# New Toy



## griz (Jan 9, 2006)

My StarLapse came in today. Its a sweet piece of kit. Hoping the clouds clear out so I can try it out later tonight. Has sideral solar and 16 other rates from 3.5 deg/hr up to 240 deg/hr for timelapse panning. Handles more than one camera up to 30lbs and he is very conservative on his ratings. The tripod is the weak link I'm sure. Its only temporary I'm going to buy a geared head for the Induro. Much easier to get polar alignment with a geared head. With the BackyardEOS software I'm running you don't have to get perfect polar alignment with the scope. It will do drift align runs and tell you which way its off. Although the polar scope thats available is very nice its also 200 bucks  I had one in my GM-8 mount its very accurate. Finally getting back to some astrophotography after having to sell all my stuff 15 years ago. I am going to have the t4i modified for astro use maybe put a cold finger in it as well. That is quite a hack so I'm not sure I want to get that involved. The astro conversion you can get done at several places.



















Going to have many happy hours with this.

Griz


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## dicklaxt (Jun 2, 2005)

It will take many hours trying to figure all those things out,,,,,,,,,,,,,,good for you tho and Happy Shooting. I wish I could do the same but thats another story.

dick


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## griz (Jan 9, 2006)

*I've had lots of practice*

I had a backyard observatory at one time. Dome all computerized could run it from inside the house. You just pointed to what you wanted to look at on the computer map and it slewed over to it perfectly. This is much more primitive but all you really need is something to match the motion of the stars. I'm liking using the DLSR vs the big scope and dedicated astro camera. Of course I was doing it 15 years ago and things have gotten much better.

Waited for the clouds to clear off tonight and tried a few runs. First two were awful so I made a little adjustment on the alignment. Just did a rough polar align sighting polaris through the polar scope borehole without the scope. It was close enough to get nice 35 sec exposures probably could have gotten more with less lens. Shot 15 70mm f4 iso1000 median combine in Ps. Came out a lot better than I expected for a first attempt.










Tried to find Andromeda but its a lot harder without the goto stuff  Just a pair of binos these days. Looks like the hardest part is going to be actually getting the object in the camera sight. It has a setting circle so you can get half of it without any trouble. More challenging than pressing a button but you learn a lot more as well. Once I get a much better polar align I think it wll do 5 minutes. The fuzzies show up at 3 min 5 is much better. You can get some very nice images at 5 min a shot.

Griz


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## fishingcacher (Mar 29, 2008)

Nice shot. How far outside the city do you have to get to take a shot like that? I know several homes in West Austin on hills with observatory domes.


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## griz (Jan 9, 2006)

*Nice dark skies here*

I live in Granite Shoals just down the road from Marble Falls. There is some skyglow to the east but to the west its very dark. I set up in the front yard. I was one of those people with a dome. Mine was in Colorado Springs. This rig is easy to set-up/move. I wish I still had my stuff but gotta make do.

Griz


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## griz (Jan 9, 2006)

*First Milky Way shot*

Man these are hard to color correct. But I'm getting nice round stars with no trails and lots of nebulosity.The StarLapse is dead on accurate tracking though. A major part of the battle already won.










Hoping it stays clear so I can try for Andromeda tonight. Reloaded my tablet and put BackyardEOS on it. A nice piece of software for this type of stuff. Has imaging mode drift align mode planetary mode.

Griz


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## stargazer (May 24, 2004)

Very cool. When the front passes it should be prime time for that. Nice clear skies and low humidity


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## griz (Jan 9, 2006)

*Added a few things*

A buddy of mine showed me this app on his phone. You point the phone to the sky and it shows you the star map of where you are pointing. Immediately it popped into my head to use one of these for pointing the camera. So I started researching it and sure enough lots of people are using this set-up to implement a push to system. A couple of the apps even allow you to calibrate the display so you put a star in the center of your cameras FOV and hit the calibrate button. One is enough but 2 or 3 are even better. They also warn of magnetic interference problems as that will cause it to be off.

