ChrisLX200

The only advantage of that simple NAS box (as opposed to a more powerful QNAP) is that it doesn't need a host computer to operate/make its storage space available. However, if you are willing to just have an external drive then the Seagate 8 TB USB drive is better value - I gave a link to it earlier and @ £209 for 8 TB it's cheap mass storage. I'd be a bit wary of the data transfer speed to this D-Link device (over ethernet) as you may well find it crawls with multiple small files.. With an attached USB 3 drive you would get the full speed of your gigabit ethernet network, modulated (downward) by the write speed of the hard drive. ChrisH

I recently bought this offer from Maplins (that's right Maplins ) http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/seagate-backup-plus-hub-8tb-external-desktop-hard-drive-a07wj 8TB of extra storage for £209, pretty cheap I think. Works well. The drive inside is a Seagate Archive 8TB drive and even with the USB3 enclosure (with a built-in USB3 hub) it's still cheaper than the bare drive price elsewhere. It's not exactly the fastest drive ever but I transferred 260GB last night @ 109MB/sec which is perfectly OK for the purpose. I'll be using this to store my nightly AllSky camera videos which are starting to take up a lot of disk space. ChrisH

Good thinking to plit the ring into 3 parts to make it fit the table! ChrisH

I can think of a lot of words for it - Amazing isn't at the top of the list though. My gear and I sat outside for 3 hours last night in the expectation of the clear sky forecast by both Met and CO, of course there was only solid cloud. ChrisH

The Soap Bubble is going to be really difficult with the Full Moon up Gina! The 3nM filter is a great asset on nights like this but it's no magic wand ChrisH

Yes that is a typical icing pattern... ChrisH

I find a separate NAS is better for bulk data storage, with a gigabit network and 70MB/sec transfer you get easy access from any PC - plus some extra security with the usual RAID architecture normally employed. I use a QNAP which you would like I think Gina seeing as it's LINUX based There is a big range of models and the minmum I recommend would be a 4-bay device (to get a RAID 5 or 10 config) and yes, over the years I've had 2 hard drives go down on the NAS and been able to painlessly replace them with no loss of data. It's getting time I should think about upgrading to a newer one I think as I've had this one at least 5 years now. ChrisH

The North America and Pelican mirrored! ChrisH

Looks a neat setup for this time of year - not so great during a long cold Winter night though! It is exaclty what I used to do a few years back ChrisH

I would suggest using your most simple and reliable setup at first - fewer bugs to flatten before you start getting some nice images! ChrisH

Findercam view tonight, imaging... guess what? :-) ChrisH

I would take issue with that OIII channel can often add a lot of structural definition - this is my (3yr old) OIII channel for the Rosette: ChrisH

I'm going to have to move to Stockport, the LP seems a bit less there... ChrisH

From 15 years ago! Back when I did visual using my 12" OO f/5.3 Newt. Home-made EQ mount and tripod. These taken using Moonlight only to light the scene (middle of nowhere in South Pennines). ChrisH

Yes it has to be 2" filters with this big sensor. Drop-off seems reasonable and easily corrected with flats. I've seen very few results with this new camera so would be interested to hear how you get on with it ChrisH

I agree - I think it is a 'B' mount. Somewhere in the house I have an AE catalog showing all their designs, I used to drool over photos of the larger models when I was a youngster - which was a long time ago now :-) ChrisH

Love that mount - is it C (your sig) or B? Whichever, you're not going to be wearing that out any time soon :-) ChrisH

Current solar setup - SW Equinox 80 with a Quark, and Coronado SolarMax 60. ChrisH

That's a fairly expensive upgrade - there's no info on the SB page you link, so can you say what benefits there are by doing this? ChrisH

I'm sorry Dave - confession time... I'm NOT using your program, I;ve got my sources confused and the one I'm actually using is that of Robert Brown! So I'm posting in the wrong thread myself I guess... ;-( There are so many different versions/projects - which is really a good thing, but confusing! I did start out playing with the 28BYJ-48 motor plus NANO, but then looked for a more powerful motor with suitable driver board - that led me to using a NEMA17-PG5 + L293D Shield. Somewhere along this path I obviously swapped projects and authors! ChrisH

I think you're right Dave, it does get very confusing (speaking as someone entirely new to mucking around with Arduinos and coding for them!). I had to filter the posts to find those relevant to your project, that doesn't mean I don't want to add mods - I do - but would prefer to look in a separate thread for those I think. However, all the info provided is gratefully accepted ;-) ChrisH

This is all your stuff Dave ;-) downloaded from your SourceForge page. Although I have been experimenting with other stuff too. I would really like to add the backlash compensation feature because autofocus is not going to be accurate without it, and I don't know if it's possible to use AccelStepper library to potentially increase max speed. Also I need it to remember position from one session (power down/up) to the next. None of these mods fall within my current knowledge of Arduino programming so I'm on a crash learning course.. :-) I should add here for the benefit of others (with my engineering hat on!) you really _have_ to arrange for some sort of slip-clutch mechanism if attaching this motor to a Rack and Pinion focuser. The focuser will be history if the motor tries to drive it past either end (a hard stop). ChrisH

I read through this post, and looked on SourceForge at the comprehensive write-up. It looked straighforward to follow the instructions and I figured even I could get this working ;-) Needless to say I was mistaken :-( I have the basic hardware cabled correctly as a test system on the bench, Software installed OK, communications work fine. I'm using the option for NEMA17-PG5 + UNO + L293D Shield (my UNO is R3 though). I'm using v2.19_L293D_F 18022016 which compiled and uploaded without a hitch, and either the Windows App or the ASCOM test program will connect to the motor no problem and commands appear to reach the controller and results are returned (position etc.,). However... It seems stuck at 10000 position, if I give a command to move to, say 9000, it will rotate to 9500 then back again to 10000 (?!). Sometimes the motor runs very fast for a second then crawls along at a snails pace. I don't know if it's the code (I haven't changed anything other than the settings required - MotorPort, and settings for FullStep mode - const int stepsPerRevolution = 1028). I;ve gone through all the settings tabs to make sure they make sense. So is it my hardware? (I don't have the other options connected like temp probe, LCD screen, button switches etc., just what you see in the image below). ChrisH Edit: went through the code line by line, found the 'special note' in Main Loop about disabling the code for buttons if none are attached. Did that and can now control direction and movement correctly (using ASCOM driver and SGPro). Movement is woefully slow though, even with a speed setting of '3'. This is full step (1028), have not tried half-step. Edit 2: 'Dropped' the speed from 3 down to 2 and now the motor turns much faster...? Edit 3: OK, found that the data for speed is 'ambitious' by default - speed 1=1, speed 2=10, speed 3=200 (!). So 10 is near optimal for speed. Also, if the gearbox is really 5:1 then the number of steps per revolution is not 1028 (step angle 0.35deg), I think that was rounded up from 0.347deg as it's actually 1036 steps per revolution (this motor here anyway). Other than that the basic thing appears to be working now...

Hmm. Just 5 images? I don't know what are the best so I'll just choose some randomly... First 3 are using the NP127is and Atik490EX camera, last 2 are using the NP127is and G4-16000 camera. ChrisH

It is more complicated to collimate than a Newt, you need a decent laser (like a Glatter) and follow the various tutorials - there's a YouTube one linked from the AA website. The problem with RCs is that there is only one position where both primary and secondary mirrors are both in correct alignment with each other - unlike a Newt or SCT where the secondary can be collimated independantly and good collimation achieved. ChrisH