symmetal

Ooh! that's a bit worrying Dave. I wonder if FLO can send them to Es Reid for checking/fixing like the other WO scopes. Alan

Yes, that's correct Buzzard75. Alan

Thanks Dave, Clear Outside shows 5 green nights coming up so I thought I got the RC just in time. Alan

Yes it's a real pity Dave having waited so long. Now writing email to FLO. It's back to using the WO-61 then for the ASI1600. At least it's now much better once I got the tilt sorted out. Alan

You do agree it's a fault with the scope then Dave and needs returning. Alan

FLO. Have you tested yours from FLO yet Dave?

Took my first image with my new RedCat-51 this evening. Bahtinov focusing was very precise and easy. I used the ASI1600MM with filter wheel and took this 45 sec L sub centred on the Christmas Tree Cluster. Look at the bottom of frame particularly Bottom Left, out of focus smeary stars. I took three more subs rotating the camera through 90 deg each time and the horrible stars corners rotated 90 deg each time so looks like the fault is with the scope. I've included two CCD Inspector images of the 0 and 90 deg images which shows it clearly. I thought Petzval scopes were meant to save you having to bother with spacing and tilt troubles. Do you agree it has to go back? Alan

From the M48 thread the focus distance is 59.7mm. You can remove the adapter piece with the M48 thread to expose the M56 mounting thread. The focus distance from the M56 thread is 77.7mm. To remove the adapter, looking from the rear there are three grub screws in the centre of the 3 cutouts on the M48 adapter. Loosen these grub screws and the adapter unscrews. You will probably have to tighten the rotation lock screw first. WO only do three camera adapters from M48 for Canon, Nikon and Sony. I forgot to order the adapter with the scope and tried with an M48 to T2 adapter first but couldn't reach focus with my Canon. Have the M48-Canon adapter on back order. It may be easier for you to adapt from the M56 thread as there is more room to play with if you can find the right adapters. Alan

Vlaiv has pretty much said it all. If you look at the histogram curve of your image frame, (lights, flats, darks or bias), adding offset shifts the whole curve to the right, while reducing offset shifts it to the left. On the settings panel of some cameras 'offset' is labelled as 'brightness' but it's the same thing. Astrophotography processing generally involves stretching the dark areas of the images quite a lot and this is where the majority of the noise also occurs in the image. The darks and bias are used in calibration to help reduce the amount of noise present. If any frames have pixel values of zero it's highly likely that image data has been clipped, and then the calibration will not be applied correctly as the noise distribution in the frames is not representative of the true noise present. Adding a constant offset value to your frames avoids this situation happening. Like vlaiv I found the offset values often quoted for the ASI1600 are not high enough and you get some black level clipping. I've found an offset of 56 at unity gain just avoids this. It's worth mentioning that the ASI1600 (and possibly others) actually clip to a value of 1 and not 0, (well mine does anyway). This means that the minimum output value is 16 and not zero (when converted from 12 to 16 bit resolution). So values of 16 are most likely clipped values. At an offset of 56 the minimum value I get is 48 (16 bit) which is a value of 3 from the 12 bit A-D converter. So that's just OK. Alan

DHL delivered this from FLO yesterday. Was going to try it out during the day with the DSLR but being M48 rear it doesn't fit the standard T2 adaptor. In too much of a hurry ordering it to read the fine print. Tried with M48-T2 adapter but couldn't get focus. Ordered WO M48-Canon adaptor from FLO but they're currently out of stock. ? Will try with ASI1600 and filter wheel during the day as nothing to see at night at the moment. Alan

Hi pikecraig, at least it's not just me. I tried changing those same settings too to no avail. What processor/chipset is your PC. Is it a mini? As nobody else here seems to have the issue it doesn't seem to be a widespread problem. According to the tensforum link I posted Microsoft are aware of it and suggested disabling remote audio but that doesn't work for most. Consensus is that the March 12, 2019—KB4489899 update caused it. I just uninstalled that update and it hasn't cured it so hmmmm!. As you say hope there's a patch coming soon. Meanwhile just use 'Restore Down' instead of 'Minimize' and make it a little window in the corner of the desktop. Then 'Maximize' from there when needed. Alan

Thanks Sland, I've used Teamviewer and TightVNC in the past but they aren't as convenient to use full screen. Alan

Thanks SlimPaling but it would cost $98 to use on two remote computers. You're paying for 24hr tech support which isn't required for all of us just using a local network. I tried the video driver reinstall on the second PC but it hasn't fixed the problem on that one. Oh well, one out of two ain't bad. This has apparently been a problem reported with RDP going back to XP with a multitude of 'fixes' suggested, none of which are actual fixes as far as I can see. As it happened to me on 2 PCs around the same time as a Windows update I thought that might be the culprit. Alan

My only real preference for RDP is the easy full screen minimizing with a single mouse click. Full screen mode is necessary for multiple desktop working but other remote control applications seem to require multiple key presses to get in and out of full screen mode then a mouse click to minimize. I'm happy to be proved wrong though and if anyone knows of one that's as easy to use as RDP and doesn't cost a lot let me know. Alan

