MountOne | 100MM First Light.
Don't Panic!
This guide is 99% images.
Index.
Setup.
I am in a Bortle 4.9 area, which is pretty poor. But tonight the skies are clear and the telescope is outside. You'll no doubt have noticed the Printed Equatorial Tripod (PET).
I have levelled the tripod, set the latitude to 51.7185°, and pointed the astrograph in the general direction of Polaris.
Focus.
When we assembled the 100MM Astrograph, we set the lens to be fully in, this is focus position 0. The first thing we need to do is foucs the lens.
Open Ekos and select the camera tab.
Take a preview image and check all is working.
Next, go to the focus tab and set the focus to 100.
Capture another image.
You should just be able to see very light details on the image.
Keep adjusting the focus to sharpen the image.
As the focus is sharpened more details appear.
Eventually you'll have a nice sharp image.
The focus ended up being around 4000.
Capture & Solve.
For the MountOne's GOTO function to work, it needs to know where it is, and what it is pointing at. We can sync the telescope using the Capture & Solve tab.
Although I have the Solver Action set to Sync, for the moment, you want it set to Nothing.
When first running the Capture & Solve, Ekos will want some information from you.
Firstly, you'll need to have the Optical Train correctly setup. This should be easy to do as we input all the options previously in The 100MM Software Documentation.
The Solver requires Index Files, which are essentially reference data which it uses to match stars detected in any captured image to.
The 100mm lens, combined with the Raspberry Pi HQ camera has a 216.1' x 162' Field Of View (FOV). Ekos will highlight those index files as being required. Tick the selection boxes and they will be downloaded for you.
Once downloaded, the captured image will be checked against the index files to try and find a solution. This can take a few minutes.
Once it has completed it will show the results in KStars.
I am waaaay out!
Polar Alignment.
I have gone back outside and adjust the Polar Alignment in the PET up and then rerun the Capture & Solve.
I do this a few times to get it as close to being Polar Aligned as possible.
I had to rotate the PET a little too.
Now we have a good alignment.
You can spend more time and effort doing this, and it will give better results when tracking too.
Capture a test image.
Perform a final Capture & Solve but this time set the Solver Action to Sync.
The 100MM Astrograph, MountOne, and KStars should now all be synced and aligned.
What Is This Cluster?
It's Pleiades (M45) of course, and I am using it to check that the tracking and imaging works.
Perform a Capture & Solve.
Take a nice image.
Fine tune the focus....
Take a longer exposure.
Image Stacking
Now onto M31, the Andromeda Galaxy. We shall be taking a series of 15 second exposures and then processing them with DeepSkyStacker.
Move to M31 (KStars has a search function), and run the Solver again.
Check you're happy with the composition.
Setup a run of 50 images with a 15 second exposure and run the sequence.
Before packing up I have run a similar sequence of 10 Dark images (put the lens cap on), they will help compensate any noise in the sensor.
Once you have all your images, you can run them through DeepSkyStacker and perform final image processing through Photopea.
What you'll hopefully end up with is something far better than what I have managed.
The image below is 7 minutes 44 seconds of image-capture through The 100MM Astrograph. It was all I could manage before the British weather closed in on me.
Click on the image for a full-sized version.
