Stub Mandrel

Cooled mono camera and a set of 1.25" narrowband filters.

Probabaly.

28 minutes ago, Legion Of Andromeda said:

just to confirm that you are suggesting rotating the scope in relation to the light source and not the camera in relation to the scope?

Absolutely!

22 minutes ago, lux eterna said:

FenTaylor, I wish I could buy you a beer !

Tonight I had the same nightmare - "Both Axes no response". I followed your excellent guide and found the same faulty (dual) inductor. I had nothing to replace it with so I just snapped it off and made two solder bridges where it was sitting, and now the board has come back to life ! The handset was not affected, just the motherboard. Thanks a lot mate, you saved me both money and time under the stars !

In my case, the reason for the breakdown was a 12V connection (intended for my NexGuide autoguider) that was unused for the moment and just hanging from the mount. The center part is +12V and it is not very well protected, so of course it would touch some grounded metal and that was it.

/Ragnar

 

Those power connectors are so badly designed, music effects pedals use them, I have a 'daisy chain' lead with multiple conectors, some are unused, which I have wrapped in insulation tape to prevent them shorting by accident.

AV mode works fine with a scope.

Have the histogram peak at about 25%.

I always rotate the scope and take flats at about eight different orientations to even out any unintended gradients. Variously I use a plain painted wall in diffuse light, a card in the garden or a light panel with a sheet of A4 paper over it.

For very long focal lengths the sky works better, but still rotate.

Here are two logs:

Three hours with the 130P-DS:

Just for completeness, the calibration:

With the 150PL during the excellent seeing on the 25th. You can see a couple of big DEC swings, after this star quality and guiding nosedived as cloud came across:

Those are little airy discs. Focus is not good...

11 hours ago, johneta said:

Actually it is there in RA algorithm, Ive just never seen it or heard anyone else talk about it.

Looks interesting. What do you normally set the retain model percentage to?

I use the defaults, the guidance is that changing them should be approached with caution.

Oh well. Add Crater Vikram to the maps... 😞

11 hours ago, LukeSkywatcher said:

I thought his name was Bluto.

Bluto was the original name for Brutus in the Popeye cartoons 🙂

48 minutes ago, alan potts said:

Stub,

This was something that some one touched upon the other day, I have to confess I have never seen it before though did hunt down the area in PHD without understanding anything, nothing new there. This is yet another to read up on.

The PEC I was looking at and the PPEC that I am using sits in EQmod. PEC is a run of 5 and upward rotations of the worm recorded in the opening control panel of the program, you get to the various sections by clicking on the Green Cross on the upper left hand side. This can create a file that can if you wish be doctored in PECprep, another program, this seems a fair bit more advanced than I am comfortable with at the moment.

The PPEC I am actually using, if indeed I am using anything at all other than imagination, sits int he open out menu EQmod on the far right hand side. This has a record/play refresh section, dependent upon whats happening in the routine running list will pulse the mounts LED, 1,2 and 3 time, 3 times meaning it's running.

Maybe this is interlinked in some way to PHD2 PPEC, but I feel the PEC section is EQmod specific and is stand alone and in no way connected.  I was going to have a go tonight but it was patchy cloud.

Alan 

AH! I am using the PHD2 vesrion. My advice is try it as (a) it only takes two worm rotations to start working and (b) you can gather subs over that period.

Have you seen:

https://openphdguiding.org/man-dev/Guide_algorithms.htm

Quote

 

Since PPEC employs a learning process, it will usually take about 2 worm periods to model the mount and become fully effective.  During this training period, the algorithm will behave more like the ‘hysteresis’ algorithm, so you won’t normally see a performance penalty while the internal model is being built.  Instead, you’re likely to see a steady improvement in tracking as the model is refined and the algorithm shifts seamlessly from hysteresis to predictive-mode.   This improvement can usually be seen even before the medium-term mount behavior is fully modeled.

15 hours ago, johneta said:

Oh right.

I must be running an old version. Thats not there in mine. I'll upgrade and have a look. Thanks 🙂

Yes, you need the latest version.

Predictive PEC on RA and Resist switch on DEC. Recently I've had constant 0.65"  with the 130P-DS which is (according to Vlaiv's calculations) as good as the HEQ5 (or an EQ6) can be be expected to deliver because of the step size.

I PA with Sharpcap, typically to better than 0.2'.

The heavier 150PL I get slightly higher figures.

3DP is becoming mainstream.

To be honest, it's frustrating waiting for the day when I can pick up a kilo or two of PLA at the supermarket.

