Adjusting the guider settings

The moon is starting to affect on imaging so I used about an hour to adjust the autoguider settings.

First I used 3 sec unbinned exposures and wondered how the tracking error was about 0.6 to 0.8 pixels. Then I realized that one noisy pixel on the edge of the guide star made the difference. After that I changed to 8 sec exposures and noticed that the error graph changed dramatically with lower noise (or with better SNR). After some fine adjustments of the guider aggressiveness I got the unbinned guider error below 0.5 pixels which is enough for my setup (STL pixel size vs. internal guide chip pixel size).

Finally I changed 2*2 binning to the guider and started to use 5-6 sec exposures and got tracking error to about 0.2 pixels.

This kind of graph I've never seen on my previous EQ-5/6 mounts... So no worries of the mounts performance for this small scope!!

First proper testing of equipment

FINALLY!! After almost two months of clouds and rain there was a clear night!

It took about an hour to align the mount, calibrate the autoguider and make some V-curves for the FocusMax but then was time to start imaging. Everything started to work without a single problem and I was quite relieved. Mount was guiding smoothly (error below 0.3 pixels with internal guider's chip and unbinned).

I aimed the system towards NGC7023 in Cepheus. Took some Luminance and then RGB-channels. But, as usual, the fog came and stopped me after about 4 hours.

Here's LRGB image with about 4hrs of exposure (105:50:50:50 min). L unbinned and RGB binned 2*2.

Here's about the full frame. (BIG one here, >7Mb)









Here's cropped (big one here)

I'll need to take much more Luminance to dig out those darker parts. So there's more to come...

My APM's original focuser was crying trying to carry all the weight of the STL. And it really can't handle it so I've already waiting for Feather Touch's focuser.

Minor progress

Weather has been really awful! During last month there has been two nights with clear sky for longer than 15 minutes.

First one I got the mount polar aligned. I used PAM (polealignmax) which is really easy, fast and precise way to do it. After four runs I had error less than 1 arcsec.

But I noticed that the virtual COM-ports are not so handy to use! When I needed to switch mount control from PAM to MaximDL, I'd had to shut down both programs before I could use the other one. If I tried to disconnect one and connect to another there was an error with the driver. weird...

Last night was the second clear night, but there was a huge storm which cut down the electricity for my observatory too...

Driver update

The weather forecast showed partly cloudy for yesterday evening so I head to the observatory.

I saw stars for about 5 minutes wich after started to snow... So much for my plans for the precise polar alignment!

But, something good because of the clouds! I removed all the hidden COM-ports of my laptop and got the ASCOM-driver working! That's really good news because now I can let the computer do all the hard work of the polar alignment and all that I have to do is rotate the adjustment knobs. And now I don't have to use TheSkyX Pro as a mount control and a planetarium program for the CCDCommander (it's quite heavy for my old observatory computer) because I can do them with the ASCOM. Hopefully weather will get better soon...

First power-up of the mount

My work was keeping me busy and I was away for over 3 weeks. But at this week I had time to power up the mount.

First the bad things: I can't put the dovetail plate holder directly to the mount! There are few skrews which are higher than the underside of the plate holder (they will jam the motion!). I had to lift the dovetail plate holder for about 3mm to prevent it attaching to the skrews.

Ok, this should be figured out when making the mount but this really isn't a big disaster!! I put thick 10mm washers under every locking skrew and that's it!

After figuring that out I put my 80mm APM to the mount and made a rough polar alignment. Then I took some time for visual observing.

I had plans to make precise polar alignment also but I had problems with ASCOM drivers on my laptop. StellarCAT is using virtual COM-ports with USB connection and for some reason my laptop didn't connect to the mount. Everything worked fine with TheSkyX Pro and servocat drivers so no need to worry! But I couldn't use Polealignmax. Hopefully ASCOM drivers will work on my observatory PC.

Mount on pier

Today I had time to place mount on my pier! Job was easier than I thought, I had to make one hole with threads for 8mm skrew. Took about 10 minutes...

The mount is huge comparing to my previous EQ-6. Counterweight bar's diameter is 40mm...

MesuMount2

After over 4 months of waiting I finally got it! Brand new MesuMount2.

The mount is friction driven by stellarcat servomotors and should carry weights up to 100kg. Periodic error should be less than 4 arcsec (peak to peak).

I'll write more when I get first real tests done!