First light with my new AP Setup!

Equipment: Orion ED80T, Canon EOS 80D, CEM40 Mount, Orion 50mm Mini Guidescope, ASI120MM-S Guide Cam, iPolar polarscope

Software: iPolar software, PHD2, SGP, DSS

Capture Details:

1) 15 x 60s, 13 x 120s Lights @ ISO 800 (41 minutes total lights)

2) 5 x 60s darks

Processing:

1) Stacked in DSS

2) Adjusted RGB curves, highlight, and saturation in DSS

Issues I know:

1) Guidance is still not as good as I want. Getting about 3 arcsec (0.25 px) RMS in RA and DEC

2) I clearly did not get nearly enough lights

3) I probably should be closer to 1600 ISO

4) My camera is rotated

Quick things I learned along the way in case anyone has the same setup and is new:

1) The CEM40 GoTo is pretty decent for visual - but you HAVE to get a good polar alignment and good zero alignment (plenty of info on this if you search "CEM60 zero point") - and then a 1-star / planet alignment works pretty well.

2) When you move to SGP and plate solving, you have to clear out any pre-existing models in the hand controller

2a) YMMV but I had pretty cruddy luck with PlateSolver2, even after downloading and properly installing both catalogs. I ended up using online AstroBin, and that worked like a charm

2b) Still not sure why, but when I have my CEM40 in zero position (pointing north), and I use SGP to slew to M31 (after doing an initial 'solve and sync blind' , it goes completely haywire - seems to be correct RA, but opposite in DEC - as if it thought it was in southern hemisphere. But, if I use the hand controller to go to M31, and then do a 'center', it worked fine.

3) Focusing the guide cam to get a rough focus is easier in the day - especially since you have to do a rough focus by moving the barrel with the Orion 50mm mini

4) I saved as FITS files. When bringing into DSS, I wasn't sure about the bayer pattern of the EOS80D, and I couldn't find it anywhere. Every Canon listed in DSS used RGGB, but it seems that the EOS80D is GRBG. I can't find confirmation of that - but using RGGB or BGGR resulted in very green images. GRBG seems to look correct.