OK, I went a bit full throttle, all the gear, no idea.
Below is the gear i have, after a frustrating few nights, cable issues, alignment, weighting, tracking, blah blah.
Gear
Mount
HeQ5 Pro
Camera
ZWO 2600pro
Scope
William Orbit Zenith 73 + Flattener
Svbony SV165 Finder scope
Other
PC - Mele Mini 4x
Ive got to the point I need a break from even trying.
I also have a Sony a6700 with the correct connections to attached WO 73 scope.
Can I realistically shoot anything of note without the tracking mount? If so what would you suggest to start?
I really want to just have some fun and process some images that I can be happy with.
Based on your listing of alignment issues, you seem to be using the sysnscan app. Instead look into eqmod and nina. Eqmod replaces synscan to connect your mount to nina. With nina, you can polar align with the three point polar alignment plug in and allows you to use your camera to platesolve which fixes alignment. You will need another piece of software called astap for platesolving. There are many good resources on YouTube to learn more about these softwares.
Again, you'll want to look into: -eqmod -nina -astap
I have a really similar setup and also a much higher focal length scope. The one with the high focal length makes me feel just like you're feeling, exasperated and over it. But each time I try I get closer to getting decent results. On the contrary, when I use the setup that is like yours I always get great results. So you'll get there, you just need time and some good results mixed in. Personally I have that camera and love it and would not suggest using a DSLR as it seems others are recommending bc the 2600 is just as easy to shoot with and even easier, though you do need to get decent at using NINA or something for that. The good news is the legacy scheduler in NINA is dead simple and will do just great for your needs, and you can practice during the day or on crap weather nights. That's what I would suggest. What issues can we help you with? People in the community are a great resource!
Good news is you have a great inventory to build a powerful rig for the near future if you want to restart your journey now with only a few of those items. Learning to use the mount is a super important step and takes time and patience.
Consider setting up the mount with just your DSLR. Get polar aligned manually as best you can with the polar scope, or even a compass to eyeball your pole position.
Then do a GoTo with the SynScan app on your phone or hand controller if you have, for an object in your visible sky. Right now there's The Pleiades or Orion Nebula that a should be easy to get centered enough to grab a few shots with your DSLR using the internal delay timer.
Go from there
I've experienced same emotions. But it was with AZ-mount, weak cables, etc. Nothing worked correctly. So one day I tried to shoot just with DSLR and tripod, without tracking and guiding - M42 and M31, and it worked. After that I began to complicate my setup, step by step. That worked too.
Might be best to break it down and work each step individually. Create milestones for yourself.
Nice scope, but unforgiving for tracking if you're new. You could always hook up the Sony if you have adapters and do some quick moon shots, get a planet if you can - saturn and Jupiter can be satisfying even if you only resolve some ring shape or moons. Eventually attach the ZWO and work the software on simple targets like that.
Polar align, take photos right from where your scope is and test your tracking ability without guiding.
Just practice the steps and work up to full guiding, is my advice. I'm barely starting guiding this winter and while I would have preferred to jump in with a rig like yours, starting smaller and simpler has provided a good learning curve. The computer software and getting going with guiding is enough right now for me to chew on.
William Orbit? Clearly you have good taste in music . 10/10 for making me giggle mate!
If you want to DM me on Discord @sunsparcsolaris, I can do a voice chat/screen share with you sometime to work through your issues that you're having.
I have my rig fully automated with only two cables going from below the tripod up to the mount and up to the camera end. Everything USB is plugged into either my MeLe mini PC or WanderBox Plus (Power and USB). I take my rig outside, polar align it, then program and run sequence. It takes me about 15 minutes total.
EQ6-R Pro mount
294MC camera
SV503 70ED scope
SV165 guide scope with 120MM-Mini guide camera
What led you to go down this path? And if you think this is difficult, wait till you try post processing deep sky images (not trying to scare you off). If this is too much, there are simpler ways to image the deep sky.
Most of the images in my astro gallery were made with trackers that do not need autoguiding, nor computers to operate. I can setup in a few minutes, polar align with a cell phone in a couple of minutes, and go to objects with a hand paddle selection in less than a minute and start imaging (with no computers), all in under about 10 minutes. Minimal battery power too (a small usb battery) for the mount and a stock camera battery. There are also simpler ways at post processing.
Or you can go even simpler and buy a smart telescope. There are now many to choose from. Set it outside and control it from a phone or tablet.
Best thing I can recommend is to break it down into milestones. I'm still just starting out but one night the entire goal of the evening was to just to have my guidance system work. I spent the whole night just doing guidance, took a few pictures by the end but that just felt like icing. Another evening prior to that was just getting everything aligned and slewing to different targets to get faith in the system. Just break it down into small bites and it is much more enjoyable.
i spent a whole week re-inventing drift alignment cause the polar scope was too frustrating.