Device manager said the graphics driver was up to date. Went to Intel site and eventually found an Apollo Lake Celeron N3450 graphics driver. Installed it even though it reported it was older than the installed driver. No change on black screen. Went back to device manager to update driver back to latest which it did. However the black screen problem seems to have now gone away. I've had RDP minimized several times for durations up to 30 mins or so and it's been OK. It sometimes takes half a second on un-minimizing before the screen redraws but I'm OK with that. It's possible the latest windows update done a few days ago didn't update the graphics driver properly but forcing a re-install of the driver has fixed it. Hope so. Thanks Julian. I'll try it on the other Mini-PC tomorrow and see if it's 'cured' there too. Looked at dameware site and it's £290 for a single licence so I think I'll give that a miss at the moment. Alan

I've used both. Teamviewer is fine but needs internet connection to their website in order to save logon info. I prefer TightVNC because of this but both don't enable easy full screen working like RDP. You can't minimize full screen TightVNC without pressing Ctrl-Alt-Shift-F then minimize and vice versa. If they aren't true full screen you have scroll bars and I kept using the wrong menu bar as the remote one isn't in view. The only way is to use a smaller remote desktop but then the remote programs won't fit nicely. The choice of remote resolutions is too limited to find one that works. Hence I used RDP as my latest mini-PCs were Win 10 Pro. If anyone knows how to have 1920x1080 on local and remote with easy switching between them or easy remote full screen minimizing on TightVNC or Teamviewer let me know. I haven't heard of that. Does it resolve the issues I mentioned above? Alan The mini-PCs have standard onboard Intel HD Graphics. I'll see if there are any updates. Alan

In the past few days I've found that if you minimize a Windows Remote Desktop session and leave it minimized for around 30 secs or so when you restore it the remote screen is black. According to this tenforums topic it may be related to a recent Windows update. Suggested fixes don't work. I have two imaging mini PCs that I RDP into and this has occurred on both. They are both kept up to date which may not have been a good strategy. ? Does anyone else have this problem? I have Win 10 Pro 64 bit on all machines. The remote session is still active, it's just the screen doesn't get re-drawn anymore. To get around it I have to shut down and reopen the RDP session which is annoying. Alan

Glad it's back working. With the weather you couldn't have used it anyway so not much lost. Alan

No, the laptop charger and the Nevada PSU are the only items running off the mains. Laptop PSU (19V @ 3.34A) is 63W. At 90% efficiency this will draw 0.3A from the mains. The Nevada supplying 13.8V @ 8A delivers 110W. At 60% efficiency this will draw 0.76A from the mains. Total mains current 1.06A. This is the maximum current, and in in normal use you will never use this amount. 0.5A mains current is a realistic average value so you're perfectly OK with the reel wound in. Personally I would only be concerned about unwinding the reel fully if your drawing 5A or more mains current. That's assuming your reel is rated at 13A which it looks like it is from the cable size in your pics. Alan

Neat solution. Good advice if the the extension is being used near its maximum capacity of 13A, but at the load used here (less than 1A) the reel won't heat up if it's left wound in. You'll probably need ventilation due to the heat produced by the linear power supply and laptop though, if the lid is left fitted in use. Alan

I thought that would be the result unfortunately, but at least you can swap it with a short road trip. Meanwhile enjoy playing with the fluffy model clouds. Alan

Ah, didn't know you're an electronics engineer too Shelster. Well, I'm a retired one now. Was going to say the two 3 terminal packages (SOT-223) with the heat sink tabs above the power connectors are the 5V and 3.3V regulators. You can measure the voltages on the tabs. (For future reference) Alan

Looks like the same board as on the AZ-EQ6. As you say nothing looks out of the ordinary. Did you re-seat the connectors to the power input and switch? The only real way is to measure the voltages around the board but that means having it powered with the board hanging out which risks causing shorts. As it's under guarantee probably best avoided if you're not too confident doing this. As you've tried several different power supplies and 2 different power leads I'd be surprised that a new power supply will fix it, but you never know. Good luck anyway. Alan

It looks like a high resistance connection inside the mount. With the power disconnected remove the side panel with the connectors on (the 4 outermost screws I expect) and look at the wire connections from the power connector and power switch to the PCB. Maybe one of the wires is only held by a few strands. or there's a bad solder joint. You could also remove the power connector on the PCB itself and check for any heat damage (dis-colouration) on the connector pins which indicates a poor connection. If there's nothing obvious and you have a multimeter power it up with the side panel hanging off (ensure nothing is shorted to the mount) and measure the 12V on the PCB each side of the power switch while your slewing to see where the 12V drops. If it's still looking OK then there may be a component failure which is a bit more complicated to find if your're not electronically minded. Alan

I use Rosco filters on my Huion LED flats panel just like Oddsocks though I use 1 or 2 sheets of 0.9 ND (3 stops) depending on the scope. Alan