StevieDvd

9 minutes ago, Ricochet said:

I'm not the op, but having looked at my focuser I don't think that is a chip where the focuser has come off, it's where the grub screws hit when you tighten them. In the last photo there is another mark about 120° from the one on the underside. The proportions are just slightly off for the screws to sit properly in the groove and allow rotation. Perhaps it is a design/production fault with this model focuser or the adaptor. 

Hopefully, from what the OP has said the 3 grub screws are now in place and the focuser stays on and can freely rotate. It would seem he has an additional issue with the focus tube slipping which needs to be set properly as well. 

14 hours ago, Ricochet said:

I don't think this is the case. I've just had a play with mine and I can't find any tension level where the focuser can rotate and be securely held. If I slacken the screws to rotate the focuser it can fall off. 

Does anyone have one of these focusers where the focuser both rotates and is held securely simultaneously? 

The Baader focuser I have has the same attachment method, if I have the grub screws too tight it squeaks when rotated, and has a seperate lock screw to hold the rotation.  Most Moonlite focusers have the same rotation/connection flanges too, but being moonlite the flanges are more substantial.

See what Starlight say first, and if required I get ready to send a picture of the flange as I can see a tiny chip in the edge where it has come off.

Just to give an example of the need or lack of need for the guide scope and main scope to be pointing at the same target:

1. For visual if they are both alighend the lager fov lets you find the target easier in the finder scope. Needs both aligned.

2. You want to image a particular target but there is no good star in the fov of the guide scope. Adjust the guidescope to show one and guide on that. Not aligned but intentional and OK.

You will see some of the heavy weight guidescope adapters have adjusters for point 2

And to further answer your question if the guidescope and main scope are not aligned. You can still use the PA routines that take images and platesolve with either scope, the PA process is the relative axis of the mount to a fixed camera view (main or guide).

Hope that helps.

Not dumb. Some focuser used grub screws to fill the holes as it looks neater I think the ones with a head are a bit easier to identify but that could be based on my experience and not reality 🙄

There are some other members with the same scope with the finderscope base fitted on the focuser, the web page for the scope also mentions the scope focuser has the connection point. They are usually filled with a screw rather than left open which causes the confusion. From the pictures I've seen the connections are at the 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock positions.

Suggestion if you edit the title to include the scope as 102ED-R an owner of one might see the thread and respond.

I've only just added an ASIair to my collection but like with Astroberry & Stellarmate I use an Eqmod/EqDir cable from the ASIair to the mount and don't need the handset at all.  I thought that's what most users are doing nowadays.

If you PA using your guidescope then your mount will be aligned (for that session if you setup each time).  Software PA alignment basically does that by using your main scope/camera and platesolving several positions to work out your current PA axis from what it should be.  When guiding the target in your dslr will keep the same offset from your guide star if your PA is good.

19 hours ago, conspicuity said:

I wish I'd read this before I tried updating my V3 hand controller. Similar symptoms; tried twice. Now it's completely dead.

I've resisted the temptation to update for years, (ain't broke, don't fix)  but integration with a ZWO ASI AIR was proving difficult and it seemed this might be a fix. 

Live and learn... and pay for it!

 

What type of computeer do you have? If it's a desktop PC you may be able to add a com port adapter for a few quid if the motherboard has the pin connector present.

Oh that it was as easy some years back when I first dabbled. Much the same with the newer PA software - much simpler and even linked to platesolving.

I have recently purchased a 'new' Intel Nuc5i7RYH from Ebay with 8gb memory and a 250gb ssd card - it was listed for £270 with offers accepted (my offer of £250 was accepted). I also noticed an Ebay discount code which saved me a further 5% off -  so worth looking for these occasional Ebay inducements.

The Nuc arrived fine with Win 10Pro installed and works fine. I also added another ssd drive - and noticed they had left the adapter cable out of the box - I contacted them and they sent it first class.

So a couple of points to note on the later Nuc models (mine is an i7)

• The casing style/ports have changed a little on newer version. The above has a mini-hdmi and DisplayPort so you may need a cable/adapter for initial setup
• To use RDP I belive you need Windows Pro
• You may need to adjust the power/standby settings to keep it running when in remote usage
• The later Nuc may not run 12v - though earlier ones apparently do OK at that voltage

I have yet to use it in anger for astro as I am still playing around with Raspberry Pi (Astroberry, Stellaremate and ASIair Pro).

40 minutes ago, dyfiastro said:

My main issue was with the colour coding on the cables in relation to the pinout.

I have since found the solution. Looks like they are using the same pinout if not the same cables that can be found here.
I Used that document to find the RX,TX and GND which then enabled me to replace the connector. Test and seems to work fine.

I presumed that you would have just done a continuity test to discover the colous of the cables for the respective pins from the diagram. But glad you have the issue resolved.

Does this page help

http://eq-mod.sourceforge.net/tutindex.html

Does this link help?

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/telescope-bags-cases-storage/aluminium-case-for-evostar-80ed.html

28 minutes ago, markse68 said:

it gets a fix on the sky then calculates the offset you created doing the alignment to give you your pointing direction in the software starchart. Unfortunately (but obviously) you need to be able to see the thing you align on with the scope in the camera fov but it could be right in a far corner i guess. If you could then add a 90deg offset and subsequently use a right angle bracket for the phone i think at least in theory you could point up at the zenith and target near the horizon. Though accuracy might be another matter...

