micovn

Thanks so much for sharing your experience.

So, if I understand correctly, it's not a game-changer. I had read that some dude had fixed their flexure issues with the upgrade kit, but you're saying that's likely not to make much difference. Better so, I'll save £70 !

thanks again

michele

Hi all, 

I recently purchased a second hand WO Zenithstar 61, first version, that with the L-bracket. The idea is to use it as wide field lens for astrophotography, paired with a zwo asi1600 and a star adventurer mount. 

I then came across the post-market upgrade kit sold by WO to replace the L bracket with a Mounting Ring and CAT Handle Bar. Has anyone done the upgrade and can offer some feedback? Is it worth in terms of extra stability for astrophotography or it's just looking nicer?

I'd appreciate any  feedback based on direct experience.

Many thanks,

Michele

3 hours ago, symmetal said:

The only change necessary is that as the StellaLyra is 12.2mm longer, you will need to rack the focuser in by 12.2mm to regain focus. 🙂

Thanks Alan, this makes so much sense!

Of course, in order to have a flat field what needs to stay constant is the sensor-to-flattener distance, everything else doesn't matter, as long as I can reach focus!

Never been good at optics!

Thank again,

Michele

Hi all,
I would like to replace the camera rotator on a William Optics Flat 61A field flattener (https://www.firstlightoptics.com/reducersflatteners/william-optics-adjustable-flattener-for-zs61.html). I think the StellaLyra with the 54M thread might work (https://www.firstlightoptics.com/rotators/stellalyra_caa_m54.html), but I am concerned that the spacing won't be right. 
The original rotator is roughly 18mm thick (measured with a ruler) whereas the StellaLyra appears to be 35.2mm - 5mm (male thread) = 30.2mm.

The Flat 61A flattener is normally operated at 12.9mm, let's call it 13mm. To account for the extra 12.2mm thickness (30.2mm -18mm) of the new camera rotator I should operate the Flat 61A at about 1mm. Does this make sense? Has anyone else tried to replace the camera rotator on the WO Flat 61A ?

Thanks in advance,

Michele

On 12/12/2017 at 04:47, jzax said:

I also had this problem when trying to power my Star Adventurer with my nice 22 Ah Ravpower USB powerpack. Apparently, the mount draws little power and the powerpack shuts down after a while, thinking "there is nothing to charge"... Looks like most modern powerpacks have this threshold minimum current to stay alive... Obviously, a fast solution is to connect more things at the same time (a USB lamp, etc.)

Apparently, there are some powerbanks around that have the option of "always on" (such as the Voltaic), but I discovered that the Amateur Radio Shop Sotabeams UK sells a little cheap adjustable "pass-through" device that cures the problem.

I bought it and it works beautifully

https://www.sotabeams.co.uk/usb-battery-pack-keep-alive-load/

Clear Skies!

Thanks everyone for the invaluable information! I landed on this discussion after a google search about my celestron power pack switching off after few seconds when supplying the star adventurer..it was literally driving me crazy! Especially considering that a cheap 2600mAh usb power pack was working perfectly.  Now it all makes sense..I've just plugged my phone and the power pack is not going to sleep anymore!

23 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

Did you do a restart of PHD2 after that?  I tried this last night and it didnt appear to work.

Nope, just updated the port in APT settings, force a PHD2 calibration and dithering was working again

Hello thanks everyone for the replies! So, in the end I solved the issue. The problem is very easy to fix, just set up the right port for the PHD2 sever in the APT settings. For some weird reason the default port is 4300 but the right one is 4400. After I changed the port everything worked flawlessly! 

Hello everyone,

I recently had to factory reset my laptop and obviously after reinstalling my astro software some problems have come up: the dithering function doesn't work anymore! I set up the sequence in APT, with the dithering functionality activated. When the first image is acquired, APT correctly sends the dithering input to phd2 (the status in APT says "dithering"), but PHD2 enter a "paused" state, from which it never recovers, unless you restart it. Any idea?

thanks