fwm891

Although I finally got my PA aligned with a total error of 19 arc/sec it was a pain getting there.

 I have an iOptron CEM60 on a pier which I’d removed and serviced (regreased ra/dec wheels) but my view of the pole area is completely blocked so N.I.N.A. looked a good choice for realignment. I’ve watched lots of YT videos so the process of loading the nightly version of NINA and the 3PPA plugin went well. In the videos three 3 positions are solved and the PA errors displayed with the images looping and solving and a revised error displayed.

For me I start and get (and solve) the 3 positions, the error is displayed but as it seems to start looping exposures my tracking is stopped and so does 3PPA. My only recourse is to rerun 3PPA again and again making adjustments between each rerun and restarting tracking.

For this I have the mount with an Altair 102 Ascent refractor mounted, no guider scope and an a Hypercam 26C as the imaging camera.

Mount is controlled with iOpton’s Commander software drivers.

These are connected to an HP i3 laptop running win10 Home, with 16 Gb ram, mount and camera are connected to separate usb 3 sockets. The whole connected to house mains via recommended adapters.

Anyone have any ideas why the tracking is being stopped thus preventing the looped exposures?

Thanks if you’ve read this far.

Superb Dave. Watching just draws me in...

Just a quickie from a couple of nights ago. Unguided. 27 of 32x 60sec subs processed in PI.

Scope OO VX10, Camera Hypercam 26C cropped frame, Mount iOptron CEM60.

Captured circa 11:30 start time and just let it run. I lost a few frames to  sat trails. No filters used and no guiding.

NGC 6207 top left ?

Hope you like.

Thanks @Elp and @ONIKKINEN looks like 100wh is a minimum. I wasn’t fancying lead acid batteries. At present I won’t be using the 26C as it’s not compatible with the ASiAIR PLUS and I may well sell it and get something that is compatible. But that’s all in the future…

As the trees (not mine) encroach further into my already restricted fov I'm beginning to pull together a small (ish) kit to take to broader horizons!

The kit: Skywatcher AZ-GTi mount (EQ mod) on tripod, Altair Ascent 80mm triplet with 1x and 0.8x flat/red, ASi585,  Hypercam 26C and ASi120mini (guide cam) and mini guide scope plus dew bands to suit 80mm and mini guider scope and an ASiAIR Plus.

I will also have a laptop with me but its own battery runs for 6 hours+ if I keep the screen brightness right down and that will more than suffice my needs.

My cooling of the camera will be down to -10°C max more normally -5°C.

Dew straps only when needed

Working away probably looking at 3-4 hours run time

What sort of power pack would suit this set-up with a small fudge factor?

I'm sure many of you have a similar outlook to me. The photo shows my skies - I'm backed against the obsy looking south. Neighbours wall takes out all my north view (no Polaris and only a few degrees from zenith).

Cheers Francis

That is great. I see it through a gap between trees and a neighbours house for about 40 mins max. I'm getting gear together so I can get to a clearer horizon. If I get anywhere near your attempt I'll be a happy bunny.

Great night for me. It started with me just wanting to get a shot of the SN in M101 and after tweaking collimation on Archturus  and moving to a few other star to re sync the mount it was on to M101. Six  four minute subs taken before moving on to something I hadn't imaged before; an irregular galaxy NGC4449 in CV. I was looking for other objects in the area in Sky Safari Pro and just picked this one out before reading it's description, just 4 x 4 min subs here as I wasn't sure what it was going to be like. M51 next. Always liked M51 and it always makes me think of the sketch by Lord Ross of it's spiral structure and how he must have struggled to get that.

Given that I didn't start much before 11 it was now after 1 on the 25th and 1st  Vega had come  creaping out from behind our neighbours house so M57 (the ring neb) became a target. Then cygnus too creaped out so I stayed there for a while. M27 followed by NGC6888 and then NGC6960 all fell prey. Now after 2.30 and still just in trees to the SE was M16. Quick coffee while M16 cleared the last branches and I managed seven four minute subs before the sky became too bright to really carry on with photography. I did get a view of M20 by that little gem will have to wait till a more reasonable hour later in the year and darker skies.

M101, NGC4449 and M51 were all shot witout filters. NGC6960 and M16 were shot through an IDAS NBZ filter. M27 is a mix of no fiter and NBZ subs (6 NF + 3 NBZ)

Scope: Orion Optics (UK) VX10, Camera: Altair Hypercam 26C.

Hope you like.

I use an IDAS NBZ which I've found great with the533. Also a Baader UV/IR cut filter as the 533 only has an anti reflection filter/sensor cover glass.

@Stuartmyatt76 You will first have to lock the primary mirror focuser (see the Edge HD white paper on Celestron's web site) to produce it's optimum back focal distance before fitting your Crayford and focal reducer combination or you'll be fighting all sorts of aberation problems further down the line...

