Stub Mandrel

11 hours ago, lux eterna said:

A quick short cirquit, or just a bad connection (like disconnect-connect-disconnect etc ), can produce transient voltages greater than the power supply itself. This is likely to happen with inductive loads (like the stepper motors in a mount) and it becomes worse with longer power supply cables. These transients will reach all devices connected to the same supply.

Ragnar

 

Changing to a switch is  unlikely to elminate such transients. The mount should be designed to cope with such things.

Here's an interesting comparison - lovely colour in last year's RGB image, but poor definition of the nebulosity:

Overlayed on the L-enhance (not an exact fit!) the stars are subdued and the nebulosity is much clearer, but better colour:

I need to get another batch of L-enhance subs to align properly.

11 minutes ago, Hallingskies said:

Sorry, Neil, what’s an “L-Enhance”?  And is the 450D referred to a Canon 450D?  Because if it is, I’m definitely going to have a go with my old 450 with whatever an L-enhance is!  

L-enhance is one of the relatively new breed of tri-band filters, it's by Optolong: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/light-pollution-reduction-imaging/optolong-l-enhance-dual-narrowband-deep-sky-imaging-filter.html

The 450D is my canon but 'a'stro modified and 'c'ooled 🙂

Last night's results using the L-Enhance with the ED 66 and  450Dac:

17 X 300s on the Elephant Trunk (cloud sabotaged my guiding so I lost about half an hour):

31 x 500s on the Soul nebula:

Definitely space related, oh yes!

On 25/10/2019 at 13:34, stash_old said:

I think that the statement is ,IMHO, not 100% true  - Ascom is pretty simple to install (normal Windows) and there are some very good YouTube stuff  about (not forgetting SGL) - OK the Doc and Video's are out of date a bit but the basic's are all there.   CS is a very helpful guy and is often on this site correcting peoples problems - He is now trying to do some Astro  for himself I believe - long deserved !!  🙂

Honestly, visit https://ascom-standards.org/About/Index.htm

As far as I can tell there isn't actually, anywhere on the site that explains what ASCOM is in simple language for a non-programmer.

This is the main introductory text:
 

Quote

 

"What is the ASCOM Initiative?

The ASCOM Initiative is a loosely-knit group of developers and astronomical instrument makers that work together to bring vendor-independent and language-independent plug-and play compatibility between astronomy software and astronomical instruments on Windows (and soon Linux and MacOS) computers. ASCOM stands for the Astronomy Common Object Model.

See the pages listed on the left for more information about ASCOM. See the Frequently Asked Questions section for info on using drivers and tools in the ASCOM Platform."

 

Yes you can just download the ASCOM Platform and use it, but most people do because they are told that's what they need to do. But a basic understanding of what it does and why would be a huge help when things go wrong. It would be nice if the main page said something like:

"The Ascom Platform is a collection of computer drivers for different astronomy-related devices. It uses agreed standards that allow different computer programs ('apps') and devices to 'communicate' with each other simultaneously. This means that you can have things like mounts, focusers, cameras and filter wheels all controlled by a single computer, even with several computers sharing access to those resources. For example you can use one program to find targets and another to guide your telescope, with both of them sharing control of your mount at the same time."

I happily renounce any copyright in that paragraph so the Ascom team can adapt remix and correct it to their satisfaction if it would be helpful to add it to the Ascom website 🙂

On 25/10/2019 at 12:24, omo said:

 With 3 to choose from could they ever come to a decision as to which one?

Confuses the hell out of tourists. They stand there saying "Where's the fourth bridge?"

On 26/10/2019 at 14:12, Thalestris24 said:

Here's a pic of the break. I didn't 'whack' it, I just tapped it!

Could be slightly too cool print temperature or it might be udner-extrusion, try either or both off increasing the head temperature 5-10 degrees or raising the extrusion percentage by 5-10%

7 minutes ago, FOTOGRAFO said:

Thanks for your remarks. I have been reading about ASCOM standards and software applications. 

Regards,

Don

I am pretty good at computers and programming. I've even written and OS and basic interpreter for a home made computer in assembler.

