I point the scope to a part of the sky that is right next to the planet. Then I plate solve, and after that, I make it point to the planet, which is right next to the area I just plate solved. This has worked well for me. As far as your wifi is concerned, I recommend getting a mesh network from Amazon, the Eero. You can set up a node in the planetarium in one of the computer/equipment bays, which will pull internet from the next closest node, and distribute this signal inside your observatory.
Finding the planet is just the first step. Accurate focusing is a constant struggle. Seeing depends on fortune. But... When all three work and your equipment is fine tuned it is just FANTASTIC. Using goto in the finder scope mostly works. You have a mode in the skywatcher software that does spiral movements until the planet gets into the FOV. Good luck in this planetary journey.
I have a Celestron 9.25” for planetary. What I do is slew using the AM5 software, then center the planet in a 30mm finder, and then use a gift from the optic gods, a Baader flip mirror. In one end of the flip is a narrower field eyepiece and the other end throws light to the camera sensor. A little nudging with the narrower eyepuece, and by the time I go to the camera, it’s easy to get it centered with the EAF. This might sound stupidly complicated. But actually, the method allows me to center the planet on the sensor in about 60 seconds after the slew. I love flip mirrors! Beautiful C14! Can’t wait to see your images with it! Cheers!
I use a similar method but for imaging the ISS. With the wide-angle view, the guide scope allows for the plate-solving of sections on the ISS patch and building a very precise sky model.
I really like the digital finder scope approach, especially since I prefer staying inside on cold nights - great idea. Having a finder scope of some sort is almost essential; otherwise, you can easily find yourself lost in space, and that's never fun. Lastly, this video highlighting the complexities of your setup is a perfect reminder of why it's so valuable to have multiple imaging trains if possible. It takes a lot of time to get everything just right, and once it's all working, it feels almost criminal to tear it down. Great video and looking forward to seeing some C14 planet pics!
One quick way to do this at extremely long focal lengths is - I set up a green laser perfectly aligned to my main OTA. After a rough GOTO, i use the hand controller to ease the laser smack into the planet , maybe using binoculars for close look and fine manual alignment - and job done.
Dylan you took me back to Jr High with your "pattern" on screen, LOL !! I will have to check the comments to see if anyone else has the same warped mind as me 🤣... You never know what you might get when one tunes into Dylan O Donnell... I wish you were my neighbor , or at least not on the upside down part of the world, we would have so much fun ! Haha... Cheers from Utah.
@@DylanODonnell Cheers mate. By the way, there is a lovely older gent who pulls into one of those side streets at Byron Bay with his telescope. He is awesome and I hope he will be there on Monday 23rd and Tuesday 24th December when I stay for two nights. He showed me Saturn and Jupiter for the first time - I almost cried! Maybe you know him. Annika
@@annikasoraya4322 I know who you mean :) It's great that he gets out in the street for some outreach! I busk in Jonson st with my son sometimes, but it's a lot louder with no astro hah
Truth to be told, I struggled more finding the planets than imaging the planets. finding the planets with my eyeball is fine, but not with a high powered scope with a tiny view. I can literally be mms away as far as the controller movements and not find the planet! The no-go to with the high focal length and barlow and no stars to plate solve- drove me nuts. I ended up doing something similar like you did. Setting up a small scope with a camera with Sharpcap Pro. I also did such things as removed the barlow and added a reducer to the main scope and attached a larger sensor camera just to get some damn stars to plate solve to, and then finally centered, I removed the reducer and camera and re-added the other camera and barlow. The problem with that is, that you gotta do the whole ritual all over if you decide to slew to another planet!
I have a Meade 16" which is even worse finding planets with a planetary camera, but I have an idea how to improve this. Use a binoviewer with two cameras, one a DSO and the other planetary. Platesolve with the one then swap over to the planetary and you're set. The nice thing about this approach is you don't lose resolution, you only cut the light signal by 50% which can simply be altered by changing the exposure slightly. This method can be used really on any aperture. And you have two views available. Another alternative is a flip mirror system with again both types of cameras. A servo could be employed (much like the automated cover systems or a electronic focus motor) to operate the flip switch. The disadvantage of this system is that only one camera at a time can display an image. The electronic finder is a must have for remote operation regardless of size telescope. I know some people actually emply dual electronic finders, one is a very wide angle like camera lens with as much FOV as they desire and the other is the standard finder. Being able to access 3 views is actually idea for watching conjunctions as the views allow quite different perspective of events. And even on planets with moons, this allows imaging close and distant moons when exposures are set correctly. One thing I learned in planetary imaging versus DSO is the brightness is so much greater you have to get use to dealing with sub 1/250 exposures pretty quick and you'll find each planet has an ideal exposure that will be different if you swap over say from Jupiter to Saturn to Mars. Write yourself up a cheat sheet or if your software allows custom object presets. Base this on the optimal settings for each planet given your configuration. Then you can preset those specs and when you do have the planet centered in the spotting scope you're not having to play around too much with adjustments on the planetary camera.
I think your best solution when using plate solving on long focal length scopes is to have another properly aligned smaller guide scope. Use the guide scope for the plate solving. As long as your (suck eggs) guide is aligned to your main scope then you should be all good. (Sorry if someone else has already mentioned this).
