gajjer

Gosh yes. What an assault on the eyes that must be when slewing.

Now let me see. Old office chair - check, two dustbins  - check, stepper motors - check, Raspberry pi - check. Right, I'm off to the garage!

cheers

gaj 

Hi Brutha

just to reinforce what AMcD said. I made my pier so that I had location dowels that would ensure I positioned the mount in exactly the same position each time I fitted it. The intention was to take the mount off after each session. However, it wasn't long before it was being left on all the time. All I did was remove the scope and cover the mount with a rugged black bin bag. It's been fine for several years. I can't bring myself to leave the scope on it though.

The other thing I have is a plastic bin. At the end of a session all the cables, focus control, games pad etc all just get dumped into the box for sorting the next day. It just makes strip down quicker.

I hope you enjoy your pier as much as I have. 

cheers 

gaj

If I may stick my beak in here. I can't see it either. Have you tried plate solving on it?

cheers

Gaj

Just now, david_taurus83 said:

It does such it in, from the back of the hair drier.

I didn't say it didn't suck in. I was trying to say it wouldn't suck in a concentrated stream. It will draw air over a wider area.

cheers

gaj

Just now, vlaiv said:

Not sure that I follow the argument, here is counter argument - air will be pushed in direction of least pressure.

Not sure that is true. When a hair drier blowing, it blows in a concentrated stream of air. If you reversed the motor, I don't think it would suck in the same concentrated flow.

My gut tells me that blowing air through the fins is better but with such close proximity of the fan to the heatsink, I don't think there would be much difference.

cheers

gaj

This happened to me towards the end of last year. No kit was damaged in this story but it did put the wind up me.

I was out the back with my telescope. All was running well while I took images of something or other. I am on my own and it's pretty dark . . .obviously. Then I heard a clunk. Like someone had tripped over something nearby.

I froze. Ears turned up to 11 I stood still and listened for more movement. Nothing for at least a couple of minutes. Then again. Clunk. Clearly the intruder thought the coast was clear. I reached for my torched and waved it round where the sound appeared to be coming from. "Get the baseball bat Steve, I think there's someone over the back." I said rather loudly. I don't have a baseball bat ( I am 69 ) and I was on my own. Shivers went up my spine but I couldn't see anything that could be causing the sound. As the night progressed the clunking happened several more times and I started to get used to it.

The following day I happened to see  my neighbour in her garden near to where the noise had been coming from. She told me she was going to put a board over her coldframe. . . . . the conkers were falling on it and she was worried the glass might break!

Pesky conkers!!!!

cheers

gaj

Hi GuySt

I'm 69 and I do this stupid stuff all the time. I am, however, making a laminated check list to reduce the rate of idiot failures.

If like me you find it difficult to get back up having bent down to look through the polar scope , you may benefit from using a webcam on the polar scope. I just bought a cheep webcam and made a little adapter to connect it to the eyepiece.

I use Sharpcap to look at the image. Works a treat and no more groaning trying to get back up!

Just a suggestion. I have only just started using it and I'm chuffed as punch.

cheers

Gaj

Thank you all for your responses.

MarkAR: The camera works if I use commands in terminal. It's specifically Astroberry I am having problems with and particularly Oacapture.

RadekK: I'm not sure how I identify the driver. In the INDI Control Panel of Kstars it seems to indicate V4L2 CCD , indi_v4l2_ccd. See my comments below to JamesF

7170: Yes it's enabled and works in Python3.

JamesF: Thanks to Amazon and a secure pension, I have managed to get a V2 camera. I can get it to run in Ekos. It takes pictures and streams video. It still does not work with Oacapture. I am glad you think it is a pig of a job James. I don't feel so stupid now. I'm gradually finding my way round the Pi and Astroberry which is a struggle being mainly an analogue man with digital experience. 

