malc-c

Maybe the clue is in the PHD screen shot - it suggests the camera is an SC305c. I would have thought this would read SC905C if the correct camera (and thus driver) had been selected from the connection window in PHD2 ?

An excellent build, really enjoyed reading this, thank you for bringing us along on the journey

C30 and C31 are the two caps for the X2 crystal. They connect between the crystal and ground (0 volt) - there is no high current through these pins so what you are looking at is just a less than perfect solder joint. It's worth reflowing the two joints on each crystal as without it then the PIC won't run, and as the clock cycles are used for the UART timing that would affect the communications and possibly give the "no response" message/

LOL - temptation ! Well if you need the old board looking at drop me a PM and I'll pass on my details. Glad to hear FLO sorted you out and you're back up and running once more

Did they honour the advertised price of £30 , or did you have to purchase elsewhere ? Hard to say what the original cause was. PICs are quite sensitive to over voltage so if the regulation failed or spiked that could have blown the PICs, the diodes on the coms links in some boards blow if there is an issue with the EQDIR cable, or an over voltage on the coms lines can blow the serial UART in the PIC. The two large electrolytic caps can pop/leak and cause a board not to run... Its take your pick really

Thanks Stu, The problem is that there are very few topics that can be discussed without politics or countries policies coming into the equation.. I agree, the ever increasing worlds population is impacting lots of things form the fuel they use through to impacts on local eco systems and habitats. One thing my late mother used to say was "charity begins at home" and she would often go on about all the aid we used to send to Africa, yet most of the families the news reports mentioned had 8, 9 or more kids, mainly because the custom was that the larger the family you had the higher up and "respected" you were in the village. The fact that they lacked the resources to feed them.... and before this thread get locked, there is a connection.... The loss of crops were cited as being the reason for the famine, which was again down to climate change. The rise in the worlds population is not entirely down to families having more children. People are living longer. It's not uncommon for people in the western world to live well into their 90's.. Anyway, I think this topic has well and truly gone off topic judging by some posts..... so if the mods wish to lock it its fine by me.... it's run its course

I know there are rules regarding politics on the forum, so hopefully what I'm about to say won't get this discussion into trouble. Whilst I think majority of us will agree that we need to reduce our CO2 output, save energy and other resources, and that combined with the rapid increase in worlds population something needs to be done. But personally I can't see how gluing yourself to a road / train / bus or blockading a fuel depot will resolve that, mainly as it's things like the high deforestation of the worlds rainforests etc that needs to stop. Try telling the farmer he's killing the planet cutting down the trees to use the land for farming when he's just see the $$ from governments for doing so as the incentive. We can do little against the other countries, some who are the largest users of fossil fuels don't want to fall in line with other countries when it comes to commitment to reducing their CO2 footprint, and the antics of a handful of passionate people won't make these others change their habits.

I would agree with this. I was born in '62, and remember winters being cold with a decent amount of snow falling most years, and in summer it was very common to have long warm sunny days, yet as I've grown up the winters have got warmer and summers having shorter periods of high temperatures and often being wetter. It was almost as if the swing between winter and summer have been ironed out with quite a flat average over the year. I just wanted to add that my OP had no scientific basis at all. It was simply a search through time to see if heatwaves were experienced before the industrial revolution and we started to pollute the atmosphere with smoke and fumes and other gasses associated with global warming. One thing to add is that whilst I mentioned the frequency is increasing, better record keeping compared to 300 years ago may cloud the conclusion.

I missed this.... 16v is really too much for these units. I've run Synta mounts on 13.8v regulated, but 16v is really pushing it. You may be lucky with these new boards, but certainly the older generation wouldn't tolerate that amount of voltage. I can't really comment on the loose wire, it was this thread where the member posted a video of his motors juddering in the same way. He then traced it to a broken wire in one of the DIN sockets that the interlink cables plug into. If you have checked all the wires and cables and they all check out fine then it is either a faulty motor or faulty controller. Can't offer anything else really...

