153 replies to this topic

[Alien Observatory]

A Short story of how the Stellina came to pass.  

 

A few years ago I had the idea to set up a permanent Observatory on the South West side of our house.  We had 60 acres of open space behind the house since we moved to this location 11 years ago.  I purchased a 8 X 10 foot shed, mounted the CPC 9.25 on a Wedge, got an ASIAir, Cables, Power, and ready to pour a pad in the shed, but then the world changed.  The land Owner (State of Utah) sold the 60 acre property to a developer after clearing a 10 year waiting period as part of a Highway Settlement with various Federal Agencies, Courts and Law Suits.

 

Now +3 years latter and 200 homes built that idea was destroyed.  I relocated back to the East Side off the garage and decided to settle for the Light Pollution and every increasing traffic at night to trying to make EAA work with a couple of expensive LP Filters, Mono Cams with Ha Filters, Hyperstar...

 

In the end the location provided a very restrictive FOV and with new Led house lights in the neighborhood, a new Airport Lighting System (1/8 mile away) and never ending road traffic the LP was just too much except to view the Moon and Planets.

 

Started thinking about a Vespera in June this year as a possible solution.  Then I realized I had thousands of dollars of unused telescopes, cams, accessories that I could easily sell and buy a Stellina, which I did.  It was hard to let these items go, but I knew something had to change and took a chance that the Stellina might work.  

 

After 2 months of using the portable Stellina whenever I could, I have imaged 40 Messier objects and a couple of never seen before DSO's (Bubble, Helix).  Now my CPC 9.25 will sit unused till I decide to sell it (maybe next year).  All that being said, I am a very happy camper with the Stellina and look forward to better offerings in the future.  

Pat Utah

Edited by Alien Observatory, 25 October 2021 - 09:22 PM.

[GSBass]

Great Story Pat, thanks for sharing

[Larry Hansen]

Great Story Pat, thanks for sharing

    Dito.

[Brainebula]

That would be the Stellina App with the Mosaic Feature in the future, not a post processed Mosaic on your home computer.   Pat Utah

So if Stellina's FITS data goes to the onboard RPi3 computer for image construction then it's "EAA", but if the FITS go to an outboard computer for image construction then it's "post-processing"? (I need to understand this before I get in trouble with the Mods again!)

Edited by Brainebula, 25 October 2021 - 10:37 PM.

[Alien Observatory]

So if the data goes to the onboard RPi3 computer so that it can construct images then it's EAA, but if the data goes to my computer so that it can construct the images then it's post-processing?

Correct.  Until the image is transported / down loaded from the Stellina App it is EAA.  After transportation / down loading to a iPad / iPhone / Storage Device and further processed it is AP per the EAA Forum Rules, with the exception of cropping and resizing of an image after transportation / down loading.  Pat Utah

Edited by Alien Observatory, 25 October 2021 - 11:01 PM.

[Brainebula]

...From the moment I decide to start, I’m well under 10 minutes to imaging....

I keep Stellina in its original black box next to a sofa in our sun room. Once I decide to use it...

 

- 1 minute to take Stellina out of the box, attach the tripod, install the battery cable and USB stick.

 

- It takes maybe 30 seconds for me to then walk the "assembled" system (spreading the tripod legs as I walk) to its standard spot in my yard.

 

- Maybe 3 minutes to shim small twigs under the tripod legs to level it with its bubble, plug in the battery, and connect to wifi.

 

- Then 5-7 minutes for punching in the target object, initializing, plate solving, slew to target, focus, initialization, etc.

 

- Then first 10 sec sub shows up in a low-res jpeg on my ipad/iphone. And then every 15-ish seconds the jpeg updates with the addition of each new FITS.
 

Then, when I'm finished.

 

- 1 minute to save the images to my phone's photos and app, and download the TIFF to the USB stick (that's still a manual process).

 

- 1 minute to Park it, disconnect the battery and USB stick, lift up the scope.

 

- 30 seconds to walk the assembly back into the room where Stellina lives (retracting the tripod legs as I walk).

 

- 1 minute to remove the Tripod and stow it, wrap up the battery cable and enclose in the batt compartment, put Stellina in the box and stow it next to the sofa in that room.

 

It really is that turnkey.

 

And a really great feature is that you can download (ie, backup) the raw data to the USB stick, including hi-res FITS files (both accepted and rejected), the corresponding low-res jpegs, as many TIFF files that you manually request during your acquisition (only the jpegs are displayed on the Stellina app screen), as well as what Vaonis calls "Debug" files which actually contains very useful information about the EAA output ("star roundness", plate solving parameters, whether it was included in the EAA image, etc.). And this backup does not require manual intervention other than setting the preference once and the pref is retained thereafter for each subsequent session until you change it. 

