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Byeos
May 20, 2016 20:28:58 GMT
Post by davy on May 20, 2016 20:28:58 GMT
Part one,,intro
Hi folks,I started using my canon dslr cameras for astronomy any initially was using canon utilities to control my camera via computer control and this works great,not long after I found backyard eos,this is a piece of software that takes canons utilities just that step further and dedicated more to the astronomer, note the word astronomer,this is because it caters for both astrophotography and video astronomy,for video astronomy a live view canon dslr is required, I have used byeos a couple if weeks now and only scratched the surface of all its features. But I'm well impressed.
We see all the new cameras and software coming out just lately and get drawn in with having the latest kit from camera developer's,im not knocking them,what I want to point out that the good old dslr can still do a fantastic job and can do video pretty well too.
What kit do I have,and how will this affect the results.
I started using byeos on the skywatcher allview mount and skywatcher ed80 pro and skywatcher 0.85 matched focal reducer and due to clouds I tested it on a hill approx 3 miles away,and using the trial edition of byeos,, I was well impressed with the features and how easy it is to use, The allview is a good mount but found the clutch had to be rumped up tight to stop it slipping due to the weight of dslr,a telescope weight would definitely help.
Next up eq3/2 goto pro and same telescope set up,this is a better mount as I could get better balance on both axis, and mot as much felexture bounce on slewing.
Very happy the way thing's are heading and made my mind up not to spend money getting the either the lodestar x2 or the new atik video camera,now im only going by images posted in various forums and im impressed by them,but for me personally I have two canon 600d and a canon 450d both these cameras have live view mode.
Having looked at howies,set up using basic canon utilities and astrotoaster,I knew I was on the the right track with equipment I have and wanted. So the skywatcher heq5 pro was ordered from first light optics,no disrespect to any other vendor,but flo had been very good to me previously by sending a mother board for my eq3 even though it was just out of warranty.
Heq5 pro arrived and I have set it up with piggybacking the ed80 pro set up and my skywatcher st102,orion guidescope and qhy5l11 guide cam,,so a fair bit of weight on the full set up,, first light last sunday,handset has been removed and hitecastro heq5 cable added to set up. Software..ascom platform,,eqmod and cartes de ciel. And full copy of byeos.
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Deleted
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Byeos
May 20, 2016 21:24:50 GMT
Post by Deleted on May 20, 2016 21:24:50 GMT
Davy, I purchased BYEOS to use with my Cannon T5. I've only tried it a few times on Jupiter and the moon but I really like the software. I still plan to use my Mallincam for DSO work but for planetary and lunar I hope the Cannon and BYEOS will provide some nice views / images. I look forward to following your progress with BYEOS.
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Byeos
May 20, 2016 23:11:01 GMT
via mobile
Post by davy on May 20, 2016 23:11:01 GMT
Thanks tim :-)
Part 2 First light and im not joking,about the light,I set up my kit in carols back garden,heq5 set up described in last post,,I cant polar align scope the sky is baby blue in colour,but the moon is even brighter and is just over half lit up,I fired up byeos and connected the camera via the software,the top left info panel is very detailed in what is currently happening in the software,once connected I clicked the focus button ,up shows the moon a few adjustments on the scope focusser and all looks well,but better still there is the x5 button,clicked this and its like a mega zoom,,wow,,,were now looking at close up images of the moons craters,and we can now tine tune the the focus to near pin point perfect,,,im REALLY pleased at the image,,you can test image from here as well,first setting,,,default,,,was totally over exposed,,pure white image,,byeos allows you to change the iso,so I pulled it right down to iso 100 and fired off another test shot,nice image appears but we have baby blue sky so I pushed the shutter speed up to 1/100 and it was looking even better,finaly I used 1/125 shutter speed and it's perfect for my taste,fantastic image. I then turned to the planetary mode,was sceptical and expecting a REALLY poor show,I matched the focus settings,iso 100 and shutter speed 1/125. The frame count defaults to 100 images or now they will become 100 frames of video capture,I changed this too 1000 frames and the loop funtion was made to four,I then pressed record,fantastic live view only thing you notice is the disc top right counting up the frames it's taken and what loop its on,once finished it takes a bit of time either the camera downloading the images or its the software stacking the frames to video,this turned out to be about a50 second video... couldn't be happier with the results. Next night up was this tuesday,same kit, I cranked up the frames to 2500 and looped 4 times ,done it no problems,image was poor to seeing on moon,not a software issue.I took some astrophotography images,,absolutely the same quality as the video frames. On the plus side you can access all 10,000 images on your hatd drive On the negative side,it takes up a lot of memory,I used 32gb in first light session.
Im hoping by changing iso and shutter speeds that the camera will be able to do dso work no problems.
I stacked images and to be honest a single frame was just as good as stacked,and I probably wont stack in post processing.
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Byeos
May 21, 2016 2:25:24 GMT
Post by howie1 on May 21, 2016 2:25:24 GMT
Sounds good Dave ... can't wait to hear the next post with those images from the captures.
