tobblerone

Thanks! That could explain it. It was between 25 and 30 degress above horizon. The planets that I photographed at that time was even lower so it makes sence. Will keep that in mind for the future.

Hello!

When I take pictures I get an uneven orange fringing (I think thats the term in english atleast) around bright objects including stars, planets and recently very noticable the moon. Can someone explain whats causing this?

Image for example, shot with a Canon 6D using a William Optics GTF81 and a 2,5 powermate. At the bottom you can see a distinct orange hue around the edge that disappears the further up you come.

Thanks in advance! /Tobias

4 hours ago, cuivenion said:

Just to let you know the latest Stellarium now supports ASCOM (on Windows) telescope control, so you no longer need Stellariumscope to connect to EQMOD.

I did not know that! Thanks, will check it out! Might make things simpler with the laptop out until I get this whole ASIair business sorted out!

/Tobias

17 minutes ago, Dr_Ju_ju said:

Just update the ASIAir, try:

sudo apt update

sudo apt dist-upgrade -y

Not familiar with that but I will check it out! Thanks!

23 minutes ago, Dr_Ju_ju said:

Before getting too disheartened, If you were able to update the mount, using your PC, as a test, and if you have  EQMod\Ascom & CDC installed then you should be able to connect to the mount and 'drive' it.....

If that works, then the issue is with the ASIAir, not recognising the mount via the EQDirect connection, this may just require addition drivers being installed on the Air....

Yes I can controll the scope using a PC and StellariumScope and it works great. Tried two different brands of EQdir cable (Lynx and PegasusAstro) together with the ASIair with no luck. Made sure its connected, turned, updated the software, used the correct settings.. Im running out of things to try 😆 Looking into the possibility to reinstall the ASIair.. 

/Tobias

1 hour ago, Dr_Ju_ju said:

No. Eqmod is intermediate software between the mount hardware & Ascom & driving software e.g. PHD2\CDC etc....

You can upgrade the mount firmware using the eq-direct cable to connect your PC to the mount, but you must use other software, which can be downloaded from here http://skywatcher.com/download/software/motor-control-firmware/   and the site also has the instructions of how to do it....

Thanks! I got the impression that it could only be done through synscan handcontroller when I read their instructions. It worked flawlessly however! Although it did not solve my issues with the ASIair... When is it justified to just buy a new mount?!

Anyway, big thanks for the help!

/Tobias

Hi!

I recently bought an ASIair that I cant get to connect to my HEQ5 through EQdir cable. In the line of troubleshooting I got the advice to update the HEQ5 motor controllers as the mount is 8 years old and never been updated. However all I can find is how to update it through the synscan handcontroller and I cant find the needed cables to connect it to my PC. 

So my question is, can I update the HEQ5 using using EQMOD and the EQdir cable that I do got?

Thanks in advance!

/Tobias

Cool setup, awesome photos!

On the #2 question I agree that the south view is most important. A view of Polaris isnt nessesary at all but makes things easier. At the same time, you wont have to polar align that often with a permanent setup hopefully ☺️ Most of that is visible north will sooner or later be visible in the south as well but not the other way around. (Please correct my if my thinking is incorrect here). Of course it depends on how dark your skies are at summer, mine arent dark at all (57 degrees north, Sweden). I prioritized east and south views when deciding on where to put my future observatory. 

Will take a few years before I can evaluate if I made te right move ?

I’ve come to totally loving these threads! I’ve also started the process of building my own observatory but the location that I have chosen is a small hill absolutely covered in trees of a bunch of different sizes, so it will take some time just to get to the point where I can start with the foundation. But even if it may take a few years to complete atleast I have alot of time to perfect the plans and to find inspiration on this forum! ☺️ Maybe I will start my own thread later as a ”payback” as well  

Good luck with your build! Looking forward to updates!

Wow thats awesome! How long did it take to draw the mounts and telescope? Looks really professional  

1 hour ago, Astrokev said:

Thanks for your comments - much appreciated. I'm really just riding on the back of previous great builds on the forum. Very little is purely my own design; I've cribbed and cherry-picked from lots of other builds and put them together to suit my own needs.

I'm probably over-engineering my build. A perfectly good obsy can certainly be built more simply, quickly and cheaply! As I think I've mentioned before, for personal reasons, I needed a project this year that I could immerse myself in and this is the perfect thing to do just that.

Regarding SketchUp, I use the free version, which is brilliant, and I guess good news for your wallet! Took me a while to get to grips with it, but once you do it really is a joy to use. If it's of interest, I've copied my obsy SketchUp file below. I've added the .pdf extension as I read somewhere that you couldn't upload .skp files to the forum. Simply copy the file to your PC, rename the file to delete the .pdf extension leaving just the original .skp extension, and it should then open without problem in SketchUp. If you do this, you'll see that each part of the build is drawn on different layers, together with additional layers that have everything dimensioned. This makes it easy to view/hide different parts of the build.

The rolling roof is in green - I'm still tinkering with the roof design before I start to build it - my next job ?

Hope this is helpful and useful ?

 

Final Design mod 4.skp.pdf

Very much appreciated!  Probably better than borrowing my daughters crayons to draw my designs  

Awesome build and a huge inspiration to someone like me that have started the process towards my own home observatory. But ouch, that lamp really stings..

Just one question, a bit off topic, if I may: I saw your brilliant sketch from SketchUp. Is that from the free or payed version? I’m going to watch some tutorials and try to learn it for my own build but I was just wondering if that kind of results are possible with the free version or if I should open up my wallet

Cheers!