yelsac

51 minutes ago, Captain Scarlet said:

The whole point of the cell design is that the whiffle-trees (the three triangles each containing 3 nylon supports) have freedom of movement. The silicone prevents this and is unnecessary, indeed destructive to the whole purpose of a cell.

I bought my 300mm cell a few weeks ago new from OO. There was no silicone, quite rightly. I bought my 200mm within a VX8, and the whole cell was slathered in silicone, top, back and sides. And whoever did it made a real mess. I dismantled it and removed all the silicone and it now behaves as it should. Aside from the difficulty getting the mirror out to clean, the cell is IMO a good design. Why they feel the need to silicone everything up I have no idea.

Magnus

Interesting Magnus, so may I ask when you fitted the new cell to your 300mm mirror was your mirror tight to the clips or did it move around?

I noticed there is nylon screws through my clips that could be tightened up to the mirror to stop any horizontal movement.

1 hour ago, Carbon Brush said:

Although I have cleaned quite a few mirrors, my only OO experience has been with their older scopes, fitted with agricultural cells.
Where possible, I leave the mirror in the cell as it eases handling, and more options on storage for water run off.

Not having sight of the fan, I would say remove to avoid getting it wet.
Some fans are very basic brushed motor types (100+ years old technology) and will dry in an hour or two.
However, if it a brushless type there is a (hidden somewhere inside) circuit. This may not be waterproof and could take days to dry out without a lot of heat.
There is also the matter of water in bearing sleeves for any fan.
But if the fan fails at some point, they are not expensive.

HTH, David.

 

1 hour ago, Captain Scarlet said:

Yes I've done this a few times now with both my OO mirrors. I did consider cleaning them whilst still in cell, but decided in the end to completely remove it.

Unfortunately yes you do need to completely remove the rear section by removing the collimation knobs. You then need to unbolt and remove one of the "clip units" (two bolts and possibly a grubscrew. With one clip unit removed, you can then remove the mirror "sideways". It needs great care, of course.

Magnus

Edit: I plan at some stage to grind away  the top part of the mirror-retaining clips and replace with a more removable or rotatable pin arrangement, so that I can simply lift the mirror off vertically. I haven't designed it yet, but it shouldn't be too difficult.

Appreciate the advice.

It's a fairly recent scope with their 9 point mirror cell, the mirror was kept in a shed & is rather grubby.

The silicone doesn't seem to be stuck anymore although it's still there, the mirror is loose in the cell, I can actually move it by hand from side to side.

Not sure whether to re-silicone it or put some rubber shims in to secure it a little better.

1 hour ago, fifeskies said:

I cleaned my OOUK mirror without removing it from the cell.

As long as you allow it to fully dry before powering up the fan again it will be fine.

Distilled water and cotton wool balls is the way to do it.

 

Only needs cleaned if there is a lot of dust on it though , a small amount will not matter a lot.

My mirror had several years of dust build up so did benefit from cleaning.

Pour the water over the mirror first to wash off any loose dust, then just be very gentle and wipe from centre to edge using each cotton ball just once,

 

 

 

Interesting, would never have thought of cleaning in the cell. Thanks for your comment

1 hour ago, ONIKKINEN said:

See if yours is silicone glued to the mirror cell? Mine was from 3 points on the side connecting to the clips and on the bottom where the little nylon pegs hold the mirror in the sell. Youll need to get rid of the silicone somehow if thats the case, with box cutter or similar. Careful not to scratch the mirror of course!

Also, if that seems like too much trouble you dont have to remove the mirror from the cell to clean it.

Thanks for your reply, yes there is silicone there, but it seems it's not stuck to anything just there. Maybe it was stuck originally like your say but not anymore.

Hi

Anyone had any experience with taking out an Orion optics reflector mirror? The cell is one quite different from a skywatcher.

I want to remove the mirror on my oo vx scope to clean it.

I've removed the mirror cell from the tube, do I have to first unscrew the collimating bolts all the way out & take off the section with the fan to be able to get to the bottom of the mirror clips to undo them?

Just checking as I don't want to ruin anything. If anyone has any pictures of the process that would be great to.

Thanks

Hi

I have a QHY5-462c camera & am looking to control it from the warm of my house 😜

I have a usb 2.0 extension lead which works fine but with low frames per second as it's only usb 2.0.

I bought a usb 3.0 extension but it doesn't seem to work with the camera although it does work work a mouse connected. Just wondering if any of you guys have any tips as to what cable I would need?

Thanks

Totally amazed what that winjupos can do! It does everything but make a cuppa 😜

Looks great Geof 👍

Wow that's mind blowing, absolutely brilliant. You did a great job 👍

On 08/01/2023 at 17:34, Kon said:

Very nice images. I think some of the best I have seen from you. Your Mars is showing nice clouds as well.

On 08/01/2023 at 18:10, Space Cowboy said:

Good detail on those! You can't be far out with the focusing this time.

