choochoo_baloo

For anyone else wondering, I heard back from Astronomik support, who said: For deep sky imaging with an apochromatic refractor the Deep-Sky RGB set is recomended. The L-RGB set gives you the best color rendering of all availiable RGB filtersets. The main benefit of this is in planetary imaging.

Same question please: how does one book to attend your talk. Do we not need a meeting ID and password? @steppenwolf

As per the title, I'm struggling to discern the difference between the 2 flavours of RGB filter sets produced by Astronomik (other than one has a luminance as well!) The technical spec's don't give an obvious contrast. Deep-Sky RGB Color Filters L-RGB Typ 2c Color Filters Thanks in advance.

Thanks Julian. I assumed the former because all of my William Optics parts seem to be. Perhaps a better question is: do you know the default thread for other big brands eg Takahashi?

Am I correct in saying that M6.0 (x 1.0 pitch) is the default thread for astro fixings - clam shell OTA rings, dovetail plates, etc?

Lars I want to thank you for such a generally useful and thorough website. It's great to have the mathematical/physics rigour for many topics. I can see me spending many cloudy evenings trawling through all of these scholarly endeavours!! 🤓

Ok thanks for the info. Actually not long after posting this, I gave mine one last attempt, and 50 thou allen key did undo both grubs. Sensible RE allen bolts - I shall do the same. What thread is the female tapping (assuming you didn't re-tap your holes obviously)?

Sorry to resurrect this thread Dave. I am just unboxing my s/h EFW2, and have the same question. Yes they are definitely intended as rotator locking grubs. However mine lacked allen keys, and I'm blowed if I can get any from my allen key set to fit it just right. What size allen key did you get to fit, although having stripped the head maybe it's not that size anyway..! How did the drilling out go by the way?

THANK YOU Marcus. I was getting very frustrated at there not being a straight forward calculation. This is even better

Can you elaborate please? Why is arctan needed if we're only concerned with the hypotenuse in the same plane? I also thought there must be increments to allow for edge effects from the filter frame etc

I bought a mono CCD a little while ago, and am researching filters to go with it. The filter wheel I bought S/H has a 2" carousel. I s there a reference for knowing which filter size (1.25", 2", 36mm etc) can serve what sensor, without vignetting? If I'm going to stick with a small sensor for a while, then there's no need to buy the bigger filters, when the smaller/cheaper behave identically. Thanks.

Lesson learnt 😕 Actually the triplet element seems to be mostly condensation - it's steadfily shrunk since been in teh house. Though some faint hazing beoynd teh shrink codesation, this could well be mould traces still. Can anyone recommed Orion Optics servicing? https://www.orionoptics.co.uk/telescopeservica.html They're obvs a top drawer optical manufacturer, so it they can't service a refractor, I don't know who can!

It's not good. The WO GTF aluminium lens cap was jammed on. Took a lot of twisting to remove. Nice big mould colony on one of the inner surfaces of the triplet objective - looks like a petri dish! I'm annoyed with the Telegizmos cover. Will be contacting FLO (suppliers) to find out about support. Gortex manage to make fabric breathable yet waterproof... I want to warn other British owners of Telegizmos 365 covers of this effect. Looking into refractor servicing.

Unsurprisingly some light mould patches have formed on my William optics scope, untouched, under a Telegizmos 365 cover since late August. I suppose the water-tightness of the cover means that the typically damp autumn/winter in Britain means mould is inevitable for long periods outside? I will now get in the habit of opening up to check more regularly now I’m back home. Main question: how should I go about cleaning it off? Thanks in advance.

Thanks for the reply. I'm happy to meet with a few others during the autumn to do our own star party thing one night or so. I will miss a semi-rural location! The Cardiff society looks pretty established?

Having read up that link you helpfully gave, it seems they're INDI based, and with that very limited support of beginner friendly programs I'd us elike Backyard EOS or Sequence Generator Pro. So I'll rule out the Asiair. Exactly Sven: *only* hardware control. I plan to subsequent processing on another beefy desktop. As I've put above, I think it has to be ASCOM for foreseeable future and therefore by extension Win 10. Can you therefore make any recommendations?

