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Re: [ap-ug] IC1396 Garnet Star Nebula in Hubble Palette

thefamily90 Phillips
 

Looks Great to me!

JimP

From: main@ap-ug.groups.io <main@ap-ug.groups.io> on behalf of ROBERT WYNNE <robert-wynne@...>
Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2021 6:39:47 PM
To: main@ap-ug.groups.io <main@ap-ug.groups.io>; Roland Christen via groups.io <chris1011@...>; main@ap-gto.groups.io <main@ap-gto.groups.io>
Subject: Re: [ap-ug] IC1396 Garnet Star Nebula in Hubble Palette
 
This revision reveals many more stars in the void. -Best, Robert
On 09/21/2021 3:26 PM Roland Christen via groups.io <chris1011@...> wrote:


Also known as the Elephant Trunk

https://www.astrobin.com/g0bpv3/C/

This is the last object that I will be imaging with the 10" F6.3 Astrograph. Although the detail came out quite well, the stars were messed up by Topaz de-noise program. I may re-process this object at some point because the stars really were perfect in the original frames, but the lack of 20 to 40 hours of OIII and SII made it necessary to de-noise them.

My next scope will be a 70 lb 12" Astrograph system which will go on the Mach2 for more torture. I'm confident that the mount will handle it just fine.

Rolando
Re: IC1396 Garnet Star Nebula in Hubble Palette

Dean Jacobsen
 

Nice job Roland.

The actual “Garnet Star” - Mu Cephei - is one of my favorite visual objects.
--
Dean Jacobsen
Astrobin Image Gallery - https://www.astrobin.com/users/deanjacobsen/

Re: [ap-ug] IC1396 Garnet Star Nebula in Hubble Palette

Pete Lardizabal
 

🤗

So if this is “the last object I will be imaging with the 10” F6.3 Astrograph”… where will it go next. 

😉

Pete

On Sep 21, 2021, at 6:26 PM, Roland Christen via groups.io <chris1011@...> wrote:


Also known as the Elephant Trunk

https://www.astrobin.com/g0bpv3/C/

This is the last object that I will be imaging with the 10" F6.3 Astrograph. Although the detail came out quite well, the stars were messed up by Topaz de-noise program. I may re-process this object at some point because the stars really were perfect in the original frames, but the lack of 20 to 40 hours of OIII and SII made it necessary to de-noise them.

My next scope will be a 70 lb 12" Astrograph system which will go on the Mach2 for more torture. I'm confident that the mount will handle it just fine.

Rolando
IC1396 Garnet Star Nebula in Hubble Palette

Roland Christen
 

Also known as the Elephant Trunk

https://www.astrobin.com/g0bpv3/C/

This is the last object that I will be imaging with the 10" F6.3 Astrograph. Although the detail came out quite well, the stars were messed up by Topaz de-noise program. I may re-process this object at some point because the stars really were perfect in the original frames, but the lack of 20 to 40 hours of OIII and SII made it necessary to de-noise them.

My next scope will be a 70 lb 12" Astrograph system which will go on the Mach2 for more torture. I'm confident that the mount will handle it just fine.

Rolando

--
Roland Christen
Astro-Physics
My new AP1100 tracking stats...Wow!

Tom Blahovici
 

So was the wait worth it?
I tested the periodic error of my new mount with PemPro. ( I did not order the encoders)

 

Native without PEC:

+1.5/-1.4 arc seconds periodic error. 

0.42 RMS arc seconds.

 

With the factory PEC

+0/-0 arc seconds periodic error.

0.34 RMS arc seconds.

 

This is with no encoders. The PEC enabled curve was essentially a straight line with little variations due to seeing.
What can you say besides, Wow! 
Re: Having lots of issues with APCC, Point mapper and other ASCOM products...

Tom Blahovici
 

Hi
Thanks Ray.  I think all is now cleared up.
Best regards, Tom
WR 134

carlburton2001
 

This is my try at WR 134.  My processing skills really drag the image down but my book collection & YouTube watching of Pixinsight keeps growing.  Wish I could do more with the stars.  www.applewood-astro.com/wr134.html.

