Tom OD

Ha Ha excellent. This might mean that the Pegasus is the only focuser that will fit, based on it having a 4mm-8mm bushing You re not done yet though Can you measure this bit too, see the image. If its 25mm then the extra coupler is not needed. Was that 8mm on the 1:10 side? That rings a bell, but I could not remember which side it was on. The 1:1 or the 1:10

Ha ha, I want the answer in mm^2 please. Just wondering if anyone can save you some time T.

Hi Guys I have an old Blue FSQ tak and I want to fit an auto focused on it. It’s in France at the moment so I can’t measure it. Does anyone know the diameter of the coarse side of the shaft. My sesto senso focused won’t fit the N version but it has bushings to fit the new ED version. I want to see if the adapters they sell for 33mm or 37mm will work. Thanks Tom.

Hi Gav, Well the good news is that the swapping of the USB cable seemed to work. A little to confirm, but the cooler remained for 3 hours in a test earlier. Well as for the focuser tilt, or maybe mis-collimation, I need to study up on this again, and run the focuser out on both sides and take more pics. The first SGP focus was super sharp on the LHS, then got so bad as it went to the RHS, another bit out and the Airy disk would be visible. Here is what the SGP gave me as the best focus, on a second attempt. Not very good at all.

Best of Luck Ian and FLO. I have bought items from Ian in the past, and attended one of his workshops years ago. I always liked his honesty about a product. I notice his ICAstronomy has found a new location near Oria in Spain. That's about 15Km where I re-located to for 3 years to image. I think he'll enjoy it there. It is Europe's only desert. Or at least was. Pretty dark there too. Tom.

Ha Ha its a tight squeeze in there. I have been testing it a lot and at least I have managed to get each individual section of a sequence working. Only the other night I got an actual sequence running, but only with my manually setting of a target. The Plate Solve failed when I tried the Framing Mosaic. Blind Solve works but I think it took about 10 mins and the Framing Mosaic timed out. I still have hours and hours of testing and set up to do yet. I think I may even be slightly disappointed when I eventually get all of this working, in that data collection will become a button pushing exercise. I'll miss the outdoors and manually doing everything. However the amount of data I'll be able to collect for the widefield mosaics will more than compensate for my change of data collection methods. But hey I see that's a discussion already taking place on another thread The bigger issue on the horizon is the amount of tilt on the damn FSQ106ED. Auto Focus is so tight on one side, and very poor on the other. I may need to graph temp verses the optimal centre focus and use that as the step counts. I 'll see. I may try and get over there and fiddle with grub screws etc. One set is on an extender piece, the others on the FSQ itself? well I m not too sure and nervous about touching them. I still have my old Blue FSQ106N out there. I might just swap them out, that one never had a tilt issue. What a beauty of a scope. I would need of course to get a new focuser as the Sesto Senso did not come with a bushing wide enough to fit the larger diameter focus shaft. It drive you nuts all these connections.

The USB is from the camera straight into the Eagle, no hub involved. There was some work done in the shed yesterday, so maybe this cable got a little bump T.

I love this phrase. Its twisting my brain. Thanks Gav I'll look into this. It would definitely require the night assistant to apply. Yes it sounds like everyone has had similar and the same issues. I guess it's not a bug then. I think I have a spare USB cable in the shed lying about to try. If that does not work I can try reinstalling the s/w. Tom.

Thanks for the replies. Yes it started cooling on connection when I started, as this is how I have it set to in the equipment profiles. I tried one more reboot before going to bed and this time it gave an error for cannot connect to the camera. Certainly looks like a USB issue or a dead camera Time to get the night assistant to take a look Tom.

Hi All, I m trying to get a remote observatory up and running and I m having plenty of problems with SGP. Most are settings that are incorrect. I have noticed twice now that if I use the "Connect All Equipment" that in a few minutes while the camera is cooling down, or at the set point of -20C, that the power and temp readings disappear. I was trying to do a Take One and noticed that it took ages to take the image or download. That is when I noticed the temp settings. See the pic attached. According to the help manual, this is what you should see if the camera has no cooling regulation. Mine does. Restarting the PC and the same issue happens again. The camera would cool, but then it would hang again. This time I selected the Connect equipment individually. Is this a known issue, or would anyone have an idea that I m doing something stupid? I have managed to get a sequence running already, and I have been able to use the focus, and the take one. I dont know if I have a USB issue, or a software one. Thanks for looking Tom.

Great report, and I m glad you got to check out the Alan Longstaff. We sometimes break it out and do some visual work if the scopes are imaging. Its always a joy to see those objects yourself instead of letting the camera do the work. I was not aware of M4 being known as the Cats Eye. Tom.

Thanks for this. I'll try it later if the clouds stay away. Tom.