I couldn't make head nor tail of the ASCOM documentation, it's appalling and impenetrable.

Just install it and the programs written by brighter minds than mine will do their work.

2 hours ago, Davey-T said:

But that's traditional a result of the Victorians ? celebration of progress 

And it's not 365 days a year is it ?

Dave

66 days " Patrick Moore who said, "Light pollution is a huge problem. I am not saying we should turn all the lights out, that is not practical, but there are some things which are very unnecessary. The Blackpool Tower light is certainly something I do not think we should be doing. I very much oppose it." The beam could be seen 30 miles away. Moore called for the beam to be stopped. "

34 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Thumbscrews? Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition

They even turn up on children's TV:

Any worse (or tackier) than this:

The best thing about a 9x50 finder is discovering how much you can see through one!

I have ASCOM drivers installed, then use EQMOD for mount control, Cartes du Ciel for targeting and PHD2 for guiding.

On 23/10/2019 at 04:12, Noobulosity said:

Ended up testing a bit more, and this interpretation seems to be a bit more blended.  Feels like fuzzier details, though.  I didn't get this with daytime photos, so this just feels very confusing.

dcraw64 -r 1 1 1 1 -d -4 -T -b 16 *.cr2

(FYI, I did stretch the image a touch, which is why it appears brighter.)

As the stripes are every eight column I suspect you have killed a data line OR got  a dodgy connection on one of the ribbon connectors.

When i was a sea scout we used to polish/coat the fibreglass (polyester IIRC) canoes with a UV resistant compound once a year.

6 hours ago, Noobulosity said:

thermally insulated?

Thermally.  Any insulation you can add makes a difference, a bare spot of copper can lead to failure, it seems.

I saw the black colour, looks a good idea.

No problem, I think the lessons I've learned are:

DSLR narrowband isn't easy, you need (fairly) long exposures which generally means guiding.

Processing requires a fair bit of learning, and it's worth investing in good noise removal and contrast enhancing software, like Astra Image.

The dual band filter doesn't suppress stars as much as a Ha filter and gives them unnatural colours.

Most objects have much more Ha than OIII signal and I think a lot of data collection will be needed to get the OIII signal up out of the noise background.

With narrowband filters, Ha is feasible for DSLR, OIII is more challenging and SII is likely to be difficult.

I had one nasty failure - the heater cartridge came loose, at height the increased wire tension led to it falling out. I discovered a VERY hot cartridge stirring a lump of semi-molten PLA.

9 hours ago, Chriske said:

Someone suggested  Google : 3d printer fire.
Do the same and Google also : washing-machine fire, dish-washing machines fire, laundry dryer fire...etc...

I'm not saying ignore safety measures, let that be clear.

Google 'Tumble Drier Fire UK'... should keep you entertained for a few days!

I use a modified & cooled 450D. All the following really need at least twice as much data. You need to be quite brutal with the stretching, especially with Ha.

This is Baader 7nm Ha, just using the red channel:

These are my tests with the Optolong Triple band (it lets OII, Hb and Ha through), although it has two 'peaks'. The elongated stars are caused by accidental tilt.

Worked well on the veil, lots of OIII, shame about my targeting:

Heart didn't show much if any OIII with it:

Fake hubble palette using the optolong:

1 hour ago, Chriske said:

What I do not understand is that this guy can get away using the name 'Prusa' selling that wooden rubbish.

Prusa is an open source design.

On 16/10/2019 at 23:36, Noobulosity said:

Has anyone else noticed banding/noise as an issue with these scraped mono sensors?

Very slight.

I can't tell from the picture, but make sure your cold finger is insulated everywhere!

On 16/10/2019 at 14:06, Davey-T said:

Guess what this is 

Dave

Torque wrench 🙂

On 15/10/2019 at 16:15, Thalestris24 said:

I was wondering about that - do you just select a file to print from the card and leave it to it? No advantage in printing from a PC?

Louise

 

Yes, and if I'm doing 8-hour prints it means I'm not likely to hibernate the PC by accident...