tooth_dr

Sorry Michael I don’t think my comment was clear. I didn’t mean my final PA was 1 degree out. When I first plonked the mount onto my pier, without any adjustments, it was 1 degree out. I thought this was pretty good for using a compass to align my pier and accounting for the difference between magnetic and true north. Following precise adjustment of the wedge I have it to within 3 arc seconds (according to Sharpcap so how accurate this actually is is debatable). I’ve never drift aligned a mount before. @Jonk I think Jon drift aligns his Mesu e200 though?

This is very true. I find the same, the general public eg facebook prefer an image that’s bright and colourful. I’ve seen a few get 300+ likes and the actual image is not particularly well processed. Subject matter matters too!

Thanks Steve for the confirmation

Thanks Michael. That’s a good point about the bolts. Looking at it again, I could at least bring down the top bolt on the wedge to as short as possible, that would help a bit. I hadn’t thought of doing the adjustments closer to the pier on the lower horizontal plate. That should work too? I have no way of rotating the pier ie no azimuth adjustments but the tilting should take care of that? I calculated the position of the pier theoretically and with it all bolted level I think I was about 1 degree out according to sharpcap.

Something like this?

Same as mine too.

I’m trying to do the measurements but the wedge is throwing me. I’m using @steppenwolf guide on S@N and it shows the measurements for a mesu mk1. Because I have the mesu mk2 which has no adjustments as such and uses a wedge, I’m not sure where to measure from. Any assistance greatly appreciated 🙈 Specifically measurement ‘a’ - in my case is it from the bottom of wedge plate, where it bolts to the pier plate?

Ok, why have you purchased another camera without knowing what telescope you are going to buy?

What was/is your plans for this camera? Often a camera is bought to suit a scope, with consideration for pixel size, not the other way around? Or at least not with some idea of what scope you are planning on?

@rubecula I find that my monitors and phone all look different so for the background I tend to trust the figures. Sometimes even 23/23/23 feels dark to me. I think I’m your example the black point went down to as low as 3 in some places, so you might need to go back a few steps. I dont think it can be recovered once it’s been clipped. But I don’t want to get too hung up on this, it’s a really nice image of a difficult and faint target.

Robin I think the image looks really good, a great job! I opened it in photoshop and checked various parts of the background and in most cases the blue 2-3 times the value of red and green. The nebula looks decent but I think the background overall is a little blue. Adam.

I have a 250px that is mounted in a ROR shed. I took some measurements and photos last night that I hope are helpful. I have a bit of gear at the front of my 250px but it’s still rear heavy. The front could be weighted further to bring the OTA more central to the mount. This would improve clearance further. Because of the way an EQ mount works, you could off set the mount SE ie don’t put it in the centre of the floor space. My shed is 12’ x 8’ and that includes a 4’ x 8’ warm room. These would be external measurements. As suggested above 2.2m internal would be a safe bet. My mount has a very long CW shaft so I have to crawl underneath the scope or CW shaft to past it when it’s in certain positions. HTH @kbrown Adam

You are kinda asking the questions the wrong way around. If you can decide what you would like to image then it will be easier to advise you correctly. As Freddie correctly says this camera is designed for solar system use. So if that's your goal then this would be ok. What stage are you at in terms of mounts and scopes? Adam

I’ve used matched ED80s with KAF-8300 in the past. Alignment of the scopes is therefore much more critical. Currently using a 250px with an ED80, and scale the fov of the ED80 to match the 250px. There is a loss of resolution, but it works ok using the smaller Wider field of view scope for colour.

Do step 5 first? Then 40 minutes of the cooling time would be used for steps 1-4, leaving only a 20 minute wait?

I bought a licence of the Pro version of AllSkeye a couple of days ago. I use the software everyday, and it felt fair to pay the author Mike the small asking fee of £20. I tried the star trails feature from the Pro version, and am very impressed with the simplicity of it. I will definitely be setting it to automatically produce a star trails image automatically each night! I picked a random night in May to try it out, and by chance there was superb meteor during that night. The bright light in the trails photo is from my observatory - my all sky camera is attached to the shed and with the roof open I had some lights on getting set up. Adam

Did someone say banana? 😂

Lovely set up. I bought an ADM dual bar a few months ago, a solid bit of kit and helpful for those balancing adjustments on a dual rig.

That’s the construction complete. Did a rough PA last night, so can start taking measurements today.

Hi John. Looks nice 👍🏻 So what height is the pier now from the wooden floor?

Whats the other side like? Dare I ask is it frosted 🤣

Thanks Steve, the spreadsheet, in particular the diagram are very helpful. I should have bought a mark1 mesu.

Thanks Dave, did a quick search and see that 6.5 indeed says: "A new Device Hub replaces the POTH, Hub, Pipe and ASCOMDome hubs."

I've made some progress, and last night I tried the motors to see how the dome rotates. It went ok for a few turns, then it got stuck at the same point each time. I lifted the dome up today, and did some filing/sanding, to reduce ledges on the internal surface that presses against the wheels. This seems to have done the trick. I can control the dome rotation and shutter opening and closing using the Shelyak Dome Tracker test software, all that side of things is functioning correctly. I have ran the calibration test several times, and I get a maximum deviation of 6 steps over 9 runs, scoring between 6310 and 6316, where the average is 6312 steps. I assume this is satisfactory? I need some help now, if anyone is able to throw a few pointers. I am going to do the measurements later this evening using the guide published by Steve Richards aka @steppenwolf . Where is wall height measured to - is it literally to the top of the wall panels from the ground? If I'm using SGPro - POTH or Shelyak Dometracker (sorry if this is a dumb question!) My dome comes with the Shelyak Controller, but i read about people using POTH, although there is a specific ascom program for it. Thanks in advance Adam.

Even at that, 6cm x 6cm x 6cm is a little skimpy, did you mean 60cm!?