upahill

25 minutes ago, tich said:

Afternoon all I'm thinking of attending this year although it will only be on the Friday & Saturday night, we will be coming down straight from work so I'd imagine I won't be there until 7:30-ish so I'll be setting up quite late. If its clear & I don't want to be stoned to death is there a hard standing pitch where I can set up out of the way? We will be using red torches when unfolding the caravan but it any hands on help to get the thing set up quick would be appreciated so not to disturb any of you lovely folk.

I can't remember what time the quiz started last year, but it wasn't until everyone had chance to finish the curry so im sure there will be some spare hands around. Happy to lend a hand if needed, just give us a shout

I started out with a firm intent to image, and its still my main goal - but having not had any gear setup for most of the year I found great enjoyment in using an old Meade LX for a bit of visual. There have been some wow moments, and some really enjoyable random sky scanning but I get a similar level of enjoyment when I see that first sub come in of an object, or the first time I get that **** platesolver to work

I, like others have mentioned, enjoy the technical challenge involved, the projects, the learning how to do new things and try to bolster up some of the tech learning with studying some basic astrophysics / science history etc.

This is why I enjoy this hobby so much, there is an element to fit every mood and some nights you can be geared up to do 8 hours of imaging and 8 hours of processing the following day and other nights you just want to get a quick view of Jupiter and share with the fam or spend a couple of hours under the stars browsing. And when its raining you can always learn a little more on SGL/Youtube/Documentaries/Books etc.

One comment I did particular think relevant was about light polution. I think a lot more people would be into visual if they lived under dark skies - looking up at orange murkiness doesn't scream "quick lets get the scope out"

Nice bracket @JAS Is it homemade? My mounting for the PG was too large and bulky and pushed the motor out too far causing some balancing difficulties.

Something like this could make me reconsider keeping MFP2 instead of getting the ZWO EAF (and save £200)

2 hours ago, JSeaman said:

Of course, source attached

 

Just a simple joystick/menu and you select a pulse duration (250mS ish) and interval (8-10 minutes), nothign too fancy but you could do some ASCOM stuff if you wanted. There's also a simple left right (<>) nudge command so you can move it remotely

Observatory.ino 27.55 kB · 1 download

Thanks this looks great, have redownloaded the Arduino IDE and had a quick look - nice clear code that I think I can get my head around

Cant wait for some of the bits to arrive and start mocking this all up.

Which joystick are you using out of curiosity? I think im right in thinking this is a move to position and then set and forget method - I had visions of slaving the dome to the scope but that might end up being phase 2.

1 hour ago, JSeaman said:

I just wrote my own code from scratch on the arduino with a little .net app talking to it

Any chance of that going open source? Interested in what options are out there - im going to give Levesdome a try but I genuinely cant believe that this is what a youtube search reveals....

But "licking a fish" gives 939,000 results. 😋🐟

Next two parts ordered and should be with me by the end of next week. I have gone for a wiper motor which is a slightly less elegant solution than the high torque motors with the built in encoders, but may switch it out.

The more I look at Levesdome the more I think it might exceed my electronics capability. Im usually fairly confident with electronics projects when I can see lots of simple diagrams, youtube videos, etc but I cant even get the CHM help file to open. I have joined the yahoo group (reminds me of the old BBS days) so hopefully I can coble it together on a test bench.

I feel like its screaming for an arduino based revival, but thats probably just me. I have a lot of learning / re-learning to do.

12 minutes ago, Gina said:

As with any sharp blade, you have to be careful!  Mind you, you can get a very painful cut from paper too.

Power tools I can handle, CNC's, even lasers with invisible death rays - but put me near a stanley blade and all co-ordination seems to dissapear.

It's not a project if you haven't bled for it 🤣🤕

7 minutes ago, sloz1664 said:

They can be cut with a pair of scissors

I lack the finesse 🤣 I have visions in my head of cutting smoothly around the edge a perfect 10mm gap with a sharp blade. Ill mash it right up with scissors!

3 hours ago, JSeaman said:

For what it's worth the timing belt approach worked WAY better! I still use it every night I can and it doesn't miss a beat. I've now moved to Arduino control which is much better than trying to frig the movement based on proxy sensors, if I can offer any help at all I'm very happy to

Brilliant, im currently in search of a decent pulley (is it a pulley or a sprocket?) - the one I have found has a flange on both sides which would limit me to having a 25mm thick wooden ring. If only I had a lathe...... Then again it might still work depending on the thickness of the belt.

Which software/project are you using with the arduino - I went down the levesdome/velleman route as it seemed the most documented. I will probably search for a motor with encoders and im hoping this can be incorporated into the system.

7 minutes ago, sloz1664 said:

Nice to see you have received your Velleman board & drive belt. The tiles are a great buy, they are exactly the same as I have in my Obsy and are brilliant, easy to clean & no dangers if you drop anything. One thing you must do with the tiles is to leave a 10 - 15mm gap around the outer edge, they expand in the heat and if there is no gap, they lift qute alarmingly.

