Tomatobro

Money in itself has no real value. The value is in the things you buy. Now who was it that said that?

For me it depends on what you are looking at. Seeing Saturn for the first time through an eyepiece and trying to compare that experience to a galaxy which is a faint grey smudge in the eyepiece to having lots of detail on a screen is difficult. Both are good. I would say though taking everything into account the Laptop screen wins.

I used to have S@N and AN via subscription but now only have AN. Its just the better of the two magazines if you can only run to one.

set up the EQ6-r on the garden with whatever scope you need extra?

If some is good, more is better and too much is just about right. I just watched a program on particle entanglement so I guess you are conducting research into this phe👽nomena But if it works..........who cares! Also gonna need a bigger aperture, right chief?

I guess you are referring to the GTI version with full goto. The second batch of mounts look to be available soon with the USA already reporting deliveries. The problem is that its such a popular mount that once suppliers have filled the firm orders there is little if any free stock to put on the shelf.

A great combination. And if you can master plate solving finding objects is not to difficult.

They lower the amount of Chromium to reduce cost and improve its machinability. Hence the term stainless not stain free

Its a Sony chipped mono camera as supplied in the UKMON kit

Just looked through last nights captures and this fireball was recorded after midnight. Moon is the source of the reflections. Attached is a stack of all the captures from last night

If your subs are good then all is well.........👍

Tomato and I have booked.

These are the ones I have 2015 NUC5i3RYH 2015 NUC5i5RYH 2017 NUC5i5MYHE 2014 NUCD54250WYKH The first number is the year of manufacture. One of them I upgraded the RAM from 4 to 16gb. All have win 10 pro.

Consider used NUC's. I3 or I5 with 128gb and 8 gb ram. Windows 10 pro lets you use remote desktop. And they run quite happily on 12 volts. I have several and I paid around £100 each.

00:24 plus or minus 16 hours according to one website💥

I have sensors inside my fibreglass dome which warn me when condensation is starting to form and there is a definite pattern to it. In the summer there is no condensation. In the cooler months what happens is that the pier, mount and scope cool down in line with the uninsulated walls but the walls warm up in the morning warming the air. The metal of the pier and mount are slow to warm up so condensation forms on these parts. If the observatory has been open during the night then condensation forms on the inside of the walls probably due to the heat held in the substantial concrete base heating the air. On really cold nights frost will form on the inside which then melts in the morning. I could see that insulation would reduce internal condensation but I use a dehumidifier to dry out the inside during the cooler months.

One thing with the EQ8 is that it is shipped in a large flight box which is on wheels. Once the mount is on the pier its what to do with the flight box. Its too good to scrap and has a limited resale so you will need to find somewhere to store it.

The question is a bit unfair on the EQ6 as it was already a bit overloaded hence the move to the EQ8. With the 10 inch tube RC, Altair 60mm guide scope, remote focuser, 7 position filter wheel and cameras last night PHD reported RA 0.12 (0.39") Dec 0.06 (0.19") Total (0.43") RA osc 0.20 From memory on the overloaded EQ6 the RA would be around 0.85, and the DEC about 0.65 on a good night. Hope this helps

I had my EQ8-r delivered in October 2021. It replaced my EQ6 pro. Machining the adapter for the mount required me to lift the EQ8 on and off the pier about 8 times which put my back out for about 10 days or so. After about 50 hours of use I adjusted the RA backlash which was straight forward. There is a tiny bit in the DEC but the polar alignment is so good I have not done anything with it. My main concern was what would the build quality be like as it was the first batch out of the pandemic but I could not fault it.

As per Malc's suggestion you might find TeraTerm (its free to use) for the comms check easier to use. In settings select the com port number shown in Device manager (should default to the correct settings) and in terminal set to local echo. The led is being powered by the usb port supply to the serial chip in the cable.

Should be possible to set up and test in daylight "look Igor it moved"🤖

OK, having made a note of the Com port number that appears when the cable is connected in Device manager) then connect it to the mount, open EQMOD on the laptop and see if the comport number (the baud rate and config also) in the EQMOD matches. If not then put the correct number (s) in the box and see if it connects to the mount. If still unresponsive (even if it connects) then a repair of the board is most likely You may well be right regarding the red led. On my EQ6 with power applied and the serial cable connected with the power switch off the LED is off

The steps I would go through are these. Use a multimeter and check at the power cable tip that you have at least 12 volts I think you are using a FTDI serial cable. Power up the laptop and with the cable disconnected at the mount end plug it into a usb port. Do you hear the Ping note from the laptop? Now (with the cable still connected just toi the laptop go into Device manager list the com ports. Make a note of what is connected, then pull out the cable. The device manager com port list should reset and one of the com ports will be missing. Check your list of what was present before and plug in again the cable. Does the com port reappear? Report back what you see

After remote desktop connects I start each APP from scratch.

I also clicked on the "notify me when available" but with demand outstripping supply I guess it did not meet the "when available" criteria.