Cool video. I have the same 14" SCT scope and I do planetary. My scope is on wheels and not in a dome. I do a three star alignment. That gets the planet within the stock 50mm finder. I then center the scope on the finders crosshairs. Now the planet is very close. I turn up the gain to make it very bright which makes it much easier to find on my laptop screen in Sharpcap. I also use ASIStudio a lot because its works so well with ZWO cameras. I use a flip mirror to help center the planet. Once the planet is on screen I adjust the gain and exposure to get max fps. I've had no luck plate solving I think because I have too many trees and my near 8000mm focal length. I only shoot color because I don't have the patience to do a filter wheel. These modern cameras are very low noise too. Lastly I use the Primalucelab EAF. It does a great job in reaching focus at these long focal lengths. Thanks Dylan
I dont know if i'm doing this the wrong way, but I use Stellarium and NINA : it works so flawlessly that I never even knew this problem existed. With Stellarium running on an extended monitor, I frame my target with the camera sensor/oculars plugin and capture the coordinates with NINA with its framing routine, then "Slew and Centre". Since its a simple RA/DEC capture , it works equally well for stars, DSOs , planets, asteroids and comets alike.
I just added a green laser light for a pistol which has an adjustable barrel which works well ,a little parallax error with you eye but it helps me out.
Regarding phone and Wi-Fi, I wonder if you could build a passive repeater, which is simply an antenna on the outside and an antenna on the inside, cabled together.
I use goto for planet with a combinations of my finderscope and autoguider with live feed from it. I alway do star aligment before planitar. Then i slew and resleew to the target and use my bott feeds as refeference for that night and if i want to sleew to Neptune or Uranus i know were on the finderscope and live feed i should be looking. I alose use that with combination of longer exposure to pic up fainter objects. A method i use and still developes for more spot on planet finding. Clear skies and cheers mate. 🍻
I'm currently saving up to upgrade my 10" Dob to something more 'astrophoto' friendly. your videos always keep me inspired (and also terrified about all the complexity 🙂 ) that soon, I'll be getting new gear and can start my own journey 👍
I use APT, Stellarium and PHD2. I'll unpark, select what I want in Stellarium and hit cntrl+1 and it'll GOTO. Take a picture, platesolve in APT and cntrl+1 to get centered on my target and usually I'm good to go.
I goto and sync with a wider field of view camera then once I am there, swap out to my imaging camera, add a power mate, it works, this is using a C11. A C14 however, takes things to another level!
Honestly I've never had an issue with planets (other than I don't have enough focal length). I just approach them like any target- slew, plate solve and center. There it is- works on planets, asteroids, comets, etc.
When I'm imaging with my big dobs I am above 8000mm fl, the method I find that works the best for me is to defocus a fair bit and lower the exposure to 1 second and crank up the gain. It's like you are imaging the moon because the defocus means it's 10x the size and the exposure and gain make it as bright as the moon. 👌 Damo
Yeh most star alignment will get pretty good results .. I clear my star alignment in the obs then rely on platesolving but I’ll likely change my workflow now I have a digital finderscope
I just tried to look at the outer planets, saw Saturn easily. My trick is to goto the planet in sharpcap, then spiral search while looking through a 40mm plossl (on my Edge 8). I wish I had your setup, that secondary camera is mighty handy. Thanks for the ideas! Love seeing the comet from a different angle too XD
I recently bought a camera (Fujifilm x-t30ii) and tried to take a photo of the night sky. But the result was only a black image with white dots. Then I did a lot of research and came across your channel. I have absolutely no experience or knowledge and I don't understand what you are talking about sometimes. But I hope to get to the point where I understand everything and get great pictures. Much love.
I don’t know…I align my 6se using a simple two star alignment using Polaris, and Vega. When I asked it to find Saturn, it targeted it right in the bullseye. When I tried Uranus, same thing. It was right there. Same with Jupiter. It hit them spot on. In fact, I was out with a few local astronomers, and it hit every target I asked it to, and those guys confirmed it.
You give me hope. I have a Delta Rho 350 and its' 13.75" for my nexdome and am worried about it being too large for the lens opening on the dome. Let me know if you have issues.
I agree. And Dylan, back to your last video on planets, one question that intrigues me is, why for planets it’s not the same focal point then stars? I mean, they are all ridiculously far away, but still one need to adjust focus when going to planets. Do you know why? I don’t, now with your new big baby C14, could be interesting topic.
I have been using the SvBony correct image straight thru illuminated finder scope and it really makes getting to the planets easy. My rig is a old XL70 Meade EQ with motor in RA, a Celestron 6se SC and a ZWO color ASI678MC camera. Location is NW Arizona USA, altitude is 3,700 ft MSL, humidity is usually around 16% and very light polluted sky. Just use the ZWO software nothing fancy. Have gotten very good images of Saturn and Jupiter. Mars a little disappointing but clearly is the red planet. Enjoy your videos. Now 80 and started imaging this last summer have been visual for decades and because of your videos thought I would try imaging. Thanks
So, is your observatory now held hostage by seeing? Like, do you plan on keeping this on the Eq8 all the time while waiting on good seeing, or will you put RASA or something else on for mediocre seeing?
Hi Dylan excellent challenge. I've used Stellarium to goto a planet. I use NINA to two or three star align/platesolve then import the planet coordinates into NINA and slew.
I ran an external antenna from the wifi card from the inside my mini pc in the observatory to the underside of my pagola. Using a 3M extension for the wifi antenna and works a treat!
Hi Dylan, I use exactly the same method. But I have converted my visual finder scope to use a camera (the Celestron bracket sucks). I may try the sky watcher one you have.
I didn’t show it in the video (much) but even the skywatcher bracket was a bit janky. I ended up putting two tight cable ties around the shoe so that when it slid into the bracket it was wedged tight. This made it solid :) the rest of the setup with the rings and six screws is much better designed for alignment than the Celestron one, still fiddly but lots of control.
I would imagine the best way to do this, is to slew close to the planet, plate solve, then slew to planet (error from mount and software will be far less. You could even slew to 2 locations close bye to let the software calculate your slew error, goto planet, then center the brightest spot in the center, if it fails to find in, slew back and forth a bit or let it adjust the gain to see what direction the light gradient, reset it and slew in the calculated direction. "should" be more accurate and consistent then just a plate solve and a slew.
