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Martin Farmer

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  1. Give it another try but set the plugin to save the focusing run to disk - you are able to then go and review what it has done. It produces one full frame image of best focus and numerous PNG that are annotated with the values of HFR, you can then make reference to the points in the curve that are causing you issues and see what values it calculated or if it failed then you can see why (I assume it was unable to calculate any values). When I went over from the internal focus routine within Nina I had to reduce the step size slightly with the HF plugin. Stick with it and perhaps post on here your findings StuartT.
  2. As I understand it it won't annotate the stars whilst it is performing the autofocus routine. If you watched the excellent Patriot video it's a bit misleading in the fact that Chad has annotation on his stars within running the autofocus routine - What I think he has done it to edit in the saved images from a Hocus Focus run. This is something you can do and is very useful to go back and review the saved information whilst not at the telescope. You will only see the effects of the autofocus on HFR within this data - just enable the save and the save path, but be aware it generates quite some data..
  3. Hi, I’m using one of the AMS weather stations. It’s proved extremely reliable and very effective in detecting the onset of poor weather conditions for imaging. https://www.amsobs.com/ regards Martin
  4. I have one Ian. I upgraded to the new controller last year. regards, martin
  5. Hello Group, I would appreciate your help in identifying what would be a high end computer with sufficient performance to run Pixinsight for the foreseeable. To start the ball rolling I’m interested also in CAD for my 3D printer so it’s going to be a dual purpose machine. I’m considering an AMD Ryzen processor with 64Gb of memory and an NVIDIA graphics card that will make use of the recently announced use of GPU with Pixinsight. Finally the use of a solid state drive with conventional drive for backups etc. what do you consider is a suitable specification and possibly identify some vendors (if allowed) that a suitable machine can be sourced from. Thanks for your time - I appreciate it. Regards Martin
  6. All, Thanks for info and replying. The camera originally had a built in filter wheel that allowed five internal filters. At the time of purchase there was an offer that you could buy the FW8 filter wheel at a good discounted price. I got the FW8 filter wheel so I could add a full set of narrowband filters as well as LRGB. There is no way with the FW8 on that any lens will reach focus it’s too far away from the CCD. Looking at the pictures of the Nikon lens adaptor it seems to be a very low profile device and it goes straight onto the front of the internal filter wheel housing. I can’t remember if it screws into the small block on the front or you remove this and fit it directly on. When I used the camera with a focal reducer I went down the route of having an adapter made by Precise Parts in the States. I have looked through online buy and sell web sites but they don’t seem to have any of the Nikon adaptors listed (probably they were popular about five years ago). I see Gerd Neumann lists an adaptor to take Canon lenses - I will email to find out more. Thanks for the suggestion of a medium format lens - I had not considered them. thanks to Michael, Peter, Dave & Steve for responding to my post. Regards, Martin
  7. Hello Peter, Thanks for your reply to my post, I didn’t go deep on info as I suppose the question is are there any amateurs on here with the same combination who are using old 35mm lenses. Further research by myself has come up with I cannot use the add on filter wheel FW8 and will have to revert back to the internal filter wheel as backfocus is extremely limited. regards Martin
  8. Hello Group, I have an SBIG STL11000M with SBIG 8 position filter wheel that I currently have on the back of a telescope. This camera is getting on a bit (but still works), what I’m currently thinking is to take this off the scope and use old 35mm camera lenses on the camera directly. Looking around the internet there is not much information on what adaptors or lenses people have used. Due to its age I think that I will have to resort to scouring around the second hand market for adaptors - anyone got any pointers on you use of this camera and 35mm lenses. Thanks for looking Martin
  9. Hello Steve, It was a question I had and raised on the Voyager forum. 8 relays on the Velleman board is a squeeze so that's why I added the small board and used the analogue out on the Velleman. You can add multiple Vikings running as a custom licence and that I understand is one way to do what you want to do - but please check on the forum to get confirmation on this fact.. Regarding the programming question - I myself cant answer this but as I said in an earlier post there are 4 of us within our small group who use Voyager and one of these guys is using scripts and calling them from the on the fly mode run external scripts from within a sequence. He is working on automation but not using Viking, I think he is a user of this site so I could get him to join in the discussion - I will ask him later on tonight on our Skype group call. Did you post the circuit onto the forum you wanted to post it on Steve? Regards Martin
