Alien 13

4 minutes ago, Sunshine said:

Yes! I was just thinking something pokey should do it (insert laugh emoji) which doesn't work for some reason.

My emojis seem broken too.

Alan

You might find that the laptop will run off the 14V supply directly, lots of mini PCs that use mobile components will run on 12V rather than the 19V specified..

Alan

1 minute ago, ollypenrice said:

Thanks Alan, I'll have another look at that.   (Erm, I wouldn't drink Coca Cola if you gave me fifty quid but maybe a beer can would do instead?)

lly

Nor me, it did taste OK back in the 60s when sold in glass bottles before they messed with it. A beer can will be fine the aluminum might just be compressible enough to do the job..

Alan

6 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

 

Our system is all screw fit and the camera has no tilt plate. Basically the camera screws into a tube and the other end of the tube screws into the lens. The tube is telescopic, the male and female parts of it being threaded together. The camera doesn't have a face plate, just a female thread to take the telescopic adapter tube. I think we may be shim-proof! 

Personally I think we've been pretty lucky with a chip this size and a camera lens at F2. Maybe we just get on with it as is.

Olly

Show me a premium APO running at f/2 that could get close 😋 Regarding shims you cut up a Coke can and make one to fit under the FLO adapter that fits to the lens, the three screws with the aluminum shim might just give enough adjustment to dial out any tilt..

Alan

OMG its easy to see why not many on here are aerospace engineers, had to take a tablet and lie down after flicking through this thread 😱

Alan

That infinity focus mod looks good but I would be tempted to either modify the slot in the existing removed part or manufacture another part so that a hard stop still exists.

Alan

2 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

If a requirement is to cover the whole galaxy you'd need to go considerably deeper, because much of its full extent is very faint. I dare say that this is why the publishers don't really want this record on their hands: it is too ambiguous. In the image below, you can see that both ends of the galaxy reach out far beyond what we may think of as M31 but, even here, there will surely be more. There seems to be an interesting region of faint nebulosity, not in the plane of the main disk, on the right hand end.

Olly

 

I wonder if the outer reaches of M31 and the Milky way actually touch.. 

Alan

4 minutes ago, fozzybear said:

from my 3 year old grand daughter to Grandad 

What a lovely present..

Alan

For cutting circles use hole cutters like these made for wood.

The important thing though is to run the drill in REVERSE and you will get a very clean hole.

The hole cutter will normally have to cut through all the layers of the foam but you will be left with a disk inside the cutter which can be prized out and sliced to go back in the hole if wanted..

Alan

Santa brought this mini PC today, cant wait to open it tomorrow, not sure if I will be able to sleep tonight 😀 

This will be my main processing rig from now on..

Merry Christmas everyone.

Alan

3 hours ago, imakebeer said:

I'm new to AP so treat my words with caution, but my guess is it's to do with ISO invariance - according to this article (simply the first one that came up in a quick search) some Nikon's are ISO invariant whereas Canon's are not.

If nothing else I'm tempted to experiment and see what shooting with my D5500 at ISO 100 or 200 does for me 😁

Apart from the Canon 80D, drives me mad having to shoot at ISO 100-200 all the time 😀

Alan

1 hour ago, andrew s said:

IMore importantly,  the Universe is totally unconcerned about whether we can comprehend it or not. It just is.

Regards Andrew 

Or is it? without an observer does it exist...

Alan

1 hour ago, saac said:

In all seriousness though I think concerns over biological contamination are taken very seriously by the likes of NASA when they send landers to other planets. 

Jim 

The problem as I see it is that life is impossible to destroy 100% so all the NASA landers etc will carry some...

Alan

Have been thinking that a scope like this would make a superb meteor cam..

Alan

8 minutes ago, michael.h.f.wilkinson said:

Interesting, especially for large targets, but for smaller targets there is no replacement for aperture.

Sort of but even a modest 3 inch refractor with a CMOS camera can easily out perform the Palomar 200 inch scope with its photographic plates, who knows what technology will come next..

Alan

One day ALL telescopes will be like these, I kid you not..

Alan

9 hours ago, vlaiv said:

It will be interesting to see what you came up with.

When I was thinking about it - here is what I envisioned as a solution:

it is based on above principle - spring with two threaded parts.

So - two threaded parts - one "attached" to outer focusing ring, while other free - but supported with several thin pins (like 2mm steel pins) - each of which has spring around it.

My Ender 3 has these on both of my dual z axis rods, absolutely brilliant especially as I like to "hop" a lot between layers sometimes.

Alan

18 minutes ago, mikeDnight said:

Sorry for the three posts. For some reason the site isn't registering the post has been sent.

I have had the same recently several times with posts seemingly not updating with a message that I need to wait 6 seconds..

Alan

3 hours ago, MG01 said:

Finally gotten around to getting some GX12 and I'm wondering what is the standard for wiring these?

If I was to get the cable for the EQ6R for example would the positive be wired to connection 1 or 2?

22 minutes ago, Synchronicity said:

I'd be interested if anyone has an answer - I couldn't find any information on this.

Michael

Pin 1 positive, I found a power adaptor cable online that uses this configuration but its a random choice in reality 😀

Alan

Doesn't sound good Olly and gives 3D printed parts a bad reputation, if designed correctly with appropriate use of metal inserts/parts etc they can be very strong. If you want to modify any parts with metal strengthening etc the normal type superglue is a good bonding agent for use on PLA.

Alan

M45 looks majestic in wide field, love the spattering of the blue stars in the FOV too.

Alan 

6 hours ago, doublevodka said:

On the Vaonis front I've always liked the look of these - https://vaonis.com/hyperia/en/ sadly it's eye-wateringly expensive and way out of my budget but I'll have a Sidereal Grey one if I win big on the lottery one day 😂

And yes, I know you could put together a better rig for less money before someone says it lol

I want 😀

Alan

23 minutes ago, mdstuart said:

I wonder what an Apple telescope would look like. An  iscope. Any suggestions?

Mark

I am sure they will eventually make one based on those EV-Scopes although Samsung might get there first 😀

Alan

On 23/11/2022 at 11:29, Mandy D said:

Does this count as a telescope? The Dragonfly Telephoto Array:

Nice and with that Canon glass at 12K a pop expensive too...want one 😀

Alan

I am convinced that in a "first contact" situation here on Earth that a dog might do a better job than us at "reading" an Alien and communication 😀

Alan