lukepower

This is the result of quite a few hours of LRGB data coming in from our remote Newton scope, operated in Spain. Sitting on an ASA mount with an ASA corrector, this scope is truly performing well - probabily just my imaging skills are preventing better results, that is

Hi Benoit, I also got an offer for a new 12N with that focuser, however no additional information was available at that time - except that it won't be ready before the end of the year. As I had a spare OK3Z sitting here I sent them that and will get that one mounted, for now

Hi Paolo, thanks for your thoughs. The point is that the ASA Wynne has a better overall performance compared to the TS one, especially with the field of view I require. Anyway, together with ASA, we seemingly found a solution: ASA will build a custom adapter with an integrated OAG, which (narrowly) fits the count. But I agree, if there would be a way to get a longer usable backfocus without compromising performance it'd be great

They are, and the backlog is quite big. A friend of mine ordered one last year with delivery scheduled after 5 months (right before Christmas), he got it this year in April

Personally I found the combination of a Pointing Model with an autoguider to yield very good results, and funny enough they are even faster than an MLPT run The reason is that the mount can track so accurately that the guider settles within seconds, so to get 10x 10 minute frames guided I have an overhead of maybe two minutes. With MLPT I needed that time for the MLPT run - at least. So bottom of the story: I don't really need MLPT to be usable from other apps.

Hell of a cool image! I particularly like the dust you see there, awesome!

In an effort to get some of the data I collected during my trip to Namibia this year, I finally got to process M 16: Funny story to this image: The scope had been selected as a construction site of a bird's nest, so I had to clean it up and struggled quite a while, until I found out that the bird but some stones under the main mirror cell... It took me a while to figure out what was wrong with that (rented) scope down there...

Hi guys, soon I am going to get a second system running - a 12" Astrograph from ASA on a DDM60 mount - and I am struggling to get my imaging train fit into the backfocus. I'd like to go for a Moravian G3-16200 camera, but I also want an OAG. And here the mess begins: According to Moravian, their normal setup would require 62.5mm of backfocus, but the Wynne corrector only allows for 58.25mm. Alright, now there would be a particular OAG for theor G4 cameras which is made explicitely to attach the setup directly to ASA's Wynne corrector - but this only works on G4 cameras and no others I also considered other OAG's, like some of Teleskop Express, but they all require more or less adapters which, in turn, eat up the backfocus. I was wondering if somebody here is using Moravian CCD's with an OAG and how they solved this situation. Thanks

Very nice! Congratulations!

Hi Daniel, I am using Pixinsight for most of the process, and the color adjustment is done there in the linear stage - before stretching.

Nice composition and very clean image, Daniel! Like it!

Oh well, Sequencer is working, and one can use it without too much trouble. But there would be quite a few details worth improving, that's for sure.

Hi Daniel, so far this is what I observed: when it is not safe and gets safe before the moment that the sequence is programmed to start, it will start up (I had some problems with the roof not being opened and similar stuff, though) if it gets unsafe during a sequence run it will halt and close down. it will NOT restart if it clears up (how would Sequence behave if, in the meantime, your targets would be too low or the likes?). I guess this could be implemented, but the buglist and wishlist for Sequencer is quite long already, and not getting any shorter so far

Nak, I have about 125kg of equipment on the mount, plus counterweights and the mount itself. East-west correction is easy, the altitude one was nightmare ;₩

Hi Nak, I am running at a focal of 3412mm so this might help you. According to Autoslew i am off by about 12'x8', and still get good 20 minute subs. Once i was at over one degree off, that was too much

It was a feature i asked for...

Max, Yes he said that but it never made sense. Most automation softwares can execute an arbitrary script before imaging, and this script could simply make an mlpt run, and load it into autoslew. Even if the Ccdsoft guys would not do it, in ccdcommander and acp it would be fairly easy. And hell, it would be so damn easy to implement into sequence, just add a start parameter so you could do it like Sequencer.exe -domlpt

Mlpt is something very easy to make usable from other programs, but asa wont do it. I reverted to autoguiding and am running fine now

Thanks guys! It feels good to get some images processed from time to time

Hi John, well, superfit is supposed to make an even better, smoother model of the telescope behaviour over the whole sky. I had quite good results with it and my Cassegrain, but had to revert to use guiding to get always accurately tracked images (with only MLPT, I had about 25% of the images with star trails). If you do MLPT, you do not need Superfit. There was a time/version of Autoslew when it was actually counterproductive, as MLPT and SUperfit did corrections at the same time. This said, if you want to test it, simply make a good pointing file with Sequencer with enough measurements (dunno how many, though, I would start with 50-60), and do as you always did. You should find something like this then: The SuperFIt correction values will change depending on your position in the sky Hope this helps

Thanks Ron!

It's really bad but real: There is no usable documentation out there right now. Damn I was considering writing a short tutorial for new users, but honestly I can't see a real reason (besides being a helpful person) why we should bother and do ASA's job. By the way, I found out that there are other mount manufacturers who are also using absolute encoders and - though they are NOT using direct drives - they also have incredible tracking performances. And also usable documentation

Hi folks, finally I found some time and spirit to elaborate some data from last year. This is the result of using about 18 hours of LRGB data (well, mostly L) taken in Namibia with the SOuthern Sky Gems observatory. I did an easy processing flow with Pixinsight and ended up with this version.

Nevermind, I found the error. Should be fixed now.