martin_h

Before I automated things that's exactly how I used to do it

Very interesting thread, my QHY9 defiantly blows away from the heatsink.....quality control!!!! Anyway I have just flipped the fan around and will bang off some darks tonight.

My QHY9 draws warm air from the heatsink to the outside air

At least it wasn't your homework.

I had a go with it and it couldn't find my filter wheel (ascom) so uninstalled it

Im sticking with the version i have now, it works for me and i have no need to upgrade. if they bring out a radical new version i will bite the bullet ( but i cant think what that upgrade would be.

I know. It happens to me all the time 😀

I wonder if you accidentally left a Lum file ticked while stacking say the Red channel Kappa Sig would see the extra pixels as outliers and remove them?....asking for a friend.

spot on

I have the EQ8 and run it with encoders disabled.....no problems with SGP.

I stepped into the garden at 3.30 Sunday morning and noticed Orion just rising, looked a bit higher and spotted M45, and for the first time could make it out without averted vision. The seeing must have been exceptional just then because not only could i see it directly, i could distinguish separation between the stars.

It's hard to believe it's 10 years or so since we all met up at Bedford, time flies!

I usually do my mosaics manually, but last week used the wizard in SGP......it worked a treat

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