StevieDvd

There's no balancing option on these mounts. I guess the idea is that the motors are not bothered by the weight as much as other types of mount. A little noe in the AM5 manual mentions checking for stability so it should only be used by people with common sense 😄 A heavy refractor should be easier for it to handle (compared to a SCT f the same weight) as the weight is closer to the centre of balance. The danger of the 0.7m refractor (and camera train etc) touching/crashing is dependent on whether the user checks for free movement or not. I'm happy with my current setup needing no counterweight, I can hold the mount fully loaded with scope/camera/guidescope/asiair in one hand - though of course use the other hand as well when carrying it to the pier or tripod. But I do have an extension bar that fits and some small weights if I put a larger scope on, as I have this mental image of Scotty from Star Trek telling me you can't change the law of physics.

I was interested in the details of the Rainbow RST-135 as a comparison to my AM5 and came across the youtube video of what happens in the event of a power loss to these mounts - referred to as backdriving. The video shows several examples of a heavily loaded mount going into an uncontrolled spin. It was interesting to see him put his full image train at risk to demonstrate the lack of a brake and the impact was quickly stopped on any power restoration or simple manual intervention. Even when he allowed it to crash the impact was so slight the sponge around the tripod leg was sufficient to bring it to a halt. So the AM5 only having the RA brake is not such a negative on this kind of mount.

Is that you in the last image, or did you get a man in to do the job and uploaded the wrong image? 😀 But to be serious I'm happy to see the end result and can't wait to see your astro images in further posts. Bravo Monsieur

I think the jury is still on a long lunch break.

In my head I had the AR127L & AR127S models so did a qick google to see if I had that right. In a review for the AR127S there was a mention of getting a focus with a 2" diagonal but not a 1.25" So I'd agree with the others that either the scope is missing some included 'as new' parts or the tube has been shortened (this is often done to get a working binoviewer setup).

If it helps a post I made back in 2011 was basically on the same subject as your question See here It's quite appropriate as that was also in a credit crunch period and the same eyepieces are still being recommended today (I still have mine).

To be fair to the software authors they are using the open source drivers, and unlike ZWO have to support a myriad of different hardware running many protocols. If they had to test each variation the cost of the soatware would be a lot more. However, I had a look at the available indi-lib mount drivers and there is one for the virtuoso listed here The synscan and skywatcher alt/az should work especially if the mount can use a synscan handset.

I think you have a typo surely the Optolong Armadeddun.

Have you got an eqmod cable to use instead of via the handset? That's been my solution before when wifi firmware updates have failed.

It'll probably happen on one of the few clear nights we have.

Update My PC was built by a local computer shop for me back in December 2021 and I could not find the invoice, so called them to ask what PSU it had fitted (would have had to take it apart to get to the psu). Glad to say it was 750W and I mentioned I was finally going to add a GTX card. As it happened they had a used GTX 1650 4gb in store so I popped out the the PC under my arm and had it fitted/tested. Compared with the onboard graphics this has given the PC a much needed boost and the RC XTerminators now running much quicker - in one case 22 seconds instead of 2mins 40sec.

@powerlord I rescue my photons and help them re-generate in other media So astroimagers = photoncopiers 😉

Similar to my family except it was 'Your's don't look like the images in a book" to "They now look like the images in the book" and "Send your comet picture to the BBC" ( as if I was the only one who captured it 😀) I can;t gie all the credit to the XTerminators as I have a new mount/scope/camera & filter but the processing is now getting easier and I'm getting the hang of it bit by bit.

I share you pain in the stacking & processing involved. How did you create the video? I started with Blink in PixInsight but found a better tool to get a smoother video from the saved blink images. Steve

Each capture was 60 seconds and this was a made with the best 48 of 50 shots (last 2 made it jump a little too much). Used an ImageContainer in PixInsight for the files to process and ProcessContainer to run a stretch & crop on them all. I tried the video maker in the Blink viewer and saved each as a png file, but ended up using a program from GitHub (makeavi.exe) to convert them to an avi.

Not the best image, but one of my most onerous processing sessions to get anything half-decent from the stacking. A bit over processed, even for me, but I've learned more about PixInsight that will come in hand later. From the same data as the video we get this from the first 50 of 100 stacked images. The rest were interrupted by a dither or re-centering by Asiair so decided not to try to add them in as well.

Is that just the GPU? My GPU score is 554 Intel UHD Graphics 630 - in low 😢

Thanks, My typical English understatement of 'a little less' was me trying to be ironic. My budget for a card is on the opposite end of the price range - more like a GTX 1050 😉. I'm not a gamer and no longer use a flight simulator so graphics have not been an issue for me.

It seems the advent of the new AI assisted tools, like the Russ Croman XTerminator add-ins for PixInsight & Photoshop the GPU is starting to become more important. Having just followed a tutorial to process my comet images I grabbed the trial version of the StarXTerminator to use in Batch mode and stacked 50 images. Having only tried it only a single image before I had not noticed the time it takes. But in batch mode it ended up taking hours and putting my i7-10700 CPU 32gb Win11 to max cpu. The video guide I was following paused for that process and said it could take a while! After some further reading up on StarXTerminator use the consensus was that it was optimal to use a high spec GPU - preferably one which can use a feature called CUDA. So explaining why my onboard graphics was not helping and left the CPU to take all the strain. So now I'm on the lookout for a Graphics card that will help, but not one that costs more than my PC, as I don't expect to be exterminating stars in the stacking stage. Perhaps a little less than one of these Quadro 5000

I'd taken my images before I realised perhaps there were methods to use the comet itself to guide on. See https://openphdguiding.org/man-dev/Tools.htm#Comet_Tracking So it seems there are options to keep the comet steady and let the stars trail, but most post processing is for a standard guided session from what I've read.

comet.mp4 comet.avi A quick video of comet data from 30/1/2023 not stacking well.

That would seem to point to a software issue. In the Synscan app have you got it set to connect on app launch in the connection settings. And has it saved the com port number? If it works when eqmod has already enabled the port, then presumably it is not enabling it on it's own first attempt.

Do you know what driver the cable uses? There are serial cables which use FTDI (better) and others that use Prolific. The better ones reme,ber the port number last used, the others can select different ports each time. If you check in device manger for the port used and the driver we may be able to help.

Yes, I've left off the part where that is done using an app wirelessly and no handset used - it's been a while since I used an Evolution setup.

Did you get the model with the Celestron Starsense option, that will align/set the date & location of the mount automatically on each startup. It does need an initial setup alignment so it is facing the same sky portion as the scope.