That’s a very good R^2!! I always run auto focus before an imaging run to ensure I’m properly in focus and this is due to temperature change and how the OTA is affected. The last step position of the focuser will be known, but there is always a variance due to temperature :)

yes you can use your horizon in stellarium I did that to hunt targets in my FOV

Yes, I use CdC because it doesn’t put such a load on the mini-PC. In NINA under Options>Equipment, there is an option to choose Cartes du Ciel from a drop-down planetarium list. You can then search for and select an object in CdC, and then in NINA’s Framing tab, you can pull in the coordinates from the planetarium (CdC). Alternatively you can pull the coordinates straight into the basic sequence planner, the advanced sequence planner or even the Target Scheduler plug-in.

Very good question! I used to run after so much time, however this led to unnecessary auto focus runs. Here’s what I mean and the easiest way to explain/understand it. When you line up your camera sensor the focal plane, you are at focus. There is a zone called the critical focal zone and this is your camera sensor perfectly lined up with the focal plane. Being here is the smallest your stars can be (lowest possible HFR number). As the night goes on, the reason you need to refocus is temperature. As the temperature drops, your OTA shrinks which in turn, pulls the focal plane away from the camera sensor thus the camera sensor leaving the critical focal zone. The same goes for temperature increasing, but the OTA expands. So why not do auto focus after temperature change or number of frames? Frame count won’t affect the critical focal zone. As I mentioned earlier, temperature causes this. Running auto focus after temperature change would be good, but what is the expansion/contraction rate of your OTA with specific temperature changes and how will that affect your HFR? Running with HFR increase is monitoring the HFR of the stars which is a direct reflection of temperature change and doing it this way will ensure your HFR (overall focus quality) doesn’t get too bad by a miscalculation. I hope that makes sense and helps :)

@@Hidden.Light.Photography The OTA on both scopes is carbon fiber. The C11 (Celestron) is metal....I don't see a temperature probe on my EAF so I will indirectly measure the tube size after say every 30 minutes or 10 subs at 3 minutes each,.,.,,

Thank you! Are you currently using auto focus or looking into it?

@@Hidden.Light.Photography I have installed 3 ZWO EAFs on 3 of my scopes

Thank you! I figured this is a good place to start with expanding on auto guiding :)

Thank you and awesome setup!! Just to make sure I understand correctly, is it the Pegasus Focus Cube that is sometimes not recognized by NINA? In regards to your filter wheel, what filters do you have installed?

Thank you and awesome job!! Welcome to the hobby and also welcome to the community! I’m very happy to hear this helped out and please do not hesitate to ask any questions you have :)

It can be fun to get set up and working plus you need a good guide camera to be able to pick up the stars from the prism. One thing I don’t like is that the OAG takes up back focus so if you’re running a setup with no room to spare you either run a guide scope or give up an accessory. They can be very useful though if you have the room and get it set up and running correctly. An OAG video is on my list to create. Are you running OAG?

@@Hidden.Light.Photography Not yet. Still in the process of over-thinking my future rig. Thanks for your videos!

Do you know what you want to run for an OTA, camera and accessories?

Awesome! Keep me posted how you’re doing with it and if you need help :)

@@Hidden.Light.Photography sounds good! Most likely Wednesday night is my one clear night for about 5 days, so I’m just going to start my night with no expectations just focusing on a good autofocus, Polar alignment and guiding. It’s a slow process but so worth it

Sounds like a good plan :) There’s not much that can be done for image quality with the current weather, but the few breaks we get is, as you mentioned, good times to getting gear to work correctly.

Lol great catch! EQMOD was very short lived for me due to disconnection issues. Great software though when it stayed connected. It would be a fun experience imaging that high up though wouldn’t it?

@@Hidden.Light.Photography I have never had any issues with EQMOD and the limits is great when you can figure it out. GSS didn't work well for me on my EQ8-R and I went back to EQMOD. The EQ8-R has been retired now.. Piece of shit it was. I visited Chile over Christmas was was at 3500 meters up in the Andes. Awesome skies.

I agree EQMOD was very impressive when it would stay connected for me. I’m sorry to hear about the EQ8-R. What seemed to be the issue with it? I bet the skies were incredible! I’m very happy you got to do that :)

@@Hidden.Light.Photography Like a lot of the bigger SkyWatcher mounts, it had terrible Dec backlash that almost needed an engineering degree to try to fix it. It was just generally a piece of junk. I traded it in on a 10 micron mount and have never looked back.

