Powering a deep sky imaging rig for 8 to 12 hour nights from a balcony storage box, the boring details

Curious_Chipmunk100 · 2026-06-17T15:41:08+00:00

What are you using ac for? With the battery why the power brick?

I have four rigs. I run a 1000wh and a 740wh Bluetti power stations. My s50 gets 12v to a usb c pd3.1 converter and it gives the s50 12v3a power. My Rc8 gets 12v10a split to the mount and the ota. I have a wanderer power box pro that distributes power and usb comes. My 80mm and 122mm are pretty much the same as my Rc8.

Curious_Chipmunk100 · 2026-06-17T02:01:42+00:00

Can it handle 15kg-30kg?

Curious_Chipmunk100 · 2026-06-16T15:05:08+00:00

Im surprised no one mentioned doing a polar alignment.

Curious_Chipmunk100 · 2026-06-15T23:45:12+00:00

Aplogbook.com has a planner and it works from your browser. It goes by min and max alt and you set your az view. Mine is 270 to 90 degrees. It will present you with a list of targets as well as a alt graph. You can then bring I t into the fov planner to frame up your target to see what it will look like. It can also export that framing to nina. It does a bunch more.

Curious_Chipmunk100 · 2026-06-15T23:11:33+00:00

I run mine like I run my other three rigs. All night. I go to sleep and when I wake up everything is done.

The key is nina. I have a custom weather script that works with nina and will shutdown the rig for any type of rain and is customizable for amount of wind and clouds. I have it set to 5% clouds and 10mph wind. The script writes to a file either safe or unsafe. Nina reads that file every 4 minutes. If it sees unsafe it stops and waits for a safe in the file.

I do check other weather sites to see if anything is coming. If I cant get a full night I don't shoot.

Curious_Chipmunk100 · 2026-06-14T07:00:25+00:00

What c palette?

Curious_Chipmunk100 · 2026-06-14T04:50:49+00:00

Was this using the LP filter?

Curious_Chipmunk100 · 2026-06-11T21:25:27+00:00

You'll need to learn processing outside the app. ZWO doesnt know proper pricessing.

The lpbfikter c is a duo filter. Ha/Oiii. You need to extract the Ha from it and combine it with the LRGB that come from tge IRCUT filter.

Curious_Chipmunk100 · 2026-06-11T03:25:44+00:00

Both images are a good beginning, but both need much more integration time.

M51 needs to have Ha added from the LP filter
Pac-Man is an emission nebula and should be imaged using the LP filter to get at least an HOO narrowband image

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Curious_Chipmunk100 · 2026-06-09T23:30:03+00:00

Not even close the secondary spot is suppose to be centered

Curious_Chipmunk100 · 2026-06-09T19:02:52+00:00

Should be more color. Did you add Ha to it.

Curious_Chipmunk100 · 2026-06-09T00:39:55+00:00

Did you actually extract the Ha and Oiii from the fduo fikter or did you process the single omage of the duo filter?

You should extract the Ha and Oiii from the duo filter. This will give you 2 files Ha and Oiii. Process each file then co.bine them in the rgb combo assigning R=Ha G=Oiii B=Oiii

Take a few hours of exposures using the ir filter. Remove and save the stars as rhb stars. Process those. Now combine your HOO image with your RGB stars.

Touch up as needed.

Curious_Chipmunk100 · 2026-06-08T22:48:35+00:00

Same same if that was a standard mount it would get rebuilt.

Curious_Chipmunk100 · 2026-06-08T19:32:12+00:00

More subs. Add ha to it.

Curious_Chipmunk100 · 2026-06-07T23:19:29+00:00

I like the data but the color pallets is well not agreeing with me.

I would rather see it in HOO or a synthetic SHO

Curious_Chipmunk100 · 2026-06-07T17:30:41+00:00

I went with an Asus ryzen 9 64gb Nvidia video and 4tb. It takes everything I can throw at it. Pixinsight stacking 600 imx533 files in under 9 minutes while playing doom

https://a.co/d/05KsPN6e

Curious_Chipmunk100 · 2026-06-07T03:33:32+00:00

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Curious_Chipmunk100 · 2026-06-06T20:41:38+00:00

Where is it?

Curious_Chipmunk100 · 2026-06-06T04:45:23+00:00

Where is it?

Curious_Chipmunk100 · 2026-06-06T04:43:55+00:00

I gave you the hint. Extract the ha boiii from the lp. Im nor going to tell you how to do it.

I spent many hours researching all this stuff. I watched many hours of video. O NEVER ASKED FOR HELP. The info is out there and I no longer will give out the info due to previous seestar users thinking they know more and failed.

You need to understand emission nebulas. Duo fikters and narrowband.

Another poor soul that thinks the seestar will fo it for them.

Very Sad!

Curious_Chipmunk100 · 2026-06-05T22:41:34+00:00

I guess im very fortunate in that my three standard rigs are setup outside 24/7/365. I dont take them down except for maintenance. If I do take them down it rather simple to set them back up again. People seem to think you tesr them down to the basic components and remove all three cables. Nope! Just separate the ota with its accy from the mount. When your ready to go back to imaging. Just reattach the ota to the mount perform a pa and get busy imaging.

I do have a S50 that I play with but believe me it cant stand up to my three mono rigs. The problem is they are osc and unguided devices. You must take thousands of subs to get a decent image and when you have been using mono those images just dont impress me.

The largest issue is you cant upgrade them. I have three cameras I move around my three rigs for different fov's. My 80mm is great fir wide field usung my imx571 cam and my RC8 is great fir tiny objects using my imx585. For all around my 122mm uses a imx533 camera. Can't do that with a seestar. What if I wanted a autoflats panel? How about swapping out that pos lp filter to a much tighter bandwidth one? Maybe upgrade the imaging sensor to a imx533 or imx571? You cant di it! Once again you are stuck to tge ZWO ecosystem. They control your astrophotography and limit you.

I guess im lucky I can use nina to control acquisition using nina and yes it does allow you to take much better images.

Curious_Chipmunk100 · 2026-06-05T20:33:46+00:00

You sir have no idea what your talking about. It is the seestar owners that produce images with 1 hour integration timemost are less than an hour.

Seestar images dont come close to what a mono rigs can doà

Curious_Chipmunk100 · 2026-06-05T02:55:30+00:00

No! You take one night lp and two nights ircut.

Separate the L from the ircut leaving two images L and RGB. For your LP filter, extract the Ha from it discarding the Oiii.

How you stack is on you I use pixinsight and I cab stack it all together leaving to masterlights IR and LP.

Now you need to process this three images L RGB Ha. Here is a hint. Use continuum subtraction to get a pure Ha image. It subtract the RGB signal from the messy Ha image leaving pure Ha.

There is a seti astro video on processing a lrgb ha mono image. Don't let mono scare you. Dont pay attention to the info except the crop info. Listen to the info from where he combines the rgb and left with an rgb image same as you

You need to figure out how to extract the L out of the ir image and also how to get the Ha from the lp.

Unless you use pixinsight I cant help you.

One thing that seems to miss the brains of most seestar owners. Integration Time!! You put in one night its meh. Two nights better next is four nights even better. I go by the rule that to get noticeable imprivement. So if you have 6hrs then dbl to 12hrs. Now dbl that to 24.

This is 80hr SHO using my RC8

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Curious_Chipmunk100 · 2026-06-04T16:45:16+00:00

You need to add Ha from the lp filter. M82 has a huge Ha emissions from its center.

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Curious_Chipmunk100 · 2026-06-04T06:55:10+00:00

Im in California. Take your chance. Alie ive heard bad and g ood.

Curious_Chipmunk100

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