skybadger

Thanks. I'll give that a go with some images I'm trying to get.

The asi178 is uncooled, how do you manage the amp glow ? Is that why you limit exposures to 30 seconds ?

Did you find the group's.io forum for MoM ? It all used to be on yahoo groups and then moved over.

I'd forgotten that. It was a sight.

Image scale in "/pixel=206265/focal length in mm . Turn that into "/pixel by multiplying by pixel size in mm Field of view is "/pixel X # of pixels on sensor. Tracking accuracy is whatever you measured, so yes you could shoot for 9x longer but why not put the wide field camera on the narrow field guided mount and get the best of the guiding ?

Hmm, the ability to image at pace feels self limiting on the size of image files BC you can't download them fast enough. You could do it all offline though. Say 3600 1 sec images of an object by 4 MB per file by several hundred imagers ? Each night. I'd be looking to pipeline this through dynamic cloud services (lambdas) and auto stack when a pipeline is quiet for longer than say, half an hour. Use central coords of image and return list of all folders in operation when someone wants to know what subjects are bing imaged. Just thinking aloud though.

Tx Rory. So the intent is to aim for one or two second exposures then. Lucky imaging it is.

I'm really interested to get clarity on what the aims are. It seems like it's to have high resolution, high snr images using small/amateur sized telescopes. The issues I see are tracking - what exposure length makes tracking errors below the target scale seeing - can we get enough pictures sampled better than the target scale resolution, by combining pictures from smaller scopes can we get sufficient snr to discern and resolve features approaching images from larger scopes collimation - can we educate enough people to get the most out of their systems to contribute. optical errors - can we combine images from a huge variety of image scales and their specific optical aberrations and combine the images in a meaningful way, that is not disproportionately compute intensive. Do current generations of stacking programs model the image plane aberrations for stars in each image as part of the stacking process or does this require a new approach ? Have you got a feel for this new approach ? Finally, what is meant by 'lucky imaging'. In planetary it's all about freezing the seeing to remove the atmosphere from the optical limitations and stacking those few high quality, single-sourced images. In low snr, long exposure deep sky , you must mean something else right ? it's not lucky imaging if you are still exposing at 30 seconds per shot because you haven't broken any of the limits outlined above. I'm not knocking any of this, crowd sourcing imagery and pipeline processing is a great tool; just trying to understand the headline aims and the underlying physics. mike

The camera is a compatible clone of the asi120mini and uses an older version of the usb2 drivers.

Don't use registry cleaners in general, they do more harm than good. I have the same device and had the same problem. There are a lot of different answers on the web that I spent an afternoon trying and they didn't work. This did. Load it onto an older Windows laptop, it will be recognised once you load the drivers. In my case a very up to date W10 laptop would not recognise the camera while the wife's would. Having done that, flash the firmware using the utility from zwo. I chose the 'compatible' firmware which is supposed to work with more client software than the native zwo firmware. The end result was the camera is reliably recognised on all my W10 desktop and laptops under sharpcap and the asicap tool. However firecap still won't load it and I haven't tried it as an ascom camera. I also find that longer exposures than 2 seconds just cause most clients to hang. Especially sharpcap. I can get fast video out of it easily enough though, so currently trialling as a solar camera. It does work long exposure with asicap though, even if just not very sensitive. Basically, even when you get it working it's not much use as an astronomical camera, in my experience. Hope this helps.

I already have, it's my website...

Ping. Any news ?

I would take the view that the stiffness ought not to be there. It's setup with bearings so were it not for any clutch interaction, should spin freely. My eq8 moves not quite easily but it's not stiff. The motor imbalance causes it to tip for example after it passes the meridian, when it's off the clutches.

Anyone, whats the comparison between a ccd L filter and a V filter ? Is there a standard relationship or an experimental way of determining one, without having a V filter to hand ?

I'm split on this, nice chap, engaging subject, some big claims and nothing to back them up. Lucky imaging in this case is about freezing the seeing at the timescale of seconds or less. For me the maths don't add up, maybe I'm missing the mass effect ? For example why diss cats when some are built for fast imaging ?

There's a good story to that inclined grub idea. Lots of thread path and more force at the surface. I'll look into that some more. Ta.

I'd like to see the output of that, I did something similar in the morning of the 13th. I'll post it up here.

While I imaged a bright star yesterday, today I couldn't reliably find it to put in the spectrograph slit. I'm glad to see I wasn't being dumb.

https://www.aavso.org/aavso-unique-identifier - I think you need membership

The wheel I'd like to use. https://www.bilcastors.co.uk/product/bza60wgr/ The wheel I am replacing because they don't make the hard tread variety any more. https://www.robotshop.com/uk/rb-ban-91-orange-wheel.html. It solves the attachment problem by using a 12m hex hub and grub screws to the 8mm shaft but the tread does pull itself apart over time. They have stopped making the harder tread variety. The bogies these wheels have to go on look like this: The space is very limited due to having to fit between the walls of the dome. I should add pinning the wheel on the shaft as an option. ie using a drilled hole through the motor shaft ( across the long axis, near the end) and either drilling and pinning the hub on the axle or cutting a slot in the plastic for the pin to register into. Those hubs are 0.8" when using two wheels ie 20mm , so you can see from the picture that the motor shaft doesn't extend the entire width of the wheel. The grey wheel above is 28mm wide,

Hi Peter I don't have experience with red loctite - does it bind well to metal and plastic ? I'll look it up as an option. Thanks

Hi all I have a dome with dome drivers using 4 motors and a set of drive wheels on each. They use wheels mounted to the shaft of the motor by grub screws to do the driving of the dome. Unfortunately the wheel treads are quite soft and need to be replaced. I've found an easy replacement using some harder plastic wheels with a harder rubberised tread but they are plain bores. My question is - is there a best way to fasten them to a steel shaft so they are reliably fixed ? The shaft is an 8mm d- profile . I can get the wheels in 8mm plain bore or 6mm plain bore and drill them out to a snug fit. The plastic is PU. My thoughts are Interference fit + red loctite ? Araldite/epoxy glue Metal hub inserts but space is tight and has the same fixing problem Spline/key cutting using d profile as flat surface for the key Since the current wheels are bane bits using hex centres, is there a way to push the 12mm hex hubs into the pu plastic without splitting ? Anyone done this and have wisdom to share ?

I've been imaging this nova since the start of may , on as much as a daily basis as I can and then using maxim photometry to determine a photometric time series that both measures and shows the changes. Here's an example image: Where the nova is the bright star in the middle. The image is bias, dark and flat fielded. But my time sequence isnt showing the variations you mention. Anyone familiar with Maxim and photometry ? The star chart and reference table below are form the AAVSO plot generator, cover 2 degrees and down to Mag 14. Nova cas photometry chart.pdf Nova Cas Photometry table.pdf

Drill either a new set of holes for the primary and move it up the tube or do the same for the secondary but move it down, it's trivial and takes basic measurement and drilling skills. I have done this several times on a home build and commercial scopes.

To answer Ken's question, the wiki is a bit nerdy but with a few rereads it makes sense and it gets better all the time. The groups.io forum is also helpful and responsive.