I usually find the coordinates of the planets and plug it into NINA. I have a separate guider scope that I attached my 120mm to and platesolve via that. Works well enough, it’s only off by a few 10s of arc seconds and then I can center it with mount controls. I still have to perfect my setup but it works for nights where I just need a quick image.
If you use your finder scope as the main until it is centered then you have lots of stars to plate solve with, then swap over ok you do need to have both align to each other
My process is to first move to an area near the planet, just like I would for DSO imaging, then perform a plate solve and sync. After that, slew to the planet, and there it is ... Of course, make sure you're properly polar aligned ;)
To reduce the risk of your cell phone, dropping, with the ethernet cable you have running out to your dome, have that go to an extender of your Wi-Fi mesh (if you have that, and if not get a set), and then your phone will just connect to the local Wi-Fi that’s in your dome. I’m using a DECO mesh system, with a hard wire to one of them in my shed. The main mesh component feeds the rest of my wired network in my home and any extensions that I have to my yard.
You need your own Bob, our Bob drills out barbell weights and even machines up proper looky-likey OEM counterweights and having your own Bob is shed loads cheaper, especially if your Obsy is sporting Paramount kit. Everyone needs a Bob.
The longer the focal length the more critical every small detail becomes in 'getting it right'. With the 14" behemoth, you will likely need to get everything dialled in as best you can. One improvement you can make is to move all your counterweights together rather than space them out like you have in this video. This will reduce your moment of inertia (very minor, but incremental improvements add up) and make it that little bit easier in your mount. There is a great video by James Lamb who does investigations with SCT's, where he goes through the mechanics of counterweights. Very interesting...
If you have an outlet inside the dome, or if you have the capability to run a new line from your breaker panel for an outlet, then you should maybe consider a powerline connection rather than relying on wifi. It won't be a perfect hardwired connection but will be good enough I bet and won't drop out ever like wifi does. Just a thought 3:15 in!
@@DylanODonnell If you're willing to spend the money, you can switch to mesh routers, and place 1 inside the OBS using the ethernet you already have. Then you can connect your gear to the router and get wifi.
My fiberglass observatory creates a wifi deadzone as well. I use a USB wireless antenna attached to my observatory computer. There is enough space in the door to allow the cord to pass. Speeds to my network increase from a lossy 20-30 Mbps to a luxurious 190-220 Mbps. If your computer has an RJ45 LAN connection, they also make antennas with this connection method. No need for external power. If dew is a major concern for this $25 purchase, a plastic bag is a must to protect your frustration elimination investment.
You can use Stellarium to sync planets to NINA. Super easy. It will plate solve and center the target. Moon is difficult but you can get very very close.
If you drill and tap a hole for a third bolt in your finder bracket, it will be much more resilient against drifting of alignment. For once you only have to modify a $5 part for a drastic improvement in performance :)
Buy yourself a ASI585MC it's an excellent planetary camera and some DSO's. It has a larger sensor and makes finding the planet much easier. It will also capture at 180fps using ROI.
You could run an ethernet cable to your dome and have a small WiFi access point in it such as a tplink eap115 - you don't need mega fast WiFi and this model ( I think ) can use Poe so no need to separate power ( although you must have power for your mini pc so there should be power )
I am about to watch, but the way I use GOTO to find a planet: 1. set up my C9.25 for DSO imaging 2. GOTO planet with DSO camera and use plate solving 3. Switch to planetary camera (with 2x barlow) 3. turn up gain to see the bright light given off by the planet 4. hone in on the planet (because GOTO isn’t accurate enough) 5. Turn down gain when the planet is centered and make adjustments/focus etc for imaging.
with a high focal length telescope it makes it tricky to get the planet dead on the sensor. Its the single most frustrating thing when doing planetary imaging. Highly recommend a flip mirror to make it easier to line up planet with a lens then flip back to the camera.
I know right? I’ve talked to the best planetary imagers and they have the same issues we do. Which is reassuring :) this is just one method I’ve decided on so I don’t have to get out of my chair 😆
One thing that was a game-changer for me was to get a 678C camera, with 2-micron pixels, so that I do not need a Barlow ahead of it at f/10. Then the field is big enough that I can actually get a planet onto the sensor using the finderscope. With a smaller sensor that has a 2x Barlow ahead of it, that was very frustrating.
Alright, WIFI, networking! My bread and butter. Per the current WiFi standards from CompTIA, the best way to get WiFi in there is to use a drop down. All you need is an Ethernet cable and a wifi drop, I recommend CAT5e since your observatory isn’t all that far from the wifi router I imagine and it has a max throughput of 1Gbps (in practice this is never reached, usually closer to 800Mbps). A drop down is different from a wifi extender since an extender is usually an amplifier of some sort, takes the incoming signal and amplifies it. That’s one way to do it but if you don’t want to drill a small hole and use some caulk to seal it, you can go all out and use fiber optic, granted, this introduces 3 points of failure since the wifi router I imagine doesn’t have media converter port, so you would need CAT5, 2 media converters, and Fiber to Ethernet boxes. The upside is that you can use CAT7 or CAT8 for the wifi drop-down since most cheap fiber optics run at 10Gbps. The downside is that this is significantly more expensive for little gain in bandwidth.
Thanks! I already have Ethernet in the obs.. that’s the irony, I just want to control the pc at my feet with my phone. I can do this outside the obs but as soon as I step inside the wifi dies. I’ve got a high powered external wifi antenna 3m away from the dome. But what I really need is just a wifi router inside the dome hah
WiFi is fine in my Nexdome. I don't know why a plastic dome would act as a faraday cage. I control my scope from the house over WiFi and the signal is rock solid..
