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Re: AP1100 carrying to dark site - SUV mount?
W Hilmo
I use a simple, plastic tub.
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I wrap the declination part in a towel and lay it on the bottom of the tub. I set the RA section to zero degrees latitude. It also gets wrapped in a towel and laid on the floor of the tub. I have the two halves oriented so that they are space efficient. I wrap the top plate in a cut down piece of packing blanket, sized appropriately. I do the same with the CP4. Both of these lay on top of the two halves of the mount and I close the tub. For the counterweights and shaft, I remove the thumbscrews and inserts and put them into a ziplock bag (this prevents them from getting broken in transit). I wrap each counterweight in a piece of packing blanket, and they all go in a different tub. I often travel with multiple mounts, so there can be a fair number of counterweights. I never try to move or lift the tub when loaded. The reason for the tub is so that it can sit on the floor of my cargo trailer and keep the counterweights protected and contained. I use the Astro-Physics portable pier. The cylindrical section gets wrapped in a Harbor Freight packing blanket. I either strap it to the side of the cargo trailer, or lie it on the floor, depending on what else I am packing. The pier legs and turnbuckles are wrapped in a towel. I put down one leg first, and do one wrap. Then I lay down another leg and do one more wrap, and so on. The last thing that I wrap are the turnbuckles. This gives me a compact part that can be tucked into many different places. The biggest pain is the part to which the pier legs attach. That's just an odd shape. I pack it a bit differently each time, depending on the rest of the load. It sounds complicated, but that's because I am trying to be descriptive. It's all quite compact and can easily fit in the trunk of most cars.
On 9/11/21 9:17 AM,
ap@... wrote:
I have been looking at various cases people have built, planning what to do, but I had a thought and curious if it's a sane one.
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Re: Interesting way to image with a cheap mount
Benoit Schillings
totally agree Roland.
I obviously do not have any issue with image processing and other form of deconvolution. I think that what I was pointing at is that a little bit of degradation in the original data can be corrected by clever software but that the tradeoff is heavy on the number of images required. - benoit On Sat, Sep 11, 2021 at 8:46 AM Roland Christen via groups.io <chris1011=aol.com@groups.io> wrote:
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Re: AP1100 carrying to dark site - SUV mount?
If you want to go “basic”, then the shipping boxes work great and hold up well. I transported my AP900 around in the two shipping boxes in the back of my pickup or the trunk of my car for 8 or 9 years. The boxes and foam still looked good when the mount was sold to the new owner. I use a Pelican Air for my Mach2 now.
-- Dean Jacobsen Astrobin Image Gallery - https://www.astrobin.com/users/deanjacobsen/
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AP1100 carrying to dark site - SUV mount?
ap@CaptivePhotons.com
I have been looking at various cases people have built, planning what to do, but I had a thought and curious if it's a sane one.
I am not hauling this through airports or checking baggage. It will ride in my SUV, then go from the back about 10' to a tripod when I get to a dark site, then back. It's a 90 minute drive and no off-roading (i.e. reasonably smooth ride). There's no need to protect the mount from anything but the ride itself. What if I bought a pier adapter, one of the flat ones, and just screwed it to the floor in the back of the SUV. Then to move the mount it comes off the tripod, and onto this SUV mount. Pop in 3 or so screws. No OTA or counterweights of course. No case, no foam it just sits there. It seems easier than getting one or two very large cases and custom cutting foam. Is normal driving acceleration, e.g. curves, bumps, etc. any risk to it? Or do I need a setup where the gears can be disengaged? Inspired a bit by similar bike racks, where you just clip the bike's front forks to a bracket on the floor of a car and it stands up for the ride. Sane? Risky?
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Re: Phd2 warning : "disable synchronous pulse guide option in mounts ascom driver settings"
crib409acme425
So Ray are you saying this is an issue of PHD2 coding and therefore operation. It curious that I have never had this on anything but with my Mach 1 with its GTOCP4 controller. thanks cj
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Re: Interesting way to image with a cheap mount
Roland Christen
Unfortunately we have many people misrepresenting their images on the internet, I think we're getting far away from what I wrote originally. The issue is that you do your best to get a nice looking image using tricks like I mentioned and disclosing what you did to achieve the best results possible with limited equipment. And that's what the imager did, so no problem with that.
Where the problem comes is that someone else (not the author of the image) points to that image and proclaims that the equipment works just as good as so-called "premium" stuff, so all the people who buy premium stuff are wasting their money.