Hi All, I m new to SGP, and still learning the ropes. I have set up my profile, and all of the control panel tabs and settings for each piece of equipment. I m having problems setting up a sequence however. It works in Simulator modes, but not in practice. Now I m just trying to get it going, I m not centering targets after slewing, and I have not used Frame and Mosaic yet. I select a target, and I have slewed to it, and its there on the screen when I do a Frame and Focus quick pic. Once I set the sequence filters and frames etc, the PHD2 guider starts, and guiding begins. When I select Start Sequence (or is it Run?) the First frame does not start, I just see Auto Guider settling message in the bottom left of the screen. I have not selected a Settle time in the Auto guide tab. When I did make some changes to the settle time and pixels, I still had the Auto guider settling message, although I did not shut down the sequence and restart it in the s/w. I only selected resume button. I may have needed to reopen the Sequencer for the setting changes to take effect. The Sequence timer continues to run with no frames been taken. Do I need to tune the settings from the PHD calibration to input here in the Auto Guide Settings for this, and do you need to select the Settle option? Thanks Tom.

Great to see it doing the rounds, giving people a chance to see it and all the other Astro images. Thanks guys for your comments. Tom

Super work Gav. Tom

Super pic Peter. I love the 68hrs, and that little galaxy on the lower left. The background is super smooth which I like. My only criticism is that there are 2 dust bunnies on the top right hand corner. Tom.

While I was on a Meteor shoot for the Eta Aquariids, I had a quick go at shooting the Milky Way from Super Dark Skies from the Research Centre in Belize. There was not a light for miles, but the humidity was 90% so transparency was a bit low. 25s exp, ISO 10000 14mm lens. 2 pane pano. The second image is a 2min tracked shot 1600 ISO 14mm lens. Tom.

If you are having dew forming on your lens while out imaging this might help. Given the large area and amount of “glass” in wide field lens your night can end quickly once dew starts to form. Wiping it off just is not enough as it ll form again quickly. I was using a 60mm dew heater strap for a telescope. I bought some speaker connectors and 9v connectors online and soldered them up. This worked great and cleared dew from the 14mm glass. It’s small light and compact but if you re out all night you ll need to use two or three 9v batteries. A better option would be a 12v moped re-chargeable battery if weight is not an issue. I was imaging in 90% humidity and needed to go a step further. One of our party had foam fold up cushions. I got duct tape and made my own dew box. With a section cut out I was able to get to see through the view finder and adjust any dials. There was no vignetting and this kept the dew off all night. The outside of the box was dripping wet. A slight breeze helps keep the dew off, and if you can avoid standing too far out in the open. Try sheltering by trees as this prevents dew forming too. Hope you find this useful.

Hi Kris Yes I am working but still there are a few more steps to do and test before I 'll know if I m fully functional. I needed to use an opto isolator on the USB cable from the Eagle to the Mesu / SiTech. This seemed to fix the Comms issues, and erratic Tracking I was having. Thanks for your mail here. My Eagle is still on 2.3 version, so I might update it. I was not gettign the same USB error that you had though. I m using SiTech .92ge version, I m not sure about the firmware but I did update the drivers recently also as part of the trouble shooting. Tom.

So far so good. The sequence would not run as it kept saying Unsafe even though it was. Disconnected it but it reconnected. Something else to go after next. I m away for a bit but here is a screenshot of first light from last night. 10min guidedM13. Luminance

Yes you can thanks again Tom.

Yes this worked. Guiding is now up and running. Sequencing is still an issue as it sees the conditions as Unsafe and aborts the sequence. Even when I Disconnect the Environmental Ascom it still aborts the sequence. I m sure its just another tick box in there somewhere, but its great to be actually taking 10min pics that are focused, guided and of course with the roof open More SGP to learn. Tom.

I ll check that when I get home. I think I only have the ZWO drivers installed. Thanks Dave for the advice. Tom.

And Gav I m using the POTH as I only have the USB cable going into the MESU, so I m not using ST4 to guide. So that was my understanding to go with the POTH. T.

I'll check that box when I get home. Yes it all worked again last night when I was testing it. Well I unparked and slewed to M3 I think, and there it was almost centre again. I ended up doing a plate solve, which failed even though it knew where it was. I think I just clicked on the wrong button. Either way at least it went where I wanted it to. Focus seemed to work well, then I tried to start a sequence but the guiding is not set up yet. So a question for you, I m using PHD2. When I used the ZWO camera at first to connect to PHD it recognized the camera and it allowed to focus etc as a start. I then got a BW ZWO camera, and I put the OSC ZWO as my observatory all seeing cam. Now when I open PHD is shows the all sky cam, and not the one in the guidescope. I don't seem to have any option to pick between either camera. It looks like it has "locked" onto the OSC that I first connected. Does anyone know of a way to select the other camera, or do I need to uninstall PHD disconnect the OSC observatory cam, then install and let it hopefully pick the BW guide cam. I use the ZWO own program to view the observatory anyway. Thanks Tom.