tooth_dr

45 minutes ago, Carbon Brush said:

All powerline type routers rely on putting a high frequency signal onto the mains wiring.

If the wire run is long, the cable capacitance absorbs the high frequency signal.

If there are any filters (sometimes included with surge protection) in the line, then powerline data vanishes.
Always fit an adapter on the unprotected side of any socket strips, UPS, etc.

The cable run to my observatory (a long steel wire armoured cable) completely kills powerline signals.
As it it was borderline range for the wifi I fitted an external high gain antenna to the shed.
This is a 30cm square plastic housing on the shed side. The signal improvement means I get reliable fast connection to the house.

While it is obvious that indoor aerials don't work as well as outdoor, sheds can be awful.
Wood contains a lot of moisture.
The radio frequency used by wifi adapters is close to that used for microwave ovens - chosen because it is well absorbed by water.
Throw away the shed and buy a fibreglass dome? Or buy an external aerial?

It is also useful to get a wifi signal analyser software package to see if you are in a busy wireless area.
I use a free download on a Kindle so can easily walk around the garden detecting signals from neighbouring properties and measuring their strength.

Hope this helps, David.

 

Thanks David. There is no danger of being in a busy WiFi area.

If I go down the WiFi route, what’s the best way to get the WiFi onto the PCs, as neither have internal receivers. 

2 hours ago, alan potts said:

Very nice shot Kev but I do wish camera lenses didn't leave the spikes, I need to try my 300mm F2.8 wide open see what come out. I tried it at F4 a while back on Orions belt but was far from happy, personal taste I guess.

Alan

Stop down with a step down ring to avoid spikes

I havent checked the internet speed in the house recently, but its fast.

23 minutes ago, discardedastro said:

Powerline adapters are generally awful. While the link may report 1Gbps, that's just between you and the powerline adapter, not between adapters. Most powerline adapters in best case real-world scenarios can achieve about 100Mbps at best, and are often much worse than this. If your shed is off an extension cable or similar you've got little chance of making anything work nicely.

How far away is the shed from the house? WiFi is usually a good answer. Close up just make sure you have a good AP in your house, preferably as close as you can get to the shed; Ubiquiti's UniFi AC LR is a good cheap AP option. If you're fairly far away but can put equipment on the outside wall of house and shed, Ubiquiti do a range of low-cost point-to-point bridges, e.g. https://linitx.com/product/ubiquiti-airmax-nanostation-5ac-loco-wireless-network-bridge-ns-5acl/15217 at £50/end. If you have duct, then running a length of fibre (pre-terminated) is pretty straightforward and definitely is the best option.

Thanks for reply.

My shed is about 9 metres from the router, but its just on the edge of wifi reception.  I have a BT hub 5 - going to ring today and see if I can get a new smart hub instead.  Using WIFI alone wouldnt work at the current set up.

My shed is wired into the consumer unit directly, and I plug the powerline adapter directly into the socket in the shed.

Last night I tried to download allskeye software but it took a long time and failed 1/2 way through. I tried several times.

I checked the speed of download and it was very slow.

Im using TP link powerline adapters, into a netgear switch, then into my pc. I turned off all other devices using the internet in my shed with no improvement. I connected the pc directly to the powerline adapter (removing the switch) and still the same download speed. I’m not great when it comes to this type of stuff, but I looked at a few properties boxes of the connection and it says 1gb per second.

I have 70mb FTTP broadband into the house.

Any suggestions as to what’s the issue? 

Fascinating. Thanks for accompanying writeup which was very interesting. 

Just now, Halil said:

Hi All,

I took this picture by coincidence while trying to take photo of a single cloud on the sky.

Is this Venus?

Thanks.

 

 

That’s a nice photo of a cloud.  Firstly that isn’t Venus but a lens flare from the Sun, light reflecting off the glass. Secondly be careful imaging directly at the sun like that 👍🏼

14 minutes ago, Melitastro said:

The only thing I can think of, and you've probably done it when cleaning the sensor, is making sure the holes in the carousel are clear so the sensor can detect position correctly.

Tony

Thanks Tony. I did look at the holes but didn’t clean them. I’ll clean them with a little Tepe brush and see if that helps.  I’ll come back to this thread with results good or bad. I spoke to Bern at MA and he isn’t aware of any issues (he used to sell them) but he was positive of the wheel and reckoned it was worth persevering with it.