The behaviour with the V2 camera is pretty much what was happening with the V1 camera. With the drop down Camera menu there are the following options and responses:

(V4L2) bcm2835-isp-capture0 : locks up

(V4L2) bcm2835-codec-isp      : unable to connect camera

(V4L2) bcm2835-codec-decode : unable to connect camera

(V4L2) bcm2835-isp-capture1 : locks up

(V4L2) bcm2835-isp-output0 : unable to connect camera

(V4L2) bcm2835-codec -encode : unable to connect camera

(V4L2) bcm2835-camera0 : unable to connect camera

(V4L2) bcm2835-isp-stats2 : unable to connect camera

There is no other equipment connected to the Pi. The board is a Pi version 4.

If there is any other information I can give you, please ask and I will do my best. It's a new set-up and not yet seen first light, so if you want me to try something and it goes belly up, I'm not loosing anything.

I have posted something on the INDI site also. Just so you know it's not a pandemic!

Thanks everyone for your input

Gaj

Hi all

well, I am trying to find out why my Raspberry Pi camera V1 will not work with Astroberry. I have gone round and round Google and my head is spinning with dead ends. I was hoping to run Oacapture and do some planetary stuff.

However, when I try to select the camera it tells me it can't connect. Fair enough. Am I right in thinking that there are only INDI drivers for V2 cameras?

I'm not a software person so be gentle with me.

cheers

Gaj

I've just moved to a new location and I'm using a new setup until I can get a pier sorted. I'm using a EQ£-2 with a LYNX ASTRO USB EQ DIRECT cable, Skywatcher 150PD, Canon 60D camera, Skywatcher Finder with a QHY5-II guider.

Now all of this setup is new to me. My new location does not have a clear view of North, so I'm running blind on that. I set it roughly using a compass and also judging the shadow at 1:00pm. Crude I know.

The first time I ran it I managed to get calibration but could see that Dec was drifting off. So adjusted the mount until it reduced and got under control. That was using PHD, which I have been using with no problem on my NEQ6 mount. Never bothered to go to PHD2. 

I got some reasonable results. The following night was a different story. I had shifted the scope round to make it easier to see the red doot finder. So there may have been a balance change. When it came to running PHD it did not seem to overcome Dec backlash for several steps, then it continued to calibrate North. The star did not appear to move, I could hear the motors doing something but could see no movement as there had been with W/E. It then started to report small movements but still no visible star movement. It got up to something like 50 step and then aborted. Then the star jumped quite significantly. It did this on several attempts. Swapped to using PHD2, that I have virtually no experience with, and it did pretty much the same.

I don't meddle with stuff if its working, so I haven't messed with PHD or PHD2 much. They just worked straight off. Ohhh the shame of it!!

Any thoughts, suggestions would be gratefully received.

cheers

gaj

Thanks guys I thought she was a goner! Before I part with $75 can someone confirm that it is the Maier Photonics 656 ITF band pass filter.

Thanks

Gaj

Thank you all for your responses. That has been most informative. Are there any instructions for fitting the replacement? Do you think I will be able to get a replacement in the current environment?

Cheers

Gaj

Hi all. We moved to Bidford on Avon just before Christmas. 

I posted times for the ISS visible passes on the local Facebook forum. It got quite a lot of response. So many people said they took their kids out to see it. Plant the seeds I say.

The community spirit here is really lovely.

Cheers 

Gaj

Hi all, not sure if this is the right place but here goes. 

Had a go at solar imaging earlier with my Colorado PST. I couldn't see the Sun as clearly as I had previously so started taking it apart. The eyepiece section seems to be fabricated in two parts. The part that actually takes the eyepiece or camera, that houses a red filter approx 5mm diameter. The other part that screws into the body of the telescope has a larger filter around 10 mm diameter. It is this larger filter I have concerns about. The outward face of the filter appears silver - fine. However the inward face looks a milky red; I would cal it a greenish bloom over a red base.

It seems to be reducing the transmission of light significantly.

Any thoughts?

