NINA software, weather, and a bit of a rant.

[Star Dad]

Not really sure where to post this but this is probably as good a spot as any. Weather forecast for last night was clear and shiny. ALL night. First time in 9 weeks. So I set up and used NINA for the first time. Well, NINA would not save my sequences. Today after 2 hours I figured out that it was trying to put the sequence in G:\\ which apparently the system did not like. Changing it to G:\ works fine. OK, so I get set up and, of course, the laptop crashed and lost my sequences. Put them back in - whilst my hands are freezing. Got polar aligned no problem. Got focus - for some reason super easy. And then payback came with a vengeance. The guide camera is not working - that is - it is communicating, but it's not uploading the images to PHD2. Waste 30 minutes plugging and unplugging connectors, restarting NINA, restarting PHD2. Nothing. Well, you all know - the first thing tech support would say is REBOOT. So in desperation I did. Enter into NINA just the first object, slew, start PHD2 and the camera works fine. <whew> I thought I had a $300 block of shiny red camera. So, start the sequencing and everything is looking good. So try to add the other objects - no joy. Once NINA starts sequencing you can't add anything else to it. Go inside and wait for 2 hours. Now the temp is dropping even more, but I get the sequences entered (though still not saved). Go back inside watch a movie. Go out to check the sequence is doing it's thing - apparently it is. Back inside - waiting to see if the scope is going to slew to it's new target and check on it when it is supposed to - and it doesn't. - since the image is showing an almost all white - no stars. Oh, it's looking at the house. Oh, there's more settings to set (like auto slew, center, etc). It's working fine now. Check on it in 20 minutes and again it looks like the image is all white - but the scope is pointing where it should. Take a peek outside and look up. Solid clouds. Check my weather app - nope clear skies. WTF? OK, maybe this is just an anomaly - I've seen it happen before. It's now 0130. Go inside make some popcorn and start a movie and at 0200 I check the weather outside again. Still clouds. Well, that's it then for the night - pack up and quit.

I did get some images at least. But dang, it was a rough night. Tonight is supposed to be clear as well - in the "for what it's worth" department. I'll set up again and hope things go better tonight.

[Gordon]

My first few experiences with NINA were similar. What I discovered was to set everything (mount cameras etc etc) inside, during the day and play. Try using the "Sky Atlas" feature and select the objects that are going to be visible that night. You can then, "add target to sequence", setup your sequence and save it. Then that night you can just click on the saved sequence and have a good starting point.

Getting everything dialed in and talking to one another is a challenge but by doing a trial run, inside during the day, you can get most of the bugs worked out.

Now clouds, I don't think I can help you with.....

[Star Dad]

YAY! Last night was truly cloud free. But I ran into a couple of problems. I set the meridian flip at 180 degrees. I waited outside to see it do the flip - about 12 minutes. It performed the flip but then the plate solver kept failing saying it didn't have enough stars. So I upped the exposure time to 20 seconds then to a minute. Then it just said it failed. Looking at the guide camera's images there were a ton of stars visible in the 1.5 second range. WTF? I finally decided to shut NINA down and when I did that the EQASCOM program window was revealed and it was blinking that the mount was at the meridian flip (even though it physically was not). Ah, so that was the problem! OK, I slewed the mount back to the park position and then started up the NINA sequence. All was well. I tried dithering for the first time and I had not expected it to take so long - about 35 seconds per image. That's a lot of wasted time in a 2 minute exposure per image. I hope it is worth it. As I'm sure many of you know, I don't get many clear night per month (theoretically 4 - but lately it's been very scarce), so losing imaging time is a big deal for me. I've got cloudy skies for the next few days, so we'll see how the processing goes. So I've now learned that if I use dithering I need to add extra time per sequence and make sure that the scope stays pointing at the sky throughout the sequence. Always something new to learn.

[Graeme1858]

Well you can't add a sequence when a sequence is running but you can play with the Sky Atlas as Gordon says and search for stuff. Then you can send ideas to the Framing Assistant and play about with the composition, rotation or maybe build a mosaic.

As for dithering, I do mine every 3rd frame, that might save you some time.

How did you get on with the Polar Alignment? My brain works well with numbers, I found it the easiest PA tool I've used.

Regards

Graeme

[Juno16]

My first few experiences with NINA were similar. What I discovered was to set everything (mount cameras etc etc) inside, during the day and play. Try using the "Sky Atlas" feature and select the objects that are going to be visible that night. You can then, "add target to sequence", setup your sequence and save it. Then that night you can just click on the saved sequence and have a good starting point.

Getting everything dialed in and talking to one another is a challenge but by doing a trial run, inside during the day, you can get most of the bugs worked out.

Now clouds, I don't think I can help you with.....

Spot on Gordon. I had the rig set up in the house for a week before getting out with NINA for the first time this weekend. Sure glad that I did. Worked out a lot of if’, and’s, and buts. Can even load an image and plate solve. My first time trying ASTAP and it is a 2 second wonder!

@Star Dad 35 second dithers are pretty good! Sometimes mine are 45 seconds to flat line. Like Graeme said, every third frame works well.

[Star Dad]

Thanks guys - I will try every third frame then. I do polar alignment using Polemaster. So I didn't use NINA for that. Now I find that my weakest link is my focus.. so I'm researching into getting an autofocuser which seems to be a bit of a trial. The most promising I've found is the https://pegasusastro.com/products/focuscube-2/, but it doesn't say it works online, so I've sent them an email.

I am more than willing to take suggestions for an auto-focuser. I have the Orion 8" f4.9 fl1000mm original focuser. But I have installed the low profile dual speed focuser part # 13036 https://www.telescope.com/catalog/produ ... tId=102292.

[Gordon]

Yes, you can operate it via the ASCOM drivers using a computer/USB cable. It appears to be exactly the same as the ZWO EAF with a different color.

[Juno16]

I’m sure the Pegasus is a fine product, but all that I have owned is the ASI EAF. The EAF is 2/3 the cost.
The EAF is also ascom and works perfectly with NINA. Not sure what you mean by online. Teamviewer, Remote Desktop or AnyDesk? I use the EAF with NINA and PHD2 with Teamviewer and I’m sure it and the Pegasus will work with any of the remote desktop apps.

[Star Dad]

Ach - by online I meant there is no reference to it working with an Orion scope on their website (aka online).

I went ahead and bought it. I finally wrote to Pegasus in frustration and asked if it was compatible. I got an email back within 10 minutes asking for a picture of the focuser. I took one and got an answer back in about an hour. Complete with pictures, circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back (sorry, that's a reference to an Arlo Guthry song). But no kidding - detailed pictures with exactly what to do to mount their system on my focuser. I must say that I am VERY impressed with their service. I ordered it from HighPoint yesterday around noontime and it showed up this morning. WOW! A new toy and maybe some clear skies are finally showing up.

[OzEclipse]

Weather apps have weather models sitting behind them. The model is usually the product of a government organisation, the app takes the model publication and puts it into an easily digested graphical format.

Most models attempt to model the whole world. What you need to do is trial a group of apps using a variety of models and test their reliability against prediction of your local weather conditions.

I am in central west New South Wales Australia. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology has a model called ACCESS which works great for convective weather systems near the coast. To be fair, something like 80-90% of the population lives within 100km of the coast. But it doesn't predict cloud nearly as well for my area. However, the European Community Model, ECFWM predicts cloud with very good accuracy and so I use a website backed by ECFWM
as my preferred weather "app."