Cheers!

Adam. 

45 minutes ago, Melitastro said:

How's this? If you need a different view then let me know

Thanks so much. That’s perfect. Looks like mine - 2 rubber o rings - so no concern there.  There seems to be an issue with mine when it doesn’t quite return to the same position after a rotation. This is affecting flats as the dust on the filters isn’t being corrected exactly leading to a ‘double image’ of the dust bunny.  I’m running through a process of elimination.  I’ve removed, cleaned and reset the little sensor. The only other observation I can make is that the motor feels notchy when rotated but again this could be perfectly normal. 

Thanks again 👍🏻👍🏻

Adam. 

What a bubble Sean. I’ve yet to get but this is making me really really keen to get going. Superb

3 hours ago, Melitastro said:

Would an image of 7 x 1.25" help?

Yes thank you! That would be good. I’m trying to see if this second hand one has the wrong rubber o rings on the motor shaft. 

Excellent work. 

There are a couple of guys on here currently using this set up.  I also used a 300pds on an EQ6Pro and like you balance was critical. Doing as above is the only way. You need to take into account the finder, but it is possible to achieve perfect balance. I’m at 54 deg N so very similar. 

Nice Francis, lots of potential here.

Very very nice. You get a real sense of the Earth in that photo. 

Thats a nice subtle image, with lovely star colours.

10 hours ago, MilwaukeeLion said:

Terrific meteor captures, never seen anyone plot them like that.  Fantastic.

Thanks! There were so many in a relatively small part of the sky, even with the moon obscuring the fainter ones. 

21 hours ago, MarsG76 said:

Hello all,

Sharing with you my finished image of the Swan nebula imaged through SII, HII and OIII narrowband filter using my modded and cooled Canon 40D. Imagd trough my C8" SCT at 2032mm focal length.

Total exposure was 27 hours across multiple nights.

Clear Skies,

MG

 

Amazing. What’s the Sii data like?  What sort of exposure times? Pretty remarkable is this image - the FL is long and the exposures must be long, and the image looks pretty tight 

12 years wow!  I fondly remember imaging it from my back garden patio in the city centre of Belfast.  I used my Lidl purchased LXD75 6".  Great photos, really was a cool comet.

This is my attempt, not a patch on yours though

7 hours ago, DaveS said:

ASA DDM60 Encoder guided, TS Photoline 130 f/7 apo / TS Flat 2.5 / SX Trius 694 / Astrodon 3 nm filters. Capture in Maxim DL6, Post in AstroArt 5 only.

That’s an impressive list 😎 and you are doing it justice. I came back to look at the image again.  Inspiring stuff 👍🏻

51 minutes ago, ArgusFPV said:

I'm not sure what you mean by that. Do you mean have I used an abrasive on it? 

The video above shows that the contact point on the draw tube with the focusing wheel/bar can be an issue. I took a screenshot of the part of the video showing the issue with the drawtube - the shiny / dark edges are the only places the bar is contacting. So no adjustment of the screws will work until this is sorted.   Perhaps this is what needs done with yours to improve surface area and contact and prevent slipping. 

Here are mine - before with just the DSLR and CCF I didn’t have any issues.  I went down the route of two CCDs and the addition of the EFW put too much weight so I added motorfocusers to assist in focusing and also to prevent slipping - I cant use the focus locking screw as access is limited to it. £25 (second hand) for the motor, no more issues.

I’m just trying to save you money 😂

Both are nice versions, but I think the second has the edge. Great job 👍🏼

2 minutes ago, A McEwan said:

IPA? Er... India Pale Ale?

Isopropyl alcohol 

Hi Brendan

Firstly I would say that those spots arent on the primary, and that the primary mirror has nothing to do with it.  This is dust on the glass covering the sensor of the camera.  The good news is that these are found on everyones kit, and that they are easily removed in processing.  Obviously you will want to gentle use a blower to clean the camera glass, and then if you take calibration images called flats, this will 'remove' them from any future images.

2 hours ago, DaveS said:

Just a trial run to see if it's worth doing. The data is pretty dodgy, more and better will be needed but the weather is against me ATM

Just 2 hours each HII and [OIII] through 3nm filters in 10 min subs. Red 100% HII, Green 70% HII / 30% [OIII], Blue 100% [OIII]. DDP after Trichromy and a bit of Histogram Stretch

Thoughts?

Outstanding