NINA orbitals plug in solves this. Takes you to moon, comets, asteroids and planets. Plate solves and centres planets bang on. I use a bigger camera sensor than though.
@@DylanODonnell no you are right it’s hard with a small sensor. I solve with my full 183 sensor and then use a small ROI to do the high speed capture. Really looking forward to your planetary stuff. Planet imaging doesn’t get enough love on UA-cam.
Ah the old drilling out the counterweight thing yup I've done that too with an old EQ6 counterweight to fit a Skywatcher AZ EQ6's "shaft" Better than coughing up an obscene amount of money for a lump of metal.
Geez, my C9.25 is widefield compared to that monster. I’m still using a TelRad I inherited from Grandpa in the cave. But I will add that the wider field of the ASI585 makes it slightly easier to get the planet on the screen and it still gives a high frame rate when I lower the ROI.
Honestly doing something like this would have saved me a ton of time setting up some big telescopes Definitely setting up a wide field camera on high focal length rigs for plate solving! You got some funny looking quads when you plate solve thooo hmm lol
Asiair never once got the Moon right. It's spot on with comets. I use laser with my observatory when im using pc with Sharpcap. Why haven't you run Cat 6 cables underground? They just need to be in a conduit. My custom ROR is fantastic.
Interesting Im not a planet guy but every time I’ve slewed to a planet it’s dead center on my camera sensor .. maybe because I don’t use a planetary camera it seem fine …. I’m going to test this again peaked my curiosity. … thx Dylan
Nice msm rotator. I've got the mobile phone holder they do. Nice bit of kit. It means I get all the draw backs of imaging and visual with none of the benefits. Although whatapping my mam to live stream Jupiter or the moon is pretty dang cool.
the brightness of the planet is the killer for me . I slew to a nearby star with sky map, plate solve, then slew to the planet. But I'm just a 5 inch mak not a big swinging 14 inch
What I personally do, is get php to use piggy back scope and nina on the main, and roam around until main scope gets a planet in the middle and note where my piggyback 'true' center is :) easier next ttime
Hi Dylan, have you thought of doing a what's up in the night sky for us Aussies? There's plenty for the poms and yanks, but Nome for us aussies. Cheers erik
Somebody has to learn how to make a pointing model... :) and use a software which can do it. Normally getting any object within one arc minute is doable. Professional telescopes point to a few arc seconds. I don't know if it can be done under eqmod, but in many other software you have this possibility, and it makes pointing a lot more precise.
This is regarding your WiFi. Hear me out. Years ago, my garage door opener stopped working. I’ll spare you the details but after a painful process ordering new openers and changing batteries etc it actually took a few weeks to figure out that I had put in a LED light bulb that killed the signal. Putting in another globe fixed everything. Fast forward a few years later my ASIAir would not work. It turned out my USB had a small LED on it. Once I swapped it for another one without the LED it worked great. I’m not saying this is your cell phone WiFi problem but it Might be. Good luck.
So crazy that your comets is going in the wrong direction 😂 it’s almost as if you guys are upside down 🙃
I point the scope to a part of the sky that is right next to the planet. Then I plate solve, and after that, I make it point to the planet, which is right next to the area I just plate solved. This has worked well for me. As far as your wifi is concerned, I recommend getting a mesh network from Amazon, the Eero. You can set up a node in the planetarium in one of the computer/equipment bays, which will pull internet from the next closest node, and distribute this signal inside your observatory.
OMG I *LOVE* that Starship poster you got in the background!!
Yeh custom print .. incredible shot !
I just came to say the same thing!!! I was like, HEY he's got a super heavy booster picture. SWEET!
Finding the planet is just the first step. Accurate focusing is a constant struggle. Seeing depends on fortune. But... When all three work and your equipment is fine tuned it is just FANTASTIC.
Using goto in the finder scope mostly works. You have a mode in the skywatcher software that does spiral movements until the planet gets into the FOV.
Good luck in this planetary journey.
Thanks my friend !
I have a Celestron 9.25” for planetary. What I do is slew using the AM5 software, then center the planet in a 30mm finder, and then use a gift from the optic gods, a Baader flip mirror. In one end of the flip is a narrower field eyepiece and the other end throws light to the camera sensor. A little nudging with the narrower eyepuece, and by the time I go to the camera, it’s easy to get it centered with the EAF. This might sound stupidly complicated. But actually, the method allows me to center the planet on the sensor in about 60 seconds after the slew. I love flip mirrors! Beautiful C14! Can’t wait to see your images with it! Cheers!
I have a cheap Celestron AltAz mount and it is great at finding planets. It is even better at doing an alignment using a planet.
I use a similar method but for imaging the ISS. With the wide-angle view, the guide scope allows for the plate-solving of sections on the ISS patch and building a very precise sky model.
I really like the digital finder scope approach, especially since I prefer staying inside on cold nights - great idea. Having a finder scope of some sort is almost essential; otherwise, you can easily find yourself lost in space, and that's never fun.
Lastly, this video highlighting the complexities of your setup is a perfect reminder of why it's so valuable to have multiple imaging trains if possible. It takes a lot of time to get everything just right, and once it's all working, it feels almost criminal to tear it down.
Great video and looking forward to seeing some C14 planet pics!
One quick way to do this at extremely long focal lengths is - I set up a green laser perfectly aligned to my main OTA. After a rough GOTO, i use the hand controller to ease the laser smack into the planet , maybe using binoculars for close look and fine manual alignment - and job done.
That scope is huge!!!❤
I find that Stellarium is very good at finding solar system stuff as long as you 'train' it on a known object first using the 'sync' command.
Dylan you took me back to Jr High with your "pattern" on screen, LOL !! I will have to check the comments to see if anyone else has the same warped mind as me 🤣... You never know what you might get when one tunes into Dylan O Donnell... I wish you were my neighbor , or at least not on the upside down part of the world, we would have so much fun ! Haha... Cheers from Utah.