What you need is a powerd USB 3 hub. I use an Anker one. Mount it on the tripod base, all long wires, no cable snags.
Nothing projects on tripod legs to snag the wires.
A mini pier, if you do not have one, to prevent mount collision.
Set up gear before sunset, roughly pointing to Polaris. Use cell phone and Stellarium or skysafari to get 0 degrees north before putting the scope. If possible, install a red dot finder. Point left of Polaris by about ⅛th of an inch.
For TPPA, start from current position, east ON, bin 2x2, about 10 seconds (even 5 will work), gain 150.
Once it is done, work with PHD2. Calibration assistant. Then, guiding assistant. Accept all settings and start guiding on any place in the sky. Get used to it. You can use NINA sky Atlas to select a target.
Try NINA sequencer. You can also download patriot astro's advanced sequencer and use the DSO template to start.
All the best.
It takes a little time.
Why would they want to use a USB hub? He's already got a mini PC with more than enough USB ports.
They also need to avoid the advanced sequencer until the legacy one is giving good results.
They definitely do not need guiding yet and the giant cluster f*ck phd2 and its calibration assistant. It is my nemesis. A beginner should skip any guiding nonsense until they're to the point they need it for longer exposures.
And a pier?
I guess you guys forget that you don't start off with all the bells and whistles. You need to learn how to drive a car in a parking lot before you worry about competing in f1.
I mount my powered usb hub and an Anderson power pole hub on the tube itself along with the dew heater controller. I run one power cable and one USB 3 cable up to the tube. Everything else is on a shelf under the tripod.
Great advise! Once running you can also set up the Plate Solver.
This hobby has a learning curve that is nearly straight vertical and goes on for years. That is part of the charm for a lot of us. Honestly, when everything is running perfectly and I just have to sit back and watch the subs roll in, I have a tiny bit less fun. Problem solving is almost part of the fun.
You have a good camera, a decent scope and mount, and basically everything you need to take good images (I don’t see any guiding equipment listed, this would help with tracking and getting longer exposures). The rest comes with some patience, some trial and error, and accepting failures while taking them as opportunities to learn what to try differently next time rather than just seeing them as wasted nights. This hobby is hard, welcome to the rabbit hole!
The weather can make a big difference I must say. I love tinkering but I wish the nights I had to troubleshoot were the 60 degree nights instead of the sub freezing ones hahah
Ok I get your frustration. It’s such a technical hobby but when you dial it in it’s amazing. I’m not familiar with the interface you’re using but there are lots of tutorials on YouTube. I’m not sure where you’re having problems. Guiding, mount issues etc. once you get the little things ironed out you won’t have much to change moving forward. Peter Zelinka has good resources on YouTube. Cuiv the lazy geek too. Loads of tutorials. Good luck and clear skies.
Attack your issues one at a time and start from the ground. Figure out NINA first, that’s your base and it’s what you’ll use to control everything.
Next should be your mount, this can be done in your house. You bought the mount so you should be using it. The learning curve can be steep, but you can learn how to use your mount on cloudy days, in broad daylight, in the rain, because you can do this inside.
Next focus on the camera and the telescope, those are really your final piece. Cable management things like that can still be done inside before you ever carry the rig outside.
Lastly, remember you have to suck at something before you can ever become even slightly good at it. Every night you go out helps and even if you spend all night troubleshooting, while it may be disappointing just remember that you are actively learning
Patience my man! You will run into something every time you go out, or maybe that is just me? As you work through issues you learn and get better.
FWIW I found the ASIAIR much easier to learn and use than a PC based approach, such as Sharpcap. Everything you need in one app on your phone instead of six programs, eleventeen driver upgrades, and plenty of Windows headaches just for fun. Its not as powerful as, say, NINA, but for us beginners it gets you into the game sooner so you can gain confidence and skills. THEN you can move on to more sophisticated applications if you like.
The thing is that it gets easier every time you do a session, because you get faster and better at everything. But even when you've been at it a while you still have some nights where everything goes wrong, and other nights where everything works out perfectly.
But you should probably be a bit more specific about what problems you have if you want help; like are you having issues with NINA, wifi, polar alignment, Remote Desktop, PHD2, etc?
I'd say, to simplify things, you might be better off lowering your expectations in the beginning before you start a session, like just decide that you want to set everything up and make sure everything works. And maybe just try to get a few shots of the Orion Nebula or something.
I personally like to keep my rig 100% set up, and just haul it out the door, so I never have to worry about balancing, or calibrating in PHD2 every time.
