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Artik

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  1. It holds C8 - so it is around 5kg... without motors probably more.
  2. I took it yesterday to some 1/2 dark location (Bortle 5) I was there before with the 1/2 working mount. Such a huge difference: No need to realign if somebody bumps into my tripod (several times) No need to worry about batteries It reaches zenith and no need to worry about bumping into mount. I can easily browse the sky from cluster to cluster manually I observed a flying plane from a distance It is so much faster/easier to find targets with astrohopper than with device and see what is around observed some nebulae, galaxies etc. I wanted a manual mount and it is an excellent one!
  3. Obviously 150mm or 200mm is way better. I sometimes use my 102/660 scope on galaxies and results are obviously way better. Also I use mostly 5s subs. I just wanted to show an example. I find myself using mono more than my color camera because both of speed and imx178mm is better than my asi224mc
  4. Absolutely. I myself use Mono camera (Meade based on IMX178) frequently, especially on objects like galaxies. Honestly being mono it gives more feeling of visual like. Here few days ago my short session. SVBony sv501p 60/400 achromat, AZ GTi az-mode, Meade IMX178 Mono, IR/UV cut, software Android tablet with OpenLiveStacker Most of them around a minute or so (because I have a very little patience) - also some absolutely need more time 🙂
  5. I did and actually there is a good manual on how to fix it: https://www.nexstarsite.com/download/ReplacementNexStarIAltitudeBearingsV2.pdf I probably will do it. But actually I prefer manual mount and I wanted manual mount from the beginning. Tracking isn't important for me.
  6. I got it used from B&H Photo so I have no idea when it failed. It was actually under 3 month warranty. The problem was from the start, but I didn't diagnose it properly and I thought it was just a basic backlash. Only after 4-5 month of use I tried to configure backlash compensation I realized that even value 100 is not enough I understood something wrong and found some other video with the same issue so I got a hint. I disassembled the cover and found what happens. Unfortunately the warranty was not valid any more.
  7. Just to want to summarize the issue and solution (in case somebody finds it). The problem is load bearing that failed. It is apparently a very common issue. One solution is to get a new motor (and I assume there is a good reason why it is listed as one of common spare parts by Celestron) I've seen them online for around $150 before taxes/shipment Another is to replace bearings. Here is a good description of how to do it and were to order a new bearing: https://www.nexstarsite.com/download/ReplacementNexStarIAltitudeBearingsV2.pdf However, when I originally got the NexStar SE8 I wanted a manual mount in first place. So I went 3rd way and disassembled both motors, board and the cover with batteries tray and converted the mount to manual! I strapped a phone with AstroHopper for finding objects as I wanted from the beginning, removing the board and batteries tray allowed me to reach zenith with 2" diagonal and 2" visual back without problems (on NexStar SE it limited to around 65-70 degrees due to diagonal size), and make it all much more convenient The only issue I find that there is no clutch on Alt Axis, so when I remove/add heavy diagonal CG changes and I need to be careful so the scope does not move forward/backward on its own. I think I'll add a small lock to prevent movement for assembling/disassembling the mount. Now I'm much happier because I didn't liked/wanted the robot in first place. Yesterday I observed many open clusters M35, 36, 37, 38, M41, M48, M47, M50 and of course Moon and M42 Orion - it was much better!
  8. Regarding iOS - it does not allow direct access to USB like Android - so developing an app that can access different kind of cameras is just impossible. On Android it is simpler (but also not straight forward) OpenLiveStacker supports ZWO, ToupTek, DSLR/DSLM and USB Video Class cameras. So you can connect the camera directly and do live stacking on your Android phone or (better) tablet. I suggest go over manual: https://github.com/artyom-beilis/OpenLiveStacker/wiki/Open-Live-Stacker-Manual/ Disclosure: I'm the author of OpenLiveStacker
  9. The video below explains it the best. The axis that suppose to move the alt grear is shifting and creates huge backlash... Have anybody an idea how to fix it?
  10. One thing I notices that it can be easy overload the app. Finally Android with ARM isn't PC with i7. So If your sensor resolution is large (also 290mc is way withing reach) I'd recommend using binning or ROI, especially if working with short exposures. I try to do my best to prevent it but sometimes it may just overload processing pipeline with large memory consumption and in some cases it may just take too much time to "unstack" I may need develop some memory control to prevent something like that, but that isn't trivial, Are you setting the camera to manual - "M" mode? Does it list ISO control in the list or not? Can you please send the logs: 1st enable camera debugging in main enterance 2nd get in and try to set exposure. Get the logs log.txt and android_camera.log from Android/media/org.openlivestacker/OpenLiveStacker/debug I want to see if there is something I miss What android version is it? I noticed this stange behavior on Android 10 sometimes, and it isn't really consistent. As general android app that runs in background (and you want it to to be able to run long sesssions) need to generate some notifications. Probably something with cleanup doesn't work well but I wasn't able to figure why. Good question, it is something that was asked like estimation of image sharpness etc for focusing. I mostly use Bahtinov mask but I understand that some numeric aid can be useful especially for solar observations when Bahtinov isn't that useful. Hadn't get into it yet. Since it requires some kind of registration. I probably need to open a feature request for one. Generally you can zoom past 1:1 but if your resolution is very large it is may not be enough. Simplest is to select a small ROI and than zoom. Thanks. And know this kind of reports are very valuable since they give me point to what guys a looking for and help prioritizing stuff.
  11. Not yet, also it is technically possible to add such a feature. The biggest concern in such a case is accuracy. The current placement provides most optimal accuracy.
  12. Ok good news... OpenLiveStacker is now in Google Play - you can install it from there
  13. No only named stars I have in DB. I try to keep DB small to make it easily downloadable. If you want specific objects not in the catalog you can just add them as user objects.
  14. OpenLiveStacker uses web based UI - so its UI actually runs inside web browser. If your windows PC and the android are at the same wifi network and connected you can just open http://IP.OF.YOUR.ANDROID:8080 and you'll access the web UI and all features of live stacker.
  15. Yes you can search for example M31 or Andromeda, you can search ngc451 and "Owl Cluster" Just prepend with M for messier or NGC for NGC catalog
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