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astronomynut

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Hi,  I purchased BYEOS several months ago, but not being much of a software user, was a bit intimidated by the whole thing of using a computer with a telescope/mount.  I've just overcome that hesitancy, and have been having a wonderful time.

 

I posed a question on another forum, and someone mentioned a function in BYEOS that might be the answer.  Here is what I am trying to do, but first the problem:

 

    It seems that each and every time I set up my camera, and slew to the object after doing a precise GOTO, I end up with my camera oriented at another angle from the previous sessions.  This is creating a fan affect when I stack my images, and causes me to do some pretty severe cropping.

 

    This is what I would like to do.  I would like to find a way of getting my camera orientation with the object consistent.  Someone mentioned that BYEOS "May" have a feature that allows for that.  It is what I call the funny face.  Supposedly you take a preview photo, and then go to live view, and click on the funny face.  That overlays the live view over the preview photo.  You can then move the camera, and I would do this by rotating the visual back on my  refractor, until you attain the orientation you desire.  Is this possible with BYEOS?  It would definitely make life easier, and I could keep more of my data, instead of cropping the photo, almost into oblivion.  Caley

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To help answer your question, we would need to know what Mount and Scope you use...

 

Alt-AZ Mounts will present Field Rotation that is effected by the Location and Time of night that the Images are taken.

EQ Mounts track the Sky such that the Camera will be in the same Orientation to the Sky - IF the Camera is always the same Orientation to the Scope and Mount.

 

BYEOS does have the Alignment Mask feature (the "Mask" Icon to the right in the Imaging screen), which allows the user to load an existing Image as a Semi-transparent Overlay which is compared to the current Camera Image.  This would allow the User to confirm both the Orientation and the Sky Location from one Imaging Session to the next.

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Thanks so much for what the Mask (funny face) does.  I use a 4" inch APO and CGEM DX mount in my AP.  My biggest trouble has been getting the proper orientation on the object to continue with collecting data.  I think that with your information I may be able to achieve that goal.  Caley

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The mask will work, but there are alternatives that are available.  You can also start with your camera close to a known position.  For example, with the telescope pointing at Polaris, you can choose to always position the camera in an upright position.  You can also use AstroTortilla to help you orient the camera since in addition to improved pointing and plate solving your image it provides a rotation value.  If imaging the same object over multiple setups, you can manually rotate the camera to recreate the rotation of the previous sessions while iteratively solving the image.

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It's been a while since I tried to fix the problem that I inquired about.  So far I have been unable to either use the funny face part of BYEOS, or to get my ASCOM working with my Celestron CGEM DX.

 

I would much rather to use plate solving, as was suggested in the last post, but because of the Celestron ASCOM connection problem, that I cannot solve, I am back to trying to use the funny face in order to try to get my mount and camera set up so that I can resume on an object I previously gathered data on.

 

Is there anyone out there who can give me directions on how to use this function?  I am able to drop the previous session into BYEOS, but cannot figure out how to get things to overlay so that I can start the process of reorienting my camera and mount to match up the brighter stars.

 

As you can gather, I am not much of a computer person, so I am always in need of help to understand how things work.  Caley

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It's been a while since I tried to fix the problem that I inquired about.  So far I have been unable to either use the funny face part of BYEOS, or to get my ASCOM working with my Celestron CGEM DX.

 

I would much rather to use plate solving, as was suggested in the last post, but because of the Celestron ASCOM connection problem, that I cannot solve, I am back to trying to use the funny face in order to try to get my mount and camera set up so that I can resume on an object I previously gathered data on.

 

Is there anyone out there who can give me directions on how to use this function?  I am able to drop the previous session into BYEOS, but cannot figure out how to get things to overlay so that I can start the process of reorienting my camera and mount to match up the brighter stars.

 

As you can gather, I am not much of a computer person, so I am always in need of help to understand how things work.  Caley

 

The Mask Framing function is well documented with pictures in the user guide.

 

Please open the user guide a look for mask framing.  You can access the userguide by clicking the " ? " icon in BackyardEOS upper right corner.

 

Regards,

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Guylain,  Believe it or not, I hadn't realized there was a PDF help file.  I've gotten used to some software not having much help at all.

 

Hopefully tonight will be nice enough to try some more imaging.  I will try to figure out how things work using your PDF instructions.  That doesn't mean I will actually get it working.  Sometimes instructions don't quite get me there, but they are a start.  I noticed that the symbol changed from the funny face to an oval for framing.  I imagine that my current version of BYEOS may be out of date.  Will have to see if I am still eligible for the free upgrade.  Caley

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As far as I know there is no software problem that would prevent your PC from communicating with your CGEM DX mount via the ASCOM Platform and the Unified Celestron driver.

 

I would suggest that you read the user document that was installed with the Celestron ASCOM driver.  It is typically installed at:

 

C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\ASCOM\Telescope\Celestron\ASCOM.Celestron.Telescope.pdf

 

This document describes how to set up, use, and troubleshoot problems with the driver.  If you still have a problem, then you could follow the instructions in the Resolving Problems, Logging Data, and Support sections of the document.  The driver author is usually very responsive to people with issues, especially if they have tried to follow his instructions in the document and still have a problem.

 

You can also request help on the ASCOM-Talk Yahoo group.

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I spent the past hour or so out at the pad playing around with the software and settings.  I finally got my SSAG to connect, as well as Celestron ASCOM.  Proof will be when I start trying to guide with PHD2 and do other things.

 

I still cannot connect Stellarium to the current setup.  It may very well be that because I have a USB server between my mount and the computer, it does not recognize things, even though the same COM port is being used.  Eventually I will get everything working. Right now I just want to see if I can get normal control through PHD2.  AstroTortilla is also in the works.  I've connected it through BYEOS, but not sure just how it will work.  I get the feeling I will be needing to provide more information to the program before it starts working properly.

 

At least I have my mount I can now move from BYEOS via Celestron ASCOM.  It will help me do the alignment via the mask framing.  This will be a great help when I don't have a star bright enough to focus on, and have to slew somewhere to refocus, and then back to the object.

 

Things are finally coming together slowly.  Thanks for the directions to the written help.  Caley

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Rick,  Got that tip, and will work with it tomorrow during daylight.  It's a lot easier working out these kinks when I can see what I am doing.  Right now what I managed to get done this afternoon seems to be working quite well.  Thanks   Caley

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