Gr8 stuff Dylan!
Love your videos mate . . . Keep smiling and enjoy weekend with family.
Cheers,
Annika
🍹🔮🥃🔭
Thanks Annika you too!
@@DylanODonnell Cheers mate. By the way, there is a lovely older gent who pulls into one of those side streets at Byron Bay with his telescope. He is awesome and I hope he will be there on Monday 23rd and Tuesday 24th December when I stay for two nights. He showed me Saturn and Jupiter for the first time - I almost cried! Maybe you know him. Annika
@@annikasoraya4322 I know who you mean :) It's great that he gets out in the street for some outreach! I busk in Jonson st with my son sometimes, but it's a lot louder with no astro hah
@@DylanODonnell Umm . . . Why do wealthy sorts busk?
@@annikasoraya4322 I’m not wealthy :) but I let Zen keep all the money, because he’s too young to get a normal job. I just like playing guitar.
Truth to be told, I struggled more finding the planets than imaging the planets. finding the planets with my eyeball is fine, but not with a high powered scope with a tiny view. I can literally be mms away as far as the controller movements and not find the planet! The no-go to with the high focal length and barlow and no stars to plate solve- drove me nuts. I ended up doing something similar like you did. Setting up a small scope with a camera with Sharpcap Pro. I also did such things as removed the barlow and added a reducer to the main scope and attached a larger sensor camera just to get some damn stars to plate solve to, and then finally centered, I removed the reducer and camera and re-added the other camera and barlow. The problem with that is, that you gotta do the whole ritual all over if you decide to slew to another planet!
I have a Meade 16" which is even worse finding planets with a planetary camera, but I have an idea how to improve this. Use a binoviewer with two cameras, one a DSO and the other planetary. Platesolve with the one then swap over to the planetary and you're set. The nice thing about this approach is you don't lose resolution, you only cut the light signal by 50% which can simply be altered by changing the exposure slightly. This method can be used really on any aperture. And you have two views available.
Another alternative is a flip mirror system with again both types of cameras. A servo could be employed (much like the automated cover systems or a electronic focus motor) to operate the flip switch. The disadvantage of this system is that only one camera at a time can display an image.
The electronic finder is a must have for remote operation regardless of size telescope. I know some people actually emply dual electronic finders, one is a very wide angle like camera lens with as much FOV as they desire and the other is the standard finder. Being able to access 3 views is actually idea for watching conjunctions as the views allow quite different perspective of events. And even on planets with moons, this allows imaging close and distant moons when exposures are set correctly.
One thing I learned in planetary imaging versus DSO is the brightness is so much greater you have to get use to dealing with sub 1/250 exposures pretty quick and you'll find each planet has an ideal exposure that will be different if you swap over say from Jupiter to Saturn to Mars. Write yourself up a cheat sheet or if your software allows custom object presets. Base this on the optimal settings for each planet given your configuration. Then you can preset those specs and when you do have the planet centered in the spotting scope you're not having to play around too much with adjustments on the planetary camera.
Focusing with the knob, like a goddamn cave man,... lmao!
Haha it’s insane. At this price it should have a built in ice machine.
@@DylanODonnell this stuff is too expensive bro! The price of that scope is nuts! Even if you got a discount! Its glass and fricken plastic!
All this wasted money on nonsense.The great astronomers of the past would say WTF is wrong with you people
I think your best solution when using plate solving on long focal length scopes is to have another properly aligned smaller guide scope. Use the guide scope for the plate solving. As long as your (suck eggs) guide is aligned to your main scope then you should be all good. (Sorry if someone else has already mentioned this).
Cool video. I have the same 14" SCT scope and I do planetary. My scope is on wheels and not in a dome. I do a three star alignment. That gets the planet within the stock 50mm finder. I then center the scope on the finders crosshairs. Now the planet is very close. I turn up the gain to make it very bright which makes it much easier to find on my laptop screen in Sharpcap. I also use ASIStudio a lot because its works so well with ZWO cameras. I use a flip mirror to help center the planet. Once the planet is on screen I adjust the gain and exposure to get max fps. I've had no luck plate solving I think because I have too many trees and my near 8000mm focal length. I only shoot color because I don't have the patience to do a filter wheel. These modern cameras are very low noise too. Lastly I use the Primalucelab EAF. It does a great job in reaching focus at these long focal lengths. Thanks Dylan
I dont know if i'm doing this the wrong way, but I use Stellarium and NINA : it works so flawlessly that I never even knew this problem existed. With Stellarium running on an extended monitor, I frame my target with the camera sensor/oculars plugin and capture the coordinates with NINA with its framing routine, then "Slew and Centre". Since its a simple RA/DEC capture , it works equally well for stars, DSOs , planets, asteroids and comets alike.
I just added a green laser light for a pistol which has an adjustable barrel which works well ,a little parallax error with you eye but it helps me out.
Regarding phone and Wi-Fi, I wonder if you could build a passive repeater, which is simply an antenna on the outside and an antenna on the inside, cabled together.
So glad to see you have your dream scope, congrats! Thanks for sharing the setup journey, for those of us who are still dreaming.
I use goto for planet with a combinations of my finderscope and autoguider with live feed from it. I alway do star aligment before planitar. Then i slew and resleew to the target and use my bott feeds as refeference for that night and if i want to sleew to Neptune or Uranus i know were on the finderscope and live feed i should be looking. I alose use that with combination of longer exposure to pic up fainter objects. A method i use and still developes for more spot on planet finding. Clear skies and cheers mate. 🍻
I'm currently saving up to upgrade my 10" Dob to something more 'astrophoto' friendly. your videos always keep me inspired (and also terrified about all the complexity 🙂 ) that soon, I'll be getting new gear and can start my own journey 👍
I use APT, Stellarium and PHD2. I'll unpark, select what I want in Stellarium and hit cntrl+1 and it'll GOTO. Take a picture, platesolve in APT and cntrl+1 to get centered on my target and usually I'm good to go.
