I ended up shooting for another full night after finishing this video and my guiding results were consistently between 0.6 - 0.8 arc seconds of total error. This is very encouraging, and I'm looking forward to seeing if there's further improvement once I use a wider aperture telescope. I will be creating more videos in the future as I gather additional data with the 2600MC Duo. Finally, now that I've reviewed both the 2600MC and 2600MC Duo, you may be wondering which one I'd recommend. All things considered, the 2600MC Duo is probably the better investment. It's only $200 more, and it will be future-proofed if you ever move up to a larger telescope.
Another great video. Hopefully you will be able to get a 2600MM DUO for some testing as well. Waiting to see some testing on that camera before I place an order.
A late comment possibly OBE but is using the new ASI2600MC-Air for the first time, I realized that once the main camera is focused, assuming your guide camera is focused close enough to find stars, you can calibrate, start guiding, and then the guide display will numerically show the star size. At that point it is much easier to do dial in the autoguider focus with the screw adjustment in that case...
Wonderful review Peter. After 2 months pondering and researching, I’ve just pulled the trigger and ordered the ASI2600MC DUO, Hyperstar 925 V4, a Idas fast HA filter and Idas UHS NBZ filter. Very excited, needless to say.
If you tap on the star for the guiding it's going into single star guide mode which is not something you want. Let the ASIair do its thing and select best star + additional stars for multi star guiding. If you don't like the star ASIair selected, press STOP, start looping and hit start guiding again, there's a good chance if you do this a couple of times another star will be selected as main one, but you still get the benefit of a multi star guiding. Also, 3sec exposure is way too much for f/7 but I guess that's needed because of the narrowband. Me personally, I set my exposures to 0.5 and my total RMS is usually around 0.25 - 0.4 with AM5. Worst I've seen is 1, but that's under terrible seeing.
Hello. I'm in the midst of watching the video, but had to comment on how you lost focus when you slewed to a high target. I had the same thing happen to me just the other night. It was a work night, but skies were clear, so I set up a "plan" to shoot 3 different images over the course of the night. I woke up in the middle of the night to find that my stars were huge and fuzzy. Had to go out in my housecoat at 2:00AM to see what was up. Turned out the camera had slipped all the way out to the stop when, like you, I had the scope aiming almost straight overhead. At least it was an easy fix, but it sure did interrupt my sleep! I've got an Orion ED80, and the camera is fixed in place by just two thumbscrews, and they barely maintain their grip, unfortunately.
I guess the patent that SBIG had on the self-guiding camera ran out. I've used SBIG cameras with the internal guider with success. Longer focal lengths did require a way to rotate the camera to find guide stars, especially during galaxy season. NB filters did make finding a guide star more challenging. I'm curious if the ZWO guider adjustment knob has a reliable shaft seal to prevent moisture from entering the sensor chamber over time. This is assuming the two sensors share a common chamber. I'm in the market for another camera and have been looking at this one. Great video otherwise.
Hi Peter, great video thank you. I’m considering getting this cam as my first astronomy camera. I’ve been using dslr. Maybe this is a stupid question, can you use a bahtinov mask to also focus the guide sensor?
Thanks for tge review! I'd like to try how it works with theEdgeHD at F7. Good that you went for 3s exposures for guiding, 5s seems too much for corrections.
Well done, an excellent review and tutorial 👍👏👏👏👏 I am currently in the market for an Askar-V and ASI2600 Duo. I also plan an getting a Celestron Edge HD 8” next year, so you video was right on the button for me and served to allay fears and reservations that I had regarding guiding performance. I now seek your advise regarding the possibility of using the ZWO 8-position filter wheel with Antlia LRGB and SHI 1.25” narrow band filters. I am currently using this filter setup with my RefCat51 and ASI533MM Pro mono camera. Will the guiding camera on the ASI2600 Duo not be blocked by the filter setup as the filters are not 2”? Thanks in advance 🙏🏿
I am not able to find guidestars most times with DUO and Edge 8 and 0.7x reducer. hardly one or two blurry instable stars, and loses quite often. not able to even calibrate at times. focus on main camera is tact sharp. tried increasing gain and exposure no luck. tried turining fine focus knob of DUO no luck. am trying on galaxies such as whirlpool, bode's and cigars. can you (or anyone else on this thread) help what am i missing please
Hey Peter, I noticed that your polar alignment error was above 3 arc minutes and subsequently your guiding was off much more in RA than in DEC. I would suggest to get a better polar alignment, especially at that long focal length. I would aim at a value below 1 arc minute. And a question: what exposure time did you use for the guiding? I didn‘t quite catch it in the video. How low can you go with the narrowband filter?
In the ASIAIR setup screen when you were focusing, i noticed right after the camera name, it said "USB2". Software issue? Not plugged into USB3? Am I just missing something? Also, I'm trying to figure out if this camera marries well with edgehd 925? Any recommendations are appreciated. Thank you.
Maybe an obvious question, but if you bin your guide camera, doesn't that effectively increase the pixel size? Easier to find guide stars, but I'd expect the fatter pixels would lead to less precise guiding that the main camera would pick up as trailing. Just speculating.
How good the guide sensor is focused when main sensor is focus? are they at exact same focal plane? What about stars shape since the guide sensor is at edge of image circle?
I just received my Askar V and threw the EAF on there. Haven't had a chance to take it out yet because of the horrible east coast weather, but hopefully it prevents the issue of focus shift. The focus felt pretty solid after adding the EAF. I also have no idea if my batch was affected or not. The QC report was dated May 11, 2023 which is about 2 weeks before Askar posted the video regarding the focus shift issue.
You dont need all this fancy gear and tech. It takes away from the very skill you are trying to master. You can get great shots, but did YOU.. really... or did you just click here and there.... These devices have destroyed the art and skill and have devalued the images... AI will further destroy the skill to where no talent is needed. ....just my opinion.. Great video though, very informative
While that may be generally true with creative things, it doesn't really apply here. Photography is always been a manipulation of technical equipment and processes. Telescopes are an optical/mechanical manipulation. Understanding the processes available is key to using them. Understanding the result is the object. Replicating the output is the ART. AI has nothing to do with any of that here. So yes, he is really doing work, 'getting the great shot'. (Especially in the circumstance of a review of equipment such as this video). Questioning that is not really applicable in this circumstance, would you ask the same of a observatory?
