Show off your Hardware... - Forums

Topic starter

Sep 29, 2023 · Edited: Sep 29, 2023

We have already had some pictures of our rigs in the old thread when I remember correctly, but I guess it would be nice to compare Setups and to perhaps get some fresh ideas from how others run their setup.

As I have done a major (not yet 100% finished) rebuild I will start with my two eyed beast.....

I already had first light and saw that the angle adjustment was not wide enough for our field centers so I had to go back to the drawing board....

Engaging

Dan Watt

Sep 29, 2023

From last months trip to the Southern and Eastern Sierra:

Modified Canon 6D, Nikkor 180mm f2.8 (Run it at F4) on a Skywatcher GTI. The GTI is newish to me, works okay but I need to take it apart and correct some machining issues, it seems to bind up at certain points and guiding goes nuts for a bit.

I also recently bought a FMA180 and I happen to have a modded R8, may do a side by side rig in the near future, or at least whenever Nina adds the newer Canon SDK.

The other scope in these pics is my 8" f4 homebuilt newt.

Michael Ring

Topic starter

Nov 24, 2023 · Edited: Nov 24, 2023

A quick update, I recently purchased a 40mm Sigma F1.4, here's the camera + lens:

and a "first light" in horrible conditions, 80% moon and two houses in the way, I had to crop off the left side because of the 2nd house, the first house is responsible for the color issues in the top right. 30min Integration time at iso 800 shot wide open at F1.4.

Dan Watt

Dec 1, 2023

Through this together today from stuff I had laying around, mostly off the shelf cinema rail parts usually used to mount remote follow focus units in film production. Had to fab up one small bit from some 1/8" thick angle aluminum I had laying around with a hacksaw and drill press.

Now I can mount any lens that has follow focus gears installed and use it with the EAF.

Michael Ring

Topic starter

Dec 1, 2023

Nice! How well do the gears work, any issues with backlash when focusing?

Well Written Engaging

Dan Watt

Dec 1, 2023

Gears mesh very well. The lens gears are metal too. Only about 20 steps of backlash, which is already incredible for an EAC on its own. Plus I use Nina with Hocus Focus so backlash isn’t a concern.

Philip F.

Dec 10, 2023

Here’s my dual Samyang, ASI2600mc setup. A MeLe mini pc runs the whole thing.

Michael Ring

Topic starter

Dec 10, 2023

Looking nicely built and compact!
One thing I am wondering, are you photographing one field at the same time with both cameras?

Are you using Nina or another tool for aquisition? I have my Nina sequence running good 80% of the time, if you also use Nina we should share thoughts on how to best make syncronized imaging work….

Are you from Northern or Southern Hemisphere?

And are you planning to contribute frames to the project?

Michael

I think I have to do a new photo of my dual rig, it looks way more stable now than my first version….

Engaging

Philip F.

Dec 10, 2023

The astrodynium rings come with a dual arca/venus rail. I originally was going to use the Venus side of the rail; however, it wasn’t wide enough to clamp in the adm clamps that I bought. Currently I am using the arca Swiss side. One of the arca clamps is a geared rotator. I can easily do two panes side by side or line them up easily.

I’m using Nina. Last night was my first effort at synchronized dithering though. I appreciate all pointers!

I actually put this together think that it would be fun to contribute. I am thinking that it would be better two shoot 2 overlapping frames. This way the frames from each camera would be stacked separately.

I’m in the Mojave desert of California (N Hemisphere) near Edward’s Air Force base. Bortle 4.

Michael Ring

Topic starter

Dec 10, 2023

Glad to have you on board, you are quite a bit more south than the rest of us on the Northern Hemisphere so you have access to areas that can connect the northern to the southern hemisphere without having to do do frames close to the horizon.

Yes, 2 frames at the same time are nice because we can cover more space fast.

You can use Plate solving in Nina to properly adjust the angle between the two lenses, first make sure that they are both oriented at 0° or 180° and then simply check that DEC is 5° apart between the two frames, then you are set to match our requirements for The asi2600mc

I am currently shooting 2 Frames at the same time @F2.0 with 2hrs of total integration time, in the end I will need 4 hours to fulfill our requirements for the end product but having 2 is aleady a lot better than nothing and this year has not exactly been nice for astrophotography with litte or no moon.

Here are my templates for Nina:

Samyang Slave Camera.template.json
Samyang Master Camera.template.json

Michael

Michael Ring

Topic starter

Dec 10, 2023 · Edited: Dec 10, 2023

Glad to have you on board, you are quite a bit more south than the rest of us on the Northern Hemisphere so you have access to areas that can connect the northern to the southern hemisphere without having to do do frames close to the horizon.

Yes, 2 frames at the same time are nice because we can cover more space fast.

You can use Plate solving in Nina to properly adjust the angle between the two lenses, first make sure that they are both oriented at 0° or 180° and then simply check that DEC is 5° apart between the two frames, then you are set to match our requirements for The asi2600mc

I am currently shooting 2 Frames at the same time @F2.0 with 2hrs of total integration time per frame, in the end I will need 4 hours to fulfill our requirements for the end product but having 2 is aleady a lot better than nothing and this year has not exactly been nice for astrophotography with litte or no moon.

Here are my templates for Nina:

Samyang Slave Camera.template.json
Samyang Master Camera.template.json

Michael

Michael Ring

Topic starter

Dec 20, 2023

@Philip F. were you able to test run your beautyful rig? I had 3 days of clear skies and had again some worrying experience with the sync plugin in Nina and by chance I today found out in Nina Discord about another sync Plugin that allows to do named sync points which should make our life a lot easier.

I cannot test in the next weeks because the weatherforecast is simply ugly, if you have better weather it would be great if we could collaborate on this promising plugin...

Here's some code for the Master instance, it should give you an idea how things are supposed to work (Doing 2hrs of recording subs)