malc-c

So with the NUC connected to the mini router via wireless, and the laptop connected via wireless to the mini-router, both machines join the same network and you can get to the login credentials when trying to RDC into the NUC. But, with the NUC connected to the mini-router via cable the NUC was not accessible ?

From the TP Link manual DHCP Server - Enable or disable the DHCP server. If disabled, you must have another DHCP server within your network or else you must configure the computer manually. •Start IP Address - Specify an IP address for the DHCP Server to start with when assigning IP addresses. 192.168.0.100 is the default start address. •End IP Address - Specify an IP address for the DHCP Server to end with when assigning IP addresses. 192.168.0.199 is the default end address. If by default the TP Link mini-router IP range starts at 0.100, then with IPConfig returning 192.168.0.2 would suggest that in the past the router has been accessed and the IP range has been changed. Ignore my post asking you to try two cabled connections. Having looked up the manual for the router I see it has just one LAN port.

Can you see either computer from each other? ie open "This PC" and under Network is the NUC listed on the Laptop and vice versa ?

Kev, that's what we've been asking the OP to confirm. I raised this point on the first page when he listed the IP configs for the two routers, which use two different VLans One router uses 192.168.0.1 the other 192.168.1.1 - This confused me as the OP stated that the Home LAN wasn't being used, as he simply wanted to connect the NUC to the mini router using a network cable and then connect the Laptop to the mini-routers wifi and be able to remote desktop between the Laptop and the NUC. In theory if both the Laptop and NUC have their settings set to automatic, and the mini-router has DHCP enabled both computers should be issued with an IP address / subnet mask on the same network. So we've asked the OP to verify what network properties is reported by both machines, and if the option for file and printer sharing along with RDC has been enabled on both machines. We've also asked the OP to confirm what version of Windows is running on both machines and there is no option for RDC on Windows 10/ 11 Home editions. Once the OP has reported back with this information then we (hopefully) may be able to advise where the issue is. He seems PC savvy so we might be teaching him to suck eggs, but hopefully between us all we can get him up and running once more with this new NUC in place of his old PC

One other thing to try.... If you connect the old mini PC to the same router as the NUC using a cable connection (ie so both are hard wired) and confirm that the file and print sharing is set on both machines, can you see and RDC between then both ? Or if you used a cable connection between the laptop and NUC can you RDC to the NUC from the Laptop ?

Hook up a mouse, keyboard and monitor to your old mini computer, confirm it all works in the same manor before you replaced it for the new NUC PC. Then launch a command prompt and type IPCONFIG /all at the prompt and note down the settings reported. Then repeat this with the NUC - are there any differences other than the last set of digits of the IP4 address ? If the subnet mask and gateway IP's are the same then try setting the network properties for the NUC to manual and enter the IP, subnet and gateway that the old PC used and see if that works when you connect the laptop to the same router's wifi.

Whilst setting this up I think having a screen, keyboard and mouse connected to to the NUC could be handy to verify what settings its using

I assume that both the NUC / mini-router and the laptop will be within range of the wi-fi provided by the mini-router ?

Right, so basically you want the NUC and the Laptop to be on the same network, which in theory should work as the mini-router will be using its inbuilt DCHP. If your mini-router uses 192.168.0.1 as its address, are you able to connect to it from the Laptop once you have created the new network on the laptop if you select a manual set the IP address with the default gateway to that of the mini-router. This would then force the laptop to be on the same LAN as the NUC and thus allow you to use RDC to remote into the NUC

So If I follow that correctly, you have a NUC PC connected to a TPLInk router which is wireless enabled and a laptop connected to your main router that has normal internet access via its fibre / ADSL connection. The NUC PC has connected to the TPLink and as it has DCHP enabled has been issued with its own IP. As the TPLink router is not on the same network as your home network the NUC can not be accessed from the laptop, but as it has wi-fi you will see the SSID being broadcast. You should be able to create a new network on the laptop to connect to the TPLink, but this will then drop the connection to the internet as the TPLink router is not physically connected to the fibre / ADSL. Windows RDC needs to have both the Laptop and the NUC on the same network, it can't RD into a PC on a different VLan. What is the reason you don't want the NUC to have internet access? It would be far simpler to remove the TP link router and just connect the NUC to the existing home network and thus have everything singing from the same hymn sheet

I've not fully read the thread, and I'm a but rusty on my IT skills, but the two devices above are on different Vlans (networks). The "AstroLAN" is on what most routers default to, 192.168.0.xxx but the "Home" network is on 192.168.1.xxx with its's default gateway being port 254 of that LAN. Now I could be wrong but for both routers / hubs to communicate together I would have thought that they either need to be on the same network (ie 192.168.0.xxx) or possibly you need to set up some sort of port forwarding to allow the two devices to communicate. You may need to turn off DHCP on one device and allocate IP addresses manually on anything connected to that router

To be honest I think SpaceX have. They launched around 60 rockets in 2022, and are aiming for 100 launches in 2023, whilst it's not as regular as the ATC post DaveS mentioned above, two a week is still very impressive. Globally (according to Google) last year there were 176 successful rocket launches globally, with 8 failures. SpaceX's Falcon rocket seems to be very reliable and with some boosters now being reused 10 or more times has made getting a satellite into space more affordable. But getting back on topic, since January 2021 Virgin orbit have only succeeded four times in getting payloads to orbit.... and you would have thought taking it up to 40K feet under the wing of a 747 would make things easier than a ground based launch.

