matt_baker

Just wondering what this does?

Hi Michael, this was just the guide log from the day after back on the 5th Sept so none of the changes you suggested were applied. Although I did make sure to nudge the mount north that time to cancel any backlash. I'll make sure to run a long guide assistant and balance it slightly east heavy and see if that helps. I typically balance so nothing moves. I'll measure the backlash too and see what that says

The setup itself has very bad cable management, I've never got round to properly sorting that out. My power box is located on the side of the mount as I have pretty much no where on the OTA for it to go, as the RPi takes the only space. The cables have to be somewhat long to make sure there's no snagging and ends up ripping off. I make sure when setting up that throughout the whole motion of the mount, there no cables are snagging. My only solution that I can think of is removing the finder scope from the dovetail and strap both the RPi and power box in its place. My concerns with this are by moving the finder scope back, my dovetail for the telescope won't have any more space to move up as it's already at the limit with the camera being so far back. The other issue is that the main power cable is rather dense and large. This may cause a lot of cable drag as it moves around with the telescope. I've attached some photos of the setup (don't mind the mess) Also attached the guide log from the night after the one sent previously. Guiding had to be paused for some of it due to the powerbox falling off. The adhesive decided to give up, so I sellotaped it down as a temp measure. One of the huge dec spikes was the powerbox falling off again, so don't mind that. PHD2_GuideLog_2023-09-05_220434.txt

Here's 13.7 hours in HOO of the Eastern Veil Nebula but Foraxx palette for more natural stars. The OIII haloing with ZWO 7nm filters isn't the best but was manageable and really not too noticeable thankfully Ha: 48x480" @ Gain 139 OIII: 55x480" @ Gain 139

Thank you, Steve! Although I can remote into my setup from university, I'm busy most of the time and mainly back in the summer when there's no astronomical darkness so I tend not to bother. Hopefully will have some spare time this year along with some decent nights!

Been a very long time since I've done some proper imaging but finally back at it, hopefully more to come in the near future. I decided that the Eastern Veil would be a great target to go for at this time of year. Here's 13.7 hours in HOO but Foraxx palette for more natural stars. The OIII haloing with ZWO 7nm filters isn't the best but was manageable and really not too noticeable thankfully Ha: 48x480" @ Gain 139 OIII: 55x480" @ Gain 139 Taken with: TS Optics 90mm Triplet ZWO 1600MM Pro HEQ5 Pro All processed in PixInsight.

Just taken a look at the frequency analysis and there's a 1.2" spike at 122s. Looking at some other posts, they appear to have a spike at 13.6s and a smaller one at 120-122s. Although I don't have a spike at 13-14s, is this to do with belt tension perhaps? There's 9 teeth on the pulley so it makes sense for it to be happening at 122s Not sure what the much larger spikes are at the end however

I can't tell whether the spikes I'm getting in RA are periodic or random (excluding any dithering events) Dec seems to be fine for the most part, although that too has spikes (Overcorrecting perhaps?) Would be greatly appreciated if anyone can take a look at this guiding log and provide any suggestions PHD2_GuideLog_2023-09-05_002312.txt

Was taking some test shots after adjusting backfocus. Corner stars have improved but don't have enough space on the threads to put anymore delrin spacers so stopped. Couldn't help but notice that the bottom right of the stars are slightly cut off however there's nothing blocking that should cause that so not sure what may be causing it. Would anyone be able to help?

Is astrobuysell down for anyone else?

Well the sensor was listed on Sony's website in April, so I'd expect there to be cameras potentially on the market around the same time next year or in the summer

It's on a school site so concrete is pretty much surrounding the observatory and there's a lot of buildings facing south where I'm looking most of the time. I'd say it's probably 50/50 with poor seeing from the atmosphere and buildings. Saying that I did have a look at a star above 60 degrees and it was still dancing all over the shop, I still could barely make out the rings even with it being outside for a couple of hours but that could've been very poor seeing

Observatory is on a flat roof and there are buildings 40m in front, which I can only guess is not helping at all. It's a dome with a slit too. I'm fairly sure that video was taken a couple of hours after opening, there's only me inside, there's no air con inside there and the dew shield was on.

Forgot to mention also that since it's located on a school site, there's quite a few buildings within where I'd be pointing the scope to the south so I can only assume the heat coming from them is only going to hinder the view further. Although again saying that, when I pointed the scope almost overhead, it was still very bad. Next time it's clear and I'm there, I'll take a quick video on an out of focus star.

I have access to a C14 in an observatory (not mine). I've recently been attempting to use it again, particularly to collimate, but the image I'm getting is that awful. The stars are dancing and flailing around so much even basically overhead that I can't really make out the concentric rings to get a proper gauge what the collimation is actually like. I tried using metaguide and using seeing view but it's still awful. I did forget to take a sample video of what the star looked like but I do have a couple of examples with Jupiter and the Moon I've heard things like wrapping it in Reflectix to slow down the cooling to prevent heat plumes which is something I might consider. Also the idea of using a Lymax cooler but I do wonder how much better that would be considering the cost. Has anyone got any recommendations or tips to help? Here's some footage of what Jupiter and the Moon looked like, although taken at 27 degrees. Matt 96390168ae73922083f46a397301dab6.mp4