Oh wow, that’s frustrating :( I was seeing the encoders on the 10 micron don’t necessarily need guiding. Are you running without guiding and if so, how is it?

Which program are you using to stack and what does your workflow look like? Yea, I would love that to test. Can you email me at [email protected]?

@@Hidden.Light.Photography you have got mail :)

Thank you! Replied :)

Thank you! I’m going off of memory here and will confirm when I get back to my computer, but it should be in the options tab on the far left of the screen and then mount/telescope. Let me know if you find it otherwise I will confirm as soon as I’m home from work :)

Very good subject! I will add that to the series list and get the video out asap. We need a nice calm night with a few hours of time to let it run :)

@@Hidden.Light.Photography looking forward to it my friend. Clear and calm skies to you.

Thank you! Clear and calm skies to you as well :)

I know what you mean. We went from tons of clouds to monsoon season so I am going crazy waiting for a good night to get out there lol. Great workflow you just described. Use the focuser controls manually to get in focus. I like to zoom in on a star and get it as small as possible. You’ll get to a point where you’ll learn your equipment enough to know how many steps to move depending on how the stars look :) Follow up with TPPA then calibrate guider and end with autofocus. Follow this video to determine your step size and backlash compensation. Take an image to see your star size and manually enter a step size to see how much the star grows. Only move in one direction so you don’t go into backlash and distort the number. Enter the number you determined for step size to start with and run autofocus to see what your backlash is. Set backlash to overshoot and enter the number you determined on only one side and then dial in your step size from there. You’re more than welcome to get screenshots as you go and send them to me and I can assist :)

@@Hidden.Light.Photography awesome info! I wrote it all down! Thanks again. Only problem I have now is my Pegasus Astro v3 keeps shutting off, even after I changed out cords and did an update

You are very welcome! How are you connecting the V3 in NINA? In other words, I’m running my rotator and flat panel through Unity Platform within NINA.

@@Hidden.Light.Photography yes, that’s what I am doing as well. I tried the focuser with Stellarmate and it’s working perfectly, so must be some setting in NINA

I apologize for the delay on this, I was doing some research. NINA can sometimes be a bit picky with certain drivers. Have you heard of ASCOM Alpaca?

Very good topics! I will add these to my list and get them out asap :)

I am very excited to see where this process goes! Do me a favor. Try running DeepSNR at the very start of your workflow as the first item and let me know if this allows it to work. The image in working on in this video is a OSC

@@Hidden.Light.Photography I ran Deepsnr right after stacking but still no good result.

Just to confirm, you copied both files from the DeepSNR download and pasted in the PixInsight BIN folder? Also, how do you do your stacking and what file type is it?

@@Hidden.Light.Photography Yup, it works but don’t like the result. I stack with Siril and use 32bit fits files. I don’t like what it does to the background. It takes noise and makes little stars of it.

That’s not good. It might be the way Siril is stacking and preprocessing the image. Unfortunately this may be one that needs to be fully developed before using. There are some quirks using my OSC data as well which is done through WBPP in PixInsight that cause me to have to run DeepSNR in the very beginning for best results. I do truly believe it’s worth the wait for this process seeing the absolute potential already.

I agree with you as I also normally will use NoiseX just enough to reduce noise, but will leave a bit of noise in the image as well as I demonstrate in my NoiseX video. The reason I presented this way is due to issues with DeepSNR when actually leaving a bit of noise by reducing the slider. Doing this results in a sloppy outcome that is hard to recover from, but this is due to the process still being developed as well as not entirely meant for OSC. When using NoiseX, the detail retained is too smoothed out and the detail is unable to fully recover no matter the noise level set. DeepSNR will reduce the noise completely and still retain the detail which is what we are ultimately after. With that, I do want to revisit this once DeepSNR is fully developed and have a true comparison of its potential. This will be able to allow both to be compared at all levels of performance. Hope that makes sense :)

You are correct in that they are designed to do the same thing. I’m extremely excited for DeepSNR to be fully developed and be able to do a true comparison at all levels. I think once DeepSNR is fully done, it will outperform NoiseX in every single way. I absolutely love the detail that’s retained by it that NoiseX just can’t hold onto.

Thank you!

Thank you! The thumbnail is SH2-155 Cave Nebula and within the video is NGC 2264 Christmas Tree Complex.

Absolutely! Keep them in an order you’ll remember and program NINA or the software you’re using with the order you have them :) Have you been doing mono long?

Great question. Unfortunately, I believe Green Swamp Server is only compatible with EQ mounts.

