for both the guide camera and mount and the AO function can't be used before both calibrations have succeeded.
Luckly, the software works very well and a successful calibration is very easy to achieve.
The calibration results can be saved and as long as the guide camera isn't tampered with, does not need to be redone.

The SteadyStar has a ST4 type guide port output and this goes to the mount's guide port input. You do not use the guide port on the guide camera and this is why any guide camera that is sensitive enough can be used, providing it is supported by the software. Unfortunately, this does not include Meade DSI cameras yet.

Note that the guide port is only used to shift the mount if there is drift associated by poor polar alignment or, as in my case, a point of serious PE in the worm cycle.

The only difficulty in using the StaedyStar, and this also applies to all the other AO units currently on the market, is having to use the OAG.
This makes the task of finding a suitable guide star more difficult and until one gets used to using the OAG, can be a bit frustrating. But in my opinion, this is a small price to pay for the gains.

Due to the terrible weather we have been having her in Victoria, I haven't had a change to do any more testing and so I'm really still only just learning the ropes.

Hopefully, that will change soon . When it does, I'll post some more images.

Cheers,
Luke

Originally Posted by JohnH

I assume you meant guided but not AO guided - in my case I get little squiggles if I try 10 mins unguided - with a G11 at 1.4"/pixel.

Just as a matter of interest - were you guiding with a guidescope or an OAG? In moving to the AO unit you have eliminate differential flexure as a source of error which is quite common when working with DSOs at high resolutions....a nice side benefit of the AO unit.

Regards,

John

[Daveskywill (David)]

Hi: I've just put away, temporarily, while I gathered more money, my past-time of deep-sky AP...but my new setup after I get started again...will be: mount: an ioptron cem120ec: scopes: Celestron RASA and Orion 10" f3.9 Newtonian astrograph...and some dslr's and maybe some ccd cameras...but ps: can the Orion SteadyStar AO work with my newt. scope? And if so what kind of cameras will it work with? And pps: this mount has only .15 arcseconds rns of pe...that's decent enough, right?

Well thanks for your responce, in advance! Take care. And good luck imaging the Heavens...praying for you all!

[billdan (Bill)]

Hi David,

I believe these AO devices for us amateurs are really only a benefit for long focal lengths, like C14 SCTS or large RC's. Your telescopes with the shorter focal lengths, I don't think you will get any measurable improvement.

Cheers
Bill

[multiweb (Marc)]

It looks good. The dark nebs details around the hourglass don't always show this level of definition in non AO shots. Regardless of focal length an AO will always turn an average mout into a much better rig by picking up all the slack.

[gregbradley]

Where did you buy this unit from? I just did a couple of google searches for Orion Steady Star AO Unit and the sites that came up used to but no longer sell it.

There is also a large format version with a 50mm opening.
I notice the original post is very old so perhaps this product is no longer available.

Greg.