Steve

Hasn't quite arrived, just the listing photos - should be here today though. I had quite a bit of luck with those tiles as I havent seen any for months at the carboot, whenever I dont need something every second stall has them, as soon as a project requires they are like gold dust. Had a similar problem with the M12 nuts for the pier (then last week found a box of 90 )

I will trim back 10mm of the tiles once they are all in. There is a light dusting of spray adhesive under them to hold them flat but fully expecting that to be temporary. Need to find a new penknife as I was limited to holding spare blades by hand 😵

Nice video and impressive results considering the location! 👍

Lovely evening, 700 degrees celsius but ill take it. It might not actually be that hot, but working tonight has really helped sweat out the last of this cold ive had the past few days.

First job was centering the dome to the pier - didn't take long and its within a few mm either way now. It will get anchored down tomorrow.

I could have taken the opportunity to rotate the walls a bit to put the door at the corner of the deck, but I think ill just build a step in between the todmorden and the deck to ease getting in and out, at the moment its not a graceful dismount - have to stick my rear out, then step down about 18" whilst trying not to bang my head.

I managed to cut some of the filler pieces for around the pier - one is a little tight so i need to shave a bit off it - ill use that as the one to drill the holes for conduit. It doesn't look like it but there is about a 5mm gap all the way round.

Plan is to run a conduit for power and a seperate one for data. In reality it will probably just be one USB 3 cable going to a hub and some chunky cable for 12v going to a distribution board on the pier.

I picked up some of the chequered rubber mats at a carboot - £2 for 11 tiles - which is just about enough. They are pretty dusty and i need to finish the edges but it will serve as a good temporary floor, and an insulated sub floor for whatever I decide to put down long term.

Also bought some timing belts on eBay and won an auction for a Velleman K8055N which I believe is what I need for the Levesdome

Before I put too much effort into automating the dome the rollers are going to have be replaced. I spotted a couple have completely disintegrated so will find some suitable replacements.

I feel like I am making progress though and Jupiter and Saturn watched me work for most of the evening - will be nice to get a scope back out soon!

52 minutes ago, JamesF said:

Is this of any help?

James

A good read, thanks. It seems that like myself he started with friction wheel idea but then moved on to the drive belt. I had considered using timing belts from vehicles, they are a bit wider and I feel will give me a better tolerance if the pulley is slightly off. 25mm wide T10 is £105 + vat for 7m,  I have just found 6 x 1.4m 25mm timing belts for £23.70 posted so thats good. The pitch is around 9.5 so fairly close not that it really matters except for having some good engagement on the teeth.

Camshaft pulleys go for around £20 all in so mechanically this cuts the costs of the dome rotation by 60% - perfect!

I wont buy the pulley until I have done a little more research but the belts are on their way. I can always 3D print a pulley for the testing stage 👍

Well I almost ordered the belt last night, but then had a sudden panic.

The largest affordable belt I can find is a T10, 16mm width belt, of which I think ill need around 6.5m - with drive pulley this is well over £100.

The alternative I came up with originally was to use simplex chain glued into a rebate in the wooden ring and a drive sprocket. Now im genuinely torn, I feel like the chain method would sacrifice some resolution but engage deeper. But think it could suffer from a fair bit of backlash. The drive belt seems better but im worried about slippage / meshing. The last belt i used was GT2 stuff which is tiny so maybe in my head im just struggling to gauge the scale of the T10 belt.

One thing the drive chain could be used for is the shutter, bonding a chain, or even a duplex one to the inside of the shutter and then mounting a sprocket/motor in the roof would allow it to pull forward and back. I would have to lose the lip on the shutter but im not bothered about that and could secure with some form of electronic latch.

Also found these - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DC12V-High-Torque-Turbo-Worm-Geared-Reduction-Motor-10-20-30-40-100RPM-Encoder/323593324134?var=512609259581

Which look like it could work, comes with an encoder that im sure I could figure out how to wire up. No idea if they are strong enough to push the dome but at £11 its not too much risk and at the very least I can use it for a test setup.

Welcome back! Im sure it will all come flooding back to you in no time.

I need to model the dome in Solidworks really and then design the mechanism from that. Have played with hundreds of ideas in my head but stopped when I started considering roller shutters

I have a large batch of linear actuators from Riser Recliner chairs - so a sideways shutter would be a bit easier for me...

2 minutes ago, sloz1664 said:

I set my Hyrostat to cut in at 60%.

Regarding the shutter I am currently building the electronics to automate the shutter via Levesdome. This is to be wirelessly controlled. Once this is working I will get my head around the physical movement of the shutter.

Steve 

Hmmm some more reading - never even considered wireless. But it has prompted me to think whatever solution used for the shutter its going to require power, and therefore either a battery in the dome section or a cable which would obstruct full rotation. Im guessing if you are going for wireless control your mechanics will be battery powered?

2 minutes ago, sloz1664 said:

You will need a dehumidifier, I suggest you also get a Hydrostat to ensure it keeps the humidity to an acceptable level.

Steve

Thanks, I did get the dehumidifier that the previous owner had, the hydrostat looks like a good idea, and simple to use. What do you set yours to?

