skybadger

5 hours ago, Rob63 said:

It works with the guide scope/camera in exactly the same way as "normal" phd2 for dark sky (see first photo)

Thanks. This arose because if got confused with Firecap. I shall give it a try directly. 

Sorry. I am talking rubbish when I say I've been trialling normal phd2 as a  solar guider, actually I've been trialling firecap as the solar guider. 

Don't know where my brain went to there. 

Thanks. So you think the two versions will be combined ? 

I read with interest the use of the guiding assistant to adjust polar alignment. Is this also possible I the standard version, say using a limb of the sun to identify drift ?

On 20/05/2024 at 20:41, Rob63 said:

Guiding

Are you guiding on a separate imager in this picture . Does this work by guiding on the high Res high scale picture from the main imaging camera ?

I'm slightly confused 

I've been trying just this with the existing auto guiding capability of phd2 on the AR3664 and having not great success with the Nyx mounting it's on. 

It's been able to lock onto the spot fine but still not achieving a fine lock. Also it's not been correcting all the error. Is this because it's just not the right tool for a solar disk ?

I will give this a go but would like to understand whether this will be a feature of mainstream phd2 {desired} rather than a stand-alone 

Cheers

20 hours ago, carastro said:

I use a dual rig but l mount them piggy back so no flex.  

That's no guarantee  ! 

If you tandem mount them side by side you can shim them and lock them down and get similar fields. 

20 hours ago, tomato said:

I can take hours trying to align my scopes, the dual rig has a bracing plate to prevent flexing which has to be slackened off to make adjustments. I get the scopes bang on but you can guess what happens when I tighten the plate back down…

In the end I have to compromise and accept that a crop of more than a few pixels will be required. Fortunately one advantage of imaging small galaxies is that a crop will not usually detract from the image.

I'd be interested in seeing that braced playe. I use one fixed and one on an adm adjustable plate and have spent time getting them bang on only to flip it across the sky and find it tens of arcseconds out. Maybe that's not so bad. 

I second the Nina dithering master/slave setup. Voyager supports array mode but you trade multi-camera support for multi-target support unless you write some external scripting.

My measurements with my Sqm meter show astro dark tapering off about 0330 UT which is 4.30 BST but getting a dark sky after sunset only arrives fully dark at 2230 UT/2330 BST. 

So 5 ! full hours, where the dark arrives at the predicted astro twilight time and sunrise doesn't impact for a full 2 hours after astro twilight ends so I adjust my imaging periods appropriately.

My latitude being 51.5N, hopefully this is representative 

With the right mini pc you get enough ports for the smaller accessories and just leave the heavyweights to have their own power wiring. Especially if the camera is itself a hub. So no excuse for horrible wiring!

Great, thanks

I was asking cos I have a high res littrow with guide slit camera and am having to rely on a second scope to do the gross  pointing. The final fine pointing is the remaining issue. 

Hi bomber

Appreciate the info on setting up the Air but not much there on the actual spectroscopy. 

What kit are you using ?

What are you using to guide ?

How are you getting initial pointing and then fine alignment to put the star on the slit ?

Cheers

Mike

We spent 7 nights at los Parador last year and slept by day while imaging all night every night. 

Very nice build. I'm planning to make something similar for my portable rig while at home and it would have to be as small as possible.

I'm interested in the details of the drawer slides since they seem to be bigger and stronger than normal drawer slides.

also, how do you get out when the roof is open? Must be a bit of a squirm?

Would you change that direction of roof opening to towards the house ? How does that end do in the driving rain since there is  little overhang compared to the long sides ? Would you extend the length of the roof to compensate ?

Can you ssh into the asiair and look at the filesystem , see if there is an indi catalogue and what the indi catalogue says ? 

If you are convinced it's XML what's the odds that it is indi ? And that's well documented ..

It would be quick to knock up a test. 

I'm really interested what the actuators are, linear servos ?

Also how the stack is clamped once adjusted or is it sufficiently stiff once adjusted it doesn't need clamping ?

Finally, this is normally a 'once and done 'operation, what's the argument for making it easy to repeat but expensive and heavy?

I use  cartes de ciel all the time on windows. Less faff than others. Also does orbital offsets with phd2 to track comets. 

Also have ccd de ciel for when I want to run three cameras in spectroscopy mode. 

On 10/11/2022 at 09:40, markse68 said:

missing shard was still attached when i removed the mirror. It’s a real shame as i could see it’s promise as a scope despite its terrible distortion. One day i’ll hopefully get it sorted.

Have you confirmed that the absence of the shard has made any difference at all ? On one hand it could cause a relaxing if surface tension which will change the figure, on the other it's a small mirror, have you tried a NY sort of test of figure?

That's a nice setup. Clearly need some larger scopes. 

I run at 2000mm on a lodestar 8um pixels binned X2 using an oag. Typical exposures 2.5 secs and guiding .5"

Sometimes it's hard to find a star but rarely. 

Hi all, 

Ben trying to use my RC12 for Jupiter imaging but reverted to the refractor. 

This is my Vixen NA140SSF at f/22 with ASI178 and lrgb filter set. 

Captured with Firecap, stacked in AS3 and sharpened in Maxim. 

Not happy with this statement I looked it up, this explanation chimes with my thoughts but that doesn't mean it is used correctly in material Olly is reading. 

I would expect a methodology to describe the approach to selecting a method amongst several and describe how the selected method is applied. 

https://www.scribbr.co.uk/faqs/method-vs-methodology/

Ditto to that. The cam lever shown was the clutch to pivot the motor that originally hung off that large protruding bolt and was held against the gear wheel by a spring , the cam lever rotated the motor drive pinion off the gear wheel to declutch. 

Cool. 

My thoughts right now are about 30" length each side in a square, about 30" tall with a roof sloping up to the north that rolls and slides down the north side out of the way in use. 

Power is whatever is needed, mine is distributed on the scope itself by an alpaca or usb device. 

Maybe the Christmas project...

On 26/10/2023 at 08:55, Tomatobro said:

The earth is predicted to pass through a debris field of Comet 3D/Biela on 1st/2nd or 2nd/3rd of December. This comet is one of the ones that disappeared about 100 years ago.

Computer predictions suggest that this could be the meteor event of the year with a display of very slow meteors (<>16kms)

I guess that the press will at some point get hold of this story and will attach to it the usual hype but if predictions are correct should be a good show.

Have you a link ? I read an article in this but don't have it available any more. Since the moon will be old and the radiant is high it could be a very good but also quite faint shower sue to the slow speeds