Alien 13

Couple off pictures of my mini Mak a Celestron C90 and an image produced with it.

This is a single shot RAW done with the Mak.

Alan

Everyone should try/own a Russian scope, that Tal Alkor is a beauty.

Alan

When I started out an 90 mm frac would have been bigger than anything available in the UK at least in the non professional market, still cant understand why anyone would want any more.

Alan

32 minutes ago, David Smith said:

Never mind the eyepiece, I want one of those mugs

Me too 

Alan

I think my 90mm is by far the best scope I have ever owned, its compact easy to mount even on lightweight EQs or camera tripods, a DSLR fits without any faffing about and it does produce great Lunar images.

Alan

27 minutes ago, Daz69 said:

How did you break into the battery? 

Sharp craft knife or similar to break the seal around the edge.

Alan

You will need a dummy battery, the cheapest way and what I did was to buy a battery off the bay for a couple of quid and strip the innards out.

Alan

16 minutes ago, Daz69 said:

I agree. I tried searching but Canon specs aren't great, and other Google searches threw up anything between 6.5v and 8.5v which seemed nothing more than guesses, so originally I went with the 7.4v shown on the standard battery pack. 

I know that the camera is too heavy for the focus tube on my scope so my intention was to just use it with my 300ml lens on the tube ring mount. 

I found that I had to wind the voltage up to about 7.8 V to prevent premature shut downs, the Camera electronics knows if it a battery or other connected so this might be the reason for this.

Alan

It would be nice if Canon released some figures regarding supply tolerance and the cameras current consumption rather than having to second guess them, I had similar issues determining my mounts motor min voltage and current consumption in the end I resorted to measurements.

Alan

Another way of adding some protection is to use two of those switching regulators in series, the first would drop the voltage to 9 V the second would then output the required 7.5 V, this will ensure that no single failure will stress the camera.

Alan

If you have a Canon battery grip it comes with an adapter to use 6 AA cells which equates to 9 V so I have taken that to be the upper supply limit, more voltage does mean that the on board regulators in the camera get warmer though.

Alan

Nice thread and here`s me thinking I was the only one to use the EQ3-2 for AP.

Alan 

I only wish we had lots of moons so that there was a full one every night 

Alan

To put all this into perspective even a strand of spider silk will give diffraction spikes...

Alan

Looking forward to seeing how the mini PC performs.

Alan

1 minute ago, carastro said:

Yup great service, just got confused by first E mail sent to me which seemed to imply FLO were out of stock with the 130PDS, but seems that was not the case and I have had excellent communication since.

Apparently all 3 items are coming tomorrow.  Great service.  Plus good advice beforehand.

Carole 

Will there be any unboxing pic,s from memory I cant recall seeing any 

Alan

4 minutes ago, MattJenko said:

Just tested my travel kit at Kelling. Works a treat:

 

Thats cute, I must get a SA 

Alan

The problem with mounts is that they are not cycle or car wheel hubs and have to endure sometimes many months of inactivity without the grease creeping away from the bearing. There are probably better alternatives around something like the stuff used in old camera lenses that had to withstand sudden sheer forces but it has to be designed for these types of loading.

Alan 

8 minutes ago, Gina said:

Now for some calculations...  EFW mini is 20mm (I measured 20.25mm), camera back focus is 6.5mm so total so far of 26.75mm.  Asahi Pentax SLR M42 thread lenses have a back focus of 45mm so there's an extra 21.45mm available for an OAG if wanted - my OAG is 18.7mm including a T2 to M48 adapter ring leaving about 3mm for either a slimline "Russian adapter" or for cheating and screwing the lens M42/1mm into the M42/0.75mm T2 thread  

For use without OAG...  My standard "Russian adapter" is 8.9mm so adding the lens + adapter to the FW requires an extra 21.45 - 8.9 = 17.55mm ie. 10mm + 7.5mm T2 extension tubes.

I have found that the cheat works well because the thread depth is quite small, I do however make this sort of adapter semi permanent with a drop of Araldite like the M42 to 15mm T extension tube I use on my scope.

Alan

I have a feeling you might get quite a few differing answers my own view is that the Skywatcher people are quite smart and their engineering solution to these mounts includes the original grease.

Alan

Hi Gina, its not something simple like the fact you are connecting to a plug rather than a socket so the data wires need swapping?

Alan

4 minutes ago, Gina said:

Now I'm wondering what to do.  There's only 20GB of space on the HD.  I guess that's enough to try INDI for mount control.  A replacement HD probably wouldn't fit any better than the SSD - being a Dell I guess it's a bit non-standard - I've heard this about Dells   I might reinstall Linux Mint afresh on the whole HD.

Dells are never standard memory costs 4x anything else hard drives about the same but I would never buy any other.

Alan

I think FLO priced matched the ASI1600MM Cooled.

Alan

Good job, now you have built one project the world is you oyster lots of cheep stuff out there to build.

Alan

That`s good progress looking forward to seeing how it performs, might have a go myself at one of the projects in the link.

Alan