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mihaighita

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Everything posted by mihaighita

  1. My Mesu+ FSQ 106 on the future observatory place. This photo is from last year Mesu with Officina Stellare preparing for first light. Same spot but the column is installed. And finally, preparing for an event at a Tuscan winery, 10 inch RC + FSQ.
  2. And the sweet time they take while you send it back... 😇😇😇😇😇
  3. Click Settings on the Autofocus box uncheck or adjust the frequency of autofocus from "Autofocus every" option
  4. At this budget you have a lot of options but the best would be CEM120 and Mesu 200. Both have a wide user base here and if you get in trouble you will find help quickly. If you stretch the budget by 1000 or so you can get an AP 1100 or a Paramount MX or MX+ second hand.
  5. I am in no way Lucas advocate but you must think not only at the "there is less material into the mount". The challenge to make precise parts for engaging/disengaging the motors must be a pain to fabricate, also making other structures (like the hollow axes) will take a toll on the fabrication price. Also the improved motor encoders are more pricey... Also trying to make a rigid structure that is 40% less heavy and make it with the same payload will be another point where the price will go up. I'm amazed that Lucas kept the mount price in a sensible zone with all this modifications (it's true that the sitech servo controller 1 is 5-600 dollars less that the sitech servo controller 2).
  6. I spoke with Lucas about the new Mesu 200 MK2. The new mount will weigh 17kg, cable management trough the axis, better motor encoders, Sitech 1 controller - upgradable to Sitech 2, optional pier for no meridian flip operation, optional a support to attach to an existing pier, fine ALT/AZ adjustment for polar align (that will prevent mount movement when locking the axis after polar alignment), levers for locking the mount in any position, levers for disengaging the drive system that will make the axes move freely for balancing payload. I asked Lucas about the possibility of installing absolute encoders and he said is possible (ofcourse the price will be much higher than without them and the benefit minimal...). The mount is available to order now with about 10 weeks delivery time. I will not disclose the price here since I think it will be different from country to country depending on the dealer. I think the mount is becoming a different beast from the MK1 with changes that take the mount to a different level. With cable management, easy payload balancing and a better polar alignment procedure, basically Lucas addressed all the little things that the MK1 was missing and I can't wait to see it in person 😇.
  7. The biggest concern in a lightbox for flats is light diffusion. You can always make a box out of an old paint bucket and stick a LED strip as evenly distributed as possible. Than you can diffuse the light with sheets of flat transparent fiberglass. Use more than 4 to distribute the light as evenly as possible.
  8. There is no way the camera sensor temperature will do anything to your filterwheel. The sensor chamber is sealed and the temp. of your filterwheel will be dependent only from the outside temp. Most of the cases where an astronomy equipment disconnects after a while, the fault is in the USB connection (cables or connectors). You could have a slightly bent connector on the Sx FW or just a faulty cable. In the way the USB cable plugs in to the side of the FW is prone to bending and could easily cause a cable to fault or in extreme cases the connector to become loose. The vast majority of the remaining faults are generated by Microsoft Win. Try using a another USB cable, then plug that cable into another USB slot on your PC, then change PC. One of these will most probably solve your problem.
  9. OMG! Has anything survived inside there?
  10. You can also try Lakeside motors... Reliable and they can do adapters to fit anything.
  11. The Mesu biggest portability problem is the fragility of the exposed motors. Lucas installed on mine 2 bars on the outside part of the motor to prevent damage to it (basically the most fragile there is the black encoder at the bottom of the motor - it does not need much force to effectively ruin it). A very effective way to transport the mount is to put it in the original wooden box it came with, but you will have to be extremely careful when you install the mount on the pier/tripod and to take your time especially in the morning when you are tired.
  12. I will try this the next time I do PA on the mount. The thing that bothers me the most, tbh, is the movement made from the altitude locking bolt, the central bolt movement is predictable and I can compensate for it relatively easy. The altitude bolt is unpredictable because of the elastic deformation taking place in the halfwheel with the red arrow from the attached photo
