ColinR

I've been a set up every night kinda DDM60 user for 5 years now, we've spoken in the past Sean over Facebook and IIS. I've been doing the same as Mark for a long time. Not the roll out idea, that's great but not possible in my backyard. I've got small dug in pavers for the tripod so I know where to put the legs. It's level when it goes down. Balancing is what takes the longest and is most stressful for me! I use the 3 star alignment in Dec for PA. It's quick and pretty accurate for getting your PA low. You quickly learn to see the numbers and know how much to turn the knobs without using the actual PA routine which is a bit of a nightmare at longer focal lengths. Having used the DDM60 and Mewlon 250 setup for a few years I'd never do more than 5-10 stars on each side purely for pointing and then use MLPT for actual imaging. I'd sometimes do a 30-40 point model just to waste some time before astronomical darkness sets in. With my new setup I've just started doing 100 point models (takes 30 minutes) and I'm currently testing to see how long I can image for without needing to do MLPT. Currently doing 120s narrowband images with FWHM down around 1.4"-1.7" with a 10" F/5.8 CDK and QHY600. Going to try some 300s tonight if the seeing is okay.

Hello all! I'm curious as to whether anyone here uses an AO-X with Sequence? I'm currently contemplating getting one but Sequence does have its quirks so I thought it be best to ask before taking the plunge.

Imaging from bright suburban locations isn't great for faint objects so I figured I'd go after some of the brighter galaxies. It's not an overly deep image for the amount of exposures but I'm pretty happy with the resolution with the full stack coming in at 1.65". https://www.astrobin.com/full/bdgv2c/B/ Mewlon 250 F/10 ASI094 ASA DDM60 320x120s

Given what the weather is like in Melbourne at the moment I'm not sure if I'll ever get another clear night haha I'll report back once I've managed to give it a test outside of simulator mode.

I managed to fix mine today too! At least I believe I have, I won't really know until I give it legitimate trial under the stars. I've spent all of today installing Window 7 Pro, installing ALL of the different software packages and making sure everything connects and plays nice. I then decided I'd run everything in simulator mode and do some trail runs. I then re-read what had been discussed here and your issues were different to mine. When I've been putting in targets I've use the "Find" function and not pasting coordinates in from another program like TSX/ It was reading how fickle Sequence is in that it needs to be told everything in its own way otherwise it'll have a headache. I was then going back over every part within Sequence and trying to figure out what could be causing a conflict and it dawned on me that no where in Sequence does it allow me to say that I have a filter wheel installed (which I don't) BUT it also doesn't allow me to tell it that it doesn't have one! Natively Sequence under the CCD section has a list of potential filter positions and has an option for you to retrieve these from MaximDL. As I've been using an OSC I've just left all that alone and assumed that because everything was empty that Sequence wouldn't care...... but I was wrong..... I told Sequence to retrieve the filterwheel data, it said there was no filter wheel (well yeah), made it all blank and I think that's fixed my problem! It appears my out of bounds error was in relation to a lot of potential filter wheel positions that didn't exist. I didn't have an issue with this 18 months ago as I was using a filter wheel then.

At the moment I’m running Windows 10 via Parallels on my MacBook Pro, maybe I should roll back to Windows 7 Pro 64 and see if that fixes issues.

I have in the last few days decided that I'd like to use Sequence for running everything as i'm starting to do some longer focal length imaging and requires the use of MLPT. I've been using SGP for the past two years but I gravely dislike it's focusing routine (Sequence has a fairly quick and robust one) and at .4"/pixel MLPT is a requirement. I used Sequence once maybe 18 months ago for sequencing and it worked, two nights ago I tried again and I've run into the issue with the handling error. When i start trying to run a sequence it'll move to the focus star, focus, move back to the target and then the error appears. I've read all of the threads on this forum and tried all of the suggestions without any success. Rolled back from 213 to 211, run it as Sequence as Admin, changed the settings on all of the Sequence folders, tried selecting and deselecting many of the various tick boxes. I might try rolling back to 209 but I don't think that'll fix anything. I imagine that it is likely the latest Windows 10 update has broken it somehow. Some are having issues with other aspects within Sequence but for me it solely when it comes to beginning the capture sequence.

I have considered using Sequence with the Atlas but haven't tried it yet. I'll give it a go one session and have a fiddle.

How did your testing go? If you managed to get some clear skies that is

I've run USB3 cameras perfectly fine through a USB2 hub so on that premise I'd say you'd be fine

The jury is still out as to how effective they would be. The AO units that is amateurs can get our hands on are tip/tilt which is really good for correcting for minor fast tracking errors, something that cheaper mounts are plagued with. At their peak they don't really work faster than 10HZ which is fast enough for slow moving atmospheric turbulence but does require a reasonably bright star in field. With excellent seeing it may help tighten up your FWHM a fraction but in poor/average seeing it won't do anything at all (general comment from those who use them).

That is mount misalignment with respect to the celestial pole... If you have to move be mechanical axis (raising or lowering) then it is a mount misalignment as I said.

It is of mount yes. This is the mount misalignment in respect to the celestial pole.

At the moment I am only working on one target in a night so I am creating the MLPT before I start imaging. I have found that CCDAP and the ASI1600 don't go so well together when doing LRGB Imaging, same with ACP. They're both great programs BUT they have a lot of "dead time" which isn't that bad unless you're imaging at 1.6e- read noise I've been doing it in Maxim for a long time but it does mean I need to go and focus manually (push the focus button in FocusMax) every hour. I want sleep! Apart from the lack of automation I have found MaximDL to work very well. I could check the balance in different positions a bit more, I tend to balance with everything horizontal pointing at the horizon. Seems to be the most sensitive balance position. I do sometimes get the "near enough is good enough" mentality when both red lines are touching but not centred on one another. Should I be spending that extra minute or two getting them exact? I have sometimes wondered if its worth it as the focuser movement (FLI PDF) will cause slightly change the weight distribution as the night goes on. The last night I set up I used Sequence and didn't have any issues thankfully. I need to refocus every hour so I guess thats a built in relaxation feature, I've never even considered using that feature though. Might see if I can setup tonight and see if another night of Sequence is largely trouble free.

One of the first things I do in MaximDL V6.11 is go to the Telescope tab, Site and Optics and then press "Download from Telescope" or something to that effect. That way it is using exactly the same location info as Autoslew. Also best to make sure it is in JNow and now J2000.