 

 

 

Just wondered how you guys go about focusing? 🤔 Trying to get some tips

When you focus in say firecapture do you enlarge the planet to say 150%+? Also do you increase or decrease the gain to just to help with seeing to focus? 

23 hours ago, Space Cowboy said:

Good detail on those! You can't be far out with the focusing this time.

 

 

 

I did have a tinker with the collimation (repositioned the secondary mirror)over the holidays so maybe that helped, thanks for your help 👍

On 08/01/2023 at 17:34, Kon said:

Very nice images. I think some of the best I have seen from you. Your Mars is showing nice clouds as well.

Appreciate the comment 👍

As usual the weather was complete rubbish but there was a brief window of seeing for 30 mins around 7.30pm so thought why not! Managed a couple of captures.

Same setup as before 250p, QHY5III462c, IR-Cut, 2.5x barlow. 1.5 drizzled & resized (a little to big)

Not as good as others have shared but really chuffed you can see some detail coming through although a little faint & probably not completely in focus.

Actually I do use a laser one which seems good. It's just when lining it all up visually as I said I can't see all the primary mirrors clips which I'm told you should be able to.

My scope is an old blue skywatcher one & was a little worse for wear with lots of dents in when I got it many years ago second hand.

The focuser was changed as the old one was awful. I fitted a second hand one not long after I got it. 

To be honest I thought about getting a new focuser but have also been tempted to get a new scope, never bought a new one before but we'll see.

Photo attached with an electric focuser 👍

Lovely image Kon

I still think It's phenomenal that we can even see cloud detail on such a small target 👍

Really nice image, managed to get an image from the same day & it's great to compare the fine detail you got with mine 👍

18 hours ago, Space Cowboy said:

Thanks, just had a look at your data and it looks like either focus or collimation is out. The detail is there but its not sharp.

Really appreciate you having a look 👍

Had a quick question for you, I seem to remember you use a 10" reflector yourself.

When collimating (I try to follow astro babys process) you look through a Cheshire or a collimating cap, you're supposed to be able to see all of the primary mirror clips on the secondary, I can't seem to be able to see all of them at the same time, can you see all of your clips when collimating?

Hi Alan

Thanks for your reply

Below is one of my text files that firecapture creates when I record a video.

2022-12-27-0027_6-U-IR-Mars.txt

As you said it says unknown scope but a few rows down it says under focal lenght =1900mm (F8) which by my maths should be F12 🤷‍♂️

3 minutes ago, Space Cowboy said:

Good effort! Difficult to tell if its focusing, collimation or processing thats causing an issue. Would have to look at a raw stacked TIFF image straight out of autostakkert before any sharpening is used to get a better idea of where you are at. 🙂

Thanks for your comments

Below is the original & the 1.5 drizzled, mind you I just used the drizzled image. Its the second picture down from above.

2022-12-27-0027_6-U-IR-Mars_pipp_lapl5_ap30.tif

2022-12-27-0027_6-U-IR-Mars_pipp_lapl5_ap30_Drizzle15.tif

If you fancy having a go it would be much appreciated 😀

Thanks Kon 

No didn't try that although the last time I did it wasn't quite concentric, not far off.

Not sure if my secondary mirror is positioned exactly right as when I collimate I can't quite see all the mirror clips on the primary.

It's an old scope which was rather banged up by the previous owner, lots of dents. Would love to upgrade but we'll have to see 👍

Hi 

Just a quick question regarding Firecapture settings.

Every time you record a video you get a text document with the settings used like gain, shutter etc. It also gives the camera used & the focal length. What I want to know is does anyone know if that is correct?

I'm just wondering as I understand firecapture knows the camera, sensor etc but it doesn't know what scope it's being used.

The reason I'm asking is because (& I could have this completely wrong) I'm using an f4.7 scope with a 2.5 Barlow so I assume it would almost be F12, but firecapture tells me it was F9? I also tried a x5 Barlow which again I would have thought would be F24 but firecapture says it was F18!

I'm confused 🥴

Are my maths wrong?

Mars on the night of the 26th & early 27th. Still find it really difficult to process the images, I do struggle to get the focus just right with my silly eye sight. Wondering if my colimation isn't quite spot on to.

Anyway happy to get some detail coming through. Still love having a go at Mars even though its past its best. Setup- 250p, QHY5III462c, x2.5 Barlow. 4 min avi's, pipp, autostakkert, reg 6, Image Analyzer.

Any advice on better processing much appreciated

Thanks for looking

love the animation, amazing just how much the little martian actually moves in an hour! 

Near Mars opposition I was so focused on trying to capture Mars that I completely forgot that I had a little go at Jupiter earlier in the evening...

The seeing was much better than anything I had later on with Mars, typical! Anyway didn't turn out to bad for so late in the season.

Setup-  250p, QHY5III462c, IR-Cut, X2.5 Barlow

Absolutely love the fine detail you've got there, excellent. The second one has even more detail jumping out.

Would love to know your process after autostakkert!

Congrats mate, I bet you're buzzing 👍