  13. You cannot go wrong with it. I am going to buy one next year when I have the budget for it.
  14. The mount moves when tightening both the central bolt and the altitude locking bolt. On the central bolt I tried everything to make it stop, from thrust washer to grease between 2 washers to compression bearing and while the last 2 methods did alleviate the problem, the rotation of the mount did not entirely go away. On the altitude locking bolt I've yet to find a cure that will stop the mount moving, I think it slightly flexes the structure and I tend to leave the altitude bolt a bit loosen or anticipate the move and move the star a bit off... On a fixed location where you have time to fiddle with the PA and anticipate the mount movements it's not a deal breaker but the considerations from above were about the mount being used as a portable mount (even in the splittable version). I love the mount, after the setup on my pier and the PA "nightmare" it just disappeared in the background for most of the time and I imaged with it between 395mm (reduced FSQ 106) and 2000mm (250mm RC) without any problem. And as a testimonial on how sturdy the mount is, I had an incident with the wind taking it down from a berlebach tripod last autumn. It was loaded with the 250mm RC and the FSQ at about 40 kgs of scope and cameras and another 40 kgs of counterweights and the damage the mount sustained was minor (Dec housing bent and, ofcourse, the DEC motor severed from the housing). It's true that the fall was somehow slowed by my body 😁... Lucas fixed the mount quick and perfect after this incident, it took more for me to recover than the mount to be fixed. With all of the above said, I will surely buy the second version as the secondary mount for my upcoming observatory in Tuscany...
  15. The performance of the Mesu 200 is amazing considering the price. It has some flaws in the design and some in manufacturing but nothing is perfect 😁 . If you do the things above everything is portable. I bet there are people that can lift on a pier/tripod an even heavier mount. My concern with the transportability of the Mesu 200 is about the fragility of the exposed motors/encoders. Even a small mistake can lead to a catastrophe (I had to replace my DEC encoder because the mount arrived to me in with the encoder ruined most probably from shipping). Also the edges of the mount are so sharp, I had a lot of cuts trying to lift it to it's pier. Then there is the tedious problem with the mount rotating when at the end of doing the PA one wants to tight the mount axes, that makes the PA extremely time consuming. And, as a last thing against portability, it's weird to take a mount that is capable of at least 50 kg of scope for astrophotography and put a 8-9 kg FSQ on it, there are some other mounts in the price range that are marvelous travelers and can carry a relatively small telescope.
  16. That's easy... There is an adaptor for Polemaster that you have in stock https://www.firstlightoptics.com/celestron-mounts/qhy-polemaster-adapter-for-mesu-mounts.html. It just needs the correct holes to connect the iPolar to it... Easy to reverse-engineer from that.
  17. Perhaps @ollypenrice can help you with this. He has 2 ArgoNavis Mesu 200.
  18. Not to mention that you would need negative energy density (therefore exotic matter) like in an Alcubierre drive. And the normal energy requirements are beyond comprehension.
  19. Mesu 200 is not a mount you can take in the field. Even with the splittable option is still bulky and rather fragile to transport often (see motors and motor encoders exposed). So it's not a bad thing that Lucas is making a "statement" about the mount as being better as a fixed mount. I would rather say it's a measure to simplify the manufacturing process so he can meet demand as there are always waiting lists for this mount. The design of a friction mount is rather simple. You would have two major problems: Manufacturing the roller/disk with tight tolerances for roundness/smoothness and mounting the pair with high concentricity. Single piece precision manufacturing would be rather expensive and I think you would pay higher than the Mesu 200 price.
  20. Never had a problem with CdC and Mesu. Try using the SGPro alone, without starting CdC. You can use the Blind Sync from SGPro to tell the mount where it is and then Target Settings -> Location to have SGPro point the Mesu to the desired object.
  21. There is a misconception here... The speed at which light travels is with respect to the Space it travels through (technically with respect to objects that are “sitting still” in Space). The Universe does not expand at a particular speed, it expands at a speed per distance (68km/sec/megaparsec). The law that refers to the speed of light as being the ultimate speed in the Universe is Special Theory of Relativity. But STR is a localized law of physics and when we are speaking about a distant galaxy we are applying another law that is called General Relativity. And in the sense of the GR there is no concept like limited velocity ( velocity makes sense only on local regions of space). If it's not close, it doesn't count as a “velocity” in the way that STR cares about.
  22. I don't think Lucas will revert to v1... Most probably this is a prototype that used the v1 of the controller. I would bet that he is going to use v2
  23. This would pair fantastically with the FSQ 106... ?
  24. Very odd to have better guiding after the flip... Most probably you have some imbalance there. I always have my MESU on very low aggression and relatively high hysteresis. As of lately, I am using aggression of 45% in RA and 30% in DEC and 32 hysteresis. I found that these values with a 5-second exposure will give me the best results in average seeing conditions at long focal length (I have a 2000 mm FL GSO 10 inch RC on top of the mount now). At low FL should not matter too much on this mount it will make round stars in any configuration of PHD2. Balance can be tricky to do on the MESU but I use a hand scale with an attached strap held by a "contraption" I made to help me with the positioning and raising the scale perfectly perpendicular to the end of the OTA and end of the counterweight bar. The only pain with the balance has been shifting the 25+ kgs of OTA in the saddleplate.
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