Thank you! Have you used the advanced sequencer before or just getting into it?

​@@Hidden.Light.Photography Spent my working life at an Observatory. Retired and now can get into the fun stuff and some photometry. I enjoy your channel. Thanks.

That’s very exciting and I would love to hear some stories if you have any you’d like to share :) you can email me any time if you want. I’m also very happy you’re enjoying the channel!

I’m very happy GSS resolved your issues! I was forced into SynScan in the early stages of EQMOD and eventually found a driver issue causing the problem of needing to connect to SynScan before EQMOD. After resolving that, I was able to connect to EQMOD without using SynScan, but could never resolve the disconnect issues. What mount do you have GSS driving?

Thank you and very good question! All linear fit is trying to do is level the brightness of the images with each other. I have a couple of tutorials where I go through my workflow and how I explain this step is when you’re using a OSC camera you’ll have a tint to it (blue, green or red). It’s hard to see what you’re doing due to this tint and as you can get rid of it through background extraction and a couple of other processes, I separate my channels and use linear fit because this is a beginning stages of color balancing, but the main goal is it gets rid of the tint without affecting the data much. This will then give you an idea of the data’s potential (which is how I word it in my tutorials). As far as highest vs lowest, I have tried it both ways and haven’t noticed a difference in the amount of noise present in the image afterward, although it would make for an interesting video to deep dive into this :) Yes, using the brighter image (higher mean ADU value will brighten the other images that this is applied to, but again, in my workflow I will take care of this within GHS as a first step within GHS. I prefer using brighter with linear fit as it helps me to see what dimmer details may be present that I would like to try to bring out if the data allows. This is preference though for my case. I hope this makes sense, it great question!!

@@Hidden.Light.Photography I thank you so much for your accurate response. I find it super interesting to be able to exchange views on these tiniest details. I think these subtleties in the end are what makes the difference between user who applies processes randomly and one who really knows what he is doing. A comparison on a good dataset would actually be interesting! Ignorantly I had always used an STF with unlinked channels to “hide” the dominant hue when viewing the raw data and delegated the actual removal to the SPCC. But logically using an initial linear fit could also be useful to assist the other processes before SPCC. Thank you again!

I appreciate that! I will start the preparations for a video comparing the two. Would you mind if I credited you for the idea?

@@Hidden.Light.Photography That's great. Thank you very much again! Yes yes, no problem for sure!

Perfect! I will let you know when it’s created and ready to launch :)

Great question! Yes, I’m using a OSC camera for this example. It’s a little bit out of bounds of the software’s intention and also accounts for the quirk of the behavior causing it to need to be run early on. I’m in progress of a follow up video going more in depth with it. I did see that it’s not working for you. Can you describe the workflow that you’re using from start to the point of running it?

I agree with you there. The sliders do work to an extent in NoiseXterminator but create other issues. I’m in process of a video going over that as well as go more in depth with deepsnr.

I have some videos in progress for the AVX :) The AVX is actually set up in my studio as we speak

Great new tool. It didn’t work on my RGB images captured with an OSC camera. Should they be captured via a monochrome camera or do I need to split the channels for it to work?

@@AstroIsland Can you be more specific? It didn't work as in you can't install it? It won't open? Or it does nothing to your image?

@@yervantparnagian5999 sure. The image remains noisy after running the script on my OSC images

You are very welcome and thank you! Great find!!

Are you running on linear data or none linear?

Just to make sure, you downloaded the correct PixInsight version? If so, the software is still being developed, so I’m sure they are going to correct it. It looks like there is an instagram profile listed under “about me” on the website as well. I might reach out and mention this so if they aren’t aware, they can address it :)

Thank you! Hey, we’ve all started somewhere and we’ve all been in that situation, if not similar! Want to know why I have that part in my video? I was in the same situation and when I figured it out, I had the same reaction lol. Glad this helped! Have you been able to get the scope out and try it yet?

Thank you! Yes, color balancing channels is for OSC as well. I also just realized I didn’t put a link to my workflow video 🤣, thank you for the question because I just realized that! Check out this video and you’ll see exactly how to do it :) kzfaq.info/get/bejne/grljetOpnJvMmIk.htmlsi=em3u6yPe4221kUIm

I’m happy this helped :) have you tried this in your workflow?

I am trying it in my latest bubble nebula image, I need to dial in the bias correctly

Let me know how it works out and if you have any questions! I would also love to see the results if you don’t mind :)

Will do, how do I share the results with you?

