Astro Art guiding

[Rocket Pooch]

I worked it out,

this is 3x4 minutes guided using AA

[Mike]

What is it you have worked out?

And what are all those black spots Chris?

[Rocket Pooch]

Hi Mike,

I worked out how to guide in Astro Art, that's all, I use it for image acquisition so I thought I'd try it with my QHY6 CCD as the guider.  I have not managed to use the QHY with any other programme because the driver relays do not seem to work perfectly, thats all.

Black pixels are the higher value noise taken away from the image, i.e. no sigma combine.

Chris

[MarkS]

It looks extremely accurate - which mount did you use?

I need to get my guiding sorted ...

[Rocket Pooch]

Hi Mark,

I have a bog standard EQ6 Skyscan V2.0 old one like Mike's.

Actually I rebuild it and added some new bearings the raw PE is under +- 20 and the curve is ok as well, if you need yours doing I can help!

I did the stats on the guiding this morning and they are 1.42 Arc seconds at FWHM, it needs to be about 40% better for my needs, but that's just fiddling with the settings.  I was also guiding on a mag 10 star!  Yipeeeee.

I think however I will use the £50 guide scope Tony got me at xmas and try this to see if I can get better results, I can explain later.

Chris


P.S. Belarus tomorrow, hangover Friday!

[Mike]

Chris I need new bearings for mine. Are you able to recommend the ones you bought and if so what make are they?

[Rocket Pooch]

Hi,

The company is simplybearings.co.uk you can spend hours there reading about them I think the RA/DEC worm bearings we're SKF608 series, I'll try to dig out the part number it should be on the EQ Yahoo group, having seen your bearings (oh were missus) I'd suggest you look at getting a new taper bearing and main baearings for the RA as well.  But the RA/DEC worm ones we're about £20 and knocked +-8 off my PE.

Chris

[Fay]

Chris,

did you have to open two instances? Are you imaging with it as well?

fay

[Rocket Pooch]

Hi,

Yes I did, but be warned guiding with AA is not for the faint hearted, you need to be able to calculate the scope speed manually there is no good calibration routine.

If you give me the focal length of the scope and why you will be using to guide with I'll try to work out what the telescope speed numbers should be, then I will need the guide rate the mount it set at.

Chris

[Mike]

I'd suggest you look at getting a new taper bearing and main bearings for the RA as well.

Yeah i'd like to just get a complete new set as

a) My ones have been bashed about to buggery
b) The standard EQ6 bearings are naff anyway

[Fay]

Thanks, Chris.
I have just checked that Maxim will accept my GPUSB etc, & it all seems to work ok, so I will try that. I am thinking that Astroart will only work with a LXUSB Shoestring.

I feel I have to have a backup as I have that trouble with PHD, with it freezing up.

Fay

[Rocket Pooch]

Apart from the RA & DEC, all my bearings are standard, and I've not re-greased them

[Mike]

Yeah but you didn't need to wack them with a long pole and a rubebr mallet to get them out 

[Fay]

Chris, can you hurry up & go away to Wales, so we can get some clear skies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Rocket Pooch]

Going early tomorrow, so it should be clear tonight because I will have to be in bed early.