Document each step and create a playbook for setup. Less to think about each time. Took me a few tries to get my first pictures
Document each step and create a playbook for setup. Less to think about each time. Took me a few tries to get my first pictures.
Can you describe in detail exactly what your issues are? It sounds like you maybe didn't do a lot of research before buying your equipment. You're complaining about alignment, but that has to be done every time you setup. If you're using the polar scope, look into plate solving instead. By weighting I assume you mean balancing? Again, that needs to be done every time you setup. And I'm not sure why you are complaining about tracking. The mount does that on its own. Unless you mean guiding.
If you are getting this frustrated by the bare minimum, you may want to return/sell your stuff and buy a smart telescope.
It took me three different attempts across three nights before I was able to get my first images.
Cabling, balance, focus, polar alignment and guiding. I have an ASIAir and that didn’t make me feel any less frustrated.
Keep at it. At least you are using a fairly wide field setup, which tends to be more forgiving when it comes to tracking the stars.
Second this. The first week or so with my first rig was all troubleshooting. You can't expect to be an expert at something this technical from the start. It jus takes time and practice.
It's really worth at least putting the telescope on the tracking mount, pointing the mount roughly north, and turning it on.
For example, if you are shooting the Andromeda galaxy, if you are not tracking at all, the stars drift at 450 arcseconds per minute. If you get the tracking mount pointing within even twenty degrees of Polaris and turn it on, it cuts that number in half.
Not sure I understand when you say without the tracking mount? The heq5 is a tracking mount.
Otherwise what's the issue you're running into?
Just each step I have come to a blocker which has took time, I understand its a process to learn which im trying.
First it was getting the right connections, then connecting to the mount, then polar aligning. Lots to learn.
I want to give it another go, but just wondering if I can go to a simple setup the next clear night where I can actually get out there and see something/ take some shots.
Maybe Im not explaining myself.
I was at the same point.
I can give you two contradicting pieces of advice:
- Keep it simple, add one piece of equipment at a time. Guiding i.e. improves images, but is not strictly necessary.
- Use Nina, Three Point Polar Align and Green Swamp Server.
For Nina there is an excellent video series by Cuiv, starting with https://youtu.be/3FMqeQ-HYRo
I know from experience that trying to do it without tracking makes everything else a lot harder (this is how I started). Since you already have a tracking mount, I would start there.
Set everything up inside/during the day, and just get the mount working. Once you can control the mount via the PC, and get it to point in different directions, then that's the mount mostly sorted.
While it's all set up, take pictures of how it's set up to make it easier to rebuild later. In particular, make sure they show all the connections, how the wires are routed, and where the weights are (this will make balancing easier if you already have an idea of where they should be). You can also just practice taking it apart and rebuilding it while waiting for a clear night.
Another thing you can do during the day is get the basics of the camera sorted. Connect it to the PC, and point it somewhere far away (~1km should do) during the day. You can practice the process of getting an image, and you can get it roughly in focus so it'll be easier/faster to find focus at night.
When you actually get a clear night, building on the stuff mentioned above, the first thing to get sorted is polar alignment. I highly recommend using NINAs three star polar align tool, which is actually quite easy. To start, just point it roughly north (with a compass/your phone) and get the altitude roughly set. Then let the tool do its thing; it'll take some images in 3 different places, then take more on a loop. It will tell you exactly how far off you are, and even give you plain instructions on fixing it ("move right", for example). Make an adjustment, wait ~5 secs for it to update, then repeat until you have good alignment.
At that point, you'll be able to manually slew to wherever you want and start imaging, with tracking good enough to make it easy to get results. To go further, I'd sort out plate solving next, which is something you set up in NINA once and then it should just work. This will allow you to tell it where to go, it will go there, take an image, then work out how close it is, then automatically correct itself, so you're always on target. After that, I'd look into the sequencer. This is where you can get the whole imaging run automated, so you don't have to babysit it. And by that point, you'd have the basics down and should be able to get great results hassle free.
You can get almost everything (but plate solving and PHD2 guiding) setup and ready in daylight or under clouds. So concentrate on that.
Have you yet reached the point where NINA can slew the mount to a target?
This takes a lot of time to learn. As others have also experienced it took me multiple attempts before an image I was truly happy with. I suggest watching videos from Peter Zelinka and others that have great tutorials on astrophotography. You will NOT get a perfect image on your first few attempts, it is inevitable. This is a hobby learned with experience. However once you get your first image you’ll have learned a lot and will be motivated to keep going. Out of curiosity, what software are you using to control the mount?
It doesn't sound like you understand it's a process.
You have an HEQ5, what's the issue with it?
You can shoot the moon.