Interesting pattern. What would you call that asterism?
I goto and sync with a wider field of view camera then once I am there, swap out to my imaging camera, add a power mate, it works, this is using a C11. A C14 however, takes things to another level!
OMG. I can't believe that I am going to have to get a C14! You are killing me. I'm very excited to watch you on this journey.
Hehe thanks !
Honestly I've never had an issue with planets (other than I don't have enough focal length). I just approach them like any target- slew, plate solve and center. There it is- works on planets, asteroids, comets, etc.
Nice video and method...another method some people try is a Flip mirror diagonal
When I'm imaging with my big dobs I am above 8000mm fl, the method I find that works the best for me is to defocus a fair bit and lower the exposure to 1 second and crank up the gain. It's like you are imaging the moon because the defocus means it's 10x the size and the exposure and gain make it as bright as the moon. 👌
Damo
What is the focal length that you are trying to image at?
I once aligned my AVX so well, its GoTo functionality worked perfectly on Saturn and Jupiter. It was like magical.
Yeh most star alignment will get pretty good results .. I clear my star alignment in the obs then rely on platesolving but I’ll likely change my workflow now I have a digital finderscope
@@DylanODonnell yea same here. This was years ago. Plate solving has made me lazier. Or smarter?
Hehe let’s say both
And no one is talking about the cock and balls?
My wife now thinks I’m as childish as Dylan for laughing at that.
I just tried to look at the outer planets, saw Saturn easily. My trick is to goto the planet in sharpcap, then spiral search while looking through a 40mm plossl (on my Edge 8). I wish I had your setup, that secondary camera is mighty handy. Thanks for the ideas! Love seeing the comet from a different angle too XD
I recently bought a camera (Fujifilm x-t30ii) and tried to take a photo of the night sky. But the result was only a black image with white dots. Then I did a lot of research and came across your channel.
I have absolutely no experience or knowledge and I don't understand what you are talking about sometimes. But I hope to get to the point where I understand everything and get great pictures. Much love.
I don’t know…I align my 6se using a simple two star alignment using Polaris, and Vega. When I asked it to find Saturn, it targeted it right in the bullseye. When I tried Uranus, same thing. It was right there. Same with Jupiter. It hit them spot on. In fact, I was out with a few local astronomers, and it hit every target I asked it to, and those guys confirmed it.
You give me hope. I have a Delta Rho 350 and its' 13.75" for my nexdome and am worried about it being too large for the lens opening on the dome. Let me know if you have issues.
So far so good! Will still craft a small lens hood / shield though and bring it back a little when the DSO image train goes back on.
I agree. And Dylan, back to your last video on planets, one question that intrigues me is, why for planets it’s not the same focal point then stars? I mean, they are all ridiculously far away, but still one need to adjust focus when going to planets. Do you know why? I don’t, now with your new big baby C14, could be interesting topic.
I searched again but could not find that pattern on the Caldwell catalogue. Will need a clear night to check it visually 🙂
Hehe
Loved the snicker at the eyepiece!!!
I have been using the SvBony correct image straight thru illuminated finder scope and it really makes getting to the planets easy. My rig is a old XL70 Meade EQ with motor in RA, a Celestron 6se SC and a ZWO color ASI678MC camera. Location is NW Arizona USA, altitude is 3,700 ft MSL, humidity is usually around 16% and very light polluted sky. Just use the ZWO software nothing fancy. Have gotten very good images of Saturn and Jupiter. Mars a little disappointing but clearly is the red planet. Enjoy your videos. Now 80 and started imaging this last summer have been visual for decades and because of your videos thought I would try imaging. Thanks
So, is your observatory now held hostage by seeing? Like, do you plan on keeping this on the Eq8 all the time while waiting on good seeing, or will you put RASA or something else on for mediocre seeing?
Yeh I might change things up.. but Jupiter is coming so I’ll fine tune for that and see how I go!
Hi Dylan excellent challenge. I've used Stellarium to goto a planet. I use NINA to two or three star align/platesolve then import the planet coordinates into NINA and slew.
I ran an external antenna from the wifi card from the inside my mini pc in the observatory to the underside of my pagola. Using a 3M extension for the wifi antenna and works a treat!
Yeh I’ve got Ethernet in the obs already .. but I think an inside info hotspot for my phone would help :)
@@DylanODonnell Deco WIFI Mesh. I have the kit with 3 to cover the whole house.
Hi Dylan, I use exactly the same method. But I have converted my visual finder scope to use a camera (the Celestron bracket sucks). I may try the sky watcher one you have.
I didn’t show it in the video (much) but even the skywatcher bracket was a bit janky. I ended up putting two tight cable ties around the shoe so that when it slid into the bracket it was wedged tight. This made it solid :) the rest of the setup with the rings and six screws is much better designed for alignment than the Celestron one, still fiddly but lots of control.
I would imagine the best way to do this, is to slew close to the planet, plate solve, then slew to planet (error from mount and software will be far less. You could even slew to 2 locations close bye to let the software calculate your slew error, goto planet, then center the brightest spot in the center, if it fails to find in, slew back and forth a bit or let it adjust the gain to see what direction the light gradient, reset it and slew in the calculated direction. "should" be more accurate and consistent then just a plate solve and a slew.
firecapture has a reticle that you can enable to get more accurate finder scope alignment
I can't wait until you get that beast tuned up! Get ready to be blown away with incredible images.