BTW Have you ever tried the HC (hand control) PA routine? If you havent ... let me know and I'll run you through the 'tricks' in using it. Most members of the astro clubs I have associated with don't even bother trying to peek through the polar scope. The bright stuff shows up much earlier in the evening thus allowing these PA routine/drift alignments to work in the dusk twilight well before we can see the Octans which are really faint.
cheers
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Byeos
May 21, 2016 6:09:27 GMT
Post by davy on May 21, 2016 6:09:27 GMT
Hi howie,no I haven't got that far yet,have been posting via my phone,will put the images up,I only post processed two images from the capture of the moon ,dont really need 6000 near identical images lol.going to get one printed out for prosperity via local supermarket photo service,,think the image size was 40". By all means add info to the post,its about the product,I just put my slant on things and how im using it.
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Byeos
May 21, 2016 20:54:52 GMT
Post by davy on May 21, 2016 20:54:52 GMT
single frame unstacked,levels adjusted,
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Byeos
May 22, 2016 2:20:17 GMT
Post by howie1 on May 22, 2016 2:20:17 GMT
No wonder you're rattling on about bending space-time Davy ... I think you must have figured out how to do that as Brigadoon time seems to be running ahead of the rest of us by about two weeks. You seem to have a 50% Moon overhead ... we're at full Moon at the moment Keep going with the software Davy and the experimentation. Interesting journey. I'd love to see your multi scoped rig live in action. I noticed you said you ended up using a single frame for the Moon shot ... tip is to drag the single frame into Windows Photo Gallery Editor (comes with Windows) and there is a sharpen tool in there ... works very well and doesnt take long to do that step. You can do it in the field too straight after you've saved the shot from BYEOS or whatever. cheers
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Byeos
May 22, 2016 6:35:11 GMT
Post by Dragon Man on May 22, 2016 6:35:11 GMT
LOL! Yep, Moon is currently 99.9%
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Byeos
May 22, 2016 8:18:48 GMT
via mobile
howie1 likes this
Post by davy on May 22, 2016 8:18:48 GMT
You guys are too clever for me,,what gave it away,,,,took the shot last sunday,,just takes me a bit to get round to putting it up..full moon how wiuld I know canny see the blooming thing for clouds :-). I thought I would put up the single frame as it was taken on planetary mode,,but it still is a jpeg in the file folder the way byeos does it.
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Byeos
May 22, 2016 8:24:05 GMT
via mobile
Post by davy on May 22, 2016 8:24:05 GMT
My thoughts on posting it is to let folk see a base point and then what the images will will turn out like as I get more experience,no point in putting up the most fantastic images ever,bit of a tutorial thread..I cant upload the video capture it would wipe out my mobile broadband limit.
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Byeos
May 22, 2016 9:13:04 GMT
Post by howie1 on May 22, 2016 9:13:04 GMT
Aha ... clever plan Dave. lol.
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Byeos
May 22, 2016 9:24:58 GMT
Post by Dragon Man on May 22, 2016 9:24:58 GMT
I didn't think you were trying to pull the wool over our eyes davy. You say best to start with the base point. If that's your base point, then we are in for some cracking shots because that one is already good
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Byeos
May 22, 2016 11:33:38 GMT
Post by davy on May 22, 2016 11:33:38 GMT
Cheers ken,if we can show folk that are intrested in video astronomy how easy it can be done,,through tutorials and videos on this forum im a happy man,,this forum is about advancing video astronomy,I see too many posts on other forums and the negativity really annoys me,folk wanting to start doing this need help and encouragement and this should come from all members,no point saying ,, hi welcome to the forum,then there left to get on with it,too bloody scared to ask questions for fear of being ridiculed for asking a question..so for me ,,this place and the way we do things work for me,,its a hobby and hobbies are fun and you should be able to get a laugh on a forum its a social sitewhere we can exchange ideas and info...and im glad it's here.
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Byeos
May 22, 2016 11:42:59 GMT
Post by davy on May 22, 2016 11:42:59 GMT
I didn't think you were trying to pull the wool over our eyes davy. You say best to start with the base point. If that's your base point, then we are in for some cracking shots because that one is already good Ken,and all ,its the software,,its just that good.all I done was point scope to the moon,no alignment,just syc on cartes de ciel, camera on..click the focus button on byeos adjust focus,then x5 gets you real close up,bit of fine adjustment and then select planetary capture and record.....this is after I tested for best iso and shutter speed..getting this correct will keep noise level and grain to a minimum..well worth a go if you have a live view canon camera.
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Byeos
May 23, 2016 21:32:18 GMT
Post by davy on May 23, 2016 21:32:18 GMT
Sky tonight 22.30 gmt Waiting on moon :-)
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Byeos
May 23, 2016 22:51:00 GMT
Post by davy on May 23, 2016 22:51:00 GMT
Light pollution at carols 11.50 gmt,and moon is late tonight clearing treeline,,,knackered,,wont be out much longer..can see moon center on image
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Byeos
May 24, 2016 6:44:10 GMT
Post by Dragon Man on May 24, 2016 6:44:10 GMT
WOW!!!! those lights are pointing right at you!
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Byeos
Oct 29, 2016 8:31:53 GMT
Post by davy on Oct 29, 2016 8:31:53 GMT
Bit of clear patches between the clouds,as one part of the sky clouded over I tried picking out targets in a clear section of sky, got the laptop out and was doing a bit of imaging with byeos and I like it's control, so I switched to planetary mode cranked up the ISO and just slewed scope to a starry bit of sky as it was getting Baltic and it was coming to end of my two hour session, tracking was away to pot but I did find stars on the screen lol,i switched to x5 mode, what a mess screen looked like a mass of blinking red lights,switched back and looked ok,,need more practice on planetary mode.
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