  10. Hello Steve, Are you using the standard licence of Voyager?. If so then Viking can only access one Velleman board at a time - Just a thought. Regards Martin
  11. Steve, Regarding my AAG unit it is connected to a Solo unit and both of these units along with the observatory pc are running 24/7. If I understand your post correctly you don’t leave your AAG on all the time?. Sorry I’m no programming expert so I cannot offer any advice regarding your predicament concerning your script running. Best, Martin
  12. Hello Steve, Please go ahead and post it. I’m glad it’s of use to others. It would be good if Velleman had produced a board with more relays on. Best Regards Martin
  13. All, Further to my post here is how I added two extra relays that Voyager/Viking control. Users of the Velleman K8055N (VM110N) I/O card coupled with the K8056 (VM129) will know there are only 8 relay outputs but by adding this circuit you can make use of the DAC1 & DAC 2 to give you two more relay outputs driven by the analog outputs. Connection of the relays directly to the Velleman I/O card did not work so I used a transistor that’s switched by the I/O DAC output and let this operate the relay. The photograph of the little circuit board I have put together has a 5 Volt regulator also to drop it down to 5V as I am using a 5V relay. Operation of these two extra relays are done through the Viking program. My unit operated on a DAC output of 3 Volts (you could alter the value of the 10K resistor but it worked) image2681×1581 929 KB image2785×1569 952 KB I am putting this out there as one solution to adding more output to your Velleman I/O unit - please be careful with the soldering iron and make sure you are happy with what you have built before connecting it all together. Don’t shoot the messenger. Regards Martin
  14. Hello Steve, i have just come come across this new thread regarding Voyager and I thought I would add my thoughts. I’m glad you downloaded a demo Steve after our telephone call recently, I think you will get to like the program and it may prove a good replacement for your existing software. I came across Voyager over 12 months ago when I was looking for software to run my automated observatory that I have been working on for the last two years. I use a Velleman USB K8056 and K8055N (VM 110N & VM129) that I control using Viking module. I have a ROR type of observatory and that has been able to open and close via a motor for a few years now, so linking into the new kit was relatively straightforward to do. I had been using previously MaximDL and Focusmax for many years but after a conversation with Leonardo I moved over to only using Voyager as the single solution for capturing data. Over the past 12 months with Voyager I have been using the on the fly mode to gain more of an understanding of how the program operates and behaves and I can only say it does what it says on the tin - for me it’s reliable and repeatable with operation each and every clear night. i am in the final phase of my total automation project with the writing of the dragscript to take over total control - this is currently being worked on and I’m looking forward to handing over to Voyager the running whilst I sleep. So just to add some additional information regarding my setup and Voyager:- I use an AAG cloud sensor & PHD2 guiding and homemade flat panel/endcover. The roof is driven by rack and pinion mechanism that’s homemade and not using an Ascom driver so Viking and the Velleman solution works really well. Coming back to Voyager, I would certainly recommend you giving it a try even if you are not planning in going to an automated observatory. There are seven of us in a small imaging group and four who use Voyager with the other two just using it in the on the fly mode with precise pointing at targets all the time coupled with fast and accurate focusing (it’s really taking the frustration out of astrophotography). I understand that it may not suit everyone’s expectations and that’s perfectly acceptable, but you won’t know till you give it a go. The support that users have access to with this software is the best personally I have come across. Finally, I have no commercial ties to Leonardo - i’m Just putting out here my current personal experiences with the software. Best Regards Martin
  15. Hello All, Just to bring to your attention some software that I have come across whilst evaluating software to run my automated observatory. Voyager is the main software that connects it all together and Viking is a program that compliments by adding in control of I/O devices such as the Velleman K8055N and others. Take a look on this link https://software.starkeeper.it/index.php/voyager/ I have no connection with the author of this software - just putting it out for your awareness. Regards Martin
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