martin_h

Wide and in context, and a closer view. Taken with the RC8 and TS71, bothe using the QHY9 CCD

I recently gave a talk to some photography degree students (on astro photography) at the local college and they insisted I charge a fee.........so I did

I have been taking darks all afternoon as it happens, -20 deg 2,3,5,15 mins 10 of each.

No need for darks or bias for coloured filters......colour doesn't count in the dark!!! One size fits all, use bias for all light frames, use darks for all light frames matching exposure times, the only time you may need coloured calibration is for flats if you have dust on your filters.

Yes no problem with that.

Doesn't work on my laptop either, hey ho!

Nope, apatrently Dec backlash is not a warranty issue.

That's it the EQ8 is coming off the pier and the NEQ6 is going back on. for 2 nights in a row my imaging has ground to a halt after a meridian flip and I couldn't work out why, in the morning the scope was parked in a strange position. so last night i sat and watched......... after the flip when the mount is plate solving the mount wouldn't centre.........DEC binding!! so i left it in that position and slackened off the dec worm a tad...... great! movement again, but now it wont guide in the east - to much backlash......sod this - its coming off. What a pile of junk, it has one job to do and it comes no where near doing it.

Please note that ALL meetings, formal and informal, have been postponed untill further notice for the health and well-being of all members and speakers.

It was guiding ok, but occasionaly it would go for a wander and take an age to recover, this last bit of backlash only came to light because I had to recalibrate PHD.

It came back!!!! Yet again a shed load of Dec backlash, PHD can't detect any south movement, so this time I ran the calibration low in the east(failed), ran the assistant to measure Dec backlash- instead of a slope I get a horizontal line!!! Then without moving the mount I adjusted the backlash in the fails position, then ran the assistant again, not perfct but at least a downward sope......... Time will tell.

Our astro society was approached by the local F.E. college for someone to give a talk to the photography students on the subject of astro photraphy, so I was volunteered for the job. And what a nice job it turned out to be, the students were all engaged with plenty of questions, one student has even decided to give star trails a go for part of her final project. I have been informed this might become an annual thing! All good fun - and I got paid for my time

100% cloud so not a lot of imaging going on here this weekend.

Something new for me, having a go at planetary/lunar imaging. Advice needed as well, what would be a good number of frames to stack? this image is the best 50% from 900 ish frames. RC8 + ZWO ASI 120 mc-s

I too use LesveDome control to run my ROR using the circuit shown on their website. I use SGP to orchestrate the running, but its nice to have a backup(just in case). Like Steve I use the Cloudwatcher system for weather monitoring, and inbuilt to that unit is a simple relay which i connect across the "close" portion of the motor control. that way if the computer hangs, the roof will close on an unsafe weather situation.