Gina

I expect I'll find it then.

Hmm... Doesn't seem to be in my main stock of nozzles. I have 1.2mm and 2mm. The 1.5mm+ may be in one of the general 3D printer boxes.

Found the lens cap for the lens I'm using and now seeing if any light gets in.

I'll have to make one of those when I'm not busy with astro stuff...

WOW!! That's magnificent! When's the launch date? 🤣

I get amp glow with long exposures (>30s) but Darks should take care of that. No sign of amp glow on the Flats.

Been looking out my selection of lenses. 28mm f3.5 35mm f3.5 55mm f1.8 105mm f2.8 135mm f2.5 I also have 200mm f4 and 300mm f5.6 lenses somewhere I think. After that come telescopes. Esprit 80ED 400mm f5 Evostar 80ED 600mm f7.5 or with 0.85 reducer/flattener, 510mm f6.4 MN190 f5.1 1000mm f5.3 I think I can say that I've got almost every FOV covered 😄

Just ordered one of these.

This really seems to be coming together now

Panel is working well. With the gain turned right down to zero, the exposures are around 1-2s for a corrected ADU of 32000. I've set camera cooling to 0°C. There is little sign of noise and Bias subtraction should be sufficient, I think. Now capturing 30 frames of each filter. I think that should do the trick - unless anyone has any comments. A couple of screenshots, one from KStars FITS Viewer and the other from PI with CurvesTransformation.

I think for initial testing I'll set the rig pointing straight up and place the panel on top of the dew shield and plug the USB into a spare port on the RPi (if there's enough power). Then I can try taking Flats with each of the 3 NB filters. If all's well with that I'll arrange something more permanent. KStars has controls for remote operation of flat panels.

Yes, very nice.

The light panel has arrived (and opal acrylic sheet too, which I may not need). Plugged it into a USB port on my desktop PC and it works. I'll check that it works with the Astrodon 3nm NB filters before opening the back and making a direct connection to the LEDs.

Now I'm trying to remember what I'm supposed to be doing today 😁 I was going to add my own focuser INDI driver but the auto-focus seems to be working quite well. The flat panel is arriving later today and I have some flats that need taking - better avoid touching the rig until I've taken Flats to match the latest Lights. There's Darks and Biases to be taken when it's dark tonight (unless I can manage to exclude all light but may not be able to cool enough to match the -20°C Lights).

Having got the focus as good as I could I set about capturing Light subs. 26x45s Ha (1170s=19.5m), 13x120s OIII (2600s=43.3m), 8x240s SII (1920s=32m) before daylight swamped the rest. Selected with Blink in PI. I was hoping to capture more SII but time ran out.

More playing with auto-focus and got HFR down to about 2. 30s Ha.

Got the auto-focus working to some extent and improved the focus. Still not as good as it was though.

Couldn't get Load and Slew to work so went out and moved the mount by hand to the right area of sky. Got that about right but seems I've knocked the focus out slightly and no longer getting those nice tight stars I was getting. I need to alter the focuser driver to get the remote focussing working correctly. I'd forgotten that - the manual focussing I had done on the distant hill in daylight had worked really well so didn't bother. My focuser system uses relative positioning whereas the KStars auto-focus uses absolute positioning.

Well, it found Polaris which is where it was pointing.

Several stars out so should be able to plate solve.

Carefully watching a cloud bank as it comes and goes. There's a bank of cloud more or less above and extending westwards. To the east there's just odd little bits of cloud. Using No.1 eyeball to watch the cloud ATM - I could do with my ASC but it's not working yet. This bank of cloud has been moving eastwards then westwards and back again all evening. It's very slowly moving eastwards ATM and it looks very dark in places so I've closed the observatory roof just in case there's rain in that cloud.

Very much so!

Ordered it. Due for delivery tomorrow. If this works it will save me a lot of work. That lovely clear blue sky is gaining more and more clouds - getting ready for tonight - marvellous!!! Typical!!!

OK I'll give it a try. Been looking on Amazon UK and there are lots of these panels at various prices but some seem to have grid lines or dots so I guess it's best to get the same brand, at over twice the price of cheaper ones. A4 Tracing Light Box - LitEnergy 9x12 Inch Light Pad Ultra-Thin Only 5mm USB Power Light Table for Artists, Drawing, Sketching, Animation If the unit uses LEDs with a phosphor that glows white with UV illumination, I guess it's wideband rather than discrete wavelengths.

The problem with LED light sources is that the wavelengths produced do not match narrowband filters - ie. 3nm Ha, OIII and SII. Hence my idea of using an incandescent lamp with a continuous spectrum. I have tried LCD screens in the past.