Vacation Astrophotography -- Resurrecting the TriggerTrap

After the Trigertrap app was abandoned (open sourced, but no clear support on Google Play with any releases), I had few hopes of using my Olympus OMD-EM5 for astrophotography without some other new dongle.  However, on a lark, I tried the original Triggertrap dongle and adapter cable with my current Samsung S10e using the MIOPS Mobile app.  They sell a similar (identical?) dongle which is supported by their Android app.  Remarkably, it worked flawlessly.

Since this was a vacation to the Outer Banks with a week's weather forecast with clouds and a full moon, I didn't bother transporting a mount and telescope.  However, I did find one clear evening (before the moon rose too high) to test out the old Triggertrap dongle with the OMD-EM5 @ ISO 2500 using the (poor quality) original PEN-1 14-42mm kit lens.  Set the camera on a table pointed at zenith with Cygnus in view overhead.  The OMD-EM5 was set at factory default to collect a dark image of the same length as the light and automatically calibrate the frame.  This can be avoided with menu settings, but for simplicity in post-processing, I left this enabled.

Within the MIOS Mobile app, I used the time laps option with the interval set at 1 minute (25 second exposure, 25 second dark plus some additional time between frames for settling) for 45 frames.  Unfortunately, clouds rolled in for the last two frames of exposure...leaving 43 usable. 

Sadly, I didn't realize I was not successful in getting a good infinity focus (attempted this with Jupiter with manual focusing and magnified viewfinder... but I was clearly way off).  In any event, it was refreshing to see support continuing (perhaps by accident) for this old abandoned Triggertrap smartphone time laps / intervelometer capability with the old OMD-EM5 camera.

Resulting integration of 43x25s frames (total of 1075 seconds) in Astropixel Processor here:



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Markarian's Chain

Image
Started a mult-session collection on 03/26 (52) and continuing on 04/15 (47), 04/16 (109) and 04/19 (~20) against Markarian's chain  with the venerable Orion ST80 using the generic dual narrow-band filter , clear Astronomik EOS clip-in filter (for consistent focusing with the EOS CLS clip-in filter) and Canon T3I (astro modded for Ha sensitivity).  180s collections used for each (except for 3/26 at 300s) and flats collected against morning blue sky when needed based on re-focusing (03/26, 04/16).  Canon configured with UTC time.  Based this collection in Kstars/Ekos/Indi by centering on  NGC 4438 . For this processing, utilized both 60x180s and 30x300s darks as well as 130 bias (all at ISO1600) frames for calibration.    Collection notes from 04/19:   Ran entirely on the Odroid XU4 via remote desktop protocol (rdesktop client with compression) to simulate a remote location and provide some robustness for network / wifi drop-outs. ...
Read more

Great North American Eclipse

Image
4/8/2024 On Akron OH captured a time-lapse of short exposures through Baeder solar film through the venerable Orion Short Tube 80 with the Svbony 405cc using AstroDMx Capture until totality. Results were great considering the high level cirrus clouds.  After light editing in digikam, found some evidence of corona!
Read more

M94 and M106

Image
 3/7/24 -- first moonless, cloudless night with workable temps.  Attempting to capture M94 high in the north sky from the Meade LX10 EMC with UV/IR cut filter, Meade 0.63 focal reducer and the Svbony 405cc camera.  Set camera temp to 0C and using 0 gain and 0 offset. Telescopius simulator result for M94 using the SCT with the 0.63 focal reducer and the SV405CC camera. Telescopius M95 altitude plot for 03/07/24. Cleardarksky forecast for 3/7/24 for Montgomery County showing fairly clear skies and reasonable seeing expected after midnight. Meteoblue forecast for 03/07/2024 for Silver Spring illustrating clear skies expected for the evening. Before mounting the OTA and counterweights, checked the mount as level and utilized the polar scope (due to a clear view of Polaris through the backyard tree -- a rarity).  Adjusted the altitude up slightly and did a sanity check to ensure ~39 degrees. Initial alignment measured with PHD2 from the Odroid was ~ -11 after several minu...
Read more