Skipper Billy

I built mine with an RPi4 in a box along with the camera and a dew heater and used Thomas's software.

The only cable to it is 12v power - I use a leisure battery but it could equally be a 12c DC power supply and you could run that up a chimney no problem at all.

I access it wirelessly using 'Putty' and RDP. I can access the Rpi desktop and easily download files etc.

I went back to using leisure batteries for this reason - smooth, clean, quiet reliable cheap power. 

Looking grand !!!!

Top job - well done.

If you are going to paint over the repair then clean it well with acetone or petrol first. The resin forms a waxy coating as it cures which paint doesn't stick to very well.

5 minutes ago, vineyard said:

Hello,

Sorry to intrude on this thread - I am starting the process of researching a home-made all-sky cam as well and so this & a few other threads are making interesting & helpful reading (I hope to be able to upgrade my camera to a cooled one later this year, which may leave me an ASI178MC knocking about).

This is probably a daft question, but has anyone ever just secured a sealed dome with the camera on top of a chimney pot and run the USB lead down the chimney (obviously a non-functioning chimney!)).

Thank you,

Vin

You might be better off starting a new thread but to answer your questions - I use a 178MC and I am very happy with it.

USB has a limit of about 5m so unless it's a very short chimney I think you will have issues. 

This might help - http://www.astro-baby.com/EQ6 rebuild guide/EQ6 Strip Down Home.htm

This page in particular http://www.astro-baby.com/EQ6 Demon/EQ6 Rebuild Case Study.htm

George Clarkes Amazing Spaces - Channel 4 - Series 9 Episode 1 - ON NOW - they are building an observatory!!!

I would be interested in knowing about EAA.

It's something I know nothing about but I hear it talked about.

Something along the lines of this is what it is / idiots guide to EAA to equipment req (low end and high end) and this is what it can do (wow photos/video)

If its a straight choice on scopes then the Esprit would be my choice.

If its how best to improve your setup then my choices would be...

1. Ditch the DSLR in favour of a cooled mono CCD/CMOS

2. Get guiding

3. Upgrade scope.

27 minutes ago, david_taurus83 said:

Tbf I've not known anyone on here who has had a Mesu, stuck it in the obsy and its worked perfectly off the pallet.

Mine did / does......

On 29/05/2020 at 09:45, RayD said:

I used to re-focus mine every 1 degree of change, but had to change that ealry on to every 0.5 degrees as, with the APS-H sensor, it became very noticeably out of focus at 1 degree. 

I too noticed this - refocus every 0.5 degree temp change is essential.

That's shocking!!!

How old is the scope - have you spoken to the retailer??

Guide scope and cam are usually used for short focallength scope - up to about 1000mm

OAG comes into its own with focal lengths over about 1000mm

The guide cam needs to take an image of about 2 - 5 seconds constantly - the imaging cam cant do two things at once - eg during a 600 second exposure it cant be clattering away taking guiding images 150 times during the long exposure.

Hope that helps!!

Whereabouts in Scotland are you?

If you go the resin route I wouldnt use CSM I would glass fibre tissue - doesnt disintegrate like CSM - esier to work with and requires a lot less resin to fill it and is therefore easier, cheaper and a lot lighter. If you use epoxy resin it will still need painting as epoxy has very poor UV resistance.

On bare wood a coat of International Pre-Kote - its has amazing covering power and acts as a primer/undercoat.

On sound existing paint just sand to give a key and degrease.

On joints as long as there is no movement then nothing special required. If filling is required use a polyurethane mastic such as Zycore or Sikaflex 291

If there is any joint movement then it should be taped and the tape coated with polyester or epoxy resin before painting.

15 hours ago, saac said:

Billy, I take it that is a specialist marine paint (high performance).  Would you recommend it for non marine applications? My house has dormers in the roof and I've been using Deluxe Weathershield but it does not last any more than 2 years and it peels off. The roof is south facing so it gets a lot of uv incident on it.  I wonder if your International paint would be worth a try ?

I have used it extensively on wooden boats which flex a LOT and are dipped in and out of sea water - freezing cold then baked in sun - it is very tough stuff.

I painted the south facing wall of our wooden garage with it 11 years ago and it is still perfect. Avoid red if it gets a lot of UK.

As long as its dry and you remove the loose stuff then 2 coats of 2 pack polyurethane paint should give you 10+ years

https://www.international-yachtpaint.com/en/gb/boat-paint-products/topcoat-finishes/perfection

Couldn't you just remove the existing mounting plate and use a standard vixen dovetail - short screw ub through the dovetail and into the mounting foot?

If you download 'Handbrake' you can convert your video 'Mov' files to a more common format and its free!!

https://handbrake.fr/

Lovely image BTW!

Until last week I had always cursed the Moon and certainly never tried imaging it.

My first attempt - see further down the page was really poor but I think this attempt is a bit better.

Canon 70D hastily fixed to my ED72 that normally acts as my guide scope - fixed tripod - 150 x 1/125 ISO 100 @ f5.6 Preprocessed in PIPP, best 60% stacked in DSS and tweaked in Photoshop.

Eaten alive by midges !!

CC very welcome.

Moon 31May2020.tif

Cooling vents are a favourite for light leaks - take your cal frames indoors but put the rig in a completely dark room???

I couldnt work it out either and went back to Stellarium Scope.

The fans on mine run all the time but there is no noticeable vibration.

If your guiding is good (it is) but your stars are not then that would point to focuser droop/slop. IE the scope is pointing exactly where it should be but the camera is moving about.

2 hours ago, andrew s said:

You had  me worried with your title that it was going to be a black rectangular parallelapiped

😉