Mark

I'll let others confirm or not whether that would work, I can't quite get my head around it. But I do understand the normal use and now how it's aligned.

As I understood this is a phone is just like a platesolving finderscope that gives arrows to the chosen target.  So I am at a loss to see how it would help if not at least roughly aligned (but preferbaly properly aligned).

6 minutes ago, markse68 said:

I can see why you thought it Steve- the complex phone holder Celestron made with its rack and pinion sliders could suggest just that but I think they’re just to make the holder universal for any phone- by tayloring it to one phone (mine  ) it all gets much simpler

Mark

I'd seen the cradle had adjustments for the phone camera position but I guess the addition of ball-head adjuster by others and cloud fever led me down the wrong thought path.

38 minutes ago, markse68 said:

you do that in the app from what i understand?

Mark

I sit corrected and registered it in the far recess of my brain. 🤔

7 hours ago, markse68 said:

i was a bit bored today so after servicing some binoculars  I designed a mount for my phone for the starsense explorer i don’t have yet. guess that means I’ll have to get it now if the mount works out ok 🤦‍♂️

It’s to take that prism I found that seems to work ok and it’ll mount on the picatinny rail I usually mount my red dot on with a cheapo picatinny to air rifle dovetail adapter from ebay. I looked up the spec of the camera on my iphone and it’s on par with the best low light androids I think so should be up to it.

I”m a bit unclear but think I read it works ok on equatorial mounts so no need to worry about keeping phone dead flat? I haven’t allowed for any levelling ball head or anything...

Mark

 

I would think you also need to allow for alignment of the phone so that the target is centred on the app, your finderscope and your actual scope view, in the same way you align the finderscope to scope view.

1 hour ago, stash_old said:

So why bother making that statement - it just gives the wrong idea! Hell Windows is available on RPI4 but is useless for Astro! Sounds like BBC stories - should ,could and might.

At least the other link shows Desktop version is only recommended for the RPI4 - thats fair and accurate IMO 🙂

and the Server version (i.e. no GUI Desktop) is available on others.

 

I could not see the exact statement as you mentioned it, but you are right it does not do a good job of clarifying what runs on what.

50 minutes ago, vlaiv said:

I have RPI4 with 2GB of ram. I think that is more than enough for light desktop usage. At least it should be.

LXQT uses up something like 300-400mb of ram so there is at least 1.5GB left. I still have not figured out problem with SDDM and startup. For some reason it won't start on boot if graphical target is selected as default target. It starts in test mode and XServer starts from command line.

I installed XRDP and remote desktop sessions work normally.

Now, I'm about to test INDIGOSKY distribution. First problem (there is always little something with linux isn't there? ) that I'm facing is that I can't login into ssh because I don't know credentials for this preinstalled image. Indigo sky page says it is default raspbian / raspberry pi os installation with indigo server installed, but pi/raspberry is not working on ssh for some reason.

Here is says use indigo as login & password.

17 hours ago, stash_old said:

I really worry about some of the so called tech reporters - "Ubuntu 20.10 can also run on RP 2 and 3 variants but only with 4GB RAM and above " - anyone spot the stupid basic mistake. Then they wonder why "users" have problems!

 

If I read that page correctly they don't say that Ubuntu 20.10 will run on the older models,  just that Ubuntu is available on them. 😲

For any readers of this thread see Ubuntu page for their coverage of the various Pi flavours.

I presume you mean with the Nikon attached you will take & save an image at each appropiate stage asked and use the virtual camera to open it.  Whether the polar alignment routine has the option to open the image is another matter.

Prior to Sharpcap having the polar routine and before Polemaster one of the forum members created a polar alignment program which uses saved images and would prompt you in a slightly more manual way.

See PhotoPolarAlign if I recall correctly you can download and use test images to get the hang of it.

3 hours ago, Davey-T said:

Got one in my obs'y PC that sends signal to house, will try it in the ASIAIR when I get a chance, currently embroiled in restoring the ASIAIR SD card firmware, only taken a couple of hours so far and probably be another couple later.

Dave

I use a program called Rufus for writing Linux images to sd-card, found here. Though I do have a usb3 adapter for sd-cards, so it's normally done in around 10 mins.

The usual work arounds revolve on boosting the ASIair signal through an extender. For example:

1. Use an external device to boost your home wi-fi. If the device is DC powered and next to the mount you can use a wifi connection or possibly a lan connection between the ASIair and the extender.

2. If the extender is in house or garage but near enough to let the ASIair get a good signal then use that. I have one of these in my garage to extend my wifi signal for the garden and rear of house.

3. Use an extender to boost the ASIair wifi broadcast signal into the house.

4. For portable and away from home there are a lot who use a TPLink device (such as TP-Link AC750/TL-WR902AC) to do  create a hotspot for their phone/ipad and ASIair to connect to.

This video gives you an idea why the Rasberry Pi has a hard job broadcasting a wifi hot-spot, given the size it's amazing what it can achieve.

I seem to recall that the wifi on Raspberry does not have any way to use an external connection and is limited to the onboard aerial - there are some daring individuals that cut the traces on the Pi board and add an external connection but not something the normal or even expert would probably want to try.

You may have seen usb wifi connections with nice big aerials but whether the ASIair Pro could use that over the internal one is the key question.