robrj
Member
Posts: 248
home town/country: Escondido, CA
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Post by robrj on Jul 30, 2016 22:03:49 GMT
I had a pretty productive night out last night with the 130SLT mounted on my new AVX mount. I received it on Wednesday along with a Starsense. I decided to try it without the Starsense. It also came with a polar scope. So I set about trying to get everything going. Total failure. Nothing was working right. It wouldn't point to the correct position. Stars were way off. Skewing would stop just past the center mark like it was against a stop. I lined it up with a star and then thought, let me try Polaris. It pointed straight down. I checked the lat long and made sure three times that it was set correctly. No go. Nothing I did worked. Finally, I selected a "polar alignment" from the menu and it gave me an error "Cannot do a polar alignment on an Alt/Az mount". Hmmm. Turns out, the hand controller was flashed with an Alt/Az flash instead of the Equatorial Mount flash. Another clue, the hand controller read "Nexstar Ready" when it should have read "Advanced VX". So the next morning, I downloaded the correct firmware into the controller and started it up. "Advanced VX" showed on the display. My guess is the original owner flashed the firmware with the wrong version and probably thought everything was screwed up so he bought a Starsense. There's no way it was working correctly with that controller. So last night I tried again. I leveled the tripod, added the mount and did a visual polar align with the polar scope. I put the tube on and checked for balance. I started it up and went through a two star align with 3 additional calibration stars. Everything worked to perfection. Gotos were right on. I spent about 2 1/2 hours slewing about. Here are two of the best images of the night. No processing. M17 - 4x45s with the Ultrastar-C & Optolong CLS CCD filter M20 - 6x45s with the Ultrastar-C & Optolong CLS CCD filter
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Post by davy on Jul 30, 2016 23:02:39 GMT
Brilliant rob,we all like a happy ending,,my skywatcher allview eas the same,,flashed with an eq configuration,
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Post by ChrisV on Jul 31, 2016 8:07:03 GMT
Excellent pics and troubleshooting !
Did you use ultrastarlive (is that what is called ?) or sharpcap. Be interested to see how you think they compare.
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robrj
Member
Posts: 248
home town/country: Escondido, CA
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Post by robrj on Aug 1, 2016 3:56:10 GMT
I use Starlight Live with the Ultrastar-C. With the ZWO ASI185MC, I use Sharpcap 2.9. I like them both. I think the learning curve is less with Starlight Live as it is a little less complicated. You don't have to mess with Gain but adjustable gain allows you to really push the camera if you want to. Sharpcap seems a little faster in stacking images. On the other hand, my images in Starlight Live seem more finished. I usually don't have to do anything to them. That's probably the benefit in having software that directly tied to the camera, whereas Sharpcap is more intended to work with many cameras. It may even work with the Ultrastar. I've never tried it.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Aug 1, 2016 12:59:14 GMT
Good detective work Rob to figure out the problem with the hand controller and get it fixed. The more complicated our setups become the more critical it is to remember the basics and be methodical in our troubleshooting.
Nice results with the new mount. Stacking 6 x 45 seconds, shows the tracking is working well.
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Post by Rick in NWArk on Aug 1, 2016 16:46:01 GMT
Glad you got the AVX up and going! Even tho I've had a few wrestling matches with mine, I really miss it. (I accidentally completely unscrewed the base before the weights were off and it took a tumble right onto the Dec motor casing. Boom!)
Really nice pics too, everything looks really tight!
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robrj
Member
Posts: 248
home town/country: Escondido, CA
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Post by robrj on Aug 1, 2016 17:41:31 GMT
Glad you got the AVX up and going! Even tho I've had a few wrestling matches with mine, I really miss it. (I accidentally completely unscrewed the base before the weights were off and it took a tumble right onto the Dec motor casing. Boom!) Really nice pics too, everything looks really tight! I almost did the same thing my second night out with it. I happened to be in a position that where I was able to catch it before it fell.
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Post by Rick in NWArk on Aug 2, 2016 12:42:51 GMT
I'm looking around to source a replacement motor control card - I think that's all that's wrong. If I find a source, I'll certainly post it. Spare parts for the AVX are tough to find.
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robrj
Member
Posts: 248
home town/country: Escondido, CA
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Post by robrj on Aug 2, 2016 14:02:56 GMT
Maybe we should make and market some crash bars.
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Post by ChrisV on Aug 4, 2016 3:31:11 GMT
So now you've got both ultrastar (CCD 825 sensor) and 185 (CMOS IMX185 sensor)
They are both ~ 1.2". Other than software, how do you think they compare. Do you reckon you can push the 185 harder (it has gain control) and get more sensitivity ? I noticed ZWO now have cooled versions of most of their cameras. That might help with 'amp glow' so could push them harder ?
