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Post by Deleted on May 19, 2019 4:19:16 GMT
Have Eta Carina on a 72ED and an Esprit 80 and zwo 224. Different nights , different exposures and lots of moonlight. Did some darkening with astrotoaster. Only had an hour before the clouds rolled in then watched the Election Results. ED72 12s x15 alt/az
Esprit 80 20s x 9 Heq5
AlsoM104 15 x 12 Esprit 80 . Scope pointed close to moon
ngc 2070 29s x 7
then clouds rolled in cheers Paul
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Post by Dragon Man on May 19, 2019 14:39:29 GMT
Excellent results Paul. Not a lot of difference in fine detail between the 72 and the 80, but a huge difference in price for similar results
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Post by Deleted on May 23, 2019 5:07:42 GMT
Tried out my grab and go system last night. It is the 72ED on the AZ-GTi mount with the zwo 224 and ASiair. That is a light combination. Used an old iphone to run synscan and the ipad to the ASiair. You get the image on the ipad but that image is saved to the sd card on the ASiair. Everything worked pretty well except the colour image on the ipad saved in b/w on the sd card. The software on the ASiair will stack but will not compensate for rotation so I was limited to single shots .I only went to 20sec exposure. I was pretty happy with the setup. There is an ASV dark sky night this w/e so if the weather lasts, I will head out there and put the system to the test. To me ,no laptop in the field is a major advantage. When I used the mallincams , I never used the laptop in the field and was pretty happy with the images which were never more than 20 sec with my alt/az system. If I want to save pretty pictures, then I have to stay home and use the EQ mounts with a computer and assortment of heavy scopes. Carina Neb. ASiair zwo 224, 20sec single shot. 0.6 Altair focal reducer( .65 on astrometry .net) and IR cut filter .As I said the image was color on the ipad ,but the image saved as b/w FITS file
edit. The syscan has been ok lately as long as I dont press return on the ipad, dont scroll through the deep sky list and make sure I press disconnect on the ipad then turn off the EQ mount in that sequence. If I dont stick to those rules synscan crashes every time. and I should have labelled the post Carina Nebula cheers Paul
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Post by davy.... Shirva.. on May 23, 2019 9:58:30 GMT
Hi Paul,, what's your opinion on the asiair..
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Post by Deleted on May 23, 2019 10:51:16 GMT
Davy,I think it works very well for what I bought it for but you have to be aware of the software limitations.The software is easy to use particularly if you only want single exposures as I do. It is part of my grab and go system , for use in the field in alt/az mode only and I wont be saving images from the sd card to the desktop. The primary purpose of the ASiair is that I wont need a laptop in the field. I probably wont use it at home where I have a laptop and desktop to run sharpcap or risingsky which both do a better job of stacking ,and saving images to hard disk is easier. It has plenty of features that I will never use such as EQ mode and guiding so I cant comment on those.Trevor on Astrobackyard thought it was good for guiding but I have never done it. I have used it twice for videoastronomy and a couple of times during the day to get used to the software so it is early days yet. The images are pretty impressive on the ipad but they can only be saved to the sd card on the ASiair
cheers Paul
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Post by vondragonnoggin on May 24, 2019 11:13:47 GMT
Very nice captures. I love the context framing on that scope.
Although I get slightly different framing with my Night Vision and AT72ED, it is still a nice large swath of sky. Looks great at both F/6 and F/4 (.67x reduction) for me.
I wish I could get some Eta Carina views! Northern Hemisphere and although still Southern US on west coast, still too far north to see it at all. It is visible from Hawaii. Another night vision user has done some great pics of Eta Carina low in the sky from his Hawaii location.
Skywatcher 72ED looks really nice too.
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Post by Deleted on May 24, 2019 11:51:39 GMT
AT72ED and SW72ED specs are almost identical. I have been very happy with the SW. For alt/az I figure I should make it as fast as possible particularly when limited to a single shot of about 20sec max with the ASiair. Great for grab and go but also for when you have a physical injury. It is so light.
Havent thought about NV as yet.I am banned from anymore spending for the near future. cheers Paul
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Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2019 0:07:27 GMT
Have been checking to see if the ASIair software has been upgraded to include the live stacking feature. That hasnt happened yet. ZWO tells us that they are working on it. For videoastronomy, that will be a great feature. At present we are limited to single shots. For me that means a single shot of max 20secs with the SW ED72 on the AZ-GTI out in the field. It is hard for the ASIair to compete at home with live stacking on sharpcap and computers already wired up and ready to go.
A single shot is ok but being able to stack for a minute or 2 would be much better. When I used to take the Mallincam Xtreme out to our dark sky a few years back a 20 sec single shot was all I could manage on an alt/az with no computer and I was happy with the images.I used their previous version wireless menu controller where no laptop computer was needed and a small screen on a stand was all that was required. A laptop out in the field is a real pain .
At present ,the ASIair will take exposures of whatever duration and number you input from the ipad and save them to the sd card on the ASIair. You can preview single exposures only on the ipad. Stacking is done on whatever program you choose to download to on a computer .So it is all post processing and therefore not in the spirit of videoastronomy . So for videoastronomers,we are limited to single exposure previews and await a live stacking feature to be added. cheers Paul
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Post by howie1 on Aug 13, 2019 4:53:00 GMT
I've been looking at the ASI Air myself. If you replace the normal SD card with an EyeFi wifi SD card then the images will save to any Apple/Android/PC. So, bingo, use EyeFi to send the images to a pc running either SharpCap (latest version will accept images lodged in a monitored folder) or AstroToaster. Problem of stacking solved.
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Post by davy on Aug 13, 2019 5:09:42 GMT
Had been​ looking at the asiair myself to cut down on equipment especially with DSLR function now but put off with some folk having bother just now,,still not the finished product yet but getting there,, the WiFi card is a good shout, and if course good old astrotoaster
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Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2019 6:25:19 GMT
At home ,I dont really need the ASIair as I have a laptop/NUC at the telescope connected to desktop and screens in the bungalow via teamviewer and am happy with the setup. The ASIair is for the grab and go out in the field where I dont want to have to setup a laptop with sharpcap. Reasonably happy with the SW ED72 on the AZ-GTI and single shot on ASIair/ipad combo. Live stacking on the ASIair would be the icing on the cake. cheers Paul
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