MarsG76

Being a DSLR imager.... I'd love to see a head to head comp with the DSLRs heavyweights in the ring.

I'll second that....

AWESOMES... SkySync shall be back in business.....

true that...

Great project.. my Skycam is also a budget el-cheapo solution.. I use my rarely used IS DMK41 with a $9 CS and a $8 4" security camera dome on top of my Obsy.... It doesn't deliver quite as a wide field of view as your project but still allows me to keep an eye on the sky when I'm imaging when away from home or inside watching tv through VNC.

Very true, not the easiest hobby to get into....

Yeah, I remember that feeling well.....

We all started somewhere.. but do you remember how proud you were of your first image? I remember that I was as proud as punch of my first shots, even though they were as mediocre as can be comparing to the slight imaging improvement we have today.

@Stub Mandrel don't laugh... this was on a single arm alt-az mount that wobbled with me just breathing near it.... 30 sec exposure, ISO3200 non astromodded DSLR..... ah memories of the start of the AP track....

Very nice project... are you having any issues with dew fogging things up?

My first DSO image is an embarrassment to post.... But here it is...

Oh ow.... here come sleepless night, lethargic days, empty bank accounts but rewarding images you can call your own.... you own images that will cost a lot.... but you'll never regret it. Great pictures you've already imaged.....

I had a chance to play with PEC for a few nights. Trained, re-trained and averaged single night to various nights of training runs.... I compared the RMS guiding accuracy at various times with both PEC enabled and disabled, my results are as follows. I tested PEC at 2032mm focal length using my 8" SCT on the CGEM mount with PEC averaged one night of PEC training runs, multiple nights worth of PEC training runs and with PEC off. I let it run for 15 minutes and read the average RMS. I found that PHD2 reported the lowest RMS correcting with the PEC OFF!!!!!... around 0.5" RMS tonight.. mind you that the difference between the PEC enabled and disabled was only a matter of around 0.05"-0.1" between the tests... seems like it's hardly worth while.... How disappointing as currently it seems like that there is not only no improvement with PEC but it can actually make tracking (very slightly) worse?? Did anyone have a similar experience with PEC??? Attached are screen grabs on my PEC training averaged graphs. PEC training was performed by the Celestron ASCOM driver connected to NexRemote virtual COM port in PHD2 and PECTool connected directly to NexRemote. PHD2 was calibraed and allowed to guide the guide star as PECTool was recording the RA pulses. Any input into what I might be doing wrong and hence the disappointing PEC result is welcome.... Clear skies, MG

Thanks for he reply Craig, My hand controller is the non-plus version 4.21 (currently), bought in 2010. I am already a member of TeamCelestron and have the BINS, but the three files are named as CGE, NXS and SLT... CGEpro, NexStar and SLT??? No GEM, which is the bin label used in the past for CGEM firmware updates. Am I mistaken thinking that CGE bin file only works on CGE Pro and won't work with the CGEM? Perhaps I can just wait for the official v4 firmware update. Thank you, Mariusz

Currently clouds.... so 0 ?

Do you know if any of these updates will work with the CGEM?

Do you know if any of these updates will work with the CGEM?

Thanks

Hello Astronomers, It's been quite a while since I had time to play with astro toys... even my cooling project, even though it is somewhat cooling the DSLR, is still a project in progress... It's been a while after the CGEM firmware has been updated and has reportedly fixed the broken PEC, I decided that it was time to play with PEC training and try and improve the amount of DSO detail I capture, particularly at 2000mm focal length. As is natural with this hobby, it couldn't have been straight forward, no.. it had to have its problems and obstacles to overcome, really there was only one problem, but a "deep buried" one... When I initiated PEC record, the mount just kept slewing toward the east on the RA axis without end until it hit the mount limit... simply put, the mount couldn't find the index point. Looking at the TeamCelestron site, I found a post where a CGEM DX user has the same problem, and Derik, one of the firmware engineers, suggested that the mount had a faulty sensor or even a Motor Board fault... so at this point I thought that I might have to live without PEC or buy a new mount... but ultimately I kept thinking about what the issue could be... I didn't want to let this go I thought that I'd swap the RA and DEC motors to see if this would make a difference but on pulling out the MC board and removing the RA motor, I very quickly realised that there is a extra ring or plate on the RA motor with a notch cut into it moving in between a U black... obviously this is the index sensor and swapping the motors would not work. The other thing I noticed is that the index ring and U sensor were covered in grease so I cleaned the grease off the motor, gears and sensor using isopropyl alcohol... re greased the gear cogs and reassembled the mount... NOW PEC was working, initiated PEC record and it found the index mark within a second... wooohoo The next clear night, last night, I setup NexRemote on the COM port, with a virtual COM port setup and connected PECTool directly to NexRemote. I setup and calibrated the scope completely off the laptop, and once it was ready, I ran guiding using the ASCOM celestron driver connected to the NexRemote virtual port and commenced autoguiding on PHD2. I ran PEC training in PECTools and let it repeat for 14 runs. I uploaded the averaged corrections from all 14 runs to the mount... downloaded the graph back from the mount successfully verifying that PEC program is in the CGEM memory. Now I was ready to do a autoguiding accuracy test comparison with and without PEC but... as it should be expected... clouds!!! I parked the scope and powered down the observatory, ready for the next clear night, ready for a detailed test and perhaps a imaging session with PEC running, and it hopefully making a noticeable difference to guiding and sub quality... to be continued. Clear skies, MG

A Canon 40D, the one pictured.

A 32° on the sensor would have me very joyous... even might be too much, since a hot night is around 30°C here but generally summer is around the 22-24°C and winter 9-15°C at night, so either way I'd have to use the temperature controller to keep the sensor at the 5°C for which I'm aiming. Don't want to fight frosted sensors.

I guess that is the case if the peltier is sitting directly on the sensor... but what about when the heat extraction is by using a copper plate which constantly fights outside heating sources such as the circuitry.. I'm guessing that the colder the better... currently I have a 20 degree heat up simply to the copper passing through the camera in a 24/25 degree ambient temp... hence my aim for -20 at the peltier side.

I don't trust the EXIF, I have a thin NTC between the sensor and the cold finger giving me an actual reading.

Hello all.... Good news is that after I filled the inside of the camera with foam strips, sealed the cold finger entrance with expanding foam and placed silica gel into the card compartment, I could image all night for quite a few nights with no condensation problems.... With the on going quest to freeze my 40D sensor while exposing subs, I constructed the same setup to measure the temperature of the peltiers with the surrent setup... the result is that it did not got below 4.2 degrees (from an ambience of around 20), and that temperature was hit in about 20 minutes... the dilemma is that with the distance between the cooling system and the sensor, the cold finger passing through the inside of the camera, seems to heat up by around 20 degrees.. resulting in the actual sensor temperature hovering at around ambient temperature while exposing (give or take a degree or two). Even though the system currently is a noticeable improvement over when the camera was uncooled, ultimately I would like to have the sensor at around 5 degrees. As the next stage in experimenting, I got a bigger heat sink, the CoolerMaster 212X, added a second fan to it and attached two peltier stacked, the primary TEC powered with 12V and the secondary with 5V... the temperature drop was 44 degrees.. went down to -19 degrees from and ambiance of 25... at this level, even if the cold finger would heat up by 20 degrees, the sensor would still be at 4.. so my target would be reached.... The other problem is implementation since thee 212X is a lot bigger, but weighs the same as my current setup with the two TECs and two P4 heatsinks, so it seems like the heatsink might be unbalanced unless I stabilize it. To be continued...