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Astroboffin

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Everything posted by Astroboffin

  1. Hi, first of all I am confused by a few of your statements. Using a focal reducer does increase your field of view, and the photons are spread over fewer pixels, but you will be getting more arc seconds of sky per pixel, so your pixel scale will go up. so yes as you will be getting more light then you can lower the exposure. as for binning, if,you bin 2x2 in the camera, and you have say 5 micron size square pixels, then after binning those pixels are now 10 micron size in effect and twice as sensitive as before so it makes the camera a lot more sensitive, but at the cost of halving the resolution, but you are still imaging the same amount of sky, so the image will be the same but lower resolution when binning. binning in the software will not give you the same effect, as hardware binning in the camera. so the reducer and binning are two completely different things, and binning in the software will not increase your FOV like the reducer will, so there is no way binning can take the place of a focal reducer, as it would have to alter the FOV of the image to do that, and it doesn't, it just lowers the resolution, but makes the camera more sensitive. so the two things are completely different. i hope that all makes sense, and is of some help. AB
  2. Lol, have fun, and clear skies.....

  3. Saw this last night, superb way of protecting the little gold wires you are all talking about, using epoxy resin to encase the wires, which allows you to be a bit more heavy handed without fear of damaging them, would give a nice solid edge to scrape up too. Of course you may already know about this idea, but I thought it was quite clever.... http://www.jtwastronomy.com/tutorials/debayer.html AB
  4. Finally planning my obsy build this year, now I have had permission from SWMBO...lol

    1. Gutross

      Gutross

      congrats! look forward to the bild log

    2. Astroboffin

      Astroboffin

      Yes, I will be sure to start a thread....

    3. wxsatuser

      wxsatuser

      You won't regret it;

      Good luck on the build.

  5. A new year..but the same old weather....!!

  6. Oh well, it's all over now.....

    1. cotterless45

      cotterless45

      Mad for one day !

    2. Astroboffin

      Astroboffin

      Yes, I agree entirely, but we love it really :)