Will a dew shield fit inside the dome Dylan?
If I give it a generous circumcision .. maybe.
I use a DSO camera on my guide scope to navigate to planets. I've already taken it off the back off the main scope so i need somewhere to put it.
Great solution :)
I usually find the coordinates of the planets and plug it into NINA. I have a separate guider scope that I attached my 120mm to and platesolve via that. Works well enough, it’s only off by a few 10s of arc seconds and then I can center it with mount controls. I still have to perfect my setup but it works for nights where I just need a quick image.
Try the orbitals plugin for Nina!
If you use your finder scope as the main until it is centered then you have lots of stars to plate solve with, then swap over ok you do need to have both align to each other
Good point .. plate solve with that 👏🏼
My process is to first move to an area near the planet, just like I would for DSO imaging, then perform a plate solve and sync. After that, slew to the planet, and there it is ... Of course, make sure you're properly polar aligned ;)
To reduce the risk of your cell phone, dropping, with the ethernet cable you have running out to your dome, have that go to an extender of your Wi-Fi mesh (if you have that, and if not get a set), and then your phone will just connect to the local Wi-Fi that’s in your dome. I’m using a DECO mesh system, with a hard wire to one of them in my shed. The main mesh component feeds the rest of my wired network in my home and any extensions that I have to my yard.
Hi @DylanODonnell, How nice to bask in the reflection of your fame for a few moments! I do like the digital finder plan. Keep up the splendid work!
I was hoping you’d see this :) thanks for the question!
You need your own Bob, our Bob drills out barbell weights and even machines up proper looky-likey OEM counterweights and having your own Bob is shed loads cheaper, especially if your Obsy is sporting Paramount kit. Everyone needs a Bob.
The longer the focal length the more critical every small detail becomes in 'getting it right'. With the 14" behemoth, you will likely need to get everything dialled in as best you can. One improvement you can make is to move all your counterweights together rather than space them out like you have in this video. This will reduce your moment of inertia (very minor, but incremental improvements add up) and make it that little bit easier in your mount. There is a great video by James Lamb who does investigations with SCT's, where he goes through the mechanics of counterweights. Very interesting...
Really? Good tip, my intuition was the spacing would be better, so it’s good to know otherwise!
I think you should change that background poster for a image of the stars with the dots joined up !!
Hehe
If you have an outlet inside the dome, or if you have the capability to run a new line from your breaker panel for an outlet, then you should maybe consider a powerline connection rather than relying on wifi. It won't be a perfect hardwired connection but will be good enough I bet and won't drop out ever like wifi does. Just a thought 3:15 in!
I’ve got Ethernet in the obs :) I just want to use my phone sometimes !
@@DylanODonnell 1st world problems
@@DylanODonnell If you're willing to spend the money, you can switch to mesh routers, and place 1 inside the OBS using the ethernet you already have. Then you can connect your gear to the router and get wifi.
My fiberglass observatory creates a wifi deadzone as well. I use a USB wireless antenna attached to my observatory computer. There is enough space in the door to allow the cord to pass. Speeds to my network increase from a lossy 20-30 Mbps to a luxurious 190-220 Mbps. If your computer has an RJ45 LAN connection, they also make antennas with this connection method. No need for external power. If dew is a major concern for this $25 purchase, a plastic bag is a must to protect your frustration elimination investment.
You can use Stellarium to sync planets to NINA. Super easy. It will plate solve and center the target. Moon is difficult but you can get very very close.
ua-cam.com/video/Q64k-dGX-KQ/v-deo.htmlsi=tqyYXsoE6KcpP5Pc
Sharing a link for the tutorial.
If you drill and tap a hole for a third bolt in your finder bracket, it will be much more resilient against drifting of alignment. For once you only have to modify a $5 part for a drastic improvement in performance :)
Buy yourself a ASI585MC it's an excellent planetary camera and some DSO's. It has a larger sensor and makes finding the planet much easier. It will also capture at 180fps using ROI.
Yeh I’m looking at the same sensor but mono .. looks awesome !
You could run an ethernet cable to your dome and have a small WiFi access point in it such as a tplink eap115 - you don't need mega fast WiFi and this model ( I think ) can use Poe so no need to separate power ( although you must have power for your mini pc so there should be power )
Yup I have Ethernet to the obs already. Putting in a router inside the dome is the next step!
Can’t wait to see what you capture with that beast
I am about to watch, but the way I use GOTO to find a planet: 1. set up my C9.25 for DSO imaging 2. GOTO planet with DSO camera and use plate solving 3. Switch to planetary camera (with 2x barlow) 3. turn up gain to see the bright light given off by the planet 4. hone in on the planet (because GOTO isn’t accurate enough) 5. Turn down gain when the planet is centered and make adjustments/focus etc for imaging.
I use a Telrad very successfully for planet.
Rules to live by
1. Don’t get murdered
2. Don’t stand on my tripod 😂
Cheers Simon
with a high focal length telescope it makes it tricky to get the planet dead on the sensor. Its the single most frustrating thing when doing planetary imaging. Highly recommend a flip mirror to make it easier to line up planet with a lens then flip back to the camera.
I know right? I’ve talked to the best planetary imagers and they have the same issues we do. Which is reassuring :) this is just one method I’ve decided on so I don’t have to get out of my chair 😆
I'm just here for the visual astronomy & adolescent jokes! Dylan never lets me down.
🫡
One thing that was a game-changer for me was to get a 678C camera, with 2-micron pixels, so that I do not need a Barlow ahead of it at f/10. Then the field is big enough that I can actually get a planet onto the sensor using the finderscope. With a smaller sensor that has a 2x Barlow ahead of it, that was very frustrating.
Yeh I’m thinking about removing the 2.5x Barlow actually !