I originally wrote the following for our societies newsletter in 2019, but thought I would post it here with a slight update given recent events. Feel free to comment With most of Europe in the grip of one of the hottest heat waves, with temperatures in France exceeding 40c, the media is quick to point the finger at global warming, with most sighting modern 21st century living (modern traffic, manufacturing and chemical pollutants and forest devastation causing the so-called greenhouse effect). However, this got me thinking; especially as us astronomers know the Sun’s activity rolls round on a regular cycle, what heat waves occurred throughout history. I mean if the UK or Europe had a long exceptionally hot summer three hundred years ago, then you couldn’t put that down to modern transport. I’ve spent the past hour or so googling around the internet and came up with these accounts: July 1757: Like current events, Paris experienced a peak of 11 days, where 10 of them exceeded 30c. Most days in this 10 day period the maximum daily temperature was 35c with the hottest being 20th July when it peaked at 37.5c 1906: In August and September of 1906 the UK sweltered for four days between 31st August and 3rd September, with the mercury hitting 35c in Northamptonshire and central London. 1911: Five years later the UK was gripped by another heat wave, only this time it lasted a lot longer than the short 1906 heat wave. Starting in July 1911, it lasted in mid September which also resulted in drought conditions as there had been no rain since the beginning of July. Temperatures in Kings Lynn reached 33c by the end of July. Daily temperatures were typically 27-28c every day, rising to 33c in September. The drought and heat wave ended on 11th September when the high pressure zone receded and temperatures fell by around 7c. July 1911 broke all records for sunshine hours, with Eastbourne topping out at 383.9 hours, which is on par with the Nevada desert. The 1911 heat wave was not confined to the UK, with many states in Eastern North America also affected, with estimated deaths reported as being between 300- 2000 people. Between the 4th July and 15th July temperatures reached 41c. 1923: For around two weeks in August temperatures reached 34c in the UK 1932: Two notable heat waves affected the UK in the summer of 1932. The first centred around 11th August with temperatures in the low 30c. The second came towards the end of the same month, with 36c in London 1933: Another UK summer where temperatures exceeded 34c in the last week of July, with reports of hurricanes occurring over Europe as the heat wave came to a dramatic end. How true that was is anyone’s guess as my limited research hasn’t confirmed the reports. 1957: The whole of the UK in July of this year saw wall to wall sunshine, with the peak temperature reaching 36c before violent thunderstorms finally changed things. 1976: The infamous summer of ’76, where the third highest temperature recorded in the UK to date since records began was recorded. 36c was recorded in Cheltenham on 3rd July 1976. The heat wave lasted for 66 days between 23rd June and 27th August. Heathrow airport had 16 consecutive days where the temperature was over 30c followed by 15 further consecutive days where it exceeded 32c with 35c peaking in several parts of the UK. 1983: The United Kingdom experienced a heatwave during July 1983. This was the hottest month ever recorded until it was beaten in 2006. The heatwave is remembered, not for its extreme heat but the relentless heat with temperatures around 32 °C (90 °F) every day. 1990: A short but intense heat wave of just four days hit the UK between 1st August and 4th August with the highest temperature of 37.1c was recorded in Cheltenham. 1995 & 1997: Two hot summers resulted in the 2nd and 3rd heat wave hitting the UK in a seven year period. 1st August saw temperatures hit 35c 2003: During April 2003 there was a summer-like heat wave that affected the United Kingdom however mainly England and Wales where temperature records were broken. The all-time record still stands however temperatures reached around 27 °C (80 °F). The warm temperatures continued through the summer of 2003, resulting in the hottest summer prior to 2022 in Europe since 1540. France suffered particularly badly, with almost 15000 heat related deaths (mostly the elderly). Northern France had more than eight consecutive days where temperatures exceeded 40c. In the UK around 2000 people (again mainly the elderly) died by heat related causes. Temperatures again broke previous records hitting 38.5c (101.3f) at Faversham in Kent on 10th August. 2006: Just three years later in 2006 Europe was hit by another long heat wave, although the maximum temperatures didn’t exceed the 2003 record, 36.5c was recorded on 19th July. After a particularly dry winter, the heatwave did nothing to help the drought situation and a hosepipe ban was issued. 2010: This was an exceptional year for heat waves. Basically nearly all the countries in the Northern hemisphere experienced exceptionally high temperatures. From most of the United States, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, China, Hong Kong, North Africa and the European continent as a whole, along with parts of Canada, Russia, Indochina, South Korea and Japan during May, June, July, and August 2010. No UK records were broken, and in the UK the highest temperature reached 31.7c, but it was the fact temperatures had risen over a 6 month period and affected half the globe In the UK we have experienced heat waves almost most years, or every other year. 2012, 2013 which saw the UK experience the warmest July prior to 2022 since 2006, 2015 and in 2016 the UK experienced the hottest September day since 1911, when on 13th September it reached 34.4c. In 2017 temperatures hit 34.5c at Heathrow on 21st June. Again in 2018 the temperature exceeded 30c for more than two consecutive weeks in July, and now in 2022 the UK broke all UK records exceeding 40c What's interesting is that whilst high temperatures were recorded in centuries past, they were less frequent. Now it's seem that we can expect to hit 30+c for several weeks every summer year on year. But can we put the blame on the current way we live. You would have thought that with more and more wind and solar farms appearing in the past decade or so we should see the worlds climate beginning to cool. Yet we've exceeded 40c only weeks ago with several days of 30+c and rain fall measured in fractions of a millimetre.

