Gina

I added some bracing to the frame and now this printer is working fine so I shan't be messing about with the Z drive. It ain't broke so I'm not fixing it! I did have to fix broken piezo Z probe wires though - replaced the devilishly fine wires with a pair from a ribbon cable. Working again.

The electronics shouldn't take long to fix. A few tests with the DMM should determine where the fault is. The air pressure loss is another matter. Guess I can test a few of the joints with soapy water. Wonder if I can test the ASC without taking in down again.

Connected up all the air pressuring stuff and pumped up the reservoir - have a leak somewhere - heard the pressure switches operate on pumping up then a few seconds later again as the air escaped. Now I have to find where. I also have the dew heater circuitry to check out and fix. At least I achieved a good imaging run last night. Probably need to take it a bit easy today. Nothing's hurting.

Better now. Connected a bicycle valve to a piece of tubing with heatshrink sleeving. This then feeds the air reservoir.

Lots of clouds coming over now and they're getting darker and darker!

Hmmm... I'll try later...

Daytime image just captured with minimum exposure.

Oh - I'm not seeing an image in the post above. SGL seems slow and doing funny things this morning. EDIT - Later - OK now.

Yes, that's what I've done in the past.

Sun 05 May 2019 03:36:36 BST

Captured image from shortly before dawn this morning at the time of the ISS passover. Just visible in the SE. Sun 05 May 2019 03:22:07 BST

Blue dot with halo half way to the left.

Yes! If any show up I'll catch them. Running continuously except for download time (couple of seconds). About 150 90s frames between now and daybreak. Should catch a couple of passovers of the ISS if it isn't too light by then (4am).

Milky Way showing now - top left corner. 90s exposure, gain 200, temperature -20.8°C.

Blow up of the blue streak.

I wondered that.

Wonder what the blueish streak in the centre of the image is. Only on this image.

The dew patch has finally gone. 90s exposure, gain 200, temperature -21.0°C.

Yes, clear skies here. Can't yet tell if I've cured the problem - I need to get the positive pressure system working and see if the pressure is maintained or if I have a leak. I think the chances are good though.

Alright again now! 90s exposure, gain 200, temperature -21.1°C. The heating added in the casing has reduced the effectiveness of the camera cooling. The dew is clearing.

Now what's happened????

Acrylic I believe. No binning.

Got dew. Seems the dew heater isn't working. Just been out to observatory and done some testing. Rewired the dew heater line to the raw +13.8v main obsy supply and the increase in current shows that the dew heater is now working. Just waiting for the heating to take effect now,

Thank you very much ?

90s exposure, gain zero, temperature -23.6°C.