Edited by Brainebula, 26 October 2021 - 08:49 AM.

[Alien Observatory]

I guess my "Stellina Operation" is a bit longer than yours.  I need at least an hour of outside time before I turn on the WiFi and connect to temp stabilize or I will get the Stellina Message I need to stop the stack and refocus after a few minutes of operation.  I will be glad when this refocus problem gets fixed in the SW.  Pat Utah

Edited by Alien Observatory, 25 October 2021 - 11:16 PM.

[Brainebula]

I guess my "Stellina Operation" is a bit longer than yours.  I need at least an hour of outside time before I turn on the WiFi and connect to temp stabilize or I will get the Stellina Message I need to stop the stack and refocus after a few minutes of operation.  I will be glad when this refocus problem gets fixed in the SW.  Pat Utah

I've been lucky since late Spring -- just fire it up and use it; it doesn't give me a focus or temperature warning until at least 2-3 hours into the session. But now that it's getting colder, I'm sure I'll need to start letting it acclimate for a while.
 

[Tfer]

I keep Stellina in its original black box next to a sofa in our sun room. Once I decide to use it...

 

- 1 minute to take Stellina out of the box, attach the tripod, install the battery cable and USB stick.

 

- It takes maybe 30 seconds for me to then walk the "assembled" system (spreading the tripod legs as I walk) to its standard spot in my yard.

 

- Maybe 3 minutes to shim small twigs under the tripod legs to level it with its bubble, plug in the battery, and connect to wifi.

 

- Then 5-7 minutes for punching in the target object, initializing, plate solving, slew to target, focus, initialization, etc.

 

- Then first 10 sec sub shows up in a low-res jpeg on my ipad/iphone. And then every 15-ish seconds the jpeg updates with the addition of each new FITS.
 

Then, when I'm finished.

 

- 1 minute to save the images to my phone's photos and app, and download the TIFF to the USB stick (that's still a manual process).

 

- 1 minute to Park it, disconnect the battery and USB stick, lift up the scope.

 

- 30 seconds to walk the assembly back into the room where Stellina lives (retracting the tripod legs as I walk).

 

- 1 minute to remove the Tripod and stow it, wrap up the battery cable and enclose in the batt compartment, put Stellina in the box and stow it next to the sofa in that room.

 

It really is that turnkey.

 

And a really great feature is that you can download (ie, backup) the raw data to the USB stick, including hi-res FITS files (both accepted and rejected), the corresponding low-res jpegs, as many TIFF files that you manually request during your acquisition (only the jpegs are displayed on the Stellina app screen), as well as what Vaonis calls "Debug" files which actually contains very useful information about the EAA output ("star roundness", plate solving parameters, whether it was included in the EAA image, etc.).

I walk the 30 feet to my observatory, open the dome and turn on my CPC1100.

 

Walk back into the house, and connect to the observatory laptop.  Fire up CPWI, pick a target, check focus and start imaging.

I understand the appeal of a turnkey system, but my system is more flexible (add a planetary camera and ADC for planetary) and I don’t think it can do anything that I can’t do myself far better.

 

However, I had a learning curve that these box systems don’t have. 

[scoale]

A Short story of how the Stellina came to pass.  

 

A few years ago I had the idea to set up a permanent Observatory on the South West side of our house.  We had 60 acres of open space behind the house since we moved to this location 11 years ago.  I purchased a 8 X 10 foot shed, mounted the CPC 9.25 on a Wedge, got an ASIAir, Cables, Power, and ready to pour a pad in the shed, but then the world changed.  The land Owner (State of Utah) sold the 60 acre property to a developer after clearing a 10 year waiting period as part of a Highway Settlement with various Federal Agencies, Courts and Law Suits.

 

Now +3 years latter and 200 homes built that idea was destroyed.  I relocated back to the East Side off the garage and decided to settle for the Light Pollution and every increasing traffic at night to trying to make EAA work with a couple of expensive LP Filters, Mono Cams with Ha Filters, Hyperstar...

 

In the end the location provided a very restrictive FOV and with new Led house lights in the neighborhood, a new Airport Lighting System (1/8 mile away) and never ending road traffic the LP was just too much except to view the Moon and Planets.

 

Started thinking about a Vespera in June this year as a possible solution.  Then I realized I had thousands of dollars of unused telescopes, cams, accessories that I could easily sell and buy a Stellina, which I did.  It was hard to let these items go, but I knew something had to change and took a chance that the Stellina might work.  

 

After 2 months of using the portable Stellina whenever I could, I have imaged 40 Messier objects and a couple of never seen before DSO's (Bubble, Helix).  Now my CPC 9.25 will sit unused till I decide to sell it (maybe next year).  All that being said, I am a very happy camper with the Stellina and look forward to better offerings in the future.  

Pat Utah

 

Great story Pat.  Light pollution was my prime motivator as well.  I used to live under B4 skies and was pretty satisfied with the views from my 8" SCT.  A recent move to B8 skies completely neutered my 8" SCT, and my enthusiasm.  This led me down the path of more aperture (C11), Night Vision, and EAA.  For EAA, I decided to order an eVscope 2.  It is due next month. These days I value time and convenience.  I don't want to spend a bunch of time assembling and integrating a system, I just want to grab & go.  In this hobby, it is so easy to spend orders of magnitude more time studying gear versus studying the night sky.

[Larry Hansen]

I guess my "Stellina Operation" is a bit longer than yours.  I need at least an hour of outside time before I turn on the WiFi and connect to temp stabilize or I will get the Stellina Message I need to stop the stack and refocus after a few minutes of operation.  I will be glad when this refocus problem gets fixed in the SW.  Pat Utah

    I will have the same cooling issue as you do.  Hopefully the SW fix will mean continuous auto focusing during a capture session.  I do not see why this would not be possible.  All the SW would have to do is pause the capture then focus and continue the capture.

[GaryShaw]

Hi

This is a fun thread Pat - thanks for kicking it off…..I am struck by the consistent theme above of how easy and quick it is with the S’s and eV’s to set up and start observing, how many minutes / seconds it takes to set up, how many minutes / seconds it takes to break things down at the end of observing  …

 

Makes me wonder a bit, have our quiet evenings under the stars become as polluted by time-pressure as our skies are polluted by stray light?  Do we put such value now on the difference between 11mins and 40 secs to set up versus 15 minutes?  I’ve never actually timed how long it takes me to set up or break down. Whether it’s 15 or 20 or 25, whatever it is, I enjoy every minute being out there with the night sky.
Gary

[Tfer]

Setup never bothered me.  It was a time to plan the evening and get excited.

 

Tear down at 3:00 or 4:00am is where an observatory or TK (turnkey) scopes find their value for me.  Power off and walk away has me observing every clear evening.  I no longer check the hourly forecast to see if it’s worth the hassle of setup/tear down.  If it’s clear or partly cloudy, I’m looking at something.

 

I’m sure the people who own TK scopes feel the same way, and that’s where the simplicity pays off.

[Alien Observatory]

    I will have the same cooling issue as you do.  Hopefully the SW fix will mean continuous auto focusing during a capture session.  I do not see why this would not be possible.  All the SW would have to do is pause the capture then focus and continue the capture.

The SW fix is underway and might be out be years end.  Pat Utah

[Jon_Doh]

This is how long it takes me to get my eQuinox up and running.  I keep it attached to the tripod.  When I want to view I pick it up and carry it outside.  It's very light weight.  Then, all I do is remove the dust cap, turn it on and within a few seconds my Suface Duo has acquired its signal and I'm off to the races. The plate solving is very fast. Total time, less than five minutes.  

 

My traditional rig took a long time to carry everything out, get it set up, balanced, leveled and aligned that I really had to be in the mood to view.  With the robot it's so quick to set up I find myself taking it out on the spur of the moment.  Last night for example, I had a clear part of the sky so I stayed in that region and imaged globs.  But, here's the best part.  I sat on my covered deck and ran the unit from my phone while reading a book on my Kindle and enjoying my favorite beverage.  This robotic telescope had really changed the way I view.

Edited by Jon_Doh, 26 October 2021 - 08:58 AM.

[Alien Observatory]

Another un-expected benefit has been the Portability of the Stellina (not unlike a Red Cat set up).  With no cables, computer or power required I can easily move the Stellina to a location that allows me to image a few pre-selected objects.  I can move to a specific location to avoid lights, trees and houses to view the objects selected.  This portability has opened up my previously restricted FOV to almost unlimited access of the sky now.

 

Who knows maybe I will get brave next year and try a local dark site or an outreach event or maybe the neighbors will discover the Stellina App and sneak a look at what I am imaging.  

 

 Pat Utah

Edited by Alien Observatory, 26 October 2021 - 09:19 AM.

[Brainebula]

…I keep it attached to the tripod.  When I want to view I pick it up and carry it outside.  It's very light weight.  Then, all I do is remove the dust cap, turn it on and within a few seconds my Suface Duo has acquired its signal and I'm off to the races. The plate solving is very fast. Total time, less than five minutes….