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robrj
Member
Posts: 248
home town/country: Escondido, CA
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Post by robrj on Aug 8, 2016 17:19:17 GMT
Since I've had the Ultrastar-C, I haven't really done anything heavy with the 185 other than use it as an e-finder. It excels at that because I can crank the gain without worrying about the quality of the image and the field of view is quite wide which is perfect for an e-finder. So faint objects tend to show up in the e-finder as fuzzy blotches. What I should do is use the 185 with a lower gain and a longer exposure to see how it compares with the Ultrastar. I mostly did higher gain to get quick acquisition on the 130SLT with it's alt/az mount and lived with the amp glow. But now that I have the AVX, I'm curious how the images will turn out with a lower gain and a longer exposure. The 185 has relatively low read noise. It's not as low as the 224 though (1.5 vs 0.7 for the 224). I bought it primarily because of it's wider field of view. I've read it's amp glow is worse than the 224. Much of my higher gain images seem to confirm that. Even with darks applied, I was still having to go into photoshop to reduce it. My Ultrastar-C images are relatively untouched. About the only thing do, if anything, is adjust the contrast and gain a bit. The 185 does seem to work better for faster exposure images like the moon and the planets. The Ultrastar-C seems to struggle to keep up at video speeds. That might be Starlight Live though. It doesn't seem as quick in stacking images as Sharpcap. Here's some comparison shots. They're on different nights though. Here's an M27 at 417gain with the ZWO (5x16s). If I remember correctly, this one was edited in photoshop to remove the glow. I'll have to look when I get home. M27 with Ultrastar-C M57 with ZWO (367 gain, 10x27s) M57 Ultrastar: Omega Centauri ZWO (11x8s, 340 gain) Omega Centauri Ultrastar (20x5s)
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robrj
Member
Posts: 248
home town/country: Escondido, CA
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Post by robrj on Aug 8, 2016 17:26:22 GMT
I can't tell if some of my images have bad links or it's my computer's network speed (My ultrastar pics show as broken on my screen). I've seen it before on this forum but sometimes a refresh will cure it. I'll double check when I get home.
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robrj
Member
Posts: 248
home town/country: Escondido, CA
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Post by robrj on Aug 9, 2016 1:52:31 GMT
Here's the original M27 before any photoshop to remove the amp glow.
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Post by ChrisV on Aug 9, 2016 11:28:42 GMT
The pic of the dumbbell with the 185 doesn't look too shabby compared tothe ultrastar. I'm just wondering now that there are cooled versions of the 185 & 224 (and just about every other ZWO camera) that you might be able to push the gain/exposure and it'll be even more sensitive.
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robrj
Member
Posts: 248
home town/country: Escondido, CA
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Post by robrj on Aug 9, 2016 17:16:46 GMT
The pic of the dumbbell with the 185 doesn't look too shabby compared tothe ultrastar. I'm just wondering now that there are cooled versions of the 185 & 224 (and just about every other ZWO camera) that you might be able to push the gain/exposure and it'll be even more sensitive. I've heard the 224 just recently got an upgrade that removes much of the amp glow. The cooled versions weren't out when I bought mine. My understanding is that the cooled versions are primarily intended for longer exposures (e.g. 120 second) and it has something to do with dark current on the sensor. I don't think it helps with amp glow. Pushing the gain increases amp glow. But you can bat down the amp glow with proper darks. The M27 with the 185 has darks applied. You have to be diligent about that or the amp glow will look much worse. Plus, the darks need to be applied for each gain and exposure time. Putting a different dark with the wrong exposure time looks like crap. With the Ultrastar, it doesn't seem to care about which dark goes with which exposure. It mostly fixes a few hot pixels (looks like little red stars here and there). I think I get maybe 20 hot pixels if I don't use a dark with the Ultrastar. Even though they're being sold, I don't see much information on the cooled versions of the 224 or the 185. The 224MC-Cool had an early bug that made the cooling ineffective but I think that's fixed. The 185 doesn't have much info on it even uncooled. That was a gamble for me when I first bought it but I wanted the wider field of view. I think the most popular are the 224MC (non-cooled), the 290 (MM and MC) and the 1600 (MM and MC). Hiten (Astrojedi) stated that for sensitivity, the 290MM is the most sensitive, followed by the 224MC and then the 290MC. I don't recall if he had the 1600 in mind when he wrote that. I've seen him mention that the 224 has some kind of sensitivity jump above a certain gain. I think if you're going to stick with shorter exposures, the non-cooled versions are fine, and it will save you $300 (US).
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robrj
Member
Posts: 248
home town/country: Escondido, CA
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Post by robrj on Aug 9, 2016 17:23:01 GMT
It was a while ago but I'm pretty sure I didn't use darks on these: This image of the Antennae Galaxies shows much more of the amp glow at 350 gain (39x10s). Here's a M81 at 367 gain (50x12s)
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Post by ChrisV on Aug 9, 2016 22:07:59 GMT
Yes you gotta do the darks properly. I started with averages of 6-8 and just early in the evening but it made things worse. I now do x16 and check temp changes from when i did it (if i get long enough - which hasn't been the case with the weather lately).
I thought cooling would help amp glow? But you are probably right.
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