I have been thinking about the sticky shutter issue - I cant really figure out how to motorise that yet, but I could ease the operation by bolting some skate bearings to the inner aperture where the shutter presses against - the outer edge of the bearing a few mm proud of where it rubs. Should only cost a couple of quid and make the opening and closing significantly smoother.

Current list of jobs to do:

+ all the usual stuff actually related to the telescope, I havent tried the new china mini guidescope yet, the EQ6 needs a bit of a clean/service and I need to source better/shorter cables for everything to improve cable management.

Sooooo excited to actually use it. The further I get with it the happier I am about delaying the ASI1600 to fund this. Even with a DSLR for a while longer my nights should be a lot easier and more frequent.

The only idiot lights here are family ones, which I can usually control. Ocassionally the farmer likes do drive around with his 80,000,000 candle power torch but if he does that the subs are gonners anyway. I couldnt think of a practical reason - more an aesthetics thing really. A blue/grey would be nice and hide a multitude of sins.

Haven't really checked for any dew/humidity issues yet. The previous owner had a dehumidifier in the dome.

Going to write up a list of jobs I want done by winter to make it useable, then prioritise them and see which 10% i can actually get done

4 minutes ago, JamesF said:

Looks fine to me.  And no-one will ever see those holes in the dark.

James

A fellow pragmatist! Im still unsure if the inside of the obsy should get a lick of paint. White seems counter intuitive to me, but haven't seen anyone really painting the inside of their domes.

The only time I should be in there is to set something up or fix something, so things like the bolt holes, the slight wobble of the deck etc are not going to be a major issue for me - whereas budget was

I may yet fix the deck movement with some additional bracing and posts, but no hurry on that - the next big part of the plan is to copy steal replicate lovingly recreate the dome rotation method which Steve used in his. About to order the 16mm AT10 belt from Germany and a Velleman board for the Levesdome project.

11 minutes ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

Regarding the red light rules this may be of some use to anyone with a laptop (and Windows 10).

Windows 10 Night Vision Mode

Does anyone have a recommendation for red film to cover other sources of light?

Steve

I use red florists cellophane - cheap as chips and can layer it up if needed. If anyone needs any on the night I will probably still have a few metres of it left!

Another Windows App i use is ColourVeil which tints everything (except UAC prompts) and a web browser extension I found recently to change websites to dark mode called Dark Reader which I posted about here a few days ago...

The campervan has dual mode white/red leds for the main lights - but it hasn't moved since SGL2018 so we may be coming in a tent yet!

So the pier bolts were an epic fail, just tight enough to never come out, loose enough to not be able to bolt down the pier. Because I couldnt get them out I was forced to either a) replace the top slap and potentially top course of blocks or b) swizel the pier 45 degrees.

Its not glamourous, but option b saved a lot of time! I ordered a resin anchor kit from Amazon and when it eventually arrived set about making a wooden holder to position the bolts, the resin was VERY hard to squeeze into the holes, but I think there is enough in there to do the job.

Hopefully the next time I do this it will be a poured pier. So will never have to deal with this stuff again.

A side effect of rotating the pier is that the peg is closer to north and may actually be useable.

It doesn't look that bad does it? It's pretty solid.

This is my pier - there are many like it but this one is mine...

Ill fill the holes in the slab.

Next step is centring the base ring around the pier and fixing it down to the deck, filling the gap in the floor then laying a floor of rubber tiles.

1 hour ago, Astro-Geek said:

Thanks for the alternative opinion, I guess my comment about the 27:1 seeming very slow was based purely on just watching the shaft turn, rather than using it in earnest to focus a 'scope.  😀

Can confirm that the 27:1 gearbox will do full travel on my TS65 in about 5-6 seconds if pushed to. I think it was a fluke moving it that fast though, I actually prefer slower movement as it seems smoother, less vibration etc.

What swung the decision for me was the holding torque. Being able to power the motor down and not have any slip, whereas the standard NEMA17s would slip slightly unless powered. This meant that a) less power was being used and b) the motor kept cool which was important for me as was using a 3D printed bracket.

Try turning the shaft of the 27:1 by hand and its VERY difficult, whereas without the gearbox its fairly easy. Thats effectively what your imaging gear is trying to do everytime you point up and power down the coils.

That being said, my mounting application looked dreadful and will be switching it out for a ZWO EAF soon hopefully The PG27 is heavy and gave me real issues balancing my tiny scope.

Im of the belief that Earth has had planet wide flooding plenty of times, just fairly sure we were not around at the time to witness it.

The impact craters on the moon are pretty good indicators of the job its been doing. Perhaps we reciprocate equally but less noticeably due to many burning up in atmosphere.

16 minutes ago, GraemeH said:

I have no personal experience with this, but reading a bit on the AstroEQ webpage seems to indicate that you need to install EQMOD as well, and link your AstroEQ controller to that.  PHD2 will then connnect to EQMOD.

^ This

EQMOD will connect to AstroEQ
PHD2 will connect to EQMOD

Ascompad i believe is just for controlling mounts with a joypad? Could be wrong on that though.

Congrats on first light! Sounds like you have a great convenient setup there to give you many nights of enjoyment.

You never forget your first Saturn viewing!