Thanks

Carl
Re: Having lots of issues with APCC, Point mapper and other ASCOM products...

Ray Gralak
 

There are a couple of other items.
Voyager has a mount option to not do a recal. It's called "Not sync if using pointing model. " That's why I
asked.
It should be okay to leave that enabled if you want. You can sync (recal) into APCC's model as long as the coordinates are accurate. A bad plate solve (one that "succeeds" but with wrong coordinates) would obviously not do what you want, so APCC provides some protection against this if "Prevent Errant RECALs" is turned on in APCC's advanced settings (which it is by default.)

Now I used PemPro for the polar alignment. It gave me a drift of 15 arc seconds over 10 minutes in both axis.
However after the model, the parameters for the polar alignment said I was off by 1.5 minutes in azimuth. How
is this reconciled?
You don't need to do anything. The model automatically corrects for polar alignment errors.

-Ray
Re: Having lots of issues with APCC, Point mapper and other ASCOM products...

Ray Gralak
 

Hi Tom,

Ok. Actually what was happening is that none of the virtual ports were being created. Now that they are, it
seems to be fine.
APCC's Mount group box settings are set by default to allocate and create the virtual ports when APCC starts. Unless you have a good reason to change the settings, you shouldn't change them. Specifically, you should leave the Mount group box's "Auto-Connect" and "Create Virtual ports first" enabled. Also, the AP V2 Driver's "Auto-Config" should be enabled. This last setting is very important, because it reconfigures the ASCOM driver's port number to whatever virtual ports APCC dynamically allocates.

-Ray

-----Original Message-----
From: main@ap-gto.groups.io [mailto:main@ap-gto.groups.io] On Behalf Of Tom Blahovici
Sent: Monday, September 20, 2021 9:48 PM
To: main@ap-gto.groups.io
Subject: Re: [ap-gto] Having lots of issues with APCC, Point mapper and other ASCOM products...

HI
Ok. Actually what was happening is that none of the virtual ports were being created. Now that they are, it
seems to be fine. However, I have some questions.

1. What is the purpose of the AP V2 connect button in APCC? Why does APCC need to connect to the driver?
Applications seem to work fine even if this is not connected.
2. Once I have my mapping done, do I need to use the APPM software to do an initial sync and recal before
using Voyager?
3. Must all recals be turned off in other software when you are using a model?
4. Tonight I did a 100 point model. When the scope went into the west, clouds rolled in and I only got part of
the points there. Do I need to redo the whole model? Or can just the missing points be done or added?
I guess that covers the questions for now.

Thanks, Tom
Re: Having lots of issues with APCC, Point mapper and other ASCOM products...

Tom Blahovici
 

Thanks Brian. Answers a lot.

There are a couple of other items.
Voyager has a mount option to not do a recal. It's called "Not sync if using pointing model. " That's why I asked.

Now I used PemPro for the polar alignment. It gave me a drift of 15 arc seconds over 10 minutes in both axis. However after the model, the parameters for the polar alignment said I was off by 1.5 minutes in azimuth. How is this reconciled?

I'm getting there.
Tom
Re: Having lots of issues with APCC, Point mapper and other ASCOM products...

Brian Valente
 

Hi Tom

i'm up so i'll take a crack here ;)


1. What is the purpose of the AP V2 connect button in APCC? Why does APCC need to connect to the driver? Applications seem to work fine even if this is not connected.

You definitely want the AP ASCOM driver to connect through APCC, that's how the modeling is transparent to your connecting applications. I always start up APCC first and auto connect ASCOM driver to it.
  
