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Brent

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Everything posted by Brent

  1. I've not been on here for a while. Not had my scope out much for the last 4 years. Used it over the summer for a couple of nights just out of interest. Don't think it will ever be used again and I am more than fine with that.
  2. Thanks. I now think this may be the biggest issue then as until PHD2 started to warn of this I had very minimal dec backlash which wasn't a problem to PHD2. Thanks for the suggestion, I've done this for a long time and last time out also tried guiding in one direction only and RA dithering only. It didn't help the calibration of course but did seem to stop the constant struggle back and forth during guiding. I was hoping to tackle this at source (which might be beyond me by what you've said), so I will keep an eye out for a replacement drive for the time being if I can get one cheap enough. They seem to be getting rarer to find now though, so failing that an EQ6-R Pro may be on the cards.
  3. My Meade LXD75 is extremely loud and high pitched at full slew. So bad that straight after purchase 8 years ago I immediately changed the HC setting to quiet slew and have left it there ever since. Although I wouldn't describe it as quiet myself, it's comparatively so and cuts the the noise by over half. Takes maybe three times as long to complete a 180 degree slew but I only really image so makes no difference at most twice a night. It's still loud enough that I wouldn't slew if my neighbours window was open though because I set up only 3 feet from my house, right next to the boundary and live in a semi-detached.
  4. An interesting read following that, thanks. Probably not something I will ever do myself but have bookmarked it with other guides just in case!
  5. Sorry, been snowed under with work and didn't see this. The only photo I have at the moment is this, don't know if it will be of any help. I'd removed the three bolts form the right hand side to try to slide the motor out but the ferrite core (?) won't go through the housing without cutting the wires. I didn't want to do that there and then but will do if necessary and resolder after. Thanks.
  6. Thanks for that. I'd got it back together and was outside when you replied, sorry. Everything else feels good and tight so I didn't bother messing with the worm and wheel mesh as I think I managed to sort that a couple of years back, I think the issue is the motor shaft now. Everything was back to 'normal', at least I hadn't made anything worse. Just as a test as I haven't done it properly before, I guided in one direction and dithered in RA only. Not too happy to dither long term like that but it seemed to work to keep the dec more under control. I haven't stacked anything to see if that will be noticeable yet. An EQ6 Pro purchase may be closer than I thought though!
  7. Oh, yes thanks, forgot to say that the grub screw is sat on the flat of the shaft and tight, no detectable movement at all between them. The shaft will also move in and out of the motor housing maybe by about a mm or two, so if I understand what you're saying that would indicate that the bearings have had it?
  8. I have an old problem with massive dec backlash that PHD2 is struggling with and I'm trying to get it sorted now. I have the motor off and have some play in the gear. After checking that the gear grub screw was tightened down on the shaft (it was), I have realised that the gear shaft turns with the gear and so the play appears to be within the motor itself 🙁 If I was to open the motor up is it likely that there would there be some way of tightening the shaft? Or has the motor had it? Dec.mp4
  9. Yes, I suspect you're correct. I should have realised what the problem was sooner, as the netbook never seems to download largish files without corrupting them! Anyway, I managed to try AT outside whilst dodging clouds and it was a partial success even though I tried my best to thwart it, lol. After polar aligning and syncing on Betelgeuse (which I realise now I didn't need to do, that's the point!), I started Stellarium and slewed to the Horsehead, took the exposure (Alnitak was in the frame now anyway), and loaded it into AT which failed to solve three times (tried various setting changes each time). Then, on the fourth attempt at loading the image, I mis-clicked and loaded an M42 sub I'd been testing with earlier. I noticed I'd done it straight away but couldn't get at the 'Abort' button as the log window was covering it and couldn't be moved. Then, of course, AT solved it quickly and slewed, lol. Anyway, I took the second exposure, looked at it on the LCD and didn't have a clue where it was pointing Looking in the finder it was pointing about the same distance above Alnitak as M42 is below Alnitak so I am guessing it was in the right place considering where I'd told AT it was looking Unfortunately, as is always the case with these things, the clouds rolled in properly and I couldn't go on and correct it. Still, at least AT talked to the mount, I just need to get the solving down better now. I'm REALLY looking forward to being able to image the same target over multiple nights without having to spend 20 minutes trying to re-frame it first!
  10. That sorted it - getting some warnings about mkpasswd and group files needing to be rebuilt (!?!) but it solves anyway - less than a minute for both files I fed it so I'm chuffed with that. Looking out the window I might even get to try it for real tonight, SHOCK! HORROR!
  11. Hmmm....after posting I checked both cygwin folders, the working one is 80mb bigger! Copying it over now.......
  12. Hoping someone can help me with this! Trying to get AT working on my imaging netbook but get the following log errors (it doesn't even start looking through indices). Thing is, I have it working and solving on another PC, installed it in exactly the same way, etc. so I'm stumped. I've re-installed twice with no change. 2015-02-24 17:09:37,453 - astrotortilla - INFO - Connecting to camera... 2015-02-24 17:09:37,467 - astrotortilla - INFO - Exposing: 5.00 seconds 2015-02-24 17:09:41,289 - astrotortilla - INFO - Reading image from camera 2015-02-24 17:09:41,305 - astrotortilla - INFO - Solving... 2015-02-24 17:09:46,407 - astrotortilla - INFO - Reading input file 1 of 1: "/cygdrive/c/Users/Astro/Desktop/IMG_7518.JPG"... 2015-02-24 17:09:47,404 - astrotortilla - INFO - /usr/bin/env: python: No such file or directory 2015-02-24 17:09:48,122 - astrotortilla - INFO - ioutils.c:602:run_command_get_outputs Command not found: /usr/lib/astrometry/bin/image2pnm.py --sanitized-fits-outfile /tmp/tmp.sanitized.hK2iX8 --fix-sdss --infile /cygdrive/c/Users/Astro/Desktop/IMG_7518.JPG --uncompressed-outfile /tmp/tmp.uncompressed.GUrqaO --outfile /tmp/tmp.ppm.XPL5xl --ppm 2015-02-24 17:09:48,138 - astrotortilla - INFO - augment-xylist.c:585:backtick Failed to run command: /usr/lib/astrometry/bin/image2pnm.py --sanitized-fits-outfile /tmp/tmp.sanitized.hK2iX8 --fix-sdss --infile /cygdrive/c/Users/Astro/Desktop/IMG_7518.JPG --uncompressed-outfile /tmp/tmp.uncompressed.GUrqaO --outfile /tmp/tmp.ppm.XPL5xl --ppm 2015-02-24 17:09:48,154 - astrotortilla - INFO - No solution in 6.8s
  13. Wow, simply stunning! I would make a trip to see an 8 metre print of this.
  14. Brent

    Astro

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