^^^^^ A picture may help... You can make up the ring using the lid of some plastic trunking, felt and some banding strap. You place this around the OTA above the upper clamp. Releasing the clamps slightly so the OTA can be rotates but the ring prevents the tube from sliding down.

There was a post very similar to this recently. If I remember correctly it turned out to be a broken wire between the motor and the DIN plug, effectively resulting in one of the coils in the motor not being turned on and effecting the timing. Check the wiring on all connectors to see if one has become detached. Your Synscan unit is also one of the newer units based around an ARM cortex controller. Whilst this in not itself an issue, some people have reported either a difference in the sound the motors make compared to the older PIC controller based board, suggesting the driving of the motors is done differently as well. If it's not possible to check inside the DIN plugs to see if any wires have detached then contact the retailer (assuming the scope is new and still in warranty) with a view of getting a replacement of the whole package and not just the controller or motor.

You're 12v 6A supply should be more than enough to drive the mount. Both motors slewing will draw around 2A, so you have plenty of headroom. The fact the handset can command the mount confirms that there is no issue with the synscan unit or handset, and the issue could well be the motors or, a gearing / meshing problem. If you remove the motors from the mount and drive them with the hands set do they still make that sound or do they run sweetly. If they run sweet then check the mount for anything binding, or gearing off centre. Then try an refit the motors, ensuring that there is sufficient clearance between the gears

Might be worth posting on the EQMOD user group just in case there something quirky with that build. It seems that you may have two instances of EQASCOM running as it's trying to close itself. Check Task Manager and end task any instances running and try again. Don't install as administrator as that can lead to other issues.

I bet they wondered what had happened when they received all these orders for something that is not really a rapid turnover item 🙂 And then they realised their mistake !

Do you live in a light polluted area ? I have a 400D and must admit my subs of 300s are a lot cleaner that that, even under twilight conditions

Depends on the quality of the optics in the scope. Using a well made costly branded eyepiece with a cheap scope with poor quality optics wont make the poor quality scope perform any better. Those H6 and H20 eyepieces will be basic, but on occasion even basic eyepieces will give you reasonable images if the optics are of decent quality. The Greika 40070M you listed states it has coated optics, but doesn't mention anything about the type of optics used. As to what you might see, read the reviews. (site translated into English from this site )

Be interesting to see if a) they do fulfil these orders and b) honour the £30 price tag My gut feeling is that where things such as control boards and handsets etc are concerned this shop act as "box shifters" and don't hold stocks as they wouldn't be a fast turn over item.

Yes as detailed in the post above, the new boards have a USB header on them. I would suggest dropping a PM to the poster above to see if he can advise further. You would need to either fit a USB socket to the mount, ideally in the same housing as the rest of the connections and run wires between it and the J5 header, or get a long USB cable, cut one end off and feed it through the housing to the board and terminate that in a plug that fits J5. It looks like the chip takes USB data +/- and converts it to TTL RS232 serial which gets sent to the controller.

