My 12" F/4 GSO astrograph
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Re: My 12" F/4 GSO astrograph
Refractors: ES AR152 f/6.5 Achromat on Twilight II, Celestron 102mm XLT f/9.8 on Celestron Heavy Duty Alt Az mount, KOWA 90mm spotting scope
Binoculars: Celestron SkyMaster 15x70, Bushnell 10x50
Eyepieces: Various, GSO Superview, 9mm Plossl, Celestron 25mm Plossl
Camera: ZWO ASI 120
Naked Eye: Two Eyeballs
Latitude: 48.7229° N
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Re: My 12" F/4 GSO astrograph
Mounts: SW: SkyTee2, AzGTi; iOptron: AZMP; ES: Twilight I; Bresser: EXOS2; UA: MicroStar.
Binos: APM: 100-90 APO; Canon: IS 15x50; Orion: Binoviewer, LG II 15x70, WV 10x50, Nikon: AE 16x50, 10x50, 8x40.
EPs: Pentax: XWs & XFs; TeleVue: Delites, Delos, Panoptic & Plossls; ES: 68, 62; Vixen: SLVs; Baader: BCOs, Aspherics, Mark IV.
Diagonals: Baader: BBHS mirror, Zeiss Spec T2 prism, Clicklock dielectric; TeleVue: Evebrite dielectric; AltairAstro: 2" prism.
Filters: Lumicon: DeepSky, UHC, OIII, H-beta; Baader: Moon & SkyGlow, Contrast Booster, UHC-S, 6-color set; Astronomik: UHC.
Solar: HA: Lunt 50mm single stack, W/L: Meade Herschel wedge.
Observing: DSOs: 3122 (Completed: Messier, Herschel 1, 2, 3. In progress: H2,500: 2196, S110: 77). Doubles: 2461, Comets: 34, Asteroids: 261
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Re: My 12" F/4 GSO astrograph
Yes the spring loaded worms and look of the OnStep controller definitely have my signature on it, lol. It's fun to go the cheapskate route and add DIY features but of course this adds more to be debugged.
The spring loaded worms are something that comes standard with Losmandy mounts now. I did not want to send my mount back so I DIY-ed it in my own way. The outer bottom screw is loose so the sheet metal clamp pushes the worm in, and the spring pushes the worm tangentially. This is what users would do when adjusting the worm manually except it is now done constantly without tightening the screws. It fixed the binding issues that I had, which were a major PITA beyond my own fault (unless you believe that a mount should be sloppy and counterweighted).
The OnStep controller is a very simple one, it just takes care of the motors and Bluetooth (cell phone for a hand controller) none of the extra stuff. I let Ekos add the high level features such as setting the time/location, alignment plate solving, guiding, planetarium control, etcetera. It works very well IMHO. Mine have TMC2130 stepper driver boards with mode switching. I have yet to find out if this system limits the resolution. This scope will let me find out pretty quick what the issues are, if any.
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Re: My 12" F/4 GSO astrograph
- I had not checked the collimation since Agena Astro said they did it (it was probably OK)
- I did not put my Paracorr 2 CC on it yet, while the image clearly needed it at
- It was rather windy and not super clear, somewhat humid higher up I think
- I had to get the new
- I was working with my trusted Fuji X-a1 that I cannot control from Ekos (no gPhoto support)
- Aligning the guider with my camera was therefore a pain
- Astroberry did not pre-install the index files so only the online astro.net worked
The stats are
- Fuji X-a1 @ 6400 ISO, G11S, OnStep, Ekos,
- 87x58 s lights, 15 flats
Unfortunate side effects:
- Huge gradients that I had to remove. What’s up with my camera or the
- Blurry stars since the guiding had a total RMS of 2” to 3” (!! ugh it did not even fit on the scale)
If I had
Here’s the
The jump in this image is because I re-centered after the first couple of shots. Here you can see the
You can also see the fat stars. Some of it is due to the wind, no doubt. But I never fully debugged this in Ekos. What I may do tonight is just run the autoguider by itself – no scope. Then test all the autoguiders included in Ekos: The native one, PHD2 and lin_guider. I could not find any adjustments for the internal guider other than the size of the box. The other two have several parameters so I will play around with them tonight. Hopefully this is not due to the OnStep controller (stepper motors, driver boards) or the G11S with the DIY spring loaded worms.
I will also insert the
Plenty of things to try and improve on. Anyway this was the first light, I have some work to do and will continue in other threads once things are dialed in.
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Re: My 12" F/4 GSO astrograph
cameras : asi 1600mm-c/asi1600mm-c,asi120mc,prostar lp guidecam, nikkon d60, sony a7,asi 290 mm
mounts : eq6 pro/eq8/mesu 200 v2
filters : 2'' astronomik lp/badder lrgb h-a,sII,oIII,h-b,Baader Solar Continuum, chroma 3nm ha,sii,oiii,nii,rgb,lowglow,uv/ir,Thousand Oaks Solar Filter,1.25'' #47 violet,pro planet 742 ir,pro planet 807 ir,pro planet 642 bp ir.
extras : skywatcher f4 aplanatic cc, Baader MPCC MKIII Coma Corrector,Orion Field Flattener,zwo 1.25''adc.starlight maxi 2" 9x filter wheel,tele vue 2x barlow .
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Re: My 12" F/4 GSO astrograph
Thanks Rob. I see several options that I want explore running with just a guide scope, no
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