I spent a few hours inside today trying to get the laptop, loaded with NINA, Stellarium, Sharpcap and Synscan, to talk to my new GTi mount.
I start Synscan, hook up to the mount and can drive it ok. Start NINA, recognises the mount and my Svbony SV305 pro camera but when I finally figured out how to look at an image (terrestrial) through the camera it's extremely grainy. Nothing I could do made it any better. Scope is a Celestron 102 x 600mm frac, basic but good enough to get me started.
After a couple of hours I swapped over to the Canon 1500D and got a nice image, although it was in monochrome and I couldn't get any colour.
This astro stuff is bloody confusing, it's just as well I don't mind a bit of a challenge!
You connect the SVBony into NINA's Camera tab, correct? When you say grainy, how grainy? NINA can show a stretched image, and you can control the stretching level yourself. Go to Options > Imaging and on the right under Image Options, click Advanced Settings and play around with the settings there. Also check the unlinked stretch
Do the same for your Canon camera (the debayering settings might be more helpful here) to show them as colour.
Richard, just to clarify, the NINA mount link is working and moves the mount to targets, etc? That's not the issue?
Nothing beats an astro image to test a camera. I do as you have and look at terrestrial when setting up an astrocam, but they are not what you'd expect.
That's probably why the Canon did better- it's designed for it.
The VBONY is only a small sensor. The pixel size is good, but it isn't intended for wide fields- it is listed as "you can use it for planetary imaging; lunar and solar imaging and some bright deep space objects imaging"
So, not many pixels devoted to each 'thing' in your image, maybe the sources of you graininess. Think of your terrestrial scene as a really bright deep sky nebula...
The features of NINA are many and complex. I'd recommend a lot of time going through the You Tube stuff about it- particularly these sites:
Cuiv, the Lazy Geek
Patriot Astro
Everyday Astro
It's a big job getting NINA going, but well worth it. I'm still getting there.
Thanks for your thoughts, guys. The fact that I'm getting a recognisable image suggests that everything is working, it's most likely my expectations and lack of experience that are the problem. You've reassured me that I'm on the right track. I've watched many youtube vids about NINA, which is the only reason I managed to reach this point.
The controls all appear to be working ok so far, so at this stage I won't panic! The main thing for now is to become familiar with the software before venturing out into the night (not that I've got any choice, the weather hasn't been cooperating for a long time). Many things these days have a steep learning curve, but this one is near vertical!
I've been watching more stuff and reckon I might need to get a USB to serial converter so I can try using the RJ45 port on the mount and use eqmod. It apparently gives more options than using the USB to USB cable and the Skywatcher sync?
I'm sure I've got a converter (somewhere) in all my computer/electronic stuff but I'm buggered if I can find it.
In the vid the chap found that it allows him to swing the scope vertical so when doing flats he can rest the frame on top, he couldn't do this with the Skywatcher app. It got me wondering if controlling it through the serial port would be better? I have no idea myself as I'm at the stage where I don't even know enough to be dangerous yet.
Which is why I'm raising points/asking questions that may have the more experienced on here scratching their heads in wonder. If I'm way off course here please let me know.
Thank Adam, this is one of the potential problems with watching lots of youtube vids on a subject that I have very little experience with, and why I ask sometimes seemingly inane questions. That is one less thing I need to be concerned about, I'll stick with the USB.
The USB is faster, and more reliable, than the serial port. It connects faster as well.
As noted, the option to take flats in NINA will rotate the scope to zenith for you, but presumably just locating an object at zenith and slewing to that would achieve the same end?
but presumably just locating an object at zenith and slewing to that would achieve the same end?
Certainly would, but it would take longer. Slewing to zenith is a single press of a button in NINA. Otherwise you have to search for yourself, key in the target, slew, platesolve etc.
It's lucky I haven't got any hair or I'd be pulling it out! It's your fault, Adam, as I thought I'd try the "slew to zenith" thingy. I get an "ASCOM driver error invalid response" message every time I try.
I re-installed the ASCOM drivers - twice - and tried re-starting everything but to no avail. The little I've found about this message indicates I should load the latest drivers, which I did. This appears to be the same problem the guy had in the video I watched, so maybe he was right?
Can you connect to the mount succesfully? (a message in the bottom right will come up showing a green tick).
And are you able to use the mount successfully otherwise?
Things to check:
- Your baud rate has been correctly set in your driver (EQMod I'm guessing?) and in Windows itself (you'll need to open the relevant COM port and change it. I can post a picture of mine if you want)
- You're direct connecting to the mount, not the hand controller or anything?
- You've got a good quality USB cable?
Thanks for the suggestions, Adam, I'll have another play later this evening. Everything so far appears to work except for the driver issue. I'm pretty sure all the settings are correct but I'll go through them all again, it has to be something fairly simple.
Do you know anything about Green Swamp Server? I've seen it mentioned before with regard to solving possible compatibility issues.
I tried Green Swamp Server a year ago and didn’t think it was ready. It might be in better condition now but I’ve yet to try it (but thanks for the reminder, I might give it a go again)
Ok, more experimenting (at least it's dry inside ). I can locate a target in Stellarium, import it to NINA and slew the mount to it. So that's all working, but I cannot get the "slew to zenith" to work. As far as I can figure it's because it can't see an eqmod driver, but as I understand it I shouldn't need one because I'm not using a serial (RS232) connection?
I'm not sure about the Star Adventurer GTi, but for my EQ6-R, NINA indeed sees the driver. And it sounds like yours does too, otherwise how are you slewing to your target? NINA will only send the command to your mount if it first connects to your ASCOM driver, be it EQMod, GSS, or whatever is used for the SA GTi.
Can you post a NINA Log? I am on the NINA discord and can ask for some assistance if you want (or you can join too!)
Logs are found here:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\NINA\Logs\
In general, if there's an issue with a driver error, it's usually the driver at fault, or some combination of software isn't working right. NINA is just the middleman for various drivers at one level.
Hi Adam, this is the log file from my latest attempt, from what I can glean from it the only thing wrong is the error message/invalid response when trying to slew (slew to zenith attempt).
I just tried Green Swamp Server but nothing I do will connect it to the mount, it doesn't see the serial port, even though all the settings match the mount. I will have to RTFM!
In the meantime my other laptop has been going slow for the last few days and nothing I do makes any difference.
Did I mention I hate Windows? What was wrong with DOS anyway?
Edit:a bit later and success, of a sort. I was a technician in a previous life so reading the manual was always a last resort but it's amazing what you find out when you actually read the f*&%* manual. GSS is working, everything talks to everything and slew to zenith works, sort of - it slews to a horizontal position rather than vertical but that just has a to be a setting somewhere. All I have to do is start NINA, select the mount, click connect and bingo!
The cabling is slowly getting out of hand, and I haven't even got a camera connected yet! I've had to use a powered USB hub to get enough connections so I can use a mouse - I HATE using touch pads on laptops!!