Rolando
-----Original Message-----
From: Christopher M <mirfak@...> To: main@ap-gto.groups.io Sent: Sat, Sep 11, 2021 10:23 am Subject: Re: [ap-gto] Interesting way to image with a cheap mount I was thinking along the lines that, taking the "artistic license" to an extreme, one can just paint a picture of a space image with paint or software. I do not disagree with Mr Christen or others. I consider it misrepresentation to say a heavily modified image is a true photograph when technically it is more "art". The method Mr Christen describes reminds me of nightscapes where tracked images of stars are superimposed upon still images of landscape. While some will try hard to produce a final image representing what they saw or felt at that location, others will do the equivalent of pasting pictures of Marvin on a Mars landscape. I believe I fully understand how Mr Christen and others, myself included, are irked by someone saying "This is an actual photograph" when it isn't. Unfortunately we have many people misrepresenting their images on the internet, so Kudos to people like Mr Long, Mr Christen and all who review for quality and honesty. My own teacher has been painfully honest with my imaging attempts to date. Garbage in => garbage out
-- Roland Christen Astro-Physics
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Re: Interesting way to image with a cheap mount
Dale Ghent
On Sep 11, 2021, at 11:23, Christopher M <mirfak@...> wrote: Topical: 
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Re: Tracking turned off for best results?
Roland Christen
That's just three motorcycles coming at you in a rainstorm.
Rolando
-----Original Message-----
From: Brent Boshart <bboshart@...> To: main@ap-gto.groups.io Sent: Sat, Sep 11, 2021 8:36 am Subject: [ap-gto] Tracking turned off for best results? Here is something a little different from a couple nights ago. Three Amazonas geostationary satellites with tracking turned off. Nice round satellites with stars streaking through the image.
-- Roland Christen Astro-Physics
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Re: Interesting way to image with a cheap mount
Roland Christen
I love my FSQ-106 too. That's the scope I meant.
 Rolando
-----Original Message-----
From: Dean Jacobsen <deanjacobsen@...> To: main@ap-gto.groups.io Sent: Fri, Sep 10, 2021 9:41 pm Subject: Re: [ap-gto] Interesting way to image with a cheap mount I love my FSQ-106 too.
-- Dean Jacobsen Astrobin Image Gallery - https://www.astrobin.com/users/deanjacobsen/ -- Roland Christen Astro-Physics
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Re: Interesting way to image with a cheap mount
Christopher M
I was thinking along the lines that, taking the "artistic license" to an extreme, one can just paint a picture of a space image with paint or software. I do not disagree with Mr Christen or others. I consider it misrepresentation to say a heavily modified image is a true photograph when technically it is more "art". The method Mr Christen describes reminds me of nightscapes where tracked images of stars are superimposed upon still images of landscape. While some will try hard to produce a final image representing what they saw or felt at that location, others will do the equivalent of pasting pictures of Marvin on a Mars landscape. I believe I fully understand how Mr Christen and others, myself included, are irked by someone saying "This is an actual photograph" when it isn't. Unfortunately we have many people misrepresenting their images on the internet, so Kudos to people like Mr Long, Mr Christen and all who review for quality and honesty. My own teacher has been painfully honest with my imaging attempts to date. Garbage in => garbage out
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AP 1100 GTO with Encoders not slewing or parking correctly
Thomas Giannaccini
I recently bought a used AP 1100 GTO with Encoders. So I read the manuals, and I’m having a hard time getting my mount to slew to correct park locations on command. It’s completely off; not even remotely close. And it seems as though on different nights it behaves differently. I also received a “motor stall” error message tonight which Im starting to think is the real problem. This is a used mount of course. When I checked the battery with a battery tester, it checked out okay but it looks like it has a few years on it. Is this a likely source of the problem?
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Tracking turned off for best results?
Brent Boshart
Here is something a little different from a couple nights ago. Three Amazonas geostationary satellites with tracking turned off. Nice round satellites with stars streaking through the image.
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Re: APCC Pro "Lastest Install" not Latest
#APCC
Ray Gralak
Thanks Ray. I downloaded again from the AP website, and this time it installed v1.9.0.5 and did not give theNo lines of code changed, so the version number remained the same. Just the installer filename changed. -Ray -----Original Message-----
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Re: Interesting way to image with a cheap mount
Benoit Schillings
well, this is basically an information theory problem. blurred images
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do contain less information from a Shannon IT standpoint. the basic info is more or less the resolution convolved with the signal to noise, and this puts some limits to how well you can invert the information. Basically, if you do want to deconvolve or anything similar, the information (entropy) has to stay constant, so you are trading resolution for signal to noise. So, yes, you could use a lot of bad data to create some better one, but you cannot create data out of nothing, and the resolution goes about as the third power of the initial signal to noise (if I remember well). is this the tradeoff you want to do ? -- benoit
On Fri, Sep 10, 2021 at 7:41 PM Dean Jacobsen <deanjacobsen@outlook.com> wrote:
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Re: Interesting way to image with a cheap mount
I love my FSQ-106 too.
-- Dean Jacobsen Astrobin Image Gallery - https://www.astrobin.com/users/deanjacobsen/
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Re: Interesting way to image with a cheap mount
Roland Christen
You have one of the best scopes for imaging also. Nice setup overall for wide field high res imaging.
