Equipment – The Amateur Astrophotographer's Cookbook

January 26, 2020

My Field Setup: WO SpaceCat51, SkyWatcher EQM-35 Pro, Altair Astro 183C, Stellarmate Raspberry Pi

Equipment Mount: SkyWatcher EQM-35 Pro Telescope: William Optics SpaceCat51 (Accessories: WO Cat Series Saddle Handlebar for Guide Scope) Focuser: DeepSkyDad AF3 Imaging Camera: Altair Astro Hypercam 183C Guide Camera + Scope: ZWO ASI120MC-S + ZWO MiniScope Polar Alignment: QHY CCD Polemaster Imaging Computer: Raspberry Pi 4, 4Gb Ram, 64Gb Sandisk Extreme running Stellarmate 1.4.6 (Beta … Continue reading My Field Setup: WO SpaceCat51, SkyWatcher EQM-35 Pro, Altair Astro 183C, Stellarmate Raspberry Pi

October 14, 2018

Working through my guiding problems

This post is a little different to the others in as far as I’m documenting the issues I have been having with guiding, and the steps I’ve been taking to fix and improve. Guiding is not necessarily an essential part of astrophotography, but there are times when it is indispensable. Guiding keeps your telescope + … Continue reading Working through my guiding problems

August 19, 2018August 19, 2018

My guide to auto-guiding Part 1: Configuring PHD2

In an ideal world, we’d set up our telescopes, on our very accurate mounts, that are accurately polar aligned and no matter where we pointed our telescope and camera, we’d be able to lock in on a target for hours on end to capture those faint DSOs without a care for any object slowly drifting … Continue reading My guide to auto-guiding Part 1: Configuring PHD2

August 16, 2018August 16, 2018

Wake-On-Lan: Sleeping and Waking up your Remote Imaging PC

Did you know that you can remotely wake up a sleeping PC by sending a “magic packet” to your network adapter? I find this immensely useful for my PC that sits with my remote imaging setup. With a normal PC, you have two options when you want to walk away from your PC and have … Continue reading Wake-On-Lan: Sleeping and Waking up your Remote Imaging PC

July 21, 2018September 11, 2018

The Remotely Controlled Imaging Setup

My enjoyment of astrophotography has increased ten-fold since being able to control my setup from the comfort of my house. Rather than stand outside for long periods of time, or even having to jump in and out of the house all night checking on progress – I much prefer being able to guide, slew, focus … Continue reading The Remotely Controlled Imaging Setup

July 20, 2018January 26, 2023

Setting up a SkyWatcher Mount with ASCOM Platform and EQMOD

The ASCOM Platform is the Swiss-Army Knife of software control for your various pieces of astrophotography kit – from mounts, to focusers, to dew heaters and even powered observatory roofs. For us more modest amateurs though, the most important element that ASCOM needs to control, and usually the only required element, is the mount. This … Continue reading Setting up a SkyWatcher Mount with ASCOM Platform and EQMOD

July 19, 2018July 25, 2018

The basics: Setting up and balancing the scopes

Now that we have a fully polar aligned EQ mount, we can now add our telescopes and imaging equipment. Now, we can’t just place our telescopes on our mounts in any old fashion – not unless you hate your mount and don’t fancy any more than a quick slew around the sky. For your astrophotography … Continue reading The basics: Setting up and balancing the scopes

July 19, 2018September 15, 2019

My equipment

2019 (Current) 2018 – August 2019 Mount SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro with EQ6 8in extension pier and Altair TMS Dual Losmandy Side-By-Side mounting plate. QHYCCD Polemaster Pegasus Pocket Power Box (for dew heater power and control, power 183C TEC cooling and Pegasus Motor Control) Telescopes Ostara HR152 Achromat Refractor with Pegasus Motor Focus Controller and Kendrick … Continue reading My equipment

July 18, 2018July 26, 2018

The basics: How to set up your equatorial mount and polar align with a Polemaster

For long exposures (of which I’ll take to mean over 1 minute in length for any length telescope), setting up your mount correctly – before you even place a telescope on it – is vital. Heck, even battling against a Go-To is made easier if you setup your mount correctly in the first place. And … Continue reading The basics: How to set up your equatorial mount and polar align with a Polemaster