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Fire Capture Question

Torsten Edelmann FireCapture Planetary Camera Jupiter
GAS Astrophotography Interest Group •6 replies•117 views
DrNigel avatar
DrNigel avatar
A Question for the Fire Capture users:

What methods do you use to find the Target, say Jupiter in Fire CApture? Do you use NINA to PA and then slew to Target and then switch to FireCapture??

I'd be really interested to know what you find works best

Thanks in Advance
Nige
maxchess avatar
maxchess avatar
I will be interested in this too. I set up my C8 with 2x barlow on my old Heq5 that was polar aligned and then tried slewing to target and doing PA in Nina but the PA failed because of too few stars. A f20 they  we’re not visable.
Mike said he does it by precisely aligning a guide scope and then using that as above. I have yet to try it. What scope/mount combo are you using?
Max
DrNigel avatar
DrNigel avatar
I'm using a 102mm (4" in old money) refractor. For the image I posted I was using my ASIAIR, so Polar aligned with ZWO 1600mm, swapped too my planetary camera and then used GOTO to slew to Jupiter, I added in a 3x Barlow and then focused and shot Video. Only trouble was the relatively low frame rate. So I fired up FireCapture on a Laptop and then couldnt find Jupiter any more. Hence the question.
maxchess avatar
maxchess avatar
Nigel, don’t quite understand. You say you do PA(Polar Alignment?) with the 1600. Do you then slew to Jupiter with the 1600 and then  swap? PA does not give you star alignment.
is your setup permanent or do you have to setup each time?
recommended approach: With 1600 first PA, then slew to three different targets at different points in the sky, the last being Jupiter. After each GOTO do a Plate Solve. This allows NINA to build an accurate sky model. By the time you slew to Jupiter it should be dead centre in your view. Then change camera.
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DrNigel avatar
DrNigel avatar
Hi Max, thanks for the comments. I will try what you suggest on next opportunity using Nina and let you know how I get on
Tim Ellison avatar
Tim Ellison avatar
Hi Guys,

Interesting to read your discussion. I get into difficulty finding the planet too. I'm not using NINA or plate solving, so am working at a fairly basic level. I polar align and then star align - perhaps including the planet as an alignment point - with an eyepiece in place, then switch to the camera. Not always successful - particularly when going for higher magnification and I sometimes have to switch back to a finderscope and eyepiece combined effort to find it again. It ain't easy! I suspect getting all the kit to "hang" in a perfectly straight line in the focuser is sometimes an issue for me. So eyepiece and camera views aren't always quite the same!

Hoping you figure out good solutions for your kit.

Tim
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Neil Pilkington avatar
Neil Pilkington avatar
Old topic I know, but as I'm back into planetary imaging I thought I'd share my workflow - using Sharpcap Pro (instead of Firecapture)

I had all the same problems as people mentioned above - compounded by the fact that I too don't have a permanent setup. I also DON'T bother to level the tripod/mount apart from a very rough check of the bubble levels on the tripod whilst I'm pushing the tripod spikes into the ground. Hence even after a careful polar alignment, subsequent slews to a target are often way off. My troubles are made worse due to the fact that the mount's home/park position isn't really set as accurately as it could be (something I keep meaning to address but never get round to).

So I start without the barlow (that I'll eventually be using to capture the planet) and use the telscope at prime focus. Normally at prime focus there are enough stars - even with a small sensor of the planetary camera - to do a plate-solving polar alignment in Sharpcap. Then I'll connect the mount to Carte Du Ceil and tell it to slew to the planet. 99.9% of the time the planet will not be in the frame. I also used to struggle to determine where the telescope was now pointing. So I installed "All Sky Plate Solver" program installed. With it installed, as soon as you start Sharpcap it automatically configures itself to use the All Sky Plate Solver in the background. So all I do now is press the magic "locate" button in Sharpcap. This remembers what the coordinate of the intended target were (the planet), then captures an image, plate solves it, then tells the mount to move to the coordinates it remembered for the original target. And voila! the planet then magically comes into view (so far I've had 100% success). I then carefully add the barlow and refocus (I have an electronic focuser so can tell Sharpcap to move the focuser to a pre-defined/known position), do some fine focus adjustments (again via Sharpcap) and then start imaging.

I haven't used Firecapture for a very long time so not sure that it has the same features as Sharpcap. If not, I highly recommend Sharpcap (Pro) - I paid for the upgrade to the "Pro" version to get all the features.

All this means that I can now be imaging within about 30 minutes of deciding the sky is clear enough and stable enough to do some imaging.
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