Gina

Latest version of the reservoir.

What's wrong with having an SBC mounted on the scope?

One reason I went for a green wooden shed with a funny roof. The other was that I felt a dome would be too difficult for a DIY project in the size I wanted.

Glad there was no damage.

Ah, that's what I thought.

Hopefully the Ubuntu developers will make an RPi4 version before too long.

During a brief respite in the rain this afternoon I went out to my observatory to check a couple of things one of which was any wet getting in and there wasn't any in spite of all this horizontal heavy rain lately and that my ROR rolls off to the west where the rain/wind was coming from.

My latest weather station will use all electronic components for measuring temperature, humidity etc. using an Arduino with shield so I'll be using a simple small 3D printed Stevenson screen.

Gosh, that looks complicated!

Decided to go for my own water cooling system with the 40mm x 40mm x 10mm copper waterblock, 80mm radiator and fan, little aquarium pump and 3D printed reservoir with submerged pump in the bottom. These will all fit on the south wall of the ROR and don't need to be right at the top making fitting easier (and safer). The pump has a 3m head so no problem with that. The 80mm fan is inaudible at more than a foot away - the pump is pretty quiet too, no that it matters much - I won't be in the observatory much. A couple of screenshots from CAD models - thermal jacket for camera and water cooling reservoir.

We all knew nothing when starting 3D printing and had to learn. 3D printers are not simple things, there's much to learn. Good luck Louise.

Ready made mirrors are fine if you want to make a standard telescope but if you want something special - a more unusual type of telescope - then grind it yourself is the only way. Chriske has fine examples of these.

I never use a raft.

This is a post from back in the summer showing the RPi and HAT plus camera unit with earlier thermal jacket. The latter will be replaced with the much bigger printed jacket. I don't expect to use the remote focussing.

I'm thinking of going back to the IP65 box for the outer casing (with the waterblock) I was looking at before. Should be able to seal this box and keep the damp out. See THIS PAGE of this thread starting at the post of June 26. I rejected this box before due to difficulty of mounting it on the mast but it can quite easily go on the ROR apex. The cooling radiator etc. for the water cooling can fit in the roof apex inside. These images show the observatory and a previous ASC mounted on the ROR apex. I can design and print brackets to attach the new box to the barge boards. The RPi and all electronics will be in the box and use WiFi communications. The water pipes will go up under a barge board and into the roof space.

Good luck!

Still thinking about the cooling of the hot side of the TEC. The Nofan would seem to be adequate but attaching it to the casing with a good seal is not easy. Water cooling is still looking interesting and with the waterblock I have, sealing would be no problem. Sealing the outer housing has always been the main problem. This leads me to think again about water cooling. I have used water cooling in the past to cool a DSLR for imaging and also for cooling the hotend in my Giant 3D printer. I have a radiator and fan plus circulating pump that I've used in the past. There is plenty of room in the apex of my ROR for inside equipment so arranging a small reservoir, pump and radiator would not be that much of a problem. What I do know is that water cooling is the most efficient way of cooling I have come across. I once set up water cooling for a tower PC using a passive cooler external to the PC. the passive cooler included a pump which was virtually silent so I had a noise free PC. The passive radiator is quite large and heavy so not suitable for mounting in the observatory ROR.

The problem with the QHY6 is it's very small sensor - 1/3". To cover the sky with the fisheye lens I have needs a 1/2" sensor. I have tried in the past to get a fisheye lens with 180° coverage with a 1/3" sensor, without any luck.

Correction on price of cooled astro camera. Cheapest on FLO is £799 + carriage and that's a colour version. Cheapest mono camera is £999 + carriage ie. over a grand!!!

I'm interested in this comparison but not prepared to spend yet more and can't afford it ATM. What does the Adam Block PixInsight series of tutorials do that other free ones and the Warren Keller book don't?

I've looked inside the ASI178 cameras and the space between the imaging board and main board is only a mm or maybe two. No room for a plate to go out to the casing. The only way to get cooling directly to the back of the imaging board would be to rehouse the camera. I looked into doing just that but can't see how to get the main board out of the housing - the connectors hold it in. I'm left with either just cooling the casing or forking out for a proper cooled camera at around £600 which I can't afford.

You're quite right, cooling the camera housing only cools the air inside and is a very inefficient way of cooling the sensor but it does seem adequate if the housing is cooled sufficiently. The construction of the cooled cameras must be totally different as they incorporate a dual stage Peltier TEC cooler between sensor and the back plate, which is attached to fins in the main body of the casing.

It's not the fan that's that problem, that unit would be mounted on the ROR - the problem is the pump in the "waterblock" that would be attached via the Peltier TEC to the camera.

Trying to work out the ASC outer casing and sealing to the Nofan whilst obstructing airflow through it as little as possible. Meanwhile, I have been searching through all the methods of CPU cooling. I thought I had found another alternative in liquid cooling (not water cooling) in a compact, all in one, ready made liquid cooler - a sealed unit without a separate reservoir (the main problem with my DIY water cooling system). viz. Cooler Master MasterLiquid Lite 120 Liquid CPU Cooler However is seems the pump is in the "waterblock" which would cause vibration (though how much I don't know). The main picture doesn't show any wires but the shot of the PC with unit installed seems to show a cable from the "waterblock".

OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is GROSS as the youngsters say I gather!