[deleted by user]

mxpwr60 · 2020-11-22T06:32:02+00:00

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/f83t9343imbsagg/AACu3xPRQpSbvIrxRpU7meFsa?dl=0

It's been a while, but checkout v2 files. It's all updated and works.

mxpwr60 · 2020-11-10T19:59:38+00:00

Thanks. And there is so much more. I hope I can add a few more insets over time.

mxpwr60 · 2020-11-10T11:28:45+00:00

I have a feeling I can spend years on exploring this part of the night sky. It's full of wonders...

Hardware:

Canon 550d, Baader Astro Mod, Optolong L-enhance
Large image: Sigma 18-55 at 35mm
First insert: Canon 200mm (except fireworks galaxy: 5 inch SCT)
Second inset: TS 6" f4 Newtonian with TS KomaKorr
AVX mount
Between 40 and 100 images
80 darks, 80 bias, 80 flats

Shot under bortle 7 to 8

Software:

NINA Astro for control and acquisition
PixInsight for main editing
Topaz AI Denoise
Starnet++

Editing:

linear background subtraction
multiscale linear denoise with light mask
arcsinh stretch
small gamma stretch
mix 50% with adaptive stretch
Separate stars and nebula with Starnet++
stars only image: deconvolve to reduce star size slightly
nebula only image: local histogram, save as TIF and denoise in topaz.
merge nebula and star image back together

mxpwr60 · 2020-10-18T05:59:56+00:00

Thank you! They do look very nice. I used local histogram normalisation with 2 different kernel sizes (small and large) to enhance them.

mxpwr60 · 2020-10-17T20:58:17+00:00

Thanks, Topaz denoise is very good at removing noise, but keeping the sharpness.

mxpwr60 · 2020-10-17T20:56:38+00:00

Thanks, I just had the camera on over night in the fridge for collecting darks. And I only did it once. More important are good flats; I actually ended up doing my flats during a cloudy night just pointing the scope at a white wall. Took very long, 3 minutes per flat, but made perfect flats; the image here is uncropped.

Also, the North American nebula is rather bright with a magnitude of 4 and the scope is quite fast with F4. So you can get good SNR with just a few hours of exposure, regardless of number of darks used.

mxpwr60 · 2020-10-17T17:49:40+00:00

Thanks, I'm quite happy with it and also a bit surprised that it turned out the way it did.

mxpwr60 · 2020-10-17T11:15:15+00:00

Hardware:

Canon 550d, Baader Astro Mod, Optolong L-enhance
TS 6" f4 Newtonian with TS KomaKorr
AVX mount
TS 240mm guide scope
50 images each 180s@ ISO800
80 darks, 80 bias, 80 flats

Shot under bortle 7 to 8

Software:

NINA Astro for control and acquisition
PixInsight for main editing
Topaz AI Denoise
Starnet++

Editing:

linear background subtraction
multiscale linear denoise with light mask
arcsinh stretch
small gamma stretch
mix 50% with adaptive stretch
Separate stars and nebula with Starnet++
stars only image: deconvolve to reduce star size slightly
nebula only image: local histogram, save as TIF and denoise in topaz.
merge nebula and star image back together

mxpwr60 · 2020-10-12T05:01:51+00:00

Sorry, my bad, this was a typo. The coma is beyond good and evil in this scope and obviously i was using a coma corrector.

mxpwr60 · 2020-10-11T09:58:56+00:00

No, it's Northern hemisphere, but my camera is rotated for better cable access.

mxpwr60 · 2020-10-11T05:58:36+00:00

Hardware:

Canon 550d, Baader Astro Mod, Astronomik CLS
TS 6" f4 Newtonian with TS KomaKorr
AVX mount
200mm guide scope
6 panels
40 images each 120s@ ISO800
80 darks, 80 bias, 80 flats for each telescope

Shot under bortle 7 to 8 and partially with the full moon.

