steppenwolf

I think this is really good news for all concerned including your respective customers. I have bought much of my imaging gear from Ian in the past and have benefited from his expertise and excellent advice so a 'marriage' such as this with a truly excellent retailer like FLO can only be a good thing. I wish both FLO and Ian King the very best for the future.

Good choice, firm foundation - you are on a winner!

You definitely won’t regret getting an observatory - it will allow you so many more observing/imaging opportunities. For me, it had to be a dome and I’ve never regretted that choice either but I have numerous friends with ROR observatories that are just as happy as I am.

No, don't do this!! Buy the best mount you can afford - for imaging, the mount is the single most important component - everything else hangs on it!

That's worth knowing - thanks! I have to say that the cable looks and feels great and the outer sheath is of the type that remains flexible even when cold.

The postman brought me a new UGREEN USB cable for my QSI 683 WSG-8 camera 👍 Sadly it didn't solve my camera disconnection issue 🙁 However, I found a work-around that seems to be 100% reliable so I now have a good quality spare cable 😎 The postman also brought me a replacement 32Gb SanDisk memory card for my Disting 4 as the original one just died - great service from Amazon on both counts 😍

@alan potts You are indeed making some great progress. The image is a little red but this can be adjusted by trimming down the red channel using levels something like this. I have only made a tiny adjustment but I hope it shows the effect of doing this. I'm really pleased to see that you have persevered despite the difficulties at the start.

A lovely detailed and colourful image, Alan. Great processing too!

Olly’s method should work well but you will have to take a little bit of an ‘average guess’ to allow for the variations in FWHM due to the seeing.

Thanks, Hugh I have tested this on my old XP PC and it works a treat for me too - I really like this option. Thanks also for this link Yes, even my old XP PC has this set ready to rock and roll reliably. The Win 7 PC has been sent off for diagnosis/repair so all current testing is back on the XP machine but it is such a relief to be free of TeamViewer and to have a reliable remote control system under my sole control.

I have not found a WOL option in Remote Desktop or as part of the Windows OS - have I missed something? Historically, I have had issues with my XP PC that were always resolved when I started from a clean slate so I have just got into the habit of turning it all off remotely at the end of a session so that I get a fresh boot at the start of the next session. I like the idea of the low power and SSD solution but the potential replacement PC doesn't have an SSD drive and I am trying to keep the costs down as a couple of years ago I placed a no more astronomy expenditure order on myself so that I could use any available funds elsewhere!

Additional Note 27 - Remote Access issue with TeamViewer and a solution All this remote testing of my upgraded observatory PC has apparently given TeamViewer another excuse (THIS IS THE FOURTH TIME!!) to accuse me of using their software in a 'Commercial Environment' despite me having submitted a sworn testament in writing confirming that this is not the case!! They advertise and offer a free service for personal use on one hand and remove it on the other ....... I have decided to find another solution and seem to have a viable method currently under test:- Remote Desktop I am using Remote Desktop for accessing the observatory PC and frankly, I prefer the way the small display on the observatory opens up into a much bigger and better display on my desktop PC at home. However, there is no 'Wake on Lan' facility and you can't turn the remote PC off after an imaging session so:- SolarWinds Wake on Lan This rather nice free application does just what it says it will do and seems to work perfectly and:- VBScript to close Remote PC To close the remote PC during a remote session, it is necessary to run a small VBScript and this too works perfectly - I just have it as a shortcut on my observatory PC desktop strCmd = "shutdown -s -t 0 -f" set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell") objShell.Run strCmd One problem down, several to go 😎

Rather embarrassingly, in an earlier life I used to do some IT for a living but I just scrape by these days when it comes to PCs! I'm not that much ahead of you then, Scott ......

... and thus is is proven! I have a PC rebuild in the pipeline so I will get there but currently I am back on the old XP machine which is less than ideal! Thanks, Ron. I see what you did there and I am with you! Yes, I've heard that point of view as well but it hasn't been my experience ......