I wanted the whole rig to be 30lb capable like the StarLapse. My induro 43mm tripod is good so all I needed was the head part. Looked at geared heads that would tote that weight and they are all super expensive. Looked at tilt tables and such all very expensive. Looked at alt-az telescope mount wedges. Again very expensive and the way they are set up the StarLapse and cameras would be out in space not over the legs of the tripod. Then I found the AstroTrac wedge. Beautiful piece very small 100mm base but capable of 33lbs. Its made for the Astrotrac tracking mount so the mount plate is wrong for my Losmandy. My nephew cobbled me one up so that isn't a problem. So now the whole system is 30lb capable and has a nice mapping feature. Added a AB switch on the hdmi input of my DP-4 monitor so I can switch between the output of the Canon and the output of the phone for the star map as well. Running it all with an Asus Transformer tablet and BackyardEOS and a few other programs. Wish that wedge would get here I can't wait to put it all together. The only other thing I want to source is a table with 1/4-20 mount for the Asus. I have some rails for a DLSR rig to use to mount the monitor and hopefully the Asus as well. Already have the monitor rigged up just need to find the table and one more rail with 1/4-20 stud to finish it off. I have a polar scope on the way as well. Its a 2 or 3 star align so its very accurate. Saves a lot of time on the final drift alignment.

Thinking about getting the AstroTrac portable pier as well. Just have to see how stable it is on the Induro. I would imagine with a rock bag on the induro it will be perfect. Maybe put the legs in the middle position if its windy.

Going to send in the T4i and get it converted for astro use. Don't really need a high end DLSR for this stuff. The t4i's chip is newer so less noisy than the 7D. Deep Sky Stacker has a mega pixel mode where it bins everything 4x4. I like that method of processing. Much fatter signal and less noise.

So by this time next week I'll have it all put together. Can't wait its been 15 years since I had an astro rig.

Griz


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## griz (Jan 9, 2006)

More goodies arrived yesterday. Only one piece to go and it was a pain to find and order. Tried 3 places 2 of them said in stock but they didn't have it. Finally on the third try they actually shipped one.










This is the astrotrac wedge. Has to be modified to work with StarLapse however. Not that big of a deal. Just cutting a plate to fit on top with two holes to bolt up the Losmandy dovetail. Same weight capacity as SL too. So the whole rig is good for 30lbs of camera gear. Also built up a laptop stand from some old dlsr rig parts I had laying around. Single hook up to the Induro. Quick to put on and take off. Fits the Asus Transformer tablet perfectly. Should have it all put together by the time the next rain event is over.

Griz


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## griz (Jan 9, 2006)

And here are a couple of photos of the set-up all assembled and ready for a nights imaging. I added the Astrotrac portable pier to the wedge. Its very portable and surprisingly lightweight.



















Love the red dot sight. Had a hard time finding one that would fit in the hot shoe. Installing encoders now getting ready to computerize the pointing so I don't spend half the night trying to find my target. With the encoders and a small computer it will hook up to the notebook and display its position on a starmap program. The intermediate computer I'm going to use also does modeling of the mount. Droop flexing etc. It gets better every time you use it. Doubt I'll have much of that. The Losmandy is a very sturdy piece and so is the Astrotrac combo. Balance issues and or lots of periodic error on the gears will show up as well.

Griz


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## griz (Jan 9, 2006)

*Finished up the encoder*

Finished the encoder project today. Came out nice. Now once I get the telescope computer it will be easy pickings to find those fuzzies. Still a push too system but thats ok with me. Lots less to go wrong. Anyways here are a couple of pics I shot with my phone that shows the project.

Installed on the camera mount.









Mock up of the way the internals fit together.









Griz


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## badlt1 (Dec 2, 2005)

Nice setup. Have you gotten some good pics yet?


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## griz (Jan 9, 2006)

Yep I've done 6 so far they are in the forum threads the one of Orion has come out the best so far.










Hardly any processing I am just learning how to do the astro processing. Been watching tutorials and reading everything I can get my hands on but its slow going right now. But getting it tracking this well is a major step the rest will come. DLSR trackers aren't all that old. Couple of years now. Lots of them out now. Some look a little sketchy but it really depends on the weight you want it to swing. If you stay under 2/3 of the rated capacity they are fine. I wanted to be able to use big lenses so I had to spend more money of course. But my rig is way overbuilt. 33lb capacity and I'm using maybe 8. But if I end up going with a scope and autoguider I'll need that extra capacity. Just finished it today in fact. Installed the pointing computer. Now if I want to image something I bring it up in the menus it tells me which direction I need to go and all you do then is zero the display and you are there. Can't see these things in the viewfinder and I'm not an expert at the night sky so this will work great for me.

Griz


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## griz (Jan 9, 2006)

*Done and dusted*

Its all done now tested everything works as planned. A pretty sweet system now. Doesn't take any time to get the objects centered in the camera. Goes right to them and centers them up nicely. Nice to have when you can't see them in the viewfinder or liveview for that matter. The 7DMKII is Canon's best cam for astro work said a comprehensive report on that puppy the other day. Better Ha response and practically no noise on long exposures. Can't wait to get one. It wiill be prefect for the kinds of photos I like to shoot.




























Griz


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