If you’re ok with it, you can email me at [email protected]

I’m very happy to hear this helped you out! :) if you don’t mind me asking, what was giving you issues?

@@Hidden.Light.Photography So many things!! It was my 1st night trying to polar align and auto guide after putting my 8SE on a wedge. I thought I had everything planned out, but got hung up on every step because I didn’t understand the basics. I couldn’t figure out the slewing and measurement values required by PHD2 and N.I.N.A.

And you got everything figured out?

@@Hidden.Light.Photography I "think" so.... still need a clear night to give it another shot. But I'm definitely more prepared this time!

Good deal! Let me know if you need any assistance with it when you get a clear night :)

Thank you! I haven’t run these yet, but I can absolutely look into this and assist :) What is the behavior you are trying to accomplish and risks you are trying to avoid?

@@Hidden.Light.Photography it's like if 'is unsafe' then stop tracking, stop guiding and ev. park scope because the roof will be closed by the remote observatoty staff if conditions are unsafe. But as soon status 'is safe' and the roof opens again then unpark scope, resume guiding, reslew and center, do an af routine and do imaging again... I think there is a growing community doing remote imaging where the roof status, weather status and so overall safety monitor status is provided by the remote host, also in terms of provided driver within nina. At the end it would be great to let nina know if to image or to pause if it's safe or unsafe... and "Sequencer Powerups" plugin provides triggers and instructions to catch up such conditions but the right place to put those within a whole sequence is quite a challenge at first sight...

Makes perfect sense. I haven’t played with those yet, but let play with this and get a routine together and I will circle back :)

Welcome to the channel and I’m very happy to hear this helped! NINA, for some reason, doesn’t play nice with the native driver for ASI. I’m happy to hear though this all worked out and please do not hesitate to ask for any help :) As a side note, the ASI2600MC is a great camera! How long have you been using it? Also, how do you like the QHY?

@@Hidden.Light.Photography I have both a SW Esprit ED120 and a WO Z61 and swap them out on a SW EQ6R Pro depending on the FOV I want to capture. I have a profile set up in NINA for each and just pick the appropriate one when I'm ready to image. It's so cool seeing the framing box change in the Framing Tab between scopes. Along with the Pegasus focuser and Falcon rotator it couldnt be easier...and more enjoyable. Both scopes get the ASI2600MC and both get a QHY Mini Guide Scope @130mm with the QHY 5L II M camera. According to Astronomy Tools.com the calculator says it works with both scope/camera set ups and it does. Like I said the QHY connects in PHD flawlessly. I feel my guiding is good and in taking Trevor Jones' advise the proof is in the star images, not necessarily the guide numbers. I rarely adjust anything in PHD2 as I'm getting round stars with the default settings. I PA with a Pole Master, but waiting for a clear night to try NINA's TPPA. (another great video by you) I'm a loooong time DSLR user, new to astro for just a few years. I quickly learned that to improve my images I needed to go to a dedicated astro camera, mainly because of the difficulty of shooting darks with a DSLR. I've had the 2600 for several years and went thru two bouts of the grease leak with it. ZWO of course said to "just take it apart and clean it" this was during Covid and they couldn't say when I would get it back. It could be months they said. I wasn't crazy about tearing apart a (then) $2k camera, but I did...twice. Finally at NEAF last year I complained to the right person at the ZWO booth and he said to send it in (using his name which I did as it was out of warranty) and have not had any grease since. But you are right, the 2600 is a fantastic camera. I have the MC model so shoot OSC. It has it's drawbacks I understand but also has it's plusses mainly in acquisition time as well as processing time. It works for me at this point in my hobby. I'm enjoying your videos and learn something from everyone of them.

I absolutely love how easy NINA makes this for us! I started with ASI Studio and PHD2 separately. I would sit out with the scope and once I reached my max travel before hitting the tripod I would call it good and pack everything up. I then learned about meridian flip and researched how to make it automated and that’s how I found NINA. I was 100% hooked from there haha. Awesome job on multiple profiles! That’s the exact way I do it so you don’t have to plug in numbers each time and risk a mistake by forgetting something. Astronomy tools is a very good place to check for compatibility with equipment. Dedicated astronomy camera is the way to do it. Calibration frames, reducing dark current etc. I’m happy they finally resolved that infamous grease issue for you :) OSC has its drawbacks, yes, but as you mentioned, you can quickly and easily get a beautiful image! I’m also very happy you are enjoying the videos and if you ever have a request for something, let me know :)