2. Once I have my mapping done, do I need to use the APPM software to do an initial sync and recal before using Voyager?

No - it already did a sync and recal as part of the modeling. If you are doing plate solve/centering in Voyager i assume it will work like other imaging apps and use Sync for centering routines anyways
 
3. Must all recals be turned off in other software when you are using a model?

No - plate solve uses sync which is required when centering a target. See 1. above re: connect the ascom driver through APCC and the model is transparent to applications
 
4. Tonight I did a 100 point model. When the scope went into the west, clouds rolled in and I only got part of the points there.  Do I need to redo the whole model?  Or can just the missing points be done or added?

afaik you can't add to an existing model, you can only re-do it, so i think you need to re-do the model

 
I guess that covers the questions for now.

Thanks, Tom



--
Brian 



Brian Valente
Re: Having lots of issues with APCC, Point mapper and other ASCOM products...

Tom Blahovici
 

HI
Ok.  Actually what was happening is that none of the virtual ports were being created.  Now that they are, it seems to be fine.  However, I have some questions.

1. What is the purpose of the AP V2 connect button in APCC? Why does APCC need to connect to the driver? Applications seem to work fine even if this is not connected.
2. Once I have my mapping done, do I need to use the APPM software to do an initial sync and recal before using Voyager?
3. Must all recals be turned off in other software when you are using a model?
4. Tonight I did a 100 point model. When the scope went into the west, clouds rolled in and I only got part of the points there.  Do I need to redo the whole model?  Or can just the missing points be done or added?
I guess that covers the questions for now.

Thanks, Tom
Re: Having lots of issues with APCC, Point mapper and other ASCOM products...

Bill Long
 

You can turn off run as admin for Voyager and see if everything functions fine. If it does, no harm done.

If you contact them for support in the future they will ask you to turn run as admin back on. 

From: main@ap-gto.groups.io <main@ap-gto.groups.io> on behalf of Tom Blahovici <tom.va2fsq@...>
Sent: Monday, September 20, 2021 7:53 PM
To: main@ap-gto.groups.io <main@ap-gto.groups.io>
Subject: [ap-gto] Having lots of issues with APCC, Point mapper and other ASCOM products...
 

Hi,
I am not even sure I know where to start here but something is not right. First I need to point out that I have had a perfectly working setup in the past with my AP600 and Voyager and PhD Guider.  All this has changed now that I have APCC Pro.

Tonight is an example.  I startup APCC and connect to the mount with an IP Address.  This works fine. I then started the Point mapper and had to click on the Connect in APCC for the ASCOM driver.  I then had to select the virtual port in the settings for the ASCOM connection in the point mapper.  This connects and works fine.

When the point mapping is complete I close the program and attempt to startup Voyager which in turn starts PhD Guider.  However, Voyager locks up trying to connect to the AP driver.  Same with PhD Guider.  At this point I have to kill the processes and then reboot the computer.  Note that both, are trying to use the virtual port in the AP driver.

If I start from scratch and tell Voyager that I am using the AP Ascom driver the only thing that works is if I select the IP address and NOT the virtual port.  Same thing for PhD guider.  So I now have three applications going direct to the IP address. This is not right, correct?

So my questions besides the fact that the I cannot use the virtual ports with anything other than the point mapper program are the following:
If all devices are going directly to the IP address then are they using the model I created? Or not?

What's the point of the virtual ports if everything connects directly to the IP address?

Does each application need to use their own virtual port?

Why is everything locking up?
Perhaps if all this is explained with how it actually functions I can make some sense out of this.

Thanks for your help.
BTW, All software is the latest, downloaded two days ago.

Tom
Re: Rain Event Impact on Mount CP

Roland Christen
 

If you can't fix that, please contact George at AP and have him issue a return for the CP4 so we can check it out fully.

Roland


-----Original Message-----
From: Chris White <chris.white@...>
To: main@ap-gto.groups.io
Sent: Mon, Sep 20, 2021 9:37 pm
Subject: [ap-gto] Rain Event Impact on Mount CP

The rain event that I documented over on the AP-UG appears to have also impacted my mount. 

