Demonperformer

That looks like one very impressive scope. Congratulations on your purchase. Glad you are getting on well with the "skyalign" feature. If you get no joy with an answer to your "update" problem (sorry, no idea) it may be worth trying the Yahoo NexStarGPS Group.

Wow! What a result first time out! Congratulations.

Oscar Wilde once said* “The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it” ... button pressed ... *The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1890

That is MEGA-seriously tempting ....

Just realised there is a cooled version of the 224 - I previously assumed yours was uncooled - is this correct? Thanks.

Yes, there is a lot of detail there for such short subs. Lots of them helped, no doubt! I am particularly interested in this, as I have just purchased a 224 and have been interested to know how long I can make useful exposures without cooling. This suggests that one answer is "plenty long enough". Thanks for posting.

or even £7 over your budget (not including delivery prices - not checked those!)

Good progress, Martin. I like the counterbalance idea.

Innovative and ingenious design. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for that . I was reading your dithering thread this morning and a lot of it was way over my head, but this makes the requirements very clear for the 1600 (which is also my camera).

Thanks. That was my #1 guess, but the fact that there was another one that was a different colour made me uncertain.

Found it (the manual - all 186 pages of it!) and the USB3 is the blue one. Apparently the yellow one is an "always on" port ... whatever that may be! Lots to learn.

New (refurbished) USB3 laptop with ZWO 224 planetary camera and CH4 filter. All I have to do now is find a manual for the laptop online (none came with it) to work out the USB ports. I have 2 black, 1 blue (labelled SS) and 1 yellow (on the other side of the machine). And one of those 4 is USB3 and the others are USB2. I'll get there eventually ...

Ooo, just found this ... I did not know about the 12-month rule ... [These are UK rules, don't know about elsewhere]

You may find it cheaper to get a set of the replacement bolts - about £25 IIRC - which solve the problem completely. I know spending more cash to resolve a design fault is not ideal, but it may cost more than that to return it and order something else.

There was a thread on here a few years back of someone who had captured HH with just 2 second exposures, but IIRC he took many hundreds of them. But this is probably not the easiest way to do it!

Don't want to 'jump' on your enthusiasm for the dome too much, but, if the NEQ6 option would require a bigger dome, isn't the mount the place to start, as you suggested above? - unless I have missed something (quite possible)? Would hate to see you put all the work into creating the dome and then come unstuck with the mount.

Gina, A thought ... not totally compliant with your ideas so far and not fully-fledged, but might spark something ... If you had a double sideways door, could you fit something (a rubber wedge?) to the underside of the door (side closest to dome) that would butt-up against the dome when shut, to keep the rain out, but would not obstruct opening? Don't see how this could be adapted to single door (as either only one side would be rain-proof, or the "wrong" side would have to be flexible enough to allow for opening, which could lead to it (i) not doing the job and (ii) snagging when you close the door). Does all this make sense? Not being an engineer, my desciptions may lack a little something ... As I say, not perfect for what you have described, but may spark an idea of your own ... Thanks.

Just had a look at the link and it seems that the win version is still only available for 64-bit systems?

Nice start. (1) Make a small 'dew shield' for the guider - rolled-up thin cardboard should suffice. (2) Stability can be added to a mount by hanging something (bag of sugar?) directly underneath it (it pulls the centre of gravity downwards). (3) Try sharpcap - it will either work or not with your camera and costs nothing. After struggling for years with PA, I am a great advocate of the polemaster, but that is not cheap. You would also need to consider that, if you really get bitten by the AP bug, you are going to upgrade from the EQ2 at some point (really, you are - and on that basis, IMO don't even think about upgrading the motor on the EQ2). You would then need a new adapter for it to fit the new mount. HTH

Could you save onto a stick using one of the usb ports and then process directly from that? Don't know how much longer that would take to process compared to an internal drive and how that would compare to the time involved in transferring your original data - I have always done mine from a usb drive, so maybe I'm just used to that speed and would be amazed if I ran it from an internal.

Does not seem possible to run it on a 32-bit windows machine, however.

Gina, Are bias frames temperature-dependant? I thought one set of bias would apply to all subs, but maybe I'm wrong?

Actuially, clicking on the link you have "Installing the INDI library full edition" takes you to the page where you click on "Daily INDI library".

Gina, Click on download to open html page. Scroll down tot he bottom and click on Raspberry pi. Click on "Daily Inid Libraray". Under Data column, click on download and a dialogue box will open, asking if you want ot open or save. HTH