Rolando
-----Original Message-----
From: Dean Jacobsen <deanjacobsen@...> To: main@ap-gto.groups.io Sent: Fri, Sep 10, 2021 9:31 pm Subject: Re: [ap-gto] Interesting way to image with a cheap mount On Fri, Sep 10, 2021 at 04:47 PM, Roland Christen wrote:
My point was, if you have poor tracking, the underlying image is not sharp, but soft. So you can remove the stars and replace them with sharp stars, but that doesn't make the underlying image sharp. It just gives the appearance that it's sharp, when in fact the actual object that you wish to image is not.I can't say enough good things about the mounts that the good people at Astro-Physics make. My 1 year old Mach2 has been spectacular. Being able to eliminate guiding has really increased my enjoyment of the hobby. I set up the mount for every use and run a small APPM data collection bracketing the declination of my object for the night. I can take 110 to 120 subexposures during the night and every one is useable. No oblong stars or trailing stars. Simply wonderful performance of the mount and software. My images aren't award winners but I have been amazed at how nice the stars look with 5 1/2 hours of unguided 3 minute images with a mount flip in the middle. https://www.astrobin.com/ehfj0c/E/ https://www.astrobin.com/udzsan/E/ -- Dean Jacobsen Astrobin Image Gallery - https://www.astrobin.com/users/deanjacobsen/ -- Roland Christen Astro-Physics
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Re: Interesting way to image with a cheap mount
On Fri, Sep 10, 2021 at 04:47 PM, Roland Christen wrote:
My point was, if you have poor tracking, the underlying image is not sharp, but soft. So you can remove the stars and replace them with sharp stars, but that doesn't make the underlying image sharp. It just gives the appearance that it's sharp, when in fact the actual object that you wish to image is not.I can't say enough good things about the mounts that the good people at Astro-Physics make. My 1 year old Mach2 has been spectacular. Being able to eliminate guiding has really increased my enjoyment of the hobby. I set up the mount for every use and run a small APPM data collection bracketing the declination of my object for the night. I can take 110 to 120 subexposures during the night and every one is useable. No oblong stars or trailing stars. Simply wonderful performance of the mount and software. My images aren't award winners but I have been amazed at how nice the stars look with 5 1/2 hours of unguided 3 minute images with a mount flip in the middle. https://www.astrobin.com/ehfj0c/E/ https://www.astrobin.com/udzsan/E/ -- Dean Jacobsen Astrobin Image Gallery - https://www.astrobin.com/users/deanjacobsen/
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Re: Interesting way to image with a cheap mount
Bill Long
Totally agree. Mounts are the most important piece of the Astrophotography package, as is using them correctly and to their full potential. Similarly good optics that are well collimated, properly thermal managed, and well focused are important as well.
The better you manage and use the overall kit, the better your data is. Some people prefer to take shortcuts or the cheap route and just hope to fix it in post. I see this daily when looking through Astrobin submissions as a submitter for IOTD. Out of the
roughly 9 pages of images I review per day in my queue, maybe one of two of them meet my bar on a good day. Most days I select none.
From: main@ap-gto.groups.io <main@ap-gto.groups.io> on behalf of Roland Christen via groups.io <chris1011@...>
Sent: Friday, September 10, 2021 4:47 PM To: main@ap-gto.groups.io <main@ap-gto.groups.io> Subject: Re: [ap-gto] Interesting way to image with a cheap mount My point was, if you have poor tracking, the underlying image is not sharp, but soft. So you can remove the stars and replace them with sharp stars, but that doesn't make the underlying image sharp. It just gives the appearance that it's
sharp, when in fact the actual object that you wish to image is not.
My next comment was aimed at those who obsess over
star roundness and don't actually look at the
image sharpness. When you have both, then you might have APOD material.
Rolando
-----Original Message-----
From: Christopher M <mirfak@...> To: main@ap-gto.groups.io Sent: Fri, Sep 10, 2021 5:34 pm Subject: Re: [ap-gto] Interesting way to image with a cheap mount While I jest with the image of Marvin the Martian, it does bring up an interesting point: Are not all of our processed images technically a blend of Art and Science? Every time w Enhance Colour, Increase Contrast, Image Burn or Image Mask, False Colour
assemble, etc etc, we are taking artistic liberties with the source. True we are trying to bring out subtle details in nebula, for example, but the real source object probably doesn't look like that exactly. Some of the best images I've seen are those that
have been processed by people with an artistic skill. At what point does an image move from "science" to "art"? I contend there is not a real "point". However I think we can agree that something has moved from artistic to ... overprocessed?
-- Roland Christen Astro-Physics
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Re: Interesting way to image with a cheap mount
psparkman@...
I agree with Roland. You can always fake in the stars, but not the underlying nebula detail. The star measures are a direct measure of the underlying detail.
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Re: APCC Pro "Lastest Install" not Latest
#APCC
psparkman@...
Thanks Ray. I downloaded again from the AP website, and this time it installed v1.9.0.5 and did not give the latest release warning. Just to confirm though, when I look at Help/About it shows v1.9.0.5 and 9/6/2021. Should this show the v1.9.0.5a instead, or is the issue only on the installer missing a DLL?
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