After a failing laptop and wanting to take a step closer to remote operation, I've decided to buy a mini PC to attach to and thus ride around with the scopes themselves. What models do others use. My thoughts so far: 1) For build quality and stability INtel NUCs 2) Small size: Intel compute stick 2) Bang for buck inc. a beefy WiFi antenna: Minix Neo Any suggestions appreciated.

Hello all, I'm about to move to Newport for a new career. I've been slowly learning astrophotography over the past few years, and would like to continue learning with fellow amateur astronomers. Do you all meet semi-regularly, or are there established societies you can recommend? Thanks in advance.

This made me smile, typical Norwegian good manners - like the Trafalgar Square Christmas tree. 🎄

I'll phone StarTech in the slim hope they can send me a circuit diagram... In the meantime, can anyone tell me how I can tell what spec' the aforementioned Zener diode is? I can then replace it with a new one, to see if that fixes it. Thanks for your help.

I should have said at outset: I am a physicist by training, not an electrical engineer, so although I know the fundamentals, but will need clarification with the jargon and methods The plot thickens. tested the lone capacitor, it is ~1M Ohm and outside range in the 2 directions -> can assume it is fine after all. BUT It was covering the circled Zener diode. As the picture shows, it measures 0.3V (diode test mode) *both* directions. It also appears cracked on the outer tube. I measured a neighbouring Zener as shown for comparison. Is this the culprit?!

@pete_l@symmetal Thanks chaps for your input. After some reading up on remedial DC testing, I have confirmed that that diode seems fine, as with a nearby diode. *However* the left most electrolytic capacitor in photo 2, is showing 0.3V in both directions - showing a short? I'll now remove it to confirm this. Assuming this is the fault, can either of you confirm whether I need a special brand (other than obviously matching capcitance and Volt rating)?

I would strongly suggest reading through an A Level Pure maths book, to get a decent grasp of both calculus (mainly differentiation). complex numbers (in short why we have to create another layer of maths above "real" numbers to deal with sqrt(-1)... to then read first few chapters of "Introduction to Quantum Mechanics" by David Griffiths, 2nd Ed. This book is oustanding - it made second year quantum mechanics actually enjoyable...! My summary of QM: classical mechanics can describe any speed/weight/size car driving around a bend. Whereas when zooing into the atomic level, "Quantum mechanics" dictates that the scaled down car can only exist in certain lanes of said bend, travelling at correspodingly discrete speeds. "Quantum" literally means quantised mechanics (think UK shoe sizes; there is no size 10.368247586 shoe, only discrete values). Only quantum mechanics can explain why an electron can exist in stable atoms, by possessing quantised amounts of energye. Also how semiconductors behave - why certain dopants added to silicon make a CCD camera more sensitive for a certain wavelength. This stuff is counter-inutitive with our macroscopic pre-conceptions... and I believe this gives it is this (undeserved) mysterious reputation. Be persistent, this stuff is 'hard' for a reason, and interest is the only prerequisite!

I was happily using a 4 USB to ethernet adapter at my astrophotography rig for a while. Until one night, for no apparent reason, the adapter would not power on upon plugging in. The symptoms: 1) I was using a cheap 12->5V buck converter to power it. After plugging in, the buck makes a very faint whine. I’ve been told this means its inductor has failed (change in resonant frequency). 2) Having replaced the buck with a better and higher rated one, I notice its supply voltage change from 5.1 to 1.6V (according to built in voltage display) when plugged in. Must be a fault with the adapter... 3) whilst inspecting tye PCB while plugged, the back gets noticeably hot within few seconds. See photos circled red. NB. smaller PCB sandwiches above larger PCB via the 10 header pins. That black chip thing circled would appear to be the source of the heat. for the sake of a burnt component or so, I’m loath to throw out a £100 device! Any help in diagnosis will be much appreciated. Edit: I don't know where to start in identifying the faulty PCB component with multimeter etc.

Thanks for your input.