AstroKeith

There is an excellent book (IMO) 'On the Origin of Time' by Thomas Hertog who describes the last work he & Stephen Hawking were doing. Discusses quite a few areas where QM and Relativity are getting closer together. An interesting thought experiment ... Ask a photon emitted at the Big Bang, 13.8 Billion years ago, how it found the journey and the time that has passed. It wouldn't understand because for the photon, no time has passed (Relativity). So if two photons travel away from each other, at any future time (measured by us) from their point of view, they are both at the start and end of their journeys. This goes someway towards quantum entanglement.

Where did you read the bit about 'conscious'. That I think is a red herring. I've never the heard that word used. If you just look at the screen (eyes, camera, etc) , you get an interference pattern. If you put detectors at the slits to see which one the wave/photon goes through, you destroy the interference pattern. An interesting effect, verified by experiment. If you wait until after the wave/photon has passed through the slits, but then try to measure which one it went through. It still destroys the interference pattern.

I don't understand why the stars show a motion blur, but the 'chain' doesn't.

Hi, f4.7 isnt fast, at least not by today's standards. The Baader zoom should be fine (do you already have one?) I'd recommend trying at least one upgraded eyepiece.

Join the club! I succumbed to a Seestar 6 months ago and it has been great fun. Also impressive for its size/price. I would start with the App, running on a tablet if you can. It's too much for a phone screen in my opinion. Play around and explore the tabs. Its quite intuitive and best learnt on the screen rather than from a guide. If there is a Pi inside (I doubt it) I havent found it yet! ASIAirs started with Pi's but migrated to a special. But they do all run Linux distros.

Was it on the ASIAir that your USB drives got corrupted? Using an external SSD plugged into the ASIAir is IMHO a high risk approach., unless you then transfer the files off next day. the USB protocol was never designed for large block file transfers. USB3 is quite better, but it isnt always implemented correctly.

Firstly sad to hear this. Some thoughts - you have had so many different corrupted media that I would suggest the computer may have a problem. This is especially true if you had a problem with the source disk, ie the computer. Transferring files is managed by the computer OS and the source files are only deleted after a copy has been made on the target. To have lost USB sticks and now your HDD and target disks is too much of a coincidence. A professional disk recovery service could well retrieve some for you. If you really must keep all that data, then invest in a large RAID drive.

TP Link powerline adapters are very reliable I have found.

1809 - Wonders of the Telescope Has lovely fold out illustrations ...

The dc to ac inverters are inherently less efficient, mainly I think because they are constrained to run at 50Hz. So as Craig says, plugging into the ac outlet on a power pack, and then using a dc power supply to get your 12V gives a double loss. But at least you get a stable output, but not for very long! Considering the complexity and value of our astronomy gear, we really shouldn't be running it off raw battery voltage. So you either find a power pack with a regulated output, or add a dc-dc converter (refer to my earlier link). dc-dc converters can be 95% efficient as they run at 20kHz typically which makes losses easier to manage. The problem with the 12V regulated outputs, is that they are 12V. Add a couple of metres of cable and the mount or camera etc will see around 11volts. Loads of threads on here and CN about problems this produces. The advantage of an external dc-dc converter like I linked to is that you can choose a 13.8V version. Just about perfect. BTW, all the built in capacity monitors, and the in-line sort you can buy are inaccurate especially when stepper motors are used in the mount. These monitors seriously underestimate the current being drawn as they dont sample the spikes.

It is clearly marketed as an astrophotography telescope - for which purposes no diagonal is needed or wanted.

I took a look at the Anker 521 specifications. I have a few Anker bits and they are all of good quality. I was surprised to see that the USB C PD output does not support 12V, only 5,9,15 & 20V. This immediately rules it out for me. They dont specify their inverter efficiency, but others have done some tests and indicate it to be perhaps 85%.

OK, the input to the converter goes to the cigarette lighter socket on the Anker. No matter what voltage the Anker puts out, the converter will supply a clean 13.8V on its output. Connect the converter output to your rig.

If you plug that adapter into the 3 pin mains socket on the Anker, you will lose capacity in the inverter. You are taking dc from the battery cells, the inverter is producing 240Va, and then your adapter is converting back down to 12Vdc. You are probably going to lose 50% capacity. Did you try that link I posted above https://www.amazon.co.uk/HOMELYLIFE-Automatic-10A-Waterproof-Transformer/dp/B07WFMG11F/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=9Z5OFZ3C2DP8&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.PvkmenU9z0q22gENn7KTqYCTZfWVX3qMcmx1pz5LgsUCgwkZLBFM9-hMCdRCP0586xevs9Mg-WYnyccZtktdhC2unZvHwS3Hx5fI6GtE1qDj6cPEl65RiVhKvFxxlAO4ekpKdZjxKGp51YZ2JeH9tSqpP4v5AGnmqwVPFLfh4m7sKYosqfcY1t6Dnpp4TCt49e89GSuL_UtzsyoG6MhVg7w2pcbVhcwcGd3M-E8C5sBoE_4uN3_S8y-horE_VTg7bzotoyOphOpub1IcQVZMLJmFLGTTp4v6Yqjvg2PQE1o.X9NMHV6AeOWrZ2kl7WMQkd7k2slebkyW5jIZ2KpicqU&dib_tag=se&keywords=dc-dc+13.8+converter&nsdOptOutParam=true&qid=1727184799&sprefix=dc-dc+13.8+converter%2Caps%2C69&sr=8-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&psc=1 These are about 95% efficient.

Mounts that have stepper motors need to be well supplied. An ordinary meter won't tell the whole story. The stepper motors are driven by very short pulses, at many times what a meter will show the average current to be. Harmonic Strain drive mounts in particular draw higher pulse currents. These pulses can cause at least a volt drop down the cable, maybe two. The mount needs to be fed by a short stout cable directly from the battery/power source. Beware of non-brand power cables. About a year ago I bought a dozen various 1m cables from Am**on. With one exception they were rubbish. On dissection, two of them had just four 0.1mm stands of copper, yet they were sold as 6A cables. At 6A continuous load, initially they dropped 3 volts, but after a few minutes the copper gave out and they went open circuit.