When I attempted to slew the other night I got a motor stall error on DEC, followed by DEC axis starting a slow slew to the south in an uncontrollable movement.  Uncontrollable meaning the mount was unresponsive to the stop command in the ASCOM driver and only by nudging the mount north or south would it arrest. I could repeat the error as every time I tried to move the mount north or south it would produce the motor stall error.  I also once saw a low power error.   RA seemed to slew normally.  So I switched the Y cable from RA to DEC and DEC to RA and DEC began working fine while RA had a motor stall.  I concluded that somehow the Y cable was damaged either by the rain or by me when I disconnected my CP4 to bring it in to dry out. 

I'm hoping that this test is definitive.  I ordered a replacement Y cable (funny enough another counterweight accidentally fell into my shopping cart) and hoping that this resolves my problem.  Anything else I should be concerned about or consider?

--
Roland Christen
Astro-Physics
Re: Having lots of issues with APCC, Point mapper and other ASCOM products...

Ray Gralak
 

Hi Tom,

This is not a problem with ASCOM or APCC. The problem is that Voyager needs to be run "as administrator", which complicates things because all other of the applications also need to be run "as administrator", which is not the default way applications usually are run.

An application that is running "as administrator" that connects to the AP V2 ASCOM driver opens a *different* instance of the AP V2 driver than if another application connects that is running normally. So, in a setting with mixed normal/administrator applications you can have two instances of the AP V2 ASCOM driver running, and they cannot both share the same virtual COM port. So in that sense, they must use two different virtual COM ports,

This issue has been discussed many, many times, so you might want to do a web search to read more about it if you are interested. But the short answer is that you may need to run all of your astronomy applications "as administrator" if you want to use Voyager.

-Ray

-----Original Message-----
From: main@ap-gto.groups.io [mailto:main@ap-gto.groups.io] On Behalf Of Tom Blahovici
Sent: Monday, September 20, 2021 7:53 PM
To: main@ap-gto.groups.io
Subject: [ap-gto] Having lots of issues with APCC, Point mapper and other ASCOM products...

Hi,
I am not even sure I know where to start here but something is not right. First I need to point out that I have
had a perfectly working setup in the past with my AP600 and Voyager and PhD Guider. All this has changed
now that I have APCC Pro.

Tonight is an example. I startup APCC and connect to the mount with an IP Address. This works fine. I then
started the Point mapper and had to click on the Connect in APCC for the ASCOM driver. I then had to select
the virtual port in the settings for the ASCOM connection in the point mapper. This connects and works fine.

When the point mapping is complete I close the program and attempt to startup Voyager which in turn starts
PhD Guider. However, Voyager locks up trying to connect to the AP driver. Same with PhD Guider. At this
point I have to kill the processes and then reboot the computer. Note that both, are trying to use the virtual
port in the AP driver.

If I start from scratch and tell Voyager that I am using the AP Ascom driver the only thing that works is if I
select the IP address and NOT the virtual port. Same thing for PhD guider. So I now have three applications
going direct to the IP address. This is not right, correct?

So my questions besides the fact that the I cannot use the virtual ports with anything other than the point
mapper program are the following:
If all devices are going directly to the IP address then are they using the model I created? Or not?

What's the point of the virtual ports if everything connects directly to the IP address?

Does each application need to use their own virtual port?

Why is everything locking up?
Perhaps if all this is explained with how it actually functions I can make some sense out of this.

Thanks for your help.
BTW, All software is the latest, downloaded two days ago.

Tom
Having lots of issues with APCC, Point mapper and other ASCOM products...

Tom Blahovici
 

Hi,
I am not even sure I know where to start here but something is not right. First I need to point out that I have had a perfectly working setup in the past with my AP600 and Voyager and PhD Guider.  All this has changed now that I have APCC Pro.

Tonight is an example.  I startup APCC and connect to the mount with an IP Address.  This works fine. I then started the Point mapper and had to click on the Connect in APCC for the ASCOM driver.  I then had to select the virtual port in the settings for the ASCOM connection in the point mapper.  This connects and works fine.

