Stub Mandrel

This is from September 2015, but I just uploaded it to YouTube, I hope folks find it interesting.

Not sure I ever shared this 🙂 This is fitted with a cheap eyepiece/erecting prism and minolta t-mount adaptor I found in a bargain bin decades ago before discovering astro.

HI, I have just bought Affinity Photo, but I am completely unable to work out how to combine three mono images into an RGB one, despite searching their forum. You obviously have cracked this problem - could you explain of give me a link to the solution! Many thanks. (My 20 year-old copy of PhotoPaint you select combine channels and assign one image to each channel - it's as simple as that! - it also lets you split images with one click - RGB, CMYK etc.)

The critical thing is how small (tooth count) a pinion can you use? You might consider using 1 mod gears?

You don't need to take darks for every session. Before modding it for cooling, I took three sets of darks for each exposure length I used with my 450D - one set each for warm evenings >10C, cool 0-10C and cold <0C. Their impact on image quality was dramatic. Even to get a set of 12 5-minute darks is only an hour, which could be at the end of an imaging session while you pack up and get ready for bed, and you don't have to repeat it.

If you think the effort of an extra gear pair and design are worth it then I like the gravity escapement, although I would add a lot of extra material for robustness compared to the gif.

Ooh! That is so clever!

Live life at a moderate pace, die in middle age...

Not at all Chris, your mount adds to the body of knowledge and is nicely executed although the 'rustic' tripod made me do a double take!

As Alex.K is in the USA and the image is on a Belgian website, it's unlikely he was the person who appropriated it. The site it's hosted at is: http://telescopemaking.be/ Changing the number in the filename suggests that site has appropriated many of your files. Which links to http://users.telenet.be/telescoopbouw/Welkidex.htm and http://users.telenet.be/telescoopbouw/Welkidex-e.htm This misled me into thinking it was your website (I thought you were something to do with the Urania Project). You might want to do a 'whois' search on telescopemaking.be, but I suspect you may struggle to find who has appropriated your images. According to google it can't find any examples of it, so it must be on unindexed pages. Assuming Alex is nothing to do with that website, he may have found it embedded elsewhere, and it may be a long and complex search to unravel the truth. You can contact the registrant via this website, although their personal details are hidden: https://www.dnsbelgium.be/en/whois/info/telescopemaking.be/details

I'll be 98, a good excuse to fight off decrepitude!

Traditionally it would probably be a drop of shellac, that is easily dissolved with meths or loosened with heat. UV sensitive adhesive is great for jobs like this, although harder to remove. You can reposition to your heart's content then set it in seconds with a little UV LED torch that comes as part of the glue tube. I've used it for wire cross-hairs.

It's an embedded link, rather than a cut and paste, which, rightly or wrongly, appears to be generally accepted practice. Although an acknowledgement is polite, the URL of the image does show the source and its appearance here should encourage search engines to locate your website. It's legal in the EU and (presumably still legal in the UK) and explicitly does not infringe copyright: https://www.copytrack.com/embedding-images-legal-theft/

I found this on Thingiverse, apologies if I have posted it before. It took some tweaking to get it to run, I can see the clock will be a much bigger challenge! Apologies for the tongue-in-cheek 'clickbait' video title too!

The bit that is often overlooked is that the tooth passing across the lower surface is what gives a kick to the pendulum.

Hi Gina, just to get me following the thread....

No doubt 'Mannakin Skywalker' will have something to say...

Did the retro thrusters fire for the crew capsule? Looked like a hard landing to me...

The platform is more or less horizontal. I have no worries about thread drift! It all seems relevant to me.

Yep, you can get them 300mm diameter. This one has a capacity of half a ton - search 'lazy susan bearing': https://simplybearings.co.uk/shop/product_info.php?products_id=42341&vat_inc=true

I've gone to my laptop and updated/reinstalled everything and now the camera barely works at all on it... still works on the desktop!

OK, my findings; The 'compatible.iic' version: Old desktop: Works in 16 and 8 bit mode in Sharpcap. Works in 8 bit mode in PHD2, but with all split frames. New Laptop: Works only in 8 bit mode, but unstable, doesn't always start unless I change mode) in Sharpcap, doesn't work at all in PHD2. The 'standard' version: Old desktop: Works in 16 and 8bit modes in Sharpcap. Works in 16 and 8 bit mode in PHD2, sometimes with split frames. New laptop: Works in 16 and 8 bit modes in Sharpcap. Now only managed to generate one frame in PHD2 over multiple tries in 8 and 16 bit modes. So... the conclusions are: The 'standard' iic seems to be more reliable than the 'compatible' version. Sharpcap is better able to manage a connection to the ASI120MC with both sets of firmware. The difference appears to be something about how USB 2 is implemented on the two computers (note the 'old' desktop is bang up to date - it did the latest Windows full update yesterday). Looks like I need a new camera for guiding. I've ordered a cheap Svbony one as a stopgap, even if the max exposure is only 500ms my system can cope with that.

If remaking, I would be tempted to use a 'lazy Susan'-type bearing rather than teflon pads on the top - I may even retro fit one. The main issue I found was the draw with pads was enough to cause wobble when manually slewing.

Couple of Osse's 'eads and a Soul from Christmas Eve: HSO SHO: Soul, SHO:

From the night I got my Sii data for the California nebula, 15 December. Note the large, faint halo beyond the blue nebulosity is an artefact. SHO: HSO: