10 replies to this topic

[Brody]

Hello cloudy nights!

There are 2 lunar eclipse coming up soon: One in a week on September 17th, and another on March 14th 2025

I want to image both of them with my DSLR and telescope and have a guide scope on top with a guide camera running FireCapture auto guiding the moon for the whole event.

But I got to thinking, as the moon gets eclipsed by the Earth, will the partial phases mess with the guiding?

Will the software get confused on where to guide and nudge the scope to keep the crescent moon centered?

Does anyone have any experience doing this?

[dcaponeii]

Hello cloudy nights!

There are 2 lunar eclipse coming up soon: One in a week on September 17th, and another on March 14th 2025

I want to image both of them with my DSLR and telescope and have a guide scope on top with a guide camera running FireCapture auto guiding the moon for the whole event.

But I got to thinking, as the moon gets eclipsed by the Earth, will the partial phases mess with the guiding?

Will the software get confused on where to guide and nudge the scope to keep the crescent moon centered?

Does anyone have any experience doing this?

Not I.  When I image long events I'm at the scope experiencing the event while I image.  Of course I don't usually bother with lunar eclipses as they are all too disappointing.
 

[Brody]

Not I. When I image long events I'm at the scope experiencing the event while I image. Of course I don't usually bother with lunar eclipses as they are all too disappointing.

My plan is to image the lunar eclipse automatically while I just sit back and enjoy the show.

Edited by Brody, 11 September 2024 - 06:24 AM.

[Tapio]

You could do a practice run when the moon is in crescent phase.

If the guiding struggles I would increase exposure to make moon round - easier when moon is actually partially eclipsed I think.

Report back how it goes. I'm interested.

[Brody]

Unfortunately, the Moon will be behind the house until September 14th, but it will be cloudy until September 16th, a day before the lunar eclipse. So not much testing will get done.

The September 17th lunar eclipse will only be a 9% partial so I don’t think it will mess with the guiding much.

Edited by Brody, 11 September 2024 - 04:11 PM.

[Brody]

Update.

I did some testing with auto guiding in FireCapture.

I thought it was going to work more like PHD2 Guiding where it would automatically know how much to move the mount by.

But in actuality, it is like a script you have to program how much you want FireCapture to correct the mount by.

I tried to program it, but I gave up because every time it tried to correct, it wouldn't correct back to the center.

In fact, sometimes when it tried to correct, my mount would just stop tracking.

Maybe it works better with other mounts, but my mount, the Celestron AVX, just isn't good enough for that type of guiding.

Honestly, the regular tracking works better than FireCaptures auto guiding feature.

But the tracking isn't perfect. So now i'm back to square one.

Anybody else have any ideas? I know I won't have enough time to solve it before the partial lunar eclipse in less than 2 days.

But I should be able to figure out a solution before the total lunar eclipse in march next year.

[Borodog]

There is a PHD2 development version that includes lunar, solar, and planetary guiding. Google on that. I hear excellent reports on it, although I have not gotten around to testing it yet.

[Brody]

There is a PHD2 development version that includes lunar, solar, and planetary guiding. Google on that. I hear excellent reports on it, although I have not gotten around to testing it yet.

I will try that out tonight and will report back!

[Brody]

Update 2.

I tested out Borodog’s idea of using a custom version of PHD2 guiding for planetary and it worked very well.

The tracking still wasn’t perfect but it will work for now.

The ultimate test is tommorow.

Thanks Borodog!

[Borodog]

You are very welcome.

[Brody]

Update 3.

Tonight was the Partial Lunar eclipse. But, I decided not to use PHD2 because I wanted a clear view for my live stream and couldn't figure out how to clean up the interface.

So I guess ill be back in March for that eclipse.

Thanks for all the help guys.