Alright, WIFI, networking! My bread and butter.
Per the current WiFi standards from CompTIA, the best way to get WiFi in there is to use a drop down. All you need is an Ethernet cable and a wifi drop, I recommend CAT5e since your observatory isn’t all that far from the wifi router I imagine and it has a max throughput of 1Gbps (in practice this is never reached, usually closer to 800Mbps).
A drop down is different from a wifi extender since an extender is usually an amplifier of some sort, takes the incoming signal and amplifies it.
That’s one way to do it but if you don’t want to drill a small hole and use some caulk to seal it, you can go all out and use fiber optic, granted, this introduces 3 points of failure since the wifi router I imagine doesn’t have media converter port, so you would need CAT5, 2 media converters, and Fiber to Ethernet boxes. The upside is that you can use CAT7 or CAT8 for the wifi drop-down since most cheap fiber optics run at 10Gbps. The downside is that this is significantly more expensive for little gain in bandwidth.
Thanks! I already have Ethernet in the obs.. that’s the irony, I just want to control the pc at my feet with my phone. I can do this outside the obs but as soon as I step inside the wifi dies. I’ve got a high powered external wifi antenna 3m away from the dome. But what I really need is just a wifi router inside the dome hah
LOL! "That way we can get the planet right in the eyepiece".
WiFi is fine in my Nexdome. I don't know why a plastic dome would act as a faraday cage. I control my scope from the house over WiFi and the signal is rock solid..
Thank you.
NINA orbitals plug in solves this. Takes you to moon, comets, asteroids and planets. Plate solves and centres planets bang on.
I use a bigger camera sensor than though.
Yeh it’s in the video but I didn’t make it obvious :)
@@DylanODonnell no you are right it’s hard with a small sensor. I solve with my full 183 sensor and then use a small ROI to do the high speed capture. Really looking forward to your planetary stuff. Planet imaging doesn’t get enough love on UA-cam.
Ah the old drilling out the counterweight thing yup I've done that too with an old EQ6 counterweight to fit a Skywatcher AZ EQ6's "shaft" Better than coughing up an obscene amount of money for a lump of metal.
Yep!
Geez, my C9.25 is widefield compared to that monster. I’m still using a TelRad I inherited from Grandpa in the cave. But I will add that the wider field of the ASI585 makes it slightly easier to get the planet on the screen and it still gives a high frame rate when I lower the ROI.
Hmmm…. So my Meade 12” LX200 controlled through The SkyX with TPOINT calibration model centers each planet perfectly. So it is possible!!
Honestly doing something like this would have saved me a ton of time setting up some big telescopes Definitely setting up a wide field camera on high focal length rigs for plate solving!
You got some funny looking quads when you plate solve thooo hmm lol
Hehehe I don’t know what you’re talking about ;)
I commend your recent cable management effort in your “office” 👍🏻
ASI air and c8 go to planets every time. Never knew there was a problem. It has Hyperstar though.
Great video Dylan! It's so great you're sharing the journey with us! As a software developer I hear your call and choose to ignore it 😀 sorry mate 😛
Hahaha
Asiair never once got the Moon right. It's spot on with comets. I use laser with my observatory when im using pc with Sharpcap. Why haven't you run Cat 6 cables underground? They just need to be in a conduit. My custom ROR is fantastic.
Interesting Im not a planet guy but every time I’ve slewed to a planet it’s dead center on my camera sensor .. maybe because I don’t use a planetary camera it seem fine …. I’m going to test this again peaked my curiosity. … thx Dylan
Nice msm rotator. I've got the mobile phone holder they do. Nice bit of kit. It means I get all the draw backs of imaging and visual with none of the benefits.
Although whatapping my mam to live stream Jupiter or the moon is pretty dang cool.
Hah cool
the brightness of the planet is the killer for me . I slew to a nearby star with sky map, plate solve, then slew to the planet. But I'm just a 5 inch mak not a big swinging 14 inch
I'm thinking your next astro upgrade would be to buy some real estate high up on a mountain to get better seeing :)
Yeh it really feels that way 😆
The biggest issue with that setup i've always had is that the scopes are never coaxial enough, the longer the mains cope FL, the worse it is....heh...
Good problems to have :)
What I personally do, is get php to use piggy back scope and nina on the main, and roam around until main scope gets a planet in the middle and note where my piggyback 'true' center is :)
easier next ttime
🤔 I get similar patterns ...
my onestep control has go to for all planets above horizon
Hi Dylan, have you thought of doing a what's up in the night sky for us Aussies? There's plenty for the poms and yanks, but Nome for us aussies. Cheers erik
I’m on at 6:45 on ABC Northcoast every Tuesday morning - tune in (online!) :)
My SynScan controlled Skywatcher 250P Dobsonian finds planets with a simple 2 star alignment.
plate solve the finder?
Yep that’s the next step!
“Like a god damn cave man” lmao
Somebody has to learn how to make a pointing model... :) and use a software which can do it. Normally getting any object within one arc minute is doable. Professional telescopes point to a few arc seconds. I don't know if it can be done under eqmod, but in many other software you have this possibility, and it makes pointing a lot more precise.
This is regarding your WiFi. Hear me out. Years ago, my garage door opener stopped working. I’ll spare you the details but after a painful process ordering new openers and changing batteries etc it actually took a few weeks to figure out that I had put in a LED light bulb that killed the signal. Putting in another globe fixed everything. Fast forward a few years later my ASIAir would not work. It turned out my USB had a small LED on it. Once I swapped it for another one without the LED it worked great. I’m not saying this is your cell phone WiFi problem but it Might be. Good luck.
That’s fascinating! The obs is full of LEDs (mostly taped up) it would be quite a manhunt!
Good morning
when I twist my knob like a caveman or gentleman there is always the shakes