  7. Only 3 more sleeps.....

  8. You could do what I sugested in my first post, and remove the field flattener lens from a Meade or celestron reducer, it is very very simple to do, when you unscrew the locking ring, stand up on a piece of cloth and the lens comes out in two pieces with a small plastic spacer between, lift the top lens off ( this is the flattener, it is nearest the camera end) and then the little spacer, then put the casing back over the reducer lens and put the locking ring back in.....simples, now you just have an f6.3 reducer. I have removed a few of them to fit into a 2" cell so they would fit inside my 2" focuser, rather than have to screw on the back with the SCT threads, but I kept the flattener in also. Can't see why it would not work, and a much cheaper option. AB
  9. Yes me too, sorry Should read the post properly before answering... Regards AB
  10. What would you not want to correct the field too, once the reducer has done its job you will get a large amount of field curvature issues and you will need them corrected by the flattener.If you really don't want to correct the errors, then if you get a Meade or celestron f6.3 you have two sets of lens in them, and you can remove the one nearest to the camera and that is the flattener, and just leave the reducer in place......simples.. Regards AB
  11. I will do, as I have all the bits arriving over the next week, so the fun will start, although by the sounds of it, I have done what can be a awkward bit and got all the software installed and up and running, but using my Arduino Uno ATM. I am going for a design that see just the motor on the focuser and the rest of the electrics and control boards will be in a project box on my mount about a metre away, so I will need to extend the 5 core motor cable, and am thinking of using a Cat5 cable with sockets On the box either end to connect all together. AB
  12. Ok, so I have figured out this stepper motor issue with the steps, the motor I am getting is the 12v, 64 step with a 1/64 gear inside, version of the one the OP used, which means that it gives 64x64 = 4096 steps, but as in the sketch the motor moves 8 steps per driver step, that means 4096\8 = 512 steps per Rev, so I will leave set at 8. But I can see the motor the OP used was a 32 step with 1/16 reduction gear, which gives 32x16= 512 steps, but for that motor to get the full 512 steps the MOTOR_STEPS_PER_DRIVER _STEP would need to be set at 1 Well it makes sense to me now anyway, but worth knowing if you are looking at buying one of these motors, as they all look the same on eBay, but they are not. :) AB
  13. Yes very interesting, but I stand by what I said before, I still think you have it the wrong way round, if you take a wide field image with the small 66mm f4.8 scope you can get away with it a tad out of focus without it damaging the image too badly. But in contrast if you use an 2000mm f10 scope and image Jupiter for instance, focus is absolutely critical for a half decent image. And I think on the site that was linked it says that but in a very very scientific way, which is very hard to decipher. The in focus area of the f4.8 scope is much smaller due to the large field of view, whereas the f10 scope has a much bigger in focus area because of the much smaller FOV, so consequently much more critical as much more noticeable...... So let's here from others......on this AB
  14. This is the spec sheet for the motor I have found, and the others I have seen 12v and 5v are the same apart form voltage, 64 step, 5.625 degrees per step, so 64 x 5.625 = 360 degrees.Can't find any with 515 steps, So with your method of being able to reduce that figure from 8 to 1 does that then give me 512 steps, per shaft Rev, assuming there is no internal gearing
  15. I think that is the other way round, f4.8 is more forgiving than f10, as f10 is far More magnified, than f4.8, the field of view is much smaller. Well that's my understanding anyway AB
  16. Yes agree with most of that, but not sure about the bit to do,with the steps on the mentioned stepper motor, it is reported to be a 64 step motor, not 512, as it says that in the write up on these motors each step is about 5.3 degrees, so 64x5.3= 360 approx one full revolution.By lowering that number from 8 to 4 I thought they became, 1/4 steps so in effect the actual steps get smaller but more of them, so 64x4 =256 steps per revolution, as each step moves about 1.3 degrees........ That was my understanding but maybe the OP can step in and explain.....as we seem to have completely opposite answers to this one....lol Thanks anyway AB
  17. That is my worry I have a standard skywatcher DC motor fitted ATM on the rough focus shaft, (direct drive) of my William Optics ZS66, and can get very good fine focus with that using the Hitecastro DC focuser controller using the DC motor step routine built into it. So how much better would this 64 step, stepper motor be, apart from the obvious of incremental steps and being able to move back to exact position. The other thing is that I am going to go for the 12v version of the stepper mother used here by the OP. Am I right in assuming that on a 66mm f4.8 scope focus is not quite as critical for wide field deep sky imaging, as it will be for planetary imaging on my f10 8" SCT, this is the one I want the stepper motor for, as I am getting a new Crayford focuser on the back. Regards AB
  18. I have installed all the software from sourceforge, and all worked perfectly first time, with no issues at all, trying my windows 8.1 laptop next. Still sorting out which steppers to buy, I think as all my kit is run from a purpose built 12 power hub, I may go for the 12v version of the motor used at the start of this thread. I realise it is only a 64 step motor as I mentioned earlier, but I notice now that you can alter the sketch from 8 steps per instruction to anything down to 1 so does that mean that it in theory becomes a 256 step motor if I reduce to 4 as shown here in my screenshot. It will be fitted straight onto my focus shaft I will not be using the 10:1 knob, failing this, would a better motor with more steps be needed, and if so which one, as I don't want to alter any of the provided code, well I couldn't if I wanted too......lol So I just want to connect a motor and it works straight away, so is the sketch and code purely written for the motor used at the start of this thread or will it work with any available stepper motor
  19. Hi all, Fantastic thread, just wanted to quote on this I understand that with the Gears and pulleys you will get very fine focus, but if, as I want to, you have a direct to shaft connection, then one Rev of the motor is one Rev of the focus shaft, so with the motor mentioned and used throughout this thread that's only 64 steps, as opposed to 256 with a 4:1 pulley system. So is 64 steps enough, or is there a different motor I could use, as I have to have a direct connection ? Regards AB
  20. Well, I've just pushed the buy button for an Atik414ex.......:) :)

  21. Yes I have found it, it is essentially the SPC880 but in a different housing for a different purpose, but exactly the same camera. AB
  22. The slightly older Philips SPC880nc shows up,as a 750k when you connect it to sharpcap, and those are the drivers you need so you can flash it, I have just flashed one for a member on here, for the cost of the postage, I have done over 50 of them for people, I can do the Toucam pro the toucam pro II the SPC880 and change them all to the SPC900nc, so if you are struggling let me know. Regards AB
  23. I have sent you a PM about the flash mod AB
  24. You only need the win 7 driver and it will work on 8 also Here: http://www.p4c.philips.com/cgi-bin/cpindex.pl?ctn=SPC900NC/00&hlt=Link_Software&mid=Link_Software&scy=GB&slg=ENG Hope that helps AB
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