Lately I’m wondering how sensitive Stellina really is to leveling. I’ll run an experiment and just set it up without leveling, making sure the bubble straddles the circle line (maybe it’s an extreme test but that’s often the best way to quickly find performance boundaries), and see if stars are still round or if the target drifts after an hour of tracking. Something tells me that the mathematical plate solving and alignment might be able to compensate for such out-of-level situations, but I’ll soon find out. I’d rather not spend the extra time outside just to level the thing if I can avoid it without affecting image quality, especially in the Winter…

[steveincolo]

Another un-expected benefit has been the Portability of the Stellina (not unlike a Red Cat set up).  With no cables, computer or power required I can easily move the Stellina to a location that allows me to image a few pre-selected objects.  I can move to a specific location to avoid lights, trees and houses to view the objects selected.  This portability has opened up my previously restricted FOV to almost unlimited access of the sky now.

 

Who knows maybe I will get brave next year and try a local dark site or an outreach event or maybe the neighbors will discover the Stellina App and sneak a look at what I am imaging.  

 

 Pat Utah

That seems like a very big benefit for us suburbanites.  

 

If a neighbor installs the Stellina App, can they connect without you knowing?  

[nwcs]

One particularly attractive part of the Stellina for me is that I can choose where I want to inject myself into the process. Same as any other robotic system, actually. The fact I can not do any post processing is nice or I can get a 16 bit TIFF I can finalize myself, or the FITS is a great add. It isn't just the fast setup and teardown but also the reduced hassle of a lot of the pre-processing required of the files. But for those times when I might want to do that then I can do that.

 

Of course I still have my regular setup which will be freed for visual while I do the Stellina. And if I want to go through the hassle on the learning curve again I can use my regular scope while the Stellina is doing its thing. I love options

[Alien Observatory]

That seems like a very big benefit for us suburbanites.  

 

If a neighbor installs the Stellina App, can they connect without you knowing?  

Not sure, I will ask the wife to sneak a look on her iPhone next time out.  With the Stellina's limited WiFi range (30 feet), not sure it is a problem.  With my WiFi Extender increasing the Stellina's range to maybe 100 feet, it would be very possible for this to occur.  Pat Utah

Edited by Alien Observatory, 26 October 2021 - 11:32 AM.

[scoale]

Another un-expected benefit has been the Portability of the Stellina (not unlike a Red Cat set up).  With no cables, computer or power required I can easily move the Stellina to a location that allows me to image a few pre-selected objects.  I can move to a specific location to avoid lights, trees and houses to view the objects selected.  This portability has opened up my previously restricted FOV to almost unlimited access of the sky now.

 

Who knows maybe I will get brave next year and try a local dark site or an outreach event or maybe the neighbors will discover the Stellina App and sneak a look at what I am imaging.  

 

 Pat Utah

Great point Pat.  My home has three observing spots to choose from, each with pluses and minuses. Needless to say, once I setup my C11 IT DOES NOT MOVE  .  

[scoale]

One particularly attractive part of the Stellina for me is that I can choose where I want to inject myself into the process. Same as any other robotic system, actually. The fact I can not do any post processing is nice or I can get a 16 bit TIFF I can finalize myself, or the FITS is a great add. It isn't just the fast setup and teardown but also the reduced hassle of a lot of the pre-processing required of the files. But for those times when I might want to do that then I can do that.

 

Of course I still have my regular setup which will be freed for visual while I do the Stellina. And if I want to go through the hassle on the learning curve again I can use my regular scope while the Stellina is doing its thing. I love options

 

This is a great point!  There will definitely be nights I use both my regular visual setup and my robotic scope.

[steveincolo]

Not sure, I will ask the wife to sneak a look on her iPhone next time out.  With the Stellina's limited WiFi range (30 feet), not sure it is a problem.  With my WiFi Extender increasing the Stellina's range to maybe 100 feet, it would be very possible for this to occur.  Pat Utah

I just can see your neighbor going, “Oh no, not another boring globular cluster.  I just want to look at M42,” and slewing your Stellina away. 

[Alien Observatory]

I just can see your neighbor going, “Oh no, not another boring globular cluster.  I just want to look at M42,” and slewing your Stellina away. 

I know for a Fact that you must give control of the Stellina thru the App to another device, no one may take over your Stellina without your consent thru the App.  I tested this with my iPhone and iPad a few days ago, handing off control to one then back to the original device.  Works quite well. Pat Utah

Edited by Alien Observatory, 26 October 2021 - 02:06 PM.

[roelb]

Don't understand why the Stellina should be better compared to the 'traditional EAA setup' regarding the fight against light pollution.

My traditional setup is ready to go after 10 min stup. Keep my OTA, camera, reducer(s), battery & mini-PC assembled at the mount.

Just carry it outside, put dew cap on, switch on battery, mini PC, dew cap and go inside to remotely do EAA.

It is obvious that a robotic scope is more compact and easily transported to a remote observing location.