The Sailor

Good luck Tony, looking forward to seeing your progress

Jim

Ah, I know you mentioned that in a previous post but wondered if you were on about something else. I found it by accident myself when taking the winch apart looking for a way to put a barrier on the spindle . I used it in helping me to put the start of the cable on.

Jim

I have to be honest I am finding this observatory building a bit crazy, heres me after starting in the yard to building an observatory which I have to say works perfectly and now I have started another build this time in the attic. Each time a build has been started we have come up with ideas and have overcome obstacles to see the ideas a reality, you Gina have your moving roof, for me it's how to put a mount in without putting it through the window in error . Another piece of my puzzle has arrived this afternoon, time to build

Jim

Took my winch apart to see what I could do to stifle the noise but quickly put it back and put it in the plastic tool box, the rubber is between the box and the roof.

Jim

Loctite superglue, thing is Gina once you put a spare round of cord around the drum the collars should stay in place anyway, I actually used the superglue on the cord as well, this helped it stay in place.

Jim

One thing I've yet to do is put a divider in the winch drum to separate pulling-open rope from pulling-closed rope. It'll also need another fixing hole but that's no problem - have power drill and files. Since the drum is cast in one lump I shall have to make the divider in two halves. I guess Araldite might do to glue the parts to the drum and themselves.

Gina, I used plastic pipe collars for where radiator pipes enter the floor, I had to widen the centre hole to fit the drum. Two placed "bottom" to "bottom" , put on the drum, glued and hey presto. The great thing is the "top" is sloping into the space for the cable and helps to guide as well.

Jim

The noise is one of the problem I encountered, I have rubber under it and polystyrene round it, just helps to damper it

I looked at a number of options for pulling the dome round, polyproplene and nylon were out and I tried webbing strap, good but went out because the roll would not fit the winch drum. I ended up settling for twine, no elasticity, cheap and nasty I still have the orignal cable but that would be too heavy.

Jim

This is the OAG I have:

http://www.wexphotographic.com/buy-meade-off-axis-guider-777/p13521?cm_mmc=googlebase-extension-_-astronomy-accessories-_-camera-adapters-_-meade-777-off-axis-guider_13521&utm_source=googlebase-extension&gclid=cmpkolwcgrucftdmtaod6iaaja

Found it chunky, resides in my camera case, might ressurect it when the new observatory is open for business, see what all the fuss is about

Jim

I do have one only used it once , I attached it to my 6" SCT and my thoughts were that it did not give me anything and it just added extra to the visual train, sorry for the negativity.

Jim

A sad day, a man who has brought the entainment of the sky to millions.

Jim

Such a pity, hope we will see you again in the near future, take care.

Jim

I think we are going to need a bigger rope!! Gina, that looks like a piece of cord, is it able to do the job, the rope i have on my teeny dome is bigger than that lol.

Jim

A dozen or so pully wheels in the right place, rope, winch and battery, a couple of hours work and you have a auto roro roof .

Jim

Gina, is there a possibility of a ledge on the outside at roof height to allow this, before I done my warm room I had already put an overhang on the other end of the observatory to take any equipment I wanted to put there, the winch and solar panels were installed on it.

Jim

First of all, Gina if you look at the orignal thread on moving the roof you will see I posted a couple of photos showing the winch in a plastic toolbox, this has allowed me to put the winch on the warm room roof and the power cable came down the outside ensuring the weather proofing of the roof was not compromised. The winch is meant for a vehicle so the weather would not be detrimental to it but it went in a box anyway.

Secondly, it is noisy as hell and I will be placing rubber underneath and polystyrene all over to dampen the noise. The thing is it will only be moving for a few seconds at a time so the noise although there will be minimised.

Jim

Solar charger for my pack, easy and convenient, overcast and raining yet still charging

Jim

Another great bit of service from Bernard, after a chat on the telephone yesterday I opted for the QHY5 and it arrived this morning, same hapened during the week when I wanted a filter, arrived next day, thank you .

Jim

Daz, thanks for that, still clear as mud so I will stick with what I already have, works well, can control the mount from the handset and laptop so will bow out of this thread, again thank you .

Jim

Hi danielbb, thanks for that reply, now if someone could elaborate, what does this cable do that I cannot already do using EQdir from my computer. As said I have a NEQ6 Pro and it has a serial plug, has this mount already got this cable attached already?

Jim

I am a bit lost in all this but is this cable to take the place of the HitecAstro cable? I am not one for soldering resistors an suchlike but I do put cables together and am interested in putting this together but just in a simple form without any extras. So is it a case of cutting two cables and stitching them together in the order in the first photographs, I have an NEQ6 Pro so will be different.

Jim

I have used home supply for my observatory for the last few years without a problem, the power runs overhead to it. Once a month I give my 12v power supply a run down on the observatory then recharge by solar.

Jim

Another 1st class transaction from Modern Astronomy, thank you Bernard. A well priced and packaged SW GS Mount arrived within 24 hrs of ordering.

Jim

The last weekend I converted my power tank and now in a flight case I have a solar panel trickle charging all the time, looks good at the moment

Jim

Thanks Brett, yes am a happy bunny , I was in Vista Computer Management and went into the properties for the serial port, deleted it and the driver, hit scan for hardware changes and the serial port came up, I hit the button to search the internet for a driver and when it finished the serial port had changed to a modem. I checked what it's properties was, serial port noted and carried on from there. Just check this morning and all is running okay.

As a matter of interest, the serial port is not listed in the hardware list. When the driver was being installed the old red box came up to say it was not certified but I hit the install button anyway. The following drivers are installed:

COMP_MDM.inf

Modem.sys

ser2pl.sys

Hope this is of help to those who still find problems, it appears that Windows seen the serial port, passed through and seen the modem in the Celestron Hand Controller and carried on from there.

Jim

Okay, I have followed every word that has been printed on this thread in how to get Stellarium to operate the telescope, for weeks I have tried every routine of what to install first and last, what to startup first and last, all to no avail!!! Have spent money on all things usb and serial still to no avail. I even tried CdC, nothing, a dead telescope .

Today has been no different, 3 laptops to try, different configurations but zilch. This evening I decided to delete the driver to the USB/Serial adapter and see what it can pickup off the net. What a suprise, I ended up not with a serial port but a Motorola modem!!! I laughed at this and was about to delete it when I thought about it and realised that a moden was needed to communicate with the hand controller.

I fired up Stellarium and after ensuring I had the right serial port number I hit the button and lo and behold, THE TELESCOPE SLEWED TO THE GIVEN STAR, IT WORKED!! :D . So for all peoples still having problems with Stellarium and usb/serial port, see if installing the serial adapter as a moden will work!!! Sounds crazy but all I did was let the serial adapter find it's own driver.

Jim