CedricTheBrave

Is there a best practise for length of the Losmandy dovetail?

I currently have a 300mm but just managed to get hold of a CEM120 that has a clamp area thats quite a bit longer at 437mm

my OTA is 1545mm so she is quite a beast!

there are some available for 500mm plus

try this https://nighttime-imaging.eu/download/

wow

is it not also upside down?

Will be great if they can do it but I think it will be a job for starship when its up and running 

3 minutes ago, Zermelo said:

I don't think I ever anticipated being quite so engaged by the stretching of five pieces of plastic.
And we still have the primary mirror alignment to come, which was described during the live feed just now - it sounds a bit more involved than a cheshire and three screws.

Question for someone please - how far into the commissioning phase will we know that the optics are sound? i.e. when is the comparable moment to the one where we found out that the Hubble mirror was misfigured?

i think they said that the next 5 or 6 months was for calibration and cooling

have a look on thingyverse to see if there are any mounts for your scope

1 hour ago, dazzystar said:

thanks very much!

if you choose to build one and wish to use the ULN2003 version let me know as I have a spare circuit board you can have

https://sourceforge.net/projects/arduinoascomfocuserpro2diy/

I have one and very pleased with it

i only have  newts tho!

55 minutes ago, TareqPhoto said:

I will keep looking at more options or choices for guide scope, you gave me one, others gave me more, so i will read them and see which one has less hassle and good price and performance, i hope i choose the right one that i will be happy to use and keep it for long time, i might add OAG just i case.

Well, i saw some used OSc under Bortle 8/9, i have to give it a try, i won't say it will be any better than a mono, but i have enough mono cameras that i feel i should try OSC anyway, and i did buy one good, so i will see how it will treat me under our sky, and i will go at targets i feel it is easier and away from LP effect, Orion for example, i will be happy if it can give me acceptable results, who knows. Regarding a full frame, i just keep it in my mind, not saying i will buy it for sure, i just feel like for how long i will keep avoiding thinking or getting a full frame, others bought it for nice work and being happy, so it is like i only stay away from it because i am not good at it or my gear isn't, then when it will be the time? And Mosaic for me is more time spending and maybe worse trying than using a full frame itself, i still try to do one frame rather than a mosaic, but i will keep that in mind for future, but if i will include mosaic then why not include a full frame as well for any reason.

I am not thinking about ZWO ASIAir for now, and EKOS is ok as long if i know how to use it, it sounds i should use something like Raspberry Pi for it, which i have, but i am thinking about buying a mini PC, but there are other options for plate solving, i got one, and someone told me to use NINA as it has one i think, i feel that NINA will solve many problems i have, i should think seriously to use NINA again and get used to it as soon as possible, no time wasting now with outdated software or one with issues and lacking some features needed somehow.

I have recently moved to NINA on a mini PC from ekos/kstars on RPi4 and the performance is far superior.

the package that you get with NINA now is very comprehensive and is developing all the time. the advanced sequencer is fantastic and platesolving is a dream.

Baud needs to be 115200 on the pro at least mine does anyway it would not connect on anything else

Are you connecting directly to the USB port?

59 minutes ago, Stuart1971 said:

I thought this version had the heated window, it’s shown on Aliexpress as having it…??

it does but its not very powerful.

'The collision will change the speed of the moonlet in its orbit around the main body by a fraction of one percent'

they hope!

do you have the pro version?

1 hour ago, Newforestgimp said:

Would be very interested to hear how this works out, could be tempted.

👍

it makes the whole thing much easier. my eyes really struggle with a cheshre i have tried many. just a slight movement to one side for me makes it really tough. but this little thing really helps. you can zoom right in and adjust the focus on screen so you can cange the focus from the secondary to primary etc.

really pleased with mine

I'm a sucker for gadgets but this looks pretty good!

As my newt is quite a sensitive soul to collimate and my eyesight is rubbish through small holes due to intraocular replacments several years ago 

I have had an Ocal electronic focuser arrive today! makes life much easier.

i tried making one from a web cam a while back but it was never very accurate so when this popped up I thought I would give it a go

nicely made unit the software is a little basic but it does what it says on the tin.

when my invoice came from customs it was for £64 (ish) this was for import duties it didnt mention VAT

Really pleased with mine, as stated above the order process was faultless and the package bomb proof delivered on the day they said it would.

In use its Good the only issue I have had was the window fogging up when it was very heavy dew last week. This was when it was running at -10 so lifted it up to -5 and it went away.

Mine came with two adapters power supply (UK) and Good usb3 cable in a very sturdy foam filled case

I had this issue with my guide cam (starlight express costar) 

Had all sorts of problems similar to what you describe. In the end I sent it to manufacturer and they replaced the board

Does anyone know where I could get some tube rings that wouldfit a 399mm OD tube?

i suspect a few mm extra for padding

11 minutes ago, tomato said:

I agree SpaceX’s technological achievements are far in excess of the others, but from what I can see of Mr Musk, he isn’t short on ego so I am not surprised that the media has picked up on the story that to date he hasn’t gone for an orbital flight to go one better than Messrs Branson and Bezos.

he has said that he has no intention of going either

I made an controller following Robert Browns design.

it has the ability to target dew point so keeps the temp of any surfaces you want dew free above this temp which makes it more efficient.

info is on source forge here https://sourceforge.net/projects/arduinonanodewcontrollerpro/

easiest way is to use a monitor and keyboard on the rpi and just connect to the local wifi

make sure you either remove the hotspot setup or change its priority to stop it being the prefered network on boot

1 hour ago, Steve in Boulder said:

Thanks much, Stuart and StevieDVD!

both of mine should have been set to 16bit

not sure about compression

may post the question in the nina discord

On 24/09/2021 at 09:04, Shimrod said:

I did a quick check using GIMP - create and save a fits file of the same resolution - that came out as the 76,005kb figure of the RPi above. Some thoughts that may affect this:

1) Is NINA applying internal compression on the fits file to make it smaller?

2) Are both files at the same bit depth? My example with GIMP was 8bits per channel