53 minutes ago, johneta said:

Thanks Alan re PEC, I have certainly seen mixed comments about it on many threads and even EQMOD documentation is pretty wishy washy
on whether it helps or not. It sounds so great to be able to send the reverse signal to the RA motor and cancel out that PE,- maybe Im a control
freak but its very appealing to me, but I have had my doubts about it. Especially when you do the math and consider how slow the rate of change that the
PE amounts to - surely easily managed by normal PHD guiding.

Stub Mandrel- I will look into that predictive PEC on PHD. I hadn't heard of it or noticed anything like it in the menus/documentation.

Where is it hiding?

When not guiding, brain icon ---> algorithms tab.

1 hour ago, Gina said:

Didn't think tribbles had ears!  No sign of eyes either as I recall.

It's trying to pass incognito.

1 hour ago, Gina said:

Not sure they do - have to ask the boss - Ed Tyson.

They would need one of these if they did! I can't see Ed cracking and fractionating oil then polymerising it on site.  Plastic feedstock comes from people like BASF and DOW, usually as granules or pellets for further processing:

On 04/09/2019 at 16:12, fwm891 said:

My Workflow with ASI294MC Pro

 

Generate Bias – circa 50 subs

 

Generate Darks – circa 20 subs (use subs at same duration and temp as lights)

 

Generate flats – circa 25 subs

 

No Flat darks (must try these)

 

Above masters are generated as per Warren Keller’s notes in ‘Inside PixInsight’.

 

1,  Blink (assess images to weed out aircraft trails etc)

 

2, Image Calibration – apply bias, Darks and flat masters

 

3, Cosmetic Correction

 

4, Debayer (RGGB)

 

5, Star Alignment

 

6, Image Integration

 

7, Crop as required

 

8, Background (ABE or DBE)

 

9, Background Neutralisation

 

10 Colour Calibration

 

Then various transformations, SCNR, TGVD, Colour saturation… (as I think is needed)

I'm open to suggested modifications to this....

Assuming 'image integration' is your stacking, I wouldn't apply any cosmetic correction before stacking (unless it's automated hot pixel removal and the like).

Also consider sigma clipping or auto-adaptive averaging to get rid of aircraft and satellites rather than just dumping those frames.

I use it now, it's really easy. I haven't made any exact measurements but I see my guiding improve over the first twenty minutes to half hour and I am definitely seeing better guiding since I started using it.

For the DEC I find that 'resist switch works best.

On 01/09/2019 at 05:12, johneta said:

So thats DEC 90degs and RA is the Hrs that are currently at my location for the date and time of day.

Yes, but hours, minutes and seconds in SIDEREAL TIME, not 'clock time'.

Think of it as rotating the scope to point north and 0 degrees dec. Then increasing the DEC to 90 degrees.

It's just a convenient repeatable place to set the scope when you switch off and on. EQMOD will remember where ever you left the scope when switched off but any other position is much harder to find again, even approximately.

For PEC try the 'predictive PEC' routine in PHD2, I find it is very good and improves my guiding after two worm rotations.

On 02/09/2019 at 14:32, Ruud said:

A dwarf rabbit IS a rabbit!

 

 

 

That's a tribble.

It's a non-question.

The line between planet and non-planet is an arbitrary construct whose value is enabling humans to classify non-stellar objects for the purpose of studying them.

I would say division into gas-giants, ice-giants, rocky bodies with active gelology, static rocky bodies and comets  would be more likely to be useful but even taht woudl have some ambiguities (like the asteroid that changed colour by out-gassing like a comet).

1 hour ago, Starlight 1 said:

What I like to know is my old scope from the 70s/80s scope D76.2 x f1250  I never use this scope BUT will it see Saturn and if any of the rings ?

Les

My late 60s/early 70s 50mm Tasco shows Saturn's rings nicely. My 10" dob shows them rather better!

3 minutes ago, Starlight 1 said:

how do you work  the F number please.

Focal length of scope divided by diameter of objective. I would estimate your lovely scope as being about f16.

11 minutes ago, Gina said:

As I understand it, rigid.ink brew their own concoctions and extrude it.

They must get the basic plastic pellets & dies from the same sources as everyone else though?

8 minutes ago, Dr_Ju_ju said:

Yep, but it doesn't surprise me as although they make\made good filament, it was always more expensive than some of the other 'better' makes e.g. Prusa (even with the shipping costs)…..

I've always been bit sceptical to be honest. None of the filament brands 'make' their own feedstock, even if they extrude their own filament (which I doubt) .