Additional Note 26 - Updated Computer System It's been a while since I updated this article but my Windows XP system started to give unreliable results in recent months so I have finally bitten the bullet and upgraded my observatory PC and moved up to Windows 7 in the process. The thought of using Windows 10 filled me with horror so I avoided that as I have always found Windows 7 to be very stable and nonintrusive. What I hadn't anticipated was what a total pain it was going to be to transfer everything across and on top of this I had to install Windows more than once as it took serious exception to some modules and even my regular restore points didn't rescue me - it would be fair to say that I have lost nearly two weeks of my life that I will never get back again, hair that I am in no position to lose and most of what was laughably left of my sanity but, maybe, hopefully, it will be worth it when the last of the bugs are finally sorted out! What is not in doubt is that the original reliability problem, especially issues related to the system accepting that my autofocuser really was physically connected seem to have gone away and I feel that for whatever reason, I am getting better autofocus with the new operating system and PC hardware. So biting and clawing, I have dragged the automated observatory into the 2010's and avoided using Windows 10 which is a supreme bonus! It remains to be seen how well the new system operates as currently, a fresh bug seems to jump out at every test session although in a morning of simulations today, it has all worked seamlessly despite the previous night in which it decided that I really didn't have a LodeStar autoguider and I haven't physically touched a thing since then I should have known last night that something was wrong when I noticed a pop-up that stated that a 'new unknown device' had been installed (I'm guessing that this had something to do with the LodeStar! Although I can't mention him publicly lest he be deluged with requests, I'd like to thank a good friend of mine on here for his generosity in donating both time and hardware to further the cause - you know who you are and I am very grateful. 👍 Onwards and upwards 😎

Well done Grant, an excellent upgrade and I for one really appreciate the time you put into doing all this stuff! Running really well for me.

Excellent news!

You don't HAVE to use POTH if you want to pulse guide but there is absolutely no reason why you shouldn't use it - I do and it is very stable. For some reason there is a reluctance by some imagers to use POTH and I don't really get it - on several occasions I have advised its use to obviate some issue and it has resolved the issues!

Make sure that Auto Track is not ticked:-

The PID data came from ServConfig and is stored in the mount. My Gain is 1 in the Sitech Mount Parameters tab - this is also the figure shown in my manual.

Tom, purely for reference, what gain figures have you got now? I have the following:- Proportional 15000 Integral 2500 Derivative 4000

Hi Tom that is really good news - I don't understand why Polite Mode is causing you a problem as in essence, it is just 'Ignore Mode' with a limit that kicks in as and when but in my experience of these things, if you get a working system, sometimes it is best to stick with it even if it flies in the face of what should be right!! As an aside, I also use Cartes du Ciel with no issues at all. Let us know how the guiding and sequencing goes - unfortunately, here we have different systems as I use CCD Commander and MaxIm DL rather then SG Pro and PHD but at least with a consistently working mount, you have a great base to start from.

This is an excellent thread - thanks for detailing your procedure and I really p[leased for you that it is working so well. Funnily enough, I have just been experimenting with ASPS myself as I want an independent blind solver but I keep on coming up with the same issue - the software will collect the correct Latitude for my site from 'the telescope' but the wrong Longitude. I dare say that I can enter this manually but it worries me that it cannot extract this basic data on my own installation! Anyone else had this issue?

Power is routed through conduit buried in the concrete base of the observatory. When I originally built the original non-automated Pulsar observatory, I laid in conduit for power, network and security system. However, I have since added a permanent drain dehumidifier, the AAG weather system and an all sky camera and these exit the the observatory low down through the glass fibre walls using 21.5mm waste overflow pipe connectors. No, I hadn't considered that although for a very short period of time, I did play with an Energenie USB controlled switch but after the second unit failed in a different manner to the first one, I decided to design my own which works faultlessly. However, I am sure that there are other solutions! Good luck with your project, I hope it is a great success for you.

This is all good, Tom and a very positive step forwards. The 'Below Horizon Limit' and 'Not Initialised' messages are not a big problem, they will need to be addressed and I can tell you how to do that when the time comes but at least you now have reliable comms from a PC thus showing that the Mesu is working fine in this regard. I agree with William that it is the Eagle that is the most cause of the comms issues.