tomato

Thanks, I was determined to make the Mesu work hard before I finish with this hobby. Most of the second hand kit has been shrewdly purchased and would make about 5-10% more if sold again, so I see it as a bit of an investment ( well, that’s what I say to Mrs Tomato😜).

Very nice test of the software. I am also new to SGP, and couldn’t resist using the mosaic tool first time out. It worked really well on the first night, but have struggled since when trying to go back and capture more data on specific panels. The plate solving does make you lazy, no more eyeballing through the Telrad.😎

Very nice, and Happy New Year to you and Monique. The filament is intriguing, I can’t recall seeing it previously, but M1 is a very dynamic object, there aren’t many DSOs that you can see evolving over a 10 year period.

You are not the first to comment on the spindly looking bolts, they have been OK on a single scope, but two up could well be a different story. It should be fairly straight forward to double up on the bolts, and shorten them, as it won’t make much difference to the horizon limit.

After putting together a permanent dome observatory over the autumn, the next project is a dual Esprit 150 imaging rig. Myself and @Tomatobro have slowly been gathering the components, buying second hand when possible (adjustable saddle, plates, 2nd scope). With the dome drive nearing completion, I bolted the dual saddle arrangement together and put the two scopes on the Mesu for the first time today. I think the arrangement will be stiff enough, but this is unfamiliar territory for me. The good news is the working dual scope aperture is 20” the dome aperture is 23”, precise dome control will therefore be mandatory. Needless to say they were mega out of balance, but I made no progress with this as I wanted to get the single scope back up and running. More posts to follow as we travel further on down the dual rig road...

Further progress made over the festive season, the circular rack made up of 6 lengths joined together, has been installed using adjustable brackets so that it can be made reasonably level and circular so that the drive motor does not have to be spring loaded. The rack sections were purchased from Poland as a one off on eBay, but I have had a quick look on the net, a lot of powered gate fabricators can supply something very similar, around £22 for a metre length. The motor and drive gear is almost complete, a rotary encoder has been fitted, to enable precise positioning of the dome aperture, this will be needed when two 150mm refractors are in there. Today we connected a temporary power supply and drove the dome around under it’s own power.👍 Today, I took the scope off the mount, to size up the saddle and plates for the dual rig...😊

That all looks good. I think the hinged closure is there to enable the tank to be emptied without getting a little puddle on the floor. If water is running into the tank with the hose attached, there must be something amiss further up. Is the dehumidifier still under warranty?

On the DD 122, doesn’t the external hose attach to the outlet nozzle that would normally fill the tank, so the water either goes down the pipe to the outside or fills the tank? I had quite a job pushing the hose over the nozzle, I wonder if the hose is coming off, allowing the tank to fill and then tripping the dehumidifier? However, I guess you would know that the hose had come off?

Very nice, keep this up and I can see a book on lunar and planetary imaging in the making....👍

Just captured this image tonight, can only be one thing, right? At least Santa is only up there one night of the year! Happy Christmas to all on SGL.

So, more subs taken on the outer arms, unfortunately under less than ideal conditions. To keep the panel integration roughly the same I used some images of the central region taken in 2018, these were on a good night so I have really struggled to get a neutral background, you can see the differences on the second image. I have resorted to some very heavy handed methods to get an even background and in so doing have lost some of the sharpness and luminosity that was present in some of the better panel integrations. I just need to capture decent data, the 150 is pulling in some good detail I think, each panel is (on average) 72 mins of integration

The clear plastic tubing supplied with my dehumidifier was quite inflexible and did not take kindly into being bent into a S shape to connect to the outside drain point, causing it to flatten out quite severely. This has been replaced with more pliable silicon rubber tubing, and so far no problems, it’s been installed about the same length of time as yours.

Awesome, Star Adventurer is a very apt name indeed when put to use under a sky like this.

Although a permanent pier would simplify set up time, I don’t think you want to be taking a Mesu (even a Mk2) on and off every session, so it is how you feel about leaving it on there with limited weather protection and security. Could you persuade your wife to accept a small roll off structure over the pier? This would be much smaller than a full blown observatory (more like a narrow garden store), these have been used to good effect by a number of users of this forum. I am sure there are some build threads in the DIY section. That would keep your mount on the pier with decent weather protection and security.

+1 for Startools as value for money processing software. I use GIMP quite a bit, I find it reasonably stable. Like you, I prefer to image galaxies rather than nebulae, but I am fortunate in having a less light polluted sky. A dedicated Astro camera makes a massive difference, there are dozens of galaxy targets that will fit on a ASI 178 sensor (around £350), and you could just image in mono initially. The CMOS technology works well with lots of shorter exposures so cooling and to some extent guiding are not of paramount importance. A larger sensor and NB filters would solve your light pollution, but I think it is important to image the targets you enjoy.

I used to set up and take down a Mesu Mk 1 every session, and the weight was an issue, sooner or later I would have dropped it, that’s why it is now in a permanent observatory. As you say the the Mk 2 is some 10 kg lighter which helps a lot but it does not have the alt/az adjustments like the Mk 1 so aligning it each time could be a pain. Although an observatory is not an option, could you have a permanent pier for the mount? If you are an imager, it is very easy to eat into a mount’s carrying capacity...

Yes, iPlayer seems to have got more officious and slower in equal measure in recent years, oddly it always seems to run quicker and more reliably on hand held devices rather than the telly, maybe I need a new ‘smart” TV?

Thanks for this, just found it on iPlayer. Hats off to the original constructor, what an amazing scope and mount, and the repair shop team did a fine job. An excellent bit of TV.

Thanks for the tip. Yes, I’ve been reading Mabula’s How to posts on Mosaics and I was using the wrong workflow, I’m currently trying to combine some old data with these panels, but with varying success. I do take flats, but I have noticed that since setting up the scope in the permanent observatory, I am getting some odd shaped histograms on them. There appears to be a light gradient running from top to bottom on the sensor, whereas the illumination was quite uniform previously. I realise the purpose of the flats is to eliminate these type of gradients, but I am puzzled why this has now appeared.

Superb, I’m trying something similar but alas not with the same outcome.

I'll see about posting a couple of panels, in the meantime this is what I have with the LRGB data, smooth it is not, clearly more subs needed!

I have tried the current Focusmaster V1 ASCOM driver with both 32 and 64 bit N.I.N.A., with no success. Last error message is attached. Looks like it will have to be SGP going forward.

Thanks for this, I’ll first need to download the 64 bit version of NINA, then I’ll give it a try.

I have encountered the same problem as other users (I think, based on posts in the NINA forum) of the Hitec ASCOM focuser driver causing an error when connecting to NINA, causing the software to close. Interestingly, the driver does appear to work with SGP. Does anybody know if Hitec Astro are on the case with this one (I believe there is no Hitec 64 bit driver available either for imaging sequence programs) or are we stuck with it? Its a pity if that is the case as I think the Hitec unit is a fine piece of kit and compatibility with an Open Source integrated imaging software package would be valuable asset.