Thank you and welcome to the channel, I’m very happy to have you aboard!! I absolutely LOVE my Falcon Rotator. Yes, it is the first version of it has the separate power cord and the same one I’m using :) That’s very interesting it won’t show the focuser. I have experienced this quirk once and it ended up being a software update. Even though you recently installed, I might go back and check for updates on the unity platform. Also, maybe open unity platform alone without anything else and have your focuser plugged in and see if it recognizes. If it isn’t affecting performance though, I wouldn’t worry too much. Great questions about the rotator! No, you can do exactly what you’re doing and it’s exactly how I disassemble mine. The sync button will sync the position of the rotator with the encoders, however, NINA doesn’t look at the position as reported by the rotator. NINA will take a photo and plate solve to determine position and have the rotator rotate as needed to meet the correct orientation by means of plate solving vs reported positioning. I hope this makes sense and helps :)

@@Hidden.Light.Photography Thank you for the reply. So, I didn't explain along with the rotator, I run the focuser which is a Motor Focus Kit through a Pegasus Ultimate Power Box V2. which is another great Pegasus product. When connecting to the Unity platform alone, the rotator and the UPB do show up, just not the focuser. No big deal, everything works. I had purchased the Pegasus goodies before the Unity Platform came out and the UPB and Falcon rotator each had their own stand alone software which I had to open each one and connect separately before connecting in NINA. Now, thanks to this video and a better understanding, if I "Connect All" in NINA, everything instantly connects without even having to open the Unity platform or either of the stand alone software. I recently installed the updated version of the Unity Platform, but per your advise will check to see again if there are any updates. Thanks!

I was doing some research on this and it seems the software prior to unity would have an older established com port that could cause some hang ups when unity is utilized. This is a good read if you have a moment. Let me know if anything in here helps resolve. pegasusastro.com/unity-platform/

I’m glad this helped :) What was going on that you thought the ST4 may have been the issue/solution?

@@Hidden.Light.Photography well, I think I pushed to hard after 3 months with my AM3 and WO GT71, I thought I was a master of astrophotography. Well ZWO coddled me and made me think it was so easy, so I bought the Player One 533mm and the guiding 244 camera and the Askar 120mm and SkyWatcher Quattro 150p completely gutted it, and put in all new veins and a new focuser and I Flocked it. I’m currently figuring things out with NINA one problem at a time. Right now it’s guiding and focusing. Today I got up, and went back to to my WO GT71 and learned some things about PHD2. I’m sure I’ll still struggle with focusing. It seems to get really far in auto focus and then just gives up and says something about HRF being too large.

Interesting! When it’s focusing, are you close to focus when you start? How many steps are you going on each side when autofocus runs and how big of a change is there in the star size? I’m going on a limb here, but let’s say you are close to focus when you start auto focus, it sounds like the step size is too large so when it takes its steps outward from focus it’s going too far. If you decrease step size, thus decreasing the affect on star size per step, does would that resolve?

@@Hidden.Light.Photography oh! Good idea! Yea, I’ve been avoiding the step size research because I don’t really understand it yet. Today I’m researching it. It’s like everyday there is something that acts up in NINA. Last night my camera wouldn’t cool. I think it was a power issue. I have a Jackery 700 and I consolidated my three power cords into that runs into the Jackery. I think that’s too much power draw from one Jackery outlet

What auto focuser are you using? I have a video going over calibrating the ZWO auto focuser if you’re interested in it :) when you say it wouldn’t cool, did it not attempt to cool at all or what happened? Getting everything talking to each other and working as team is the hardest part, but once you get, it is so nice to polar align, click a couple of buttons and watch the magic happen.

That’s awesome! There’s absolutely nothing wrong with not using an ASCOM controlled panel. Did yours work as intended? Also, did the blue tint cause any issues?

@@Hidden.Light.Photography The slight blue tint caused me to increase the red exposure time to 25% more than the other colors. I made a wooden frame with inside dimensions of 12x12 inches. I taped the EL panel to a 1/4 inch sheet of black plastic and mounted it to the frame with screws. I bought a piece of 1/8 inch plastic sheet to the front as a diffuser. Then I used black foam board and cut a hole the size of the dew shield. The mask allows me to use the device at an event without shining white light on the field.

I just ordered a piece of matte finish plexiglass to replace the white plastic

That is very creative, I love it! And increasing the red exposure time cures any anomalies with calibration?

Keep me posted on the results :)

Thank you! The first part was getting a bit long so i figured it best to break it into two parts.