The extra data and better skies have helped this image. Great stuff.

I was never really happy using the centre as my zero position and tended to use the 70% zone as my zero with + and - figures either side. It was always easy to position a pair of visible shadows and take that reading as zero or with a digital scal easier still…

NGC4038-39 is only 3x 300s and really just to test what I might get and whether it would be worth a longer session. The arms are barely visible in this 15 min integration so I think another attempt is more than worth the effort.

Jones-Emberson-1 or (PK164+31.1) or the Headphones neb is an integration of 12x 300s subs.

OO VX10 newt on iOptron CEM60, Altair 26C no filters. Processed in PI using BXT and SXT recombining with pixelmath.

Hope you like

16 minutes ago, michaelmorris said:

Thanks for the advice folks.

The roof will have a gutter, so shouldn't be too much of an issue with rainwater.  The fence panels can simply be lifted out, so again shouldn't be too much of an issue with maintenance.  The shed will be clad in larch, which as far as I can find out needs no annual paint with preservative.  The whole structure will sit on pressure-treated bearers, probably 15 or 20 cm high. 

Lets hope you always have the same co-opperative neighbours when you want access to remove the fence panels for replacement or painting....

Signed and posted on FB

Try: https://www.bearingboys.co.uk/Timing-Belts-and-Pulleys-1039-c

3M timing belts and pulleys. Some down to 3mm pitch.

Also:

https://www.transdev.co.uk/rubber-belts/imperial-rubber-series/mxl-mini-pitch-series-transflex-classic/

It was the MXL series belts/pulleys I used for the NEQ 6 Pro mods ¼" width although you can now get them in other widths as well.

Take a look at Davall gears web site they do mini timing belts and wheels (I’ve used them for an NEQ 6 belt mod) you can get your tooth counts in a smaller dimension.

Looks like a 533 square chip to me. Look at the usb connections they’re quite large compared to body size…

In my very hazy state this morning thinking about spur gear counts (sad really),  I thought is there a zero tooth. Or as with a clock 24 and 0 become the sameness as seemingly no matter how smaller time division you apply there comes a point where 24/0 are as one… So if I have 144 teeth on my gear is the 144th gear both 144 & 0 ?

Now to think about the single start worm wheel to drive it…

On 14/10/2019 at 12:13, Barns said:

I've spent this morning trying to pinpoint where the backlash is coming from and am coming to the conclusion that it's internal to the EAF unit itself and not with the scope focuser.

With the EAF attached (unpowered), I can turn the microfocuser about 1/8ish of a turn each direction until it's stopped by the EAF. With this turning I can see the focus tube immediately go back and forth a little - so I diagnose no backlash between the focus mechanism and the tube (i.e. not on the rack/pinion). However I can see the EAF motor shaft being turned as well whilst I do this little back and forth turn on the microfocuser, meaning the backlash isn't somewhere in the coupling between the EAF and the focus mechanism. Hence I think it has to be internal to the EAF itself; it's allowing a small amount of back-and-forth play on the motor shaft.

Does this sound like a "bad" EAF unit? I've read elsewhere that the EAF itself shouldn't have any "play" on the shaft like this.

You will 'feel' more movement with no power because you've taken out all the internal resistance to motion the motor is given when it's powered up.

Late start with this as I thought hard whether to even start. Gave up at 1.0 this morning after capturing 6x 300s subs. VX10 inch newt, 26C OSC processed in PI. I split the channels and re ordered them to process this for some reason the blue channel was far more dominant than the red and green so that was changed to red, and the original red and green channels were swapped round too...

Added original integration with channels in original un swapped positions - nice blue!

I have a 10 inch f4.8 newtonian mounted centrally in a 2 metre x 2 metre (internal) RoR obsy, no warm room. I can just get a couple of narrow shelves on one wall (east) and a dropdown corner leaf for my laptop (SW corner) and stool for me to sit on. The scope misses the north and south walls by circa 2-3 cm max and I shuffle the the stool around to avoid the bottom of the tube when pointing SE - S. Other directions are OK for me. I predominantly image to the east round to south I'm blocked the north and west by buildings. I hope that paints a picture for you.

Make it slightly bigger than you think you need as scopes tend to grow over time...

55 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

Have you got it right sided mounted for when in eq mode?

The mount looks odd as the weights look higher then the scope in the second picture

I thought you only used right side mounting the az-gti in AZ mode?

What’s your starting point? Scope pointing north weights down? After PA do you return to ‘home’ position before slewing to a target? Clocks set to correct time?

@cloudbuster

My effort

1 hour ago, Cornelius Varley said:

@Dave Quick Please excuse my ignorance, but where is the camera in the photo of the telescope ? Normally the camera would be attached to the visual back (rear) of the telescope or focuser.

Doesn't the Meade have an internal mirror to divert the image beam up to an ep at the top of the tube (hidden by the finder in photo?)