Starting out with BYE - basic query about frame & focus

[Sibelius]

I'm transitioning from Nebulosity to Backyard EOS. The weather is terrible at present so just grabbing opportunities for testing.  My query is why I'm not seeing stars in BYE frame & focus. In comparison, Nebulosity is giving me stars.  Are there settings I need to adjust to fix this? Sorry for what is probably a very basic newbie query. The two screenshots are attached.

[admin]

You're taking 4 seconds exposures in Nebulosity.

A single live view frame in BYE is just a few milliseconds.... can't compare that with a 4-second exposure.

You have 2 options.

1. use the snap feature in BYE and take 4-second exposures (and compare apple to apple)
2. set the aperture to TV value to a 1-2 seconds (not BULB) and increase the ISO; most Canon have what is called liveview exposure simulation.

 

 

[Sibelius]

Thanks for the quick reply - will try out these solutions. 

[s3igell]

While the local weather is poor, remember that you can do most of your Setup and Familiarization right at your Kitchen Table.

You don't even need to break out the Scope or the Mount to exercise most of the BYE-to-Camera functions - just use your Kit Lens.

[astroman133]

While you may not be able to simulate stars at your kitchen table, you can see how the brightness of LiveView changes as you change the ISO and Duration settings while practicing with a lens on the camera.. It may not be obvious but changing the LiveView exposure duration does not affect the frame rate of the downloaded frames, it can change the brightness of the images that BYE displays during LiveView operation. While practicing at the kitchen table, I would suggest starting with a reasonably short exposure, say 1/100th of a second, and increasing it on the BYE F&F screen while watching the overall image brightness. You should notice that BULB is not the best/brightest setting, and increasing the exposure beyond 2 seconds does not make the frames any lighter. At least that is what I see with my T5i.

Still, only the very brightest stars will be visible in LiveView frames. Your workflow should be to focus on a very bright star, like Sirius or Procyon, then use short 4-8 second Snap images to frame your target FOV, before starting autoguiding and beginning an imaging session. Frame & Focus Snap images are not saved, unless you choose to do so, via the Settings.