Rother Valley Optics have a second hand HEQ5 listed for £849 here's a link The WideScreen Centre have new in stock for £989 link As do Harrisons - for same price link

Well that will at least prevent any new deposits being taken. I wonder if the hosing company has an address for Graham (assuming he's the owner of the domain) which could be passed on to the courts or their representatives Well done Andrew

With 16 cores and 32 threads running around 5Ghz, with 64 GB Ram and a couple of Samsung Pro Nvme drives I wouldn't have expected anything else.... Nice machine 👍

Very early HEQ5's were not GoTo mounts. They had a basic two gear worm drive and used a four button directional handset that tracked in siderial. I've been trawling the net to find images, as these are now quite rare, but here is an example Ignore the DIY electronics. You can see that there are two large gears, one on the axis worm the other on the drive motor. IF the OP's HEQ5 has the same gearing then they will have to purchase and install a full GoTo upgrade kit to make the mount compatible with computer control via a PC. Additional hardware such as an EQDIR cable would be required to make that connection. However given the cost of this upgrade is likely to cost £430 (plus the EQDIR cable) it would be wise to consider putting that money towards a new HEQ5 mount which IMO would be the better option.

There is very little protection on the HEQ5 motor board so heed Steve's advice on checking the polarity of whatever power supply you use. Same goes for any interlink cable between a computer and mount should you go down that road. There have been may boards blown by using the wrong adapters. There is two ways to power the mount. Use an indoor PSU and run low voltage out to the mount. Or run an external mains extension cable to the mount and plug everything in to it at the scope. Each has it issues. I would suggest for safety you look into using a decent bench power supply in the house and running low voltage to the mount, which is a lot safer. The main issue with this is voltage drop if the cable run is long, but with a bench power supply you can increase the output to around 14-16v so that you get around 13v at the socket. (HEQ5's are rated at 12-16v and actually do better on around 13v rather than 12). Make sure the supply is rated for at least 3amps. The mount will draw around 2amps with both motors slewing and having a little headroom helps.

The thing with alarms is that we're all accustomed to hearing them. How often do people react to a car alarm these days.. 9/10 times its always a false alarm so no one pays much attention. The suggestions about changing quick releasing wing nuts etc for headless allen bolts is a good one as most opportunistic thieves will walk away if it's not an easy and quick snatch.

I don't think it's an easy post to answer as it depends on the low life breaking in. If they are kids or opportunist then yes having bright lights and an alarm going off may deter them, but if they are seasoned criminals then they may be carrying a weapon and not afraid to use it if confronted, so even if you are not leaving the rig unattended you could find yourself in a really sticky situation. In such a situation it's better to let them take the rig than get involved, your rig is replaceable, you are not. It may well be you are becoming a little paranoid and the odds of them breaking in whilst the home is occupied are very slim...

Yeah... who knows how many people outside this thread have been stung as well

If you google "Photoshop GPU or CPU" you'll see that depending on filters or processes used dictate the demand on either. If you also google "Photoshop CPU cores or threads" you get more of a conflict with some sites suggesting it's more a single threaded application than multi, but further investigation suggested that some processes are multi-threaded and will use multiple cores. So basically, get a processor with as many cores and threads that fit your budget. Photoshop also uses a scratch disk, which can apparently be configured to use RAM or hard drives, so an Nvme drive and decent RAM should be included. Googling "best GPU" it seems that an RX560 or 1050 ti, which are somewhat older cards can give decent performance, so a modern Nvidia 30xx or 40xx or equivalent AMD card should be able to handle what you do. Having said that, for basic work, I've used an old version of Photoshop (CS2 !!) with soem astronomy tools on a first gen Ryzen 5 1500X (4 core 8 threads), 16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR 4 RAM, and a Radion RX550 2GB GPU all running on an ASUS Prime X570-A mother board with a fast Samsung EVO 960 250gb Nvme System disk, and a Toshiba 7200 rpm 3TB hard drive for file storage. - I can also edit 4K video using DaVinci on this machine which is more demanding on a system than stretching and tweaking a still image, so even a modern modest system should be fine

Whilst this thread does seem to be painting HOUK in bad light, it would be IMO a bad thing if the admin choose to lock it or edit it in some way. Those who have received their observatories have gone on record praising the products and the service, but equally it provides a platform for those who have been stung by what on the face of it seems to be a fraudulent practice as deposits have still been taken even though HOUK have no ability or means to produce the goods. By keeping the thread alive it allows those who have done their own investigations such as that detailed in Steve's post to keep other affected parties informed. I can appreciate that it can be a delicate balance for the Admin / Owners of a forum to allow reporting of facts which are negative from affected members, but in this case there is IMO good reason. Reading through this thread it would seem that tens of thousands of pounds have been taken under false pretences so this is more serious than "bashing" a retailer due to a delay in sending an eyepiece or something similar. It also may help future people who google HOUK as part of researching the company prior to departing with a couple of grand deposit, because as of this minute HOUK's website is still up and running and ready to take orders from unsuspecting customers.

Not sure if this is any good, but it seems to have a lot of cross platform support, including linux and even a pi variant Winstars - Don't shoot me if it's not suitable.... I use windows and have never ventured to the dark side of linux 🙂

@jmdl101 Yes it was quite a learning curve as I had never had that issue with the MC004's before. Thanks for documenting your experience, and I'm sure it will give others who stumble across the thread the confidence to give this a go if they are in the same situation with a handset reporting the dreaded "No response..." message. You have also contributed an extra bit of useful information, by testing the OSC pins (9 and 10) with a DVM we can now confirm if the PIC is running with the external crystal rather then the internal 4Mhz one.

No worries, it's been fun searching. Synta being the parent company of Skywatcher and Celestron then it makes sense to try and standardise components. Sounds as if you have all the gear to remove and replace one if you have one on a doner board