Trying Times with Orion

[Fay]

Went outside with Orion, Friday night. Really finding it hard to get subject on chip, used spacer with Atik, seemed a bit better, large dust bunny, took a while to find where it was.

Last night, outside again,  spent about an hour trying to get VEGA, no less, on chip. It was a nightmare. Went on & on. Was going to give up & decided to realign again. Well there was Vega bottom right, thank God, aligned the finderscope with it, red dot finder on WO, as well.

Went to Arcturus ok & then on to M63, there it was. Started to do 12x300, went inside, came out & guiding had stopped, no power to the SX. Tested on mains, ok, thinking there may be a cable problem with the SX battery connection cable.

Lost 5x300, below is 3x300 stacked. Stars appear better, slight elongated stars, using spacer with Atik.
Decided to have a go at setting up RS232 with Starry Night.   

Problem is, setting up & taking down all the time.

[Ian]

fay, on a target like vega you should be able to get it on the ccd by sighting along the tube, finder not necessary. Bit like I was doing in my drunken stupor on Saturday night last weekend.

Stars are still a bit elongated, but I'm sure it's better than last time.

[RobertM]

Fay, that looks very good however your stars are elongated in the N/S direction indicating a Declination guiding issue.

[Fay]

yes, better than last time, but still elongated

[Rocket Pooch]

Fay,

I'm not travelling for the next few weeks, lets get you using the same softwat I do on the laptop, that way you pick the alignment star and also you have control.  Also have you re-considered selling some of the kit you have issues with like the SX, you could get a loadstar or QHY6 as a guider, no power needed with these.

The image is bang on after all the troubles, M63 is not easy.

Chris

[Fay]

Thanks Chris, I did start to have a go with Skymap Pro, but none of the Com ports were available that the program wanted. Then went into Starry Night, but as I had already parked the scope, I don't thnk there was much point.

I will be on the battlefield again tonight.

I plugged the SX into the mains today &  it was ok. THen attached it to the recharged battery & it was ok. But the power just disappeared all of a sudden last night. The bit on it's transformer, where its connector goes, has a sort of chemical smell, not sure if that is normal or not.

Hope you had a good time away

[JohnP]

Fay - image isn't too bad considering it's only 3 subs... Some guiding/ drift issues but other than that looking good. I don't know what issue is with getting things on chip - you should have a reasonable FOV with 314 & the scope... Just make sure you accurately align finder scope & scope using eyepieces in inceasing levels of power... i.e. 25mm, 15mm, 8mm, 5mm.... etc.

Anyway image is promising - persevere & you will get there in the end. If you need me to look at cables again let me know.

John

[Fay]

Thanks John....see what happens tonight

[Mike]

Fay you can force com ports using the XP device manager.

[The Thing]

The trick with COM ports and laptops is to Show Hidden Devices in Device Manager, you should then be able to see all the COM port assignments, then uninstall the lot.

Then mark the USB port(s) on the laptop you are going to always use for the various USB serial adaptors (I use three). This may mean marking the laptop where you will plug in the Active USB extension cable (I always use the one by the network cable socket on my laptop), mark the cable end sockets if there are more than one and mark the hub plugged into the extender and then also mark the USB Serial adaptors to match the hub (mine are permanently taped in place with duct tape). You get the idea.

That way each USB Serial adaptor will have the same COM port number every time - until you use the wrong USB socket on the laptop in the dark . That's Windoze.

[Fay]

Went outside again Saturday night. Found alignment stars ok, so aligned finderscope, red dot, WO.
Was going to do some more of M63, but not enough movement in chosen guidestar. I say chosen, it was the only one there. Slewed to Arcturus & calibrated a guidestar there.
Was going back to M63 but decided on M51, Guiding was fine. Did 12x300, then tree was in the way. Seem to have half the image with a lighter background. Wanted to use Gradient Xterminator, but it has decided I need to purchase it again. Waiting for new key from Russell Croman. 

Went out last night, rubbish sky, got onto alignment star ok, but tried Atik without cc, no good, it must be used.
Did a few very short subs, but had this uneven glow in one half of image, could it be laptop near bottom of scope shining in, causing gradient?
Collimated Orion indoors, with eyepiece pointing upwards, as I could always move the laser, when doing it outside at an angle, as it sits loose in the eyepiece holder, so position was laways moving.

M51 is not too exciting, although Moon around, no flats, need gradient removed. I did use library darks, which was the best stacked result, rather than none

[JohnP]

Looking better Fay - still need to sort out your spacings etc. as definitely signs of coma.. The two stars at bottom look perfectly round - those left & right are still elongated. Is this full frame or cropped? Looks a tad soft/ fuzzy..but lots of signal for only 1hour. So keep going you will get there I am sure...

Your scope is fast so I would expect it would be a lot more sensitive to light pollution from whatever source...

John

[Fay]

Thanks John, I did not fully process it, it is cropped. I will have to try out another spacer, if that is what is causing the elongated stars, won't know until I try