As Geoff has mentioned, budget and astrophotography tend not to be associated together, however it need not cost the Earth to get started. I'm not really experienced enough with a camera / lens set up as I bolt my Canon camera onto a 8" reflecting telescope, but the basics still apply. Two factors are similar though, the longer the focal length the darker the image will get, so you need more aperture. Now camera lenses have the ability of increasing aperture compared to a scope, so as you zoom in you can stop down (stop up ??) to let more light in. It also depends on what you are expecting. Even a stock 50mm lens under a dark sky will give some stunning wide field views of the constellations and milky way, and won't need any fancy guided or driven mount. Using a zoom lens to narrow the field of view and increase magnification, and increasing the aperture could then mean that the Earths rotation becomes an issue and stars become trailed. A decent driven mount then becomes more important than the camera that sits on it. Years ago it was normal to buy a telescope mount and adapt it to take a camera, but these days dedicated tracking mounts for cameras now exist, which makes the task a lot easier. I would suggest giving FLO or RVO a call and discuss your requirements and budget and see what they have to offer. I'm also sure other members who used lenses rather than telescopes to gather photons will chime in here and give you some ideas of which mount is worth investigating and even post up some of their images so you can get an idea of what to expect

I think most people would be sensible enough to realise that you won't see the detail that you see in books, but in reality even bright objects like the Orion Nebula are just small fuzzy greenish / grey smudges, even when viewed through an 20cm / 100cm focal length scope costing $1500, and are often disappointed. This is why so many people now try and attach cameras to the scope to take photos which whilst not being Hubble quality, are still stunning. We have similar selling laws in the UK, and no doubt most countries have similar return policies. Most revolve around the product being faulty, and not because you changed your mind as what it produces are not up to your expectations. We are trying to ensure you don't make a mistake and purchase something that is ultimately a waste of money. We've suggested a product that hopefully will excite you by giving you some decent foundation on which to start this new hobby for you. Bottom line is that you can either ignore the advise and suggestions, and go with what you think is decent scope for your money, after all you could always sent it back and get your money back if the retailer agrees to that.

Before you spend any money I would suggest you do more research. The second set of scopes are an improvement over the first, but you are way off the requirement to view deep sky objects, especially if you live under light polluted skies. The mounts are not stable and the apertures won't collect photons from anything other than the brightest DSO's. If you want to do imaging then you will need to increase your budget ten fold. Visually you want see anything like the hubble images. A lot of people are disappointed when they look at even a bright dso as it turns out to be a small greenish / grey smudge rather then the flamboyant colourful image you see on forums like this, and that will be through a scope costing twice , if not three times you current budget. Have a search for any astronomy groups in your area. Join one or ask if you can visit any star parties they may have so you can look through different scopes and see how each one performs and in what price bracket they fall. If you are disappointed in your expectations and you then realise just how expensive this hobby is in order to get a decent scope then at least you have saved wasting a few hundred dollars by buying any of the above. If that is not an option, then look at getting a dobsonian telescope, ideally from a recognised brand such as Skywatcher or Celestron. Steer clear of these cheap scopes. I used to work for a company that had identical products to those listed in your first post and they really are nothing more than toys. The Azimutal 700mmx76mm Tssaper being the better as its a reflector but you can bet your life it uses a spherical mirror rather than a parabolic one. A 8" dobsonian scope from either if the two manufactures we've stated would be the ideal entry level scope. Of course you could ignore all our comments and advice, and get any of the scopes you've listed.... but you will be disappointed.

I That may explain why a post on a different forum from 2017 stated there was no answer when he telephoned them... Sorry, but I think on this occasion you've hit a wall

Azimutal 700mmx76mm Tssaper. Greika 40070m Refrator Azimutal And finally Lorben 900mm x 60mm Of the three the Azimutal 700mmx76mm Tssaper. will IMO be the better scope. BUT - don't expect much from them. All three will provide adequate images of the Moon, but are not suitable for seeing deep sky objects as they have very little aperture and the optics will be made to the price point. My advice would be to save and save until you can afford a decent scope on a better mount.

Normally it is. Whilst it took me a long evening to download all the SW firmware files and convert them into an unprotected HEX format to upload to the 16F886's, the actual programming takes half a minute. Most commercial products that use microcontrollers code protect their I.P so it's very difficult to read the HEX back off the PIC and save the file to upload to a new PIC, which may well be the case with the Celestron board.