Stub Mandrel

OK, I'm in guiding Nirvana now... aside from two 'star loss events' and going behind a tree at the end (these are excluded), guiding of 0.99" for over 3 hours. You can see it was even better after 11:53 when the moon went down: I only spent 40 minutes on the next target, for 0.65". If I can get this reliably on dark nights, I will be happy.

Strangely enough, I've just done a bit of googling and in the USA the 6TER-S is very high thought of!

Fear not - as I commented "Danger! Danger!"

Who needs a Tak? When you have one of these... A box of joy in 1965? Danger! Danger! Will Robinson! Super stable tripod: Sorry for poor quality, (I left the camera on shutter priority without noticing). Need to gently persuade that dewshield back to its original shape: Top notch coated optics! Best of all, look what it does for your career prospects:

If I had a dome like that I would have to fit a serious sound system to it and call it Malcolm...

Thanks Lee. I'll give those a try. Do you use spectrum lab at radio frequency or use something to get it down to audio frequency first?

This link is broken ? I'm in the same position of wanting to use Spectrumlab aith a RTL2832U based dongle and all the stuff I can find is funcube based.

Thanks Olly. I do aim to keep things slightly unbalanced. Something I have noticed is that guiding is noticeably worse when low down (<20 degrees) but this may be a combination of bas seeing and poor contrast due to LP.

Out last night with the 130P-DS. In 'High ISO mono' mode: With flash, at the cost of a sub! Guidescope out of view at the back.

Load the PV with a small resistor, say 47R or even less. That will make sure a small amount of light doesn't give too high a voltage, as with a high impedance load it will just rise up to near the maximum even in low illumination.

I hear the 'less than pixel scale' comments, but with the 130P-DS at 1.7" per pixel and an RMS of 1.4", I saw exursions up to +/- 8", enough to give stars a tiny 'pip' on some subs. The challenge with that mount was getting rid of that sawtooth DEC behaviour and tuning was very fussy.

Thanks Vlaiv, it helps to have an actual 'target' I can aim for. Not there yet, but looks achievable. A belt mod is very tempting, if only because it is such an elegant solution.

I have seen lots of figures bandied about for guiding performance, so many that i am confused about what sort of performance I should be aiming for. As I recounted here: I was getting some nights with about 1.40" RMS and some nights with about 0.80" RMS using the EQ3 loaded with the 130P-DS. With the, admittedly heavier, 150PL on the HEQ5 and after some tweaking to get better reliability, I am still stuck at 0.80" RMS. I saw recent post by @Olly that suggests 0.25" is well beyond the reach of an EQ6 PRO, presumably a better mount than the HEQ5? Should I be trying to get better results, and if so how much better can I expect to get? Surely (hopefully!) the HEQ5 can beat the EQ3?

Tremendous.

Why is the answer always 'spend'? ?

The one target I should be able to get but can't get a decent result on ?

Bear in mind a typical hose end has a 'mushroom' plug in the end. By moving it in and out you get everything from a wide cone to a narrow jet, so an adjustable gap might be the key to getting this right (and keeping the flow rate up and pressure down).

Nice star colours!

Very pretty!

I see some experimentation with holes sizes and angles ahead - ideal subject for 3D prototyping!

I've seen a hedgehog with a cyst so large it only had the use of three legs climb up the front of a bookcase...

Well done! You can see Europa up and right of the shadow.

Cripes Gina, I would think twice before just lifting up oner end of a slab that size! Please take care we don't want you to be buried under one of those!

Or offer the local wildlife volunteers an opportunity to create some new wetland habitat...

I thought it was a selfie stick ?