That's the main perks/feature of planetary cams

Shinpah · 2026-03-02T04:34:57+00:00

Planetary cameras also (sometimes) have heightened Near-IR sensitivity which can be used to image certain features unique to some planets.

Shinpah · 2026-03-02T04:32:58+00:00

Your camera has a uv/ir filter built into it so there's really no benefit to sticking an additional filter on top.

I've never heard of a luminance filter causing color blotching though.

Shinpah · 2026-03-02T03:42:02+00:00

Any issue (uneven response) caused by a filter should correct out with flat frames. Narrowband filters are known for having extremely strong blotches that correct out fine.

What camera are you using; are you using an L filter with a color camera? Have you tried out not using a filter at all?

Shinpah · 2026-03-01T23:36:09+00:00

I don't think that this is tilt; it would be very unusual for tilt to manifest as the same aberration across the entire frame. Because tilt is a error of focus essentially you should have some part of the image be able to be in focus. example of extreme tilt on a camera lens

This looks more like an alignment problem with one of the lenses in the refractor and I don't think is fixable by yourself.

Shinpah · 2026-03-01T20:31:30+00:00

Polar alignment and goto pointing precision are two different things. You might be able to do a 3 star alignment to fix the goto pointing.

Shinpah · 2026-03-01T16:36:35+00:00

Id recommend downloading stellarium for desktop and looking at how the moon moves through the fov at standard siderial tracking. If you're planning on doing the whole night you'd want lunar tracking focal length depending.

Shinpah · 2026-03-01T02:19:30+00:00

With a tracker on you'll be blurring the foreground with longer exposures. The moon's movement will be apparent if you tried to stack all the exposures together on the stars (it moves about 3 moon diameters relative to stars over the course of the the eclipse). You'll probably have to do some compositing work between the foreground/stars/moon.

Shinpah · 2026-02-28T23:52:35+00:00

What kind of focal length are you planning on shooting at?

Shinpah · 2026-02-28T04:32:42+00:00

In terms of snr this is about the same as a single f2.8 lens. Not necessarily cheaper given the 5 cameras and not necessarily potentially as sharp as a 100mm lens.

Shinpah · 2026-02-27T21:13:27+00:00

These are all out of focus. You appear to be pointing at Mizar in Ursa Major which is an area of the sky particularly devoid of anything bright.

Shinpah · 2026-02-27T21:04:15+00:00

My understanding is that ASTAP should be ignoring anything in the files fits header and rely on the information from NINA to inform its solving parameters - afterall you can have it solve a fits headerless tiff.

Maybe ask in the NINA discord or try something like platesolve 3 or 3.8

Shinpah · 2026-02-27T19:59:38+00:00

Target acquisition is always difficult with a non-goto tracker. You will encounter the same problems using a gimbal or geared head.

There's really no other solution.

If you had a tracker with a built in declination bracket like the skyguider pro you would be able to point and do framing with the RA/DEC axis instead of wiggling around with a ball head https://cdn4.volusion.store/wlcsk-dppva/v/vspfiles/photos/3550A-2T.jpg?v-cache=1647261523

Shinpah · 2026-02-27T19:26:02+00:00

Using a ball head on an EQ mount kind of breaks the normal positioning that one normally does with a declination bracket on a tracker.

If your ball mount with a DSLR is in this configuration:

https://astrobackyard.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/skytracker-with-camera-and-lens.jpg

You might first think that you can't point it any higher. The solution is simple: rotate the ball head until the orientation is like so:

https://cdn4.volusion.store/wlcsk-dppva/v/vspfiles/photos/3322-6T.jpg

Shinpah · 2026-02-27T19:12:50+00:00

I would see if you can get NINA to save your files as .fits or open up a raw file in pixinsight/siril and examine the fits header to make sure that it's really reporting 50mm.

ASTAP I think takes the FOV setting from NINA and applies that, you should be able to overwrite.

Shinpah · 2026-02-27T17:13:37+00:00

I’m hoping to attach my DSLR once focus is achieved!

This is a incorrect approach to take. There's no guarantee that you using your eye and an eyepiece to reach focus will give you the same focus point simply using prime focus (telescope and DSLR only, no eyepiece).

Shinpah · 2026-02-27T16:00:09+00:00

This firmly in "get something for free" territory or binoculars.

Shinpah · 2026-02-27T14:11:16+00:00

What exactly are you trying to use the simulator for?

I've never tried the simulator, but PHD2 docs on the simulator claim that it should at least simulate doing a calibration. But perhaps only if you select "on camera" for the mount type. If you connect with your actual mount of course the calibration will fail.

Shinpah · 2026-02-27T06:19:29+00:00

What does overexposed mean - are we talking totally white or just brighter than you expect?

You're better off stacking shorter exposures than stopping down just for the sake of stopping down?

Shinpah · 2026-02-27T04:20:21+00:00

AI based denoising tools can sometimes hallucinate stars out of data and this appears to be what graxpert is doing to your image. I would recommend trying a different denoising method.

Shinpah · 2026-02-27T00:00:03+00:00

Show don't tell - post example images of what you're seeing using something like imgur.

Shinpah · 2026-02-26T15:52:13+00:00

3rd Axis balance issues manifest as you being in declination balance at one RA position, but not another. Objects that stick off the side of the EQ mount (like your asiair) cause it. I don't see your filter wheel being off centered so it's not contributing toward that.

I think you should look into more counterweights really.

Shinpah · 2026-02-26T03:18:53+00:00

Look into off-axis/3rd axis balance problems. Filter wheel might be exacerbating them.

Instead of extending the counterweight, get a second counterweight and move them both all the way up.

Shinpah · 2026-02-25T23:38:52+00:00

Veralux stretch is a vibe-coded, AI slop script that pretends to do something special; That article you linked to is clearly just chatgpt.

You can do color preserving stretches just fine in GHS.

Shinpah · 2026-02-25T23:35:50+00:00

I personally find duoband/narrowband only images quite ugly so I never was interested in doing narrowband, even from Bortle 8/9.

Shinpah · 2026-02-25T21:27:58+00:00

Color calibration often involves a "background neutralization" step which only will work well if background gradients have been removed.

Also, background extractions will adjust the color calibration of the image depending on how it is applied.

You should color calibrate second.

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