Skipper Billy

Thanks for your help guys - I have flushed it with a 50/5- mix of distilled water and Isopropyl Alcohol in a washing up liquid bottle (doing nothing wasnt an option!!)

It looks OK - I will let it dry now and gently use Baader Wonder fluid in the morning.

Thanks for your help.

1 minute ago, Stu said:

I would be very careful not to get liquid between the elements of the objective. Very tricky situation, but assuming it’s still moist and likely soft, I would probably gently wipe off with a soft damp cloth, repeating with clean ones and then clean as normal with cleaning fluid. Best to act quickly before it dries or causes damage.

Thanks Stu - I was going to try that but I am not sure how tough the coatings are - some say they are almost indestructible and others say they are very soft!!

3 minutes ago, rl said:

I would suggest rapid dilution with water prior to further proper cleaning; animal "residues" can be full of fairly concentrated ammonia / amine chemicals. Have you got an old fairy liquid bottle that might serve to clean without rubbing? After that I'd clean with Baader wonderfluid and the matching lint-free cloth.

Thanks - do you mean to point the scope downwards and flush the worst of it off ???

Mid imaging session my subs went from beautiful to shocking in an instant.

I went outside to see what the problem was and a small owl/large bat has shall we say 'unloaded' and hit the objective lens of my scope.

I am anxious to clean it off ASAP but how ???  It looks like a spoonful of veg soup has splatted across it.

I believe its important to remove it ASAP so any help is most welcome.

There is a lot going on in this image! The main target is the Cone Nebula (LDN1613) and the Christmas Tree cluster (NGC2264) The cone is fairly obvious at the top and pointing down, the shape of a Christmas Tree is made by the bright stars in the middle of the image.) At the top about a third of the way in from the left - looks a bit like a comet - is Hubble's Variable Nebula (NGC2261) The whole area is awash with clouds of Hydrogen. Imaged in LRGB with 3 hours of 600 second subs binned 1x1 and an hour each of RG & B in 120 second subs binned 2x2. All captured on 4th/5th March. Processed entirely in Pixinsight.

cone nebula fully processed.tif

5 hours ago, A320Flyer said:

On removing the two small access panels for the RA and Dec, a fair amount of rubber swarf was evident.

If there is a lot of rubber swarf it might be prudent to fit new belts - they are very cheap.

I have had a Heq5, AZ EQ6GT, Avalon Linear and currently a Mesu 200.

The Mesu 200 wipes the floor with all the others although the Avalon was very good and much lighter.

I often refer to the Mesu as the most boring thing about astroimaging - turn it on tell it what to do and it does it - again and again and again. Nothing to fiddle with, clean, adjust, swear at.

Well after moaning about not having a clear night since November last night was finally clear and no moon!! I got the last of the three channels I needed to finally finish this image. 3 hours each of Ha, SII and OIII in 15 minute subs taken in dribs and drabs over the last 3 months. Processed in Pixinsight. It's the Tadpoles (bottom right) and the Flaming Star Nebula (at the top).  Full res version here - 

I don't know which I am most impressed by - the fact that it's an unguided image or you having 2 clear nights !! 😉 

Well done. 

Chapeau!

Absolutely !!  One of the beauties of this group (as opposed to most FB groups etc) is that there are people here who know what they are talking about and can gently point out things to try to improve your images backed up by year of experience.

I have NEVER seen an image trashed or poked fun at here - we all start off on the bottom rung of the ladder.

The outer ring of the bearing should not move. You wont get accurate tracking if the bearing can move in its housing.

Depending how slack it is I would shim it - start with a thin strip of cooking foil around the outside of the bearing and keep adding more foil until its a firm push fit. 

If you get to lots of strips then try a strip from a juice can - easy to cut with scissors.

I think you have answered your own question!

Not really accurately polar aligned, set up on soft earth and not guiding.

I didn't see which scope you are using for these images but if its the SW 250 I am surprised the images are as good as they are - its a big ask for a HEQ5!!

Cracking Bolide this evening - 21.38.50hrs - shame about the weather - without the 100% cloud cover this would have really lit up the whole sky!

