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jambouk

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Everything posted by jambouk

  1. Using my own solar panels at home as a baseline, I predict the 160W panel will produce on average 100-150W / day in Nov, Dec, Jan and Feb (the light-critical times). Maybe 600W / day in the summer. Heavily depends on angle tilted, azimuth direction, and any shade which will heavily hamper solar yield. Are you sure you can get the panel high enough from the ground to catch the sun on the shortest day without any shadow obstruction? You also need the panel to ideally be about 60 degrees in angle mid-winter, and how are you going to adjust and secure it in that position to stop it getting ripped off in a windy spell... You know how difficuly a wheelie bin lid is to close in a gale, and this panel is probably at least twice the surface area of the bin lid. You say 3 amps for 3 hours once a week. I'm going to go on the pesimistic side and say 10 amps / night, and you need to be realistic that you may get a very clear spell mid-winter on consequitive nights and you want to run fo rthree nights on the trot for three hours each time, so that means with minimal charging time in the day, you are going to use 30 amps at 12v without that being replaced. I wouldn't discharge the battery more than 30% if you can help it, so if 30% is the max discharge allowed and that = 30 amps, you need a 100amp hour battery. That is portable into the house if needed. Once you get into the 200amp hour battery range, you need two people tp move it and the cost is getting steep. You also need to factor in the efficiency of the charge controller, which I suspect is in the region of 70%-80%, and you need to factor in the fact to keep the battery in tip top condition, you will likely need to put into the battery 1.5x the power you take out. I'd look to get mains into the observatory myself. James
  2. Even with a 3x Barlow, Jupiter for example, is only going to cover about 100 pixels on the sensor of the camera, by 100 pixels. A very small area of the sensor. The resultant image will be of similar dimensions, which is pretty small. If you try and enlarge that image it will become blocky and look awful. One image below shows how Jupiter is framed in your scope with a 3x Barlow and your camera. if you want Jupiter to be much bigger, you need a longer focal length telescope and a camera with smaller pixels. The second example below shows how Jupiter is framed in a C14 with your camera and a 3x Barlow (not necessarily recommended) and the planet occupies probably 500x500 pixels.
  3. Do you have to provide you own coffee beans with it, or do they come as standard?
  4. It is annoyoing the screws used on new [Skywatcher] mounts are invariable not stainless steel; an EQ8. Has been lugged in and out several times, and spent a couple of nights outside under a waterproof cover. I presume it would be drier in an observatory, but that isn't on the cards any time soon. Do others change all the nuts and bolts and screws on external part of the mount for stainless ones, or just accept they are going to go a bit rusty over time...? What about the insides which is more of a worry...? James
  5. Ideally you don’t want your sensor picking up UV and IR light as well as visible light, but you need to look at what the spectral range of the camera is with its own inbuilt UV/IR cut filter to decide if you need to use an external filter. All filters reduce light transmission and offer another surface to get dirty and put dust bunnies on your final image. Most targets will appear to emit light in a range of wavelengths, but the image you get of the target in question at specific wavelengths may differ between wavelengths. Take for example the Crab Nebula image below in UV, IR and visible which I edited on my phone and taken from the internet. If you try and merge all three of these images into one image, the resulting image wouldn’t be as crisp or as detailed as if you just imaged in say visible wavelengths.
  6. Does anyone have knowledge about the precise location of Stanley Hey's radio observatory in Richmond Park, 1942-1949, the first radio observatory in Britain, which emerged from Hey's wartime radar research. Published accounts appear not to be more specific than simply stating that the observatory was 'in Richmond Park'. Any information gratefully received. Many thanks. James
  7. Are any filters fully parfocal, or is there always a need to alter the focus when changing filters with a filter wheel for mono planetary imaging? James
  8. Personally I think your next big jump in improvement will be a different camera, rather than WinJupos.
  9. Great first go. Way better than my first go at Mars. There are lots of things which may be contributing to this not being crisper. I think the most likely culprits are: - seeing conditions - focus - camera - maybe planet rotation You can’t do much about the first other than wait for better swing and ensure you don’t have any local factors making the local seeing bad. Focus is hard, requires a lot of patience. The camera isn’t ideal as the frame rate is relatively slow AND it will compress the data before it is saved. If you did 12 x 100 second imaging runs, with gaps in between, you could be trying to stack data taken over a 30 minute period, in which time the planet will have rotated, so this may not help the crispness issue. It’s an amazing start. You should be very proud. james
  10. I think just a 5v fan blowing up the cover would keep air moving and reduce the chance of condensation forming. I wouldn't apply heat, as you don't want the mount to get warm and then at night release the heat which would impact on the seeing. I think ambient air moved would be sufficient.