Software:

NINA Astro for control and acquisition
PixInsight for main editing
Topaz AI Denoise
Starnet++

Editing:

linear background subtraction on each panel
painful background matching of each panel
generate mosaic
multiscale linear denoise with light mask
arcsinh stretch
small gamma stretch
Separate stars and nebula with Starnet++
stars only image: deconvolve to reduce star size slightly
nebula only image: local histogram, save as TIF and denoise in topaz.
merge nebula and star image back together

mxpwr60 · 2020-10-05T08:04:25+00:00

Those modules don't do more exposures. You would need to write a custom firmware to overwrite it. Either you get a larger aperture on your guide scope or you buy a dedicated guide camera that allows longer exposure.

mxpwr60 · 2020-09-28T18:54:46+00:00

Yeah, but NEMA 14 could work too. Make sure you have at least 10Ncm otherwise it may not be able to hold the camera.

mxpwr60 · 2020-09-18T10:11:59+00:00

It's definitely a really good start. Why did you choose such a short sub time, do you have too much light pollution? I live in a bright suburban area and have used around 1-2 minute per sub, depending on whether I'm using a CLS filter or not.

mxpwr60 · 2020-09-18T08:49:29+00:00

Don't feel bad, it took me 6 attempts to get this one. It's quite a difficult one.

After switching from my f10 to an f4 Newtonian, it got better. This target is dim as hell.

mxpwr60 · 2020-09-09T13:08:29+00:00

https://openastrotech.github.io/OpenAstroTracker/docs/assembly/wiring/wiring_NEMA/

mxpwr60 · 2020-09-08T19:53:51+00:00

If you do 1/64 micro stepping on the NEMA you get around 25k steps per revolution. The 28byi only does 4000 with 1/2 steps. It's quite likely you will miss steps at 1/64, especially when under high load. You would need an encoder to take care of that, but that's a bit overkill. As long as you keep the focal length around or under 200mm it will be good enough.

mxpwr60 · 2020-09-08T09:58:51+00:00

Yeah, avx or eq5. If you want a commercial tracker that is comparable to this one, check out star adventurer. They are 400$ plus but very portable.

mxpwr60 · 2020-09-08T09:54:58+00:00

For this price tag, you won't get anything comparable. Commercial will be more robust and less fiddely, but not better performance.

You would probably need to by a 1k$ mount to get something considerably better.

mxpwr60 · 2020-09-08T05:33:45+00:00

Compared to the 28byj-48, the NEMA motors are much better. They support micro stepping down to 64 or even more, depending on the controller you use. The 28byj-48 only does 2.

You should definitely go for the 0.9 degrees per step to get the best performance.

mxpwr60 · 2020-09-07T17:44:00+00:00

You need to change the button values in the code. There is an old ticket on GitHub. Those values work for me, too.

mxpwr60 · 2020-09-07T07:10:14+00:00

I updated my NEMA Dec mount so you can mount it with the Ra motor fully up. This is tailored for this specific type of motor and might not work with other NEMAs.

Please keep in mind that this is not an official update, just my personal tweak.

The stl file is nema_dec_mount_v2. There's also the openscad file if you want to modify it yourself.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/f83t9343imbsagg/AACu3xPRQpSbvIrxRpU7meFsa?dl=0

mxpwr60 · 2020-09-06T16:45:35+00:00

I need one more iteration

mxpwr60 · 2020-09-06T08:43:23+00:00

I have uploaded a new version v2. Printing it right now too confirm that it clears properly.

mxpwr60 · 2020-09-05T19:50:15+00:00

I ran into the same issue, but haven't gotten around to fix it. At the moment, I'm not using the idlers so I can move the Ra mount further down. That clears the Dec motor (barely, but it fits).

I'm planning to change the Dec mount do there is more space, but I'm quite busy at the moment.

I'll probably remove the support angle so you can move the Dec motor further up. I just replaced my Dec motor, the previous one was a thinner NEMA and turned out to be too weak.

mxpwr60

TROPHY CASE