MountOne | PF 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.
The Pinefeat Canon Lens Controller manages all the focus controls. However, we do have to perform the first focus calibration as we did in the Software Documentation. Open INDI Control Panel and the Pinefeat EF Lens Controller Tab, then click Calibrate.
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 2000 (you may need different values depending on your lens).
Capture another image. The focus should improve, or change.
Keep adjusting the focus until you get it right. This may take a few tries.
Keep adjusting the focus to sharpen the image.
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.
Set the Solver Action to Nothing for the moment.
Check you have the Optical Train correctly setup. This should be easy to do as we input all the options previously in The PF 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. It should automatically open this window, if not, the settings are in the option.
The Canon EF 75-300 III Lens (widely regarded as Canon's worst lens), combined with the Raspberry Pi HQ camera, has a 72' x 54' Field Of View (FOV). Ekos will highlight those index files as being required. Tick the selection boxes and they will be downloaded for you.
After a short moment, the solver will provide an alignment.
You can close Ekos and see where you are pointing. in this instance, we are quite some distance off the Polar Axis. We will need to manually adjust the telescope to correct this offset.
It may take a few attempts to get it good enough. Good enough depends on you, the more accurate you are with the alignment, the better the results. As we are doing initial testing, this is not critical.
Polar Alignment.
When you are happy with the position, set the Solver Action to Sync, and click Capture & Solve.
This time around the solver will sync the telescope and lock in an alignment.
You will be free to move the astrograph around. I recommend performing a few additional Capture & Solve Syncs to get better alignment.
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
We shall be taking a series of 15 second exposures and then processing them with DeepSkyStacker.
Check you're happy with the composition. Setup a run of 100 images with a 15 second exposure and run the sequence.
Before packing up I have run a similar sequence of 30 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 11 minutes 15 seconds of image-capture through The Pinefeat Astrograph.
Click on the image for a full-sized version.