When the point mapping is complete I close the program and attempt to startup Voyager which in turn starts PhD Guider.  However, Voyager locks up trying to connect to the AP driver.  Same with PhD Guider.  At this point I have to kill the processes and then reboot the computer.  Note that both, are trying to use the virtual port in the AP driver.

If I start from scratch and tell Voyager that I am using the AP Ascom driver the only thing that works is if I select the IP address and NOT the virtual port.  Same thing for PhD guider.  So I now have three applications going direct to the IP address. This is not right, correct?

So my questions besides the fact that the I cannot use the virtual ports with anything other than the point mapper program are the following:
If all devices are going directly to the IP address then are they using the model I created? Or not?

What's the point of the virtual ports if everything connects directly to the IP address?

Does each application need to use their own virtual port?

Why is everything locking up?
Perhaps if all this is explained with how it actually functions I can make some sense out of this.

Thanks for your help.
BTW, All software is the latest, downloaded two days ago.

Tom
Rain Event Impact on Mount CP

Chris White
 

The rain event that I documented over on the AP-UG appears to have also impacted my mount. 

When I attempted to slew the other night I got a motor stall error on DEC, followed by DEC axis starting a slow slew to the south in an uncontrollable movement.  Uncontrollable meaning the mount was unresponsive to the stop command in the ASCOM driver and only by nudging the mount north or south would it arrest. I could repeat the error as every time I tried to move the mount north or south it would produce the motor stall error.  I also once saw a low power error.   RA seemed to slew normally.  So I switched the Y cable from RA to DEC and DEC to RA and DEC began working fine while RA had a motor stall.  I concluded that somehow the Y cable was damaged either by the rain or by me when I disconnected my CP4 to bring it in to dry out. 

I'm hoping that this test is definitive.  I ordered a replacement Y cable (funny enough another counterweight accidentally fell into my shopping cart) and hoping that this resolves my problem.  Anything else I should be concerned about or consider?
Re: Cloudy Nights post about the Mach 2 needs clarification

Karen Christen
 

Thank you for the clarification, mjb87.  That’s helpful.

Karen

AP

 

From: main@ap-gto.groups.io <main@ap-gto.groups.io> On Behalf Of mjb87 via groups.io
Sent: Monday, September 20, 2021 4:02 PM
To: main@ap-gto.groups.io
Subject: Re: [ap-gto] Cloudy Nights post about the Mach 2 needs clarification

 

I'm a moderator at Cloudy Nights (Observatories, Mounts, etc.). There has been no breach of security at Cloudy Nights. What we have observed, common to many astronomy sites, is concerted efforts by spammers to use passwords found elsewhere on the internet (as other sites have been hacked) to attempt to take over user accounts at Cloudy Nights, specifically in order to post bogus ads.  It has been successful a couple of times. This is a good time to exercise proper web hygiene -- don't reuse passwords and change them periodically.


--
Karen Christen
Astro-Physics
Re: Cloudy Nights post about the Mach 2 needs clarification

mjb87@...
 

I'm a moderator at Cloudy Nights (Observatories, Mounts, etc.). There has been no breach of security at Cloudy Nights. What we have observed, common to many astronomy sites, is concerted efforts by spammers to use passwords found elsewhere on the internet (as other sites have been hacked) to attempt to take over user accounts at Cloudy Nights, specifically in order to post bogus ads.  It has been successful a couple of times. This is a good time to exercise proper web hygiene -- don't reuse passwords and change them periodically.
Re: Mount Synchronization Memory Lapse

Jerome A Yesavage
 

Thanks Ray,
I think I came up with the same result using the chimpanzee solution. I normally park in #5, but on unparking it would not come back even after I move the scope to the right position.  I then dumbly tried 3, moved the scope, and then it would go correctly to the others.  So the #3 is sorta the calibration position?
I am going to print this note out and put it on my bulletin board in the observatory for future reference.
Thanks for the response,
JY
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