With the nice spring weather, I’ve finally got around to installing an allsky camera that I’ve pieced together over the last month. The camera consists of a Raspberry Pi 4 and ZWO ASI120MC-S in a waterproof case. I am also using a PoE converter to power the Pi only through… Continue Reading... "Allsky Camera"
I’ve finally gotten around to trying the new version of NINA, my preferred deep sky imaging software. The current major version is still in beta, but I am loving it so far. The biggest advancement is what they call their “advanced sequencer.” And advanced it is! The new sequencer allows… Continue Reading... "NINA 2.0"
I finally took the next big plunge in imaging: I switched from a guide scope to off axis guiding (OAG). I was hesitant for a while, as I read a lot of horror stories about it being hard to find guide stars, and that they needed to be planned out… Continue Reading... "Off Axis Guiding"
I use a middle of the road laptop as my imaging computer. Outside of my normal gripes with Windows, it has been a real pain in the ass making it work as a computer when you close the laptop lid. Especially with my Nexdome, I want the laptop to operate… Continue Reading... "Windows issues with the lid closed"
So, I finally figured out the most crazy problem I have been having. Let me set up the story. The last month or two, I have been having horrible stars in my images. They would usually be elongated from the lower left corner to the upper right corner across the… Continue Reading... "Tube currents and astigmatism"
If your guiding seems to be behaving a little worse than you expect, consider this embarrassing anecdote: For the last few months, I have been struggling with pretty bad guiding from my EQ8-R mount. When I first got it, I was able to get about 0.7″ RMS from it, give… Continue Reading... "Bad guiding?"
I finally figured it out! I was having the damnedest time over the last year trying to take proper flats with my f/5 Dobsonian and my f/4 imaging Newtonian. The biggest issue was my Nikon DSLR that I was using. It added an awful chromatic rotational gradient that was very… Continue Reading... "Taking flats with a large Newtonian"
While imaging the last couple nights, I noticed that the images were a little wonky. Upon initial inspection, I suspected guiding just wasn’t being great, as the stars had that elongated shape to them as though the guiding was oscillating a few arcseconds. When I began to study the images… Continue Reading... "Bad Collimation"
I purchased a ZWO ASI178MM camera to use as my guide camera. It worked for a little bit one night and then just wouldn’t ever connect again. I just got a ZWO ASI2600MC in the mail. I tried to test them by hooking them through the USB 3.0 hub in… Continue Reading... "USB woes with a Hewlett Packard laptop"
My mount was having some problems with calibration and guiding occasionally. I finally decided to just test the backlash on the declination axis by slightly pushing on the telescope while it was mounted. I immediately noted a ton of play in the declination worm gear. This mount is pretty well… Continue Reading... "EQ8-R Pro Gear Backlash Adjustment"
