Hi All,
I have been using StellarMate for about 2 years now and am very happy with the software. However, after I recently upgrading from a Canon DSLR to an Altair HyperCam 269C Pro TEC I have been having problems. When stacking the images there are no stars found. I have tried to process the files in Deep Sky Stacker and Siril with the same results.
The INDI camera settings are Gain: 565, HCG threshold: 200, HCG: ON, Multiplication factor: 2
Does anyone use an Altair 269C camera with StellarMate? If yes, what settings do you use?
From the log file: Altair AA269CPROTEC(USB2.0) : "[INFO] Native Gain is set to 282.500000 in HCG mode. "
I took the liberty of having a look at the two files you posted. They both are out of focus. And one of them shows elongated stars but the direction of the major axes varies over the field of view suggesting rotation of the imaging camera. I am afraid that you'll need to correct those two issues.
no problem, I appreciate all the help that I can get. The next step will be to increase my knowledge as moving from a DSLR to a DSO imaging camera is not so straight forward as I had hoped.
Amongst other things I was struggling to get the focus correct when taking these pictures. Back to the drawing board on this one, and be more careful with the Bahtinov mask.
The elongated stars mean that I should check the Polar alignment and the tracking.
When you say "the direction of the major axes varies over the field of view suggesting rotation of the imaging camera" what exactly does this mean? As I am using an EQ6-R Pro mount there should not be any rotation so is this something to do with the telescope collimation?
I have been going crazy for the past week so can only say again that I appreciate the help and the feedback.
I meant to say that the directions in which "the ellipses point" seemed to vary. But I now think that I was wrong. In your image numbered 001 all stars are elongated and I thought that the stars to the lower right corner were "pointing" in a different direction than lower left, upper left and upper right but I now see that this is not the case. All stars "point up" seeming to indicate an issue with guiding, not with polar alignment. What guiding do you use (internal or PHD2)? If internal, what guiding algorithm?
As for using the Bahtinov mask, this should be the same as when using a DSLR camera. I usually start a loop in the CCD tab and zoom in on a bright star that shows the diffraction patter and play with the focus until all lines cross at the center of the star.
for guiding I use internal and select SEP MultiStar as it is recommended, no other reason. I am just setting up now and have polar aligned.
The focus is off, will wait for a bright star to focus. Hopefully I can get better results tonight.
I am of the opinion that I was also confused with the gain settings, which should now be correct.
Thanks again for the feedback, it is all very useful knowledge as I am really a beginner and always looking to improve.
I think that with this hobby learning something new every observation is a given.