Just occasionally these Sangemo Western ammeters come up for sale on Ebay. I paid £10 for this one and apart from a clean and some adjustment works well. When I got it the calibration certificate was dated February 1949 and it said that at 20 degrees C you had to multiply the readings by 0.0008

Inside is a work of mechanical art and heaven knows what it cost new

As long as the ring did not drop onto the mirror and mark it you should be ok. By all means use masking tape to record the orientation of the top plate before taking the screws out. It seems scary if you are not used to doing this kind of work but you should find that removing the corrector and putting the retainer back on not too difficult.

I smell a cost reduction as the move from flexible to solid.......and then marketed as an improvement.

Telescope Express list replacements but they are not cheap

If you don't mind a bit of DIY then a vibration switch can be soldered across the push button contacts of a wireless door bell and then fasten the door bell switch to the scope.

The door bell can then be plugged into the mains so you get a warning if the scope is interfered with. This is the one I used from Ebay. The vibration switch also is available in various levels of sensitivity

TECKNET Wireless Door Bells 400M Range Home Cordless 38 Chimes Plug In Doorbell

No problem with the wind but plenty with brain fade in forgetting to turn it off.

Bicycle anti theft motion alarms are good. Cheap and battery powered.

This one has a remote control to set and its very LOUD........

Draco triplet.

NGC5982 eliptical Galaxy
NGC5981 Edge on Spiral Galaxy
NGC5985 Spiral Galaxy

These galaxies are probably not related and reside at different distances so the triplet is purely a line of sight effect. NGC 5985 is about 120 million light years away, NGC 5982 about 130 million years and the small edge on NGC 5981 about 100 million light years away.

NGC 5981 is quite a small dwarf galaxy. NGC 5982 and 5985 were found by William Herschel in 1788 but NGC 5981 had to wait until 1850 when it was found by J Stoney at Birr castle, probably with the 72".

NGC 5985 is an almost face on spiral. It is classified as a Seyfert type 1 galaxy with an active black hole at its nucleus. It is also classified as a LINER.

NGC 5982 is classified as an elliptical galaxy class E3. Although it looks quiescent now deep images reveal shells surrounding which are the results of a merger with another galaxy. These shells were found in the optical but were among the first to be discovered in the mid infra-red using data from Spitzer. NGC5982 may also be an active galaxy hiding a black hole. The merger probably happened about a billion years ago. Although it is an elliptical galaxy it also contains a young population of stars, perhaps as a result of the merger.

Telescope 10 inch RC
Camera ZWO ASI1600 MM

180 x 30 second exposures luminance
30 x 30 second exposures RGB

Imagies taken over the nights of 25th/26th and 27th May 2022

Stacked with APP and minor processing with GIMP

I dont have the camera you have but do have some others that run on the older version (3.2 I think) which when I last looked was still downloadable.

Otherwise try the 32 bit 4.0 version.

A couple of questions. which version of Sharpcap have you installed?

My hunch is that NINA is using Powershell to call the batch file and allowing it to run in the background while just displaying the CMD screen. There is also something going on where if the USB to serial module is not connected then calling the batch file direct it runs but reports that the call to the none available serial com port is not available but completes the batch file instructions. NINA looks to be running a check first and reports that the batch file cannot be run with the designated com port  missing.

When NINA calls the batch file you get a plain CMD terminal with no other text. In SharpCap you get the c:\ Program Files (x86) SharpCap 4.0 as a first line.

So my thoughts were that SharpCap is invoking the batch file in a different way to NINA. I don't have the "Program files" bit as part of my batch file so it must be being generated by SharpCap.

Sharpcaps sequencer treats the batch file as I would expect in that there is no difference between it being called or run direct

I wonder if a clue lies in the first line of Sharpcaps call

These two screen shots show the difference between the two terminal screens. Don't worry about the illegal com port it was not connected.

Capture1 is when the batch file is called direct and capture 2 is when called via NINA. For both screens the batch file is running successfully.

1) when the batch file is called from the directory where it is stored (documents) it displays the terminal screen and it runs properly. Shows things like the timeout counter counting down etc.

Both NINA and Sharpcap have provision in the sequencer to set up a path to a batch file and will run the batch file when it is called. When the batch file is completed the terminal screen closes and returns to the next step in the sequence. The difference is that when called by NINA the command terminal opens but does not display the information (like the countdown timer) but is just a terminal with a flashing cursor. However, by watching the output to the serial port I can see that the batch file is running in the background, and when finished the terminal screen closes and NINA then goes to the next step in the sequence

2) In the advanced sequencer you pull across the bar from the menu and type in the path to the batch file

Why clicking directly on the batch file it runs AND displays the progress but called from NINA it runs but the progress is not displayed seems odd as control is passed to the same bit of DOS code.

Hope this clarifies but I will try to capture and post both terminal screens if it helps

Tomato has an older Pulsar dome for which we built the dome control. We use Rf solutions modems to do two way communication to the dome (all electronics rotate with the dome)

As we make changes to the controls to allow for unattended imagining we need for Nina to run on one laptop. The idea is that NINA will do focusing on scope A then run a script that will switch the usb port to the other focuser if FWH changes. then run focusing and then switch back. We also will be able to close the shutter at sequence end rather that rely on a timer. Other changes are planned such as stop on  cloud detection etc

I also checked to make sure black text was not being printed on a black screen....

As I say its not the end of the world because when the batch file runs I should be tucked up in bed fast asleep.......

So no one will be their to read the screen anyway but for completeness it would be good to have it run as it should

NINA in the advanced sequencer allows for a .bat file to be inserted and run

I have a .bat script that sends via a com port a command to open and close a relay. This batch file when run directly from the documents folder shows the terminal screen and displays all my echo text and opens and closes the relay and closes the terminal when done.

When called from NINA the terminal screen is shown and the batch file runs properly in the background but the terminal just shows the CMD and a flashing cursor then exits when the batch file is done. No echo's are shown.

I can live with the way it works now but are there any  MSDOS experts out there who can point me to the command to make it display the script?

I have tried all kinds of Google searches but nothing seems to fit this problem

I am beginning to think this is a NINA issue as Sharpcap 4.0 sequencer has the same run batch file facility and it runs my batch file normally i.e. it shows on the console all my echo's for script progress.

There is a feature on this in the July 2021 Astronomy Now magazine.

Just packed away my PST. Have been watching two flares on the limb, a really big one that seemed to eject the top of it and a arched shaped one in the other hemisphere. Plus sunspot group, three more isolated ones and a big filament

I remember doing a knife edge test on my OO 10 inch Newtonian mirror and seeing a pronounced raised round ring on the centre of the mirror.

When I questioned it I was told not to worry as its probably in the shadow of the secondary 🤣

This was back in the late 80's

I find the guiding assistant really helpful for the initial setup. I know getting on with imaging is a priority but take the time to run the assistant and see what it tells you

Just noticed you image from New Zealand so I would add Earth tremor........

I used to setup about 50 metres from a full width road speed hump and some high speed cars and vans would shake the ground enough that I could see it in PHD

A Gust of wind associated with the advancing cloud front ( star quality drop at the other end of the graph)?

Cable snags, voltage droop, intermittent connection somewhere, guide camera flexure, tripod leg sinking into the ground.