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michael8554

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Everything posted by michael8554

  1. Nice. But why not the usual red leds, to help preserve night vision ? Michael
  2. I like William's explanation. Though your post heading talks of Collimation too. If that is badly out, not just the focus, I would start with a Collimation with a high-power eyepiece. Michael
  3. Does the shutter fire with no lens or T-Ring attached ? Have you set exposure and focus to manual ? The camera may be trying to connect to an autofocus lens. Michael
  4. As wookie said. A lot will depend on how light-polluted your sky is. Michael
  5. If the telescope has the two rings that clamp around it, and the bar they attach to. Then you should be able to attach the bar to the moveable head of the Velbon tripod. But I don't believe that would be stable and safe enough. I think realistically you need a new or used Equatorial or Alt/Alt mount and tripod. Michael
  6. Facebook said ? Be prepared for reports of hordes of zombies stumbling around during Totality, because they've forgotten to take their solar spectacles off........ 😆 Michael
  7. The room looks like the King's Observatory at Kew. Commissioned in 1769 by King George III, who was interested in astronomy. To observe the Transit of Venus, predicted to occur that year. https://www.kingsobservatory.co.uk/ Michael
  8. The Altair Astro Starwave 66 ED-R is a Refractor with a focal length of 400mm. Measure 400mm from the doublet front element. That's where the scope focuses, that point does not move when you alter the focuser. The focuser merely moves the camera or eyepiece to that focus position. You may need Extensions to place your camera or eyepiece at that focus point, if the focuser runs out of range. Michael
  9. Found them. In one of the earlier boxes. What idiot put them there.......... ? Michael
  10. I've been replacing the five suspect capacitors in a Classic LX200, which requires some disassembly. I keep the groups of screws in separate closed boxes, but the tiny screws that hold the RA and Dec boards onto the motor are nowhere to be found. I remember removing them, after that it's a blank :-< Michael
  11. Two possibilities: 1. You have guiding with RA and Dec errors very similar RA = 0.33arcsecs, Dec = 0.36arcsecs. That should yield round stars. But I notice a 1 arcsec spike in RA and Dec, so what are your RA and Dec Peak errors ? 2. Diff Flex occurs when you have good guiding figures - so the guidescope is being well guided. But if the guidescope is wobbling, such as due to soft-tipped screws in the guidescope rings, or a wobbly Finder used as a guidescope, or cables dragging. Then the imaging scope is not being guided the same as the guidescope. Remember your imaging camera has pixels with dimensions in um. A wobble less than the diameter of a human hair will elongate a star image. Michael
  12. "I've read that the small pixel size of the RPi HQ camera is an issue when used as a guide camera." It's not only the pixel size that matters. It's the combination of pixel size and focal length, which gives you the pixel scale. In this case 18.05 arcsecs/pixel. You'd have to go much much smaller in pixel size to get a usable pixel scale. Binning, if possible, would make this worse. A 50mm or longer guidescope focal length is required, to give a pixel scale of under 6. Michael
  13. The length of your exposures seems to be limited by PA. Do your best with the polarscope. But however good you get that, just use the DARV PA method to improve it. That's all you need to do with your setup, then get imaging ! You had 4 pixels of RA in 5 minutes, so 75 sec exposures may be tops, if you get Dec to a similar figure. Michael
  14. "out of date polarscope". Do you mean the tiny dated offsets don't go up to 2024 ? If you're doing Visual, then guesstimate how far inside the inner ring Polaris has to be for 2024, and use Kochab's Clock, or an app, for the radial position. Same for Imaging, but improve the PA with Drift Alignment. Michael
  15. The CR2 stars are elongated horizontally approx 90 pixels, and about 4 pixels vertically, in 500 secs. Judging by your Orion image, I'd guess that Dec is horizontal ? So 90 pixels of PA drift, and 4 pixels of PE error. "my polar alignments were repeatedly bang on in synscan." How many arcmins of PA error was "bang on" ? Michael
  16. You should take single shots of increasing duration until you perceive elongation in the sub. Then use the duration that didn't elongate. Leave the 600D on ISO 800 and only reduce the exposure duration if you have light pollution problems. Michael
  17. PHD2 has two more PA routines as well as Drift Alignment, both when pointing toward the NCP. Polar Drift Alignment, and Static Polar Alignment. Michael
  18. It's relatively easy to see if the ST4 cable is faulty by looking at the guiding behaviour in the GuideLog, if you're using PHD2. "Anyway it was still there to the side of garage" What is "it" ? Michael
  19. Do you mean that stars are distorted in some way ? Not unusual at the edges of the image. Switching on LiveView 10x will "zoom in" on the central part of the image, where stars might be undistorted. The edge distortion is not unusual for camera lenses when shooting stars. You don't notice the distortion on the daytime images they were designed for. Michael
  20. I read that the focuser has: "S58 Dovetail ring-clamp built into focusing tube for accepting optional T-2 / M48 / M68 and other S58 direct thread adapters to enable direct thread connection of accessories and cameras without 2" clamp" And the MPCC has M42 threads. Should be possible to screw them together ? Michael
  21. Most image software will offer to apply the Custom WB when loading the Raw. Michael
  22. Take a number of short exposures with your full assembly : Canon 450D + WO 'Copper' T-adapter + 2mm spacer + Baader MPCC + Baader twist lock clamp. Taking out and replacing each time with no rotation. If results aren't consistent then look for a screwed connection instead of the twist-lock. Has your Canon been astro modded, did the sensor get returned with the sensor tilt correctly shimmed ? Michael
  23. Hi Russell 1. Some Astro mods talk of removing the "IR Filter", which is misleading. 2. An "IR converted" Canon will not show daytime images with "colours are very much what they should be" If it's only had "a standard rear filter removed", that will be a Ha Mod, Possibly a Full Spectrum Mod if both rear filters have been removed. Which allows IR UV, Visual, and IR bands to be recorded. 3. An IR Conversion will have had both standard filters removed, and an IR Pass Filter installed. Which should only pass IR, none of the visual spectrum. Giving images with as you say "white trees". 4. An external IR Pass Filter on a Full Spectrum Modded camera would allow just the IR to reach the sensor. If that's what you're desiring. Michael
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