Cheers gaj

I am communicating with R Brown about his focusser and it's that that I am having trouble with. He told me to use  1.8.8 or 1.8.9 arduino IDE. Also what was said earlier about 'old bootloader' in Tools Processor. Then AVRISP MkIi

which Dr ju ju suggested earlier. 

None of that worked and I am now left with loading the bootloader. I'm not at home for a couple of days so haven't tried it yet.

Funny thing is that it seems to take code ok from Xloader.

Ps I don't want to loose my electronics either, even if I am able to knit!

Gaj

This looks remarkably like a problem I am having with a NANO using the CH340 chip.

Sorry but I'm a bit thick when it comes to this stuff but I have been advised to try 'burning the bootloader'.

Sorry haven't had time to read all the previous and my tea is getting cold.

Gaj

Makes think of B52s.

A better image perhaps would be the queen bee popping them out!

Gaj

Just now, JamesF said:

I believe all sixty that were launched on Monday were on a single rocket.

James

Cor blimey. Must be like shelling peas.

gaj

LEO. So presumably messages bounce off the nearest passing satellite and a several satellites may be involved with any one message. Hmm. Interesting.  My question would then be, how do you deploy that many satellites. Do they pop them out the back of a single rocket? Sounds like an awful lot of rockets and pollution.

Certainly could mess up my pictures - if the clouds would ever clear for me to take some.

If its worth doing I suspect that China will be up for it and you can sign all the petitions you like but you wont stop them.

Ah well. It was fun while it lasted. Well frustrating more than fun. Perhaps that will be the new challenge. How to get a frame that doesn't have a streak on it. Or software that has 'streak removal' capability.

Sighhhh.

gaj

Forgive my stupidity, but if they are telecoms satellites wont they be geostationary? If so, wont they just be extra pin points of light. Sounds a lot but the sky is very big.

Sorry, just a bit skeptical.

cheers

gaj

A couple of weeks ago I was down the garden setting up. It was pretty dark by then. Then suddenly I heard a rattling sound, as if someone or something had tripped over a metal bucket. "Hello" I said. No response. I stood still waiting for the sounds of more movement. Nothing. Being I my own I was a little concerned but I carried on and suddenly there it was again. I went in the house for a proper torch. I do get cats frequently and there are foxes around here. I saw nothing. Strange. It happened every five minutes or so and as the night went on I became less concerned. A mystery.

The following day I was down the garden again and saw my neighbour down their. "I'm moving my coldframe." she said. "The conkers from that tree keep falling on it and the glass will get broken the way it;'s going"

Ha. Conkers!

cheers Gaj

If you set the telescope mount to look at a fixed point in the sky, the earths rotation means that the object will have moved out of view in a very short time. 

Cheers

Gaj

Thanks Dave. That sounds spot on. Thanks. Must read the manual!

cheers

gaj

Hi all, it's the first time this has happened to me but it looks like last night the camera started to frost up. Odd shaped areas apeared on the capture when running at -25C.

They went as I allowed the camera to warm up. I just set a temperature of -25C and let it cool down. Should I slowly schedule the cooling or is there some other solution.

Going to try again tonight and reduce temperature in small steps.

Any advice would be appreciated.

cheers

gaj

I thought I'd give Jupiter a go last night. Earlier in the week I knocked something together with a webcam I had in my junk box. The webcam is a iLook1321 v2 with the lens removed mounted in a new box to fit my Skywatcher 150mm Newt.

I was using Sharpcap, which I have never used for this purpose, and only have a basic knowledge of.

So, the problem was that I couldn't reduce the exposure enough to get a decent capture. All I could get was a white disc. At some point a message flashed up, which I didn't quite catch, with words to the effect that the camera didn't support something like - changing frame rate - that may be wrong - but something that would effect exposure.

Help would be appreciated. Is it possible that with some cameras Sharpcap does not have full control?

If the camera is no good, what cheep webcam should I be looking at <£50. It's not something I will be doing much of.

cheers

gaj