  11. Make sure the ones you get cut out IR and UV wavelengths; I recently discovered not all sets do this.
  12. Trouble is that the scope already has a Losmandy dovetail and can’t easily be replaced.
  13. A friend has an older Vixen mount on which the saddle only opens up to 50mm. Is there a cheap way get a Losmandy dovetail (74mm wide) to attach to this mount? I've seen adpaters but they are in excess of £100. The mount is a Vixen GP-DX. Thanks for any replies. James
  14. I’m still unsure what you are describing. If you polar align with polemaster then don’t bother checking with any other means. Once polar aligned, unless the tripod/pier or azimuth or altitude knobs are adjusted, the mount will remain polar aligned. If you subsequently check with another method says the polar scope, the polar alignment may look off, because the polar scope itself is likely off. Just stick with pole master and ignore everything else. I don’t think you have a problem to solve.
  15. Clearly the nuts and bolts on the pier-tripod are just mild steel... Maybe whoever decides on the specs of Skywatcher mounts has never heard of moisture...
  16. I’m unsure exactly what you are describing, but if you are having to polar align each night on a static set up, either your set up isn’t static, or you are not polar aligning. I would stick with just one means of polar aligning; I’d got for pole master. If you successfully complete the polemaster routine, you are polar aligned. As long as you lock down the azimuth and altitude knobs down tight after polar aligning, and as long as the tripod or pier isn’t moved, and as long as no one adjusts the azimuth and altitude knobs on the mount, and as long as you are leaving the telescope on the mount from one night to the next, it will be polar aligned the next night.
  17. Use an IR-cut filter if the 224 doesn’t have one built in. When you get a good patching of seeing and when focus is good, I’d capture a run of data with no binning, then if you want do another binning. If you get the resolution down to under 400 x 400 or so, you’ll be capturing at 200fps or so, so I’d go for 60 seconds which will give you 12,000 frames per run. Do several of these over an hour or so and then hopefully at least one will process well.
  18. If the ZWO fits then I’d get one of these: https://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/geoptik-nikon-slr-lens-ccd-adaptor.html
  19. Also, I can't see how much data is in this image? Lights, flats, darks etc? James
  20. It's a nice image - I'd be very proud of that. My repetoire of deep sky images is very small however, so take anything I say with a pinch of salt. I think it depends what you are after. There ought to be a grading system of image quality... No idea what the target is meant to be I can at least tell what the target is A basic attempt at the target A good amateur attempt at the target A very good amateur attempt at the target A near perfect amateur attempt at the target A perfect image of the target Clearly I've just made that scale up, and others will question it and criticise, but I would give this image a score of 3.75. I think with improved processing it could be moved up to a 4.5 or 5. More data may also help push it towards a 5. But I wonder if processing here is a big limiting factor rather than just the amount of data. Are you able to share the TIF file and see how others can tweak your data? If others can easily push this towards a 5, then I would consider moving onto another target AND get honing your processing skills. But as I say, I am no expert [on anything]. James
  21. I've had my EQ8-R Pro for about a month and used it three times. It isn't permenantnly set up, though it really needs to be! I made a 15 minute video for my local society's online meetings on some of the very basic aspects of setting up the mount and talking about its features, but this is VERY simple, so don't expect any guiding graphs or backlash measurements. Feel free to watch. I made two videos, one short and one longer, this is the longer version: https://www.dropbox.com/s/td4k0sae5a0aorn/EQ8 long version.mp4?dl=0 A few considerations so far: - I've not guided with it yet so can't comment on that - it is VERY heavy - there is no noticeable backlash in either axis - it is remarkably stable - the autohome position is nice and so far when undertaking a star alignment the first star has always been near the centre of the FoV of the finderscope which is something I've never encountered with my AZ-EQ6 - it handles the C14 with absolute ease, which it should, but is refreshing - the GOTO accuracy appears to be amazing even when using a C14 - after polar aligning with PoleMaster the tracking has been excellent - I'm still trying to get to grips with the internal USB hub; I'm waiting for some shorter USB3 cables, but at present I need a powered USB hub between the laptop and the input USB port on the mount to get it to drive a non-cooled ZWO camera the other end, even when powering the auxillary part of the mount. - I'm not 100% taken with the clutch levers yet, but I guess I'll get used to them. They just feel a bit flimsy. - Had the Rh version been £1000 less than its current price, I proibably would have gone all out for that version. It is truely lovely. James
  22. It does both. But the latter is hindered by the physical characteristics of the optical path and you may get vignetting. Most scopes have a dedicated focal reducer which is matched to that scope.
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