MountOne | DSLR 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.
Settings.
The camera viewfinder needs to be set to on. This is done in the options tab.
Focus.
The focus is adjusted in the focus tab, but before we can do that we need to take an image to see what the focus is.
Open Ekos and select the camera tab.
Take a preview image and check all is working.
Adjust the focus using the Up & Down arrows.
Capture another image.
Adjust the focus again and capture another image.
You may have to go back and forth a few times to get the focus set.
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.
Confirm the Solver Action is set to Nothing before clicking Capture & Solve.
When first running 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 DSLR Software Documentation.
Click Capture & Solve.
The Solver requires Index Files, which are essentially reference data which it uses to match stars detected in any captured image to.
The DSLR with the 18-55 lens has a 1373.06' x 921.47' 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 a solution has been found, you can close Ekos and see where it thinks the astrograph is pointing.
Polar Alignment.
I have gone back outside and adjusted the Polar Alignment in the PET (I moved the mount by hand) and then rerun the Capture & Solve.
This can take a few attempts.
The more precise the alignment, the better the tracking will be.
Once you have the polar alignment set to your satisfaction, set the Solver Action to Sync. Rerun the Capture & Solve.
The Astrograph and MountOne will now be aligned and Synced.
What Is This Cluster?
It's Pleiades (M45) of course, and I am using it to check that the tracking and imaging works.
Rerun Capture & Solve to Sync to M45.
You may find that the Solver says the astrograph is pointed off somewhere else. If that is the case, after solving and syncing, point the astrograph at M45 again and rerun the Capture & Solve. It should get better each time.
It is possible using Ekos to align the astrograph using multiple points around the sky., further details are in the KStars Handbook.
Image Stacking
We shall be taking a sequence of 50 images at 20 second exposure, and then processing them with DeepSkyStacker.
Capture a preview and check you are happy with the composition.
Let the sequence run. Make sure the capture mode is set to Native, and not FITS.
We'll do a short run of 20 images to capture dark frames. Dark frames are used to remove noise from your images.
To do this you'll need to set the Type to Dark and tick the Dark checkbox.
You will need to fit the lens cap onto the camera to do this. It should prompt you to do so.
Run the sequence.
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 a single image from the captured sequence.
The image below is 13 minutes 40 seconds of image-capture through The DSLR Astrograph, stacked and processed.
