3.21
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For long, I have been using a small Takahashi scope (FS-60C) as a luxury guide scope for a larger 100mm refractor. The small Tak was mounted on top of the refractor and has served its purpose very well, providing pinpoint stars to the guide camera. Recently, I decided to switch to an off-axis guider instead, connected directly to the filter wheel and thus handy for use also for other setups, i.e for my Celestron SCT scope. This seemed to be a neat and working solution, so I put the old Takahashi back away to collect dust. It felt a bit awkward to send the telescope into retirement, as the Tak is an excellent scope with flourite optics, and have only done the "dirty work" of guiding for the last few years, a job that any cheap refractor could have done. So, I got the idea of perhaps using the Takahashi for piggy-back imaging instead of putting it back on he shelf? The scope was already fixed in position and everything related was in place, so it was simply just to connect an imaging camera with a filter where the guide cam used to be. The setup has the two scopes obviously poiniting in parallell, roughly at the same target. The Tak provides a wide field of view with a one-shot color camera, and the main, larger telescope collects narrowband data. On the software side, I am using two instances of Sequence Generator Pro, where all equipment is controlled by the main "master" scope, as before. The second instance of SGPro, for the piggy-back imaging only has the imaging camera and the focuser connected. Thus, it becomes a "slave" of the master and has no influence on the control of the mount, guiding, etc. This setup works up two the point when the master scope is about to dither, and ruins the sub frame of the slave telescope. Even with a small dither, the noise is clearly seen on the piggy-back image. It is not practically possible to sync the two imaging sessions such that they both can finish their subframes simultaneously, as there are differences in sub lengths and time of download. In addition comes guider settling time, focus adjustment at irregular intervals, etc. In this situation, it would have been handy to have a setting where the master instance somehow gets a signal to wait until the slave is in a state where dither is harmless. I have an imaging example from this setup here, where it is clearly seen that the slave image is more noisy than it had to be: Master image: https://www.astrobin.com/ad3068/?nc=user Slave image: https://www.astrobin.com/d1ufwa/?nc=user If anyone has a come up with a working solution for piggy-back imaging, I would love to hear from you. -Martin |
3.15
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| Synchronized dithering is what you are looking for, but I am not sure which piece of software could do that, think APT maybe. Someone else will come along with a better fuller answer. |
0.00
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The MGen 3 Standalone autoguider is capable of synchronizing the dithering of two scopes at same time. You would have to use an Aux Splitter, but it‘s possible! Cs Franzi Josef |
12.30
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I use Voyager to control my imaging sessions. While I don't use it, it does have an "array" version that does exactly what you want. It is made to control multiple imaging systems on a single mount. I switched from SGP to Voyager about 1 year ago and I love it. There was some paradigm shifting for sure, but I find it to be much more capable. The author is very helpful if you have any support issues. I think it would be worth a look. Best. Tim |
4.53
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Hi @urban.astronomer I remember seeing a video from Cuiv the lazy geek on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDH6maXanJw He uses Nina for his setups, but I am sure, you can find some useful information in it to set it up in SGP as well. I am quite sure that it could work. But I do not use SGP myself. Maybe this helps... CS Christian |
1.51
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| APT can synchronize the dithering of 2 scopes. |
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I've just been looking for the same thing myself for a side by side system. Here's the link to the APT solution mentioned by David Redwine:- https://astrophotography.app/usersguide/multi_camera_dithering___synchronizing.htm Not tried doing it yet, but it looks promising. Clear skies! Tony. |
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I have four telescopes on one mount and i use apt. I can synchronise all four and dither cs nick |
5.76
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| NINA just added, in the 1.11 version, a synchronized dither plugin. That's their "nightly" version and I do not think it has had a lot of testing yet, but it's available to try and I know the author is looking for feedback to actively improve it. |
1.20
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I'm just starting using a three scope rig. I'm using StellarMate - Kstars - Ekos - INDI. In Ekos, newest version one can use a "Pre Capture" script to fire other scopes cameras for each capture with the Main camera. In the script the exposure time can be set for each. It must be set equal or shorter than main camera. The other setting for the extra cameras, like storage path and ISO is best set in each cameras INDI device tab. This way one can do multi camera sessions without beeing hit by the dithering. Excuse! My Pegasus Pocket Power Box Advanced is in for warranty. That's why you see all the dangling cables :-) |