1 hour ago, Stuart1971 said:

Backlash on RA….🤔🤔 no that’s not an issue…

Ok - I dont seem able to provide anything useful - Skipper Billy out.....

This is sounding more like a backlash issue and/or PHD2 settings rather than an equipment issue.

As Michael said - lets see a Guidelog then we can see some facts rather than guessing.

14 hours ago, Stuart1971 said:

Well not really as I already have the figures, but wanted peoples thoughts on good imaging v guiding pixel scales…based on the kit I listed above…

ie, what is a good guiding image scale, v my actual imaging image scale…?/

That calculator tells me nothing about that….

I am pretty sure that I read somewhere that the ratio between imaging and guiding needs to be in the range of 1:1 to 1:4 and your current setup is well within that range.

I have used various setups that gave less than 1:1 and as high a 1:5 and to be honest it didn't make much difference to the guiding accuracy - on a night of decent seeing it always hovered ~ 0.4 - 0.5" pixels Total RMS error.

If you are getting total RMS error of 0.7 to 1.0 it is well under your imaging scale so in theory improving your guiding wont improve your images.

39 minutes ago, Roy Cropper said:

As astronomers we all know the moon has no dark side. The side facing away from the earth receives just as much sunlight as the side we can see.

You tell Phil Collins 😉 

This might help you.....

http://astronomy.tools/calculators/guidescope_suitability

I never understand why people buy these 'power tanks'.

Many of them are designed originally for starting cars in an emergency - they contain a battery that is designed to output immense power for a short period and then be recharged.

Our needs are for low power for a long time and not necessarily being recharged straight away - in other words we need a 'leisure' battery.

A good brand of leisure battery with a similar capacity can be easily obtained for well under £20

https://www.amazon.co.uk/YUASA-ELEC-ALARM-BATTERY-NP7-12/dp/B00SJI8NWM/ref=sr_1_16?keywords=house+alarm+battery&qid=1644678434&sr=8-16

Ten minutes making up suitable connectors pop it in an old camera bag making it easy to carry and protects it from the cold and 'bob's your uncle'.

I have been waiting 8 weeks to get the last of 3 colours on an image I started 3 months ago and the first clear night in many weeks coincided with a screaming Moon!

All was not lost as the Aurora kicked off and was naked eye visible even with the Moon blazing away!

 There is a time-lapse here - https://youtu.be/lsVoTCnJ28s

5 hours - 2 hours L in 15 min subs binned 1x1 and 1 hour each of RGB in 10 min binned 2x2

Atik 16200 mono.

Bortle 2 skies.

If you click on the list of suitable cards in the link in my post you can see which cards are 'in the game'.

Your card is on the list.

Just take your time - one step at a time - read each step twice and do it once. 😉 

If you use Pixinsight for processing and you have an Nvidia GeForce graphics card there is a trick you can use to force some processes to use the cores of your graphics card for the heavy lifting The most intensive programme I use is Starnet++ to produce a starless image which allows me to process the stars separately from the background then merge them back together as they need quite different techniques. On my old machine it took 22 minutes to solve an average image, my new machine will do it in 6 minutes which I thought was pretty impressive. Using the CUDA cores it does it in 32 seconds !!!! The full details are here - it sounds complicated but take it step by step and its quite straightforward. It only works with Windows 10 64 bit, Pixinsight and Nvidia Geforce graphics cards !!! https://darkskies.space/pixinsight-starnet-cuda/ 

2 hours ago, Padraic M said:

@Skipper Billy what is the data cable that goes from your mini PC to the ground? Is it Cat6 or is it USB to the mount?

Its a Cat5 cable from the Intel Nuc that goes into the house network. The PC in the house is on the same network and I use RDP to control the NUC. Flawless.  

1 hour ago, Anne S said:

What model NUC have you got? I'm trying to decide on one for my travel setup. Some of them just have a dc socket but are sold with a 19v mains adapter. I want to run it from my Pegasus micro powerbox. I was wanting an i3 based one if possible.

I am not sure of the exact model but its an i5 with 16GB Ram - it came with a 19v power supply but I read somewhere that it runs just as well off 12v so I tried it and it does and has done for well over 3 years without any issues. I use NINA and it is superb.