wimvb

You're welcome

When you upload an image, it shows in the upload section of your post, what the maximum file size is. If your image is only slightly larger, you could try zipping it and attach the zip as you would an image. Otherwise you need to do it through Dropbox or Google Drive.

Nope, still unavailable. As @alacant wrote, the file is probably too large.

I have the same: temperature, humidity, air pressure (and derived: dew point) from the Bosch BME280 environmental sensor. I also have temperature and sky temperature from the mlx90614 ir sensor, which will act as a cloud sensor. I get light readings from my SQM meter (also ESP32, but in a different case). I plan to mount the weather station outdoors (of course), and the SQM meter inside, so that it's only operational when the roof of my observatory is open. I won't need sky readings when I'm not doing any imaging, and the cloud sensor is enough to determine if I should open the obsy roof. I have the components for a rain sensor, but so far haven't put those together yet. I first have to figure out where best to place it and if I should put a NiCr wire underneath to combat dew. I must have a look at weewx, thanks for pointing that out.

The file is unavailable. There should be no need to chane the file format.

No, I got a message from PostNord that it's waiting for me at the local pick up place. Due to my knee condition, I haven't been able to pick it up yet. Will do so on Monday. Have a nice stay. I hope you get enough clear skies to test your travel AP kit.

Very nice catch! To get better polar alignment: If you can see polaris, put it roughly correct in your polar scope. Do a 2-star goto alignment, preferably with a high power eyepiece (for my 150pds I used a 10 mm eyepiece with home made reticle). This will give you polar misalignment. Do a synscan polar alignment. When the scope slews away from the alignment star, follow it in the eyepiece, so you know in which direction to adjust. Then repeat goto and polar alignment. With a bit of practice, this routine shouldn't take more than 15 - 20 minutes to complete.

Non-stacked data would be too large a file, even zipped, probably. But if the stacked image looks fine, just post it here. In DSS, don't apply any stretch to the autosave file. Just post it as is, attached to a reply. As an alternative, zip the lot and put it in a public Google drive folder or Dropbox.

New feature added. I changed the firmware of the meteostation so that it now can read the SQM values from my wifi SQM meter The SQM value is written to the index.html file and reported together with other weather data. This means that the Weather Watcher in Ekos now will read this value also.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0168U13XS/ref=ppx_yo_mob_b_track_package_o0_img?ie=UTF8&psc=1 And one of these https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0168V81SC/ref=ppx_yo_mob_b_track_package_o0_img?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I believe it was the 2nd one that I ended up using. Must check .... Checked: the 8 mm 40 deg lens it is. One of these covers the sensor's pcb almost perfectly https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B015J9RAKE/ref=ppx_yo_mob_b_track_package_o0_img?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Haven't looked into it, but if you replace the cover with an EL panel, this might do https://indilib.org/support/tutorials/165-diy-auto-indi-telescope-cover.html You will need a servo that can lift and hold the panel.

I used this reference: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017MNSSA..76..215D/abstract But in the end, you still need to do a real calibration to take into account any geometry, glass, etc. In my case a 16 mm 40 degrees lens. Fortunately @gorann let me borrow his SQM while he's down under. I will probably change the firmware to also let it connect to INDI, so I get the data directly into Kstars/Ekos.

Just finished work on a sky quality meter with built in wifi. The device is based on the ambient light sensor TSL2591 and the wifi board ESP32. Communication between the two boards is through I2C. The device has a 40 degrees lens. The light sensor is programmable, which means you can set integration time (from 100 to 600 ms) and gain (from 1 to almost 5000, in 4 steps). I implemented automatic adjustment of these parameters to allow for the highest dynamic range (600M:1 accoring to the spec sheet). The device shows Sky readings as a web page. It is connected to a local wifi network, although it could also create its own access point. So far I haven't been able to calibrate the sqm yet, partly due to eternal cloud cover. But it should only require one parameter to be adjusted. The code is available on GitHub. Sky-Quality-Meter Here are som pictures. The components: The parts connected: The finished device: This is how output is presented:

It shouldn't be too difficult for you, Gina. You should probably also check out the updated Indiduino/Induino meteostation. The code is updated to use the BME280, mlx90614 and tsl2591. The latter for sqm. I'm currently also working on a sky quality meter using the tsl2591. Also with the esp32 board and microPython.

Thanks, Firas. Not yet calibrated. But that won't be much of a problem.

yes, it is. check this; you won't see much on a single sub, but you'll notice the difference once you start stacking. https://astronomy-imaging-camera.com/tutorials/cooled-asi-camera-setting-in-ascom-driver.html

For quite some time now I've been working on a small weather station. The idea is to add automation to an obsy I'm building. The weather station as is measures temperature, humidity, pressure and presence of cloud. I also have the components to build a rain detector, but haven't implemented that yet. First the box: Made from vent covers and pieces of aluminium All put together With sensors. The IR sensor is in the far back (top of the housing) and the BME280 sensor is the free hanging red pcb. The other pcb holds a few pull-up resistors and a capacitor for the I2C wires. Insulation added to keep critters out. First I thought of using an Arduino to control and collect the data, but recently I started tinkering with ESP32 wifi boards. These are a lot faster and have more memory than Arduinos, and I wanted to use microPython. The ESP32 board is also smaller than an Arduino UNO (about the size of an Arduino nano) and has built in wifi, which means I just need power to the device. I uploaded the code to GitHub https://github.com/wberlo/indi_meteostation Output is as a HTML file (index.html) which presents data in a simple way. The INDI driver 'Weather Watcher' can read this file. For now, temperature is mapped to temperature (of course), and 'clouds' is mapped to 'forecast/Weather' in INDI. 'Clouds' is a parameter that varies from 0 to 1. I used the same criteria as the AAG Cloud Watcher device: if sky temperature is less than -8 degrees, the sky is assumed cloud free. For a sky temperature between -8 and 0 degrees, there is partial cloud, and for a sky temperature higher than 0 degrees, the sky is overcast. This seems very arbitrary, and I expect to have to adjust this piece of code later. Major update: The weather station now also reads and reports the SQM values from my wifi-SQM. 😋 See further down this thread for details.

with CMOS you need to take a LOT of subs. You can choose to either use longer subs at low gain, or shorter subs at high gain. But with the shorter subs, you will need even more to compensate for the loss of dynamic range at high gain.

Interesting. Since the other stars look normal, you've most likely cone up with the correct explanation of what's causing this.

Have a look at one single sub from yesterday. It should have a fits header with capture details, and you can plate solve it to make sure that the coordinates match.

Interesting.

Your scope pointing in the opposite direction should have been a hint All joking aside, a very nice image with your new camera. I hope you get clear skies to do more imaging between M51 and M33.

It somehow makes sense. In a two-slit experiment, the wider apart the slits are, the closer the maxima/minima. But as I wrote, I'm not convinced that Maskulator always comes up with the correct diffraction pattern. Maskulator only simulates a 2D shadow pattern. Any 3D effects or collimation is not taken into account. Defocus only widens the diffraction spikes (and splits them eventually).

What were you aiming at? (Well, M51 obviously, but you know what I mean.)

I did a simulation in Maskulator with thin and very thick vanes and got these results: Thin vanes to the left, and thick vanes to the right. Brightness scaled down to 30%. I'm not completely convinced that Maskulator is always right. These vanes: