Tomatobro

Regarding the dongle I have a couple of really cheap USB dongles that were given to me by club members. They had no success until they swapped them for the "Funcube Dongle Pro plus" SDR's . This was after I told them what I use. My first antenna was a three element YAGI made from 15mm copper water pipe, mounted horizontally and angled upwards about 25 degrees. I now use a six element Yagi. Somewhere I have a drawing of it and will post when I find it

I think you are just struggling with the layers of technology and certainly have a grasp of the basics. If you can focus on a distant object in daylight and get a good image with the new camera then focusing on the stars is only a little way further out. I would repeat this and measure the focus distance and make a note of it. A combination of a little way out of focus short exposure times will produce a blank screen. So next clear night set the focus distance to what you had in daylight and a longer exposure time and then move the focuser out a fraction and wait for the next image to download. You don't say what software you are using but if its Sharpcap then click on the auto stretch symbol after each download. In the excitement of it all its easy to leave the dust cap on the end of the scope. Everyone has done this at some time. To check if they are hot pixels just keep zooming in on the monitor till its squares. If its a hot pixel they will be single illuminated squares.

The QHY website has a picture of the imaging module fan and heat sink for the QHY9. Air is drawn through the fan and blown into the heat sink which follows the conventional setup for pelter cooling. The answer to which is best is......well it all depends All fans the input energy transfer into the outflow so the air leaving the fan is warmer than the input. Yes I know it feels colder but that is due to the evaporation from sweat glands which aluminium has not. If the fan, its positioning and the heat sink are carefully matched then the air will be at a slightly higher pressure within the heat sink so there are more molecules to collect the heat and the turbulence imparted by the fan ensures more of these molecules impinge on the heat sink surface so taking away the heat. If however the fan and heat sink are mismatched then the back pressure will be higher and will stall the fans airflow thus reducing the throughput.

I cannot remember if the fans I used push or pull, perhaps if Tomato reads this he can confirm. Sharpcap will give you the sensor temperature as it seems that ZWO output the temperature data even on basic cameras. One thing to look out for is that the fan and heat sink restricts access to the camera body so check where you will grab to screw and unscrew the camera. If you grab the fan the whole heat sink will turn on the camera body. ZWO do an add on circular heater to stop fogging of the sensor lens but I gave up on these and just controlled the temperature body to just above freezing. From memory the sensor temperature runs about 4 degrees higher than the camera body. Just looked up the spec and the fan blows down onto the heat sink

I have modified a few. Used high spec processor cooling fans. Latest versions have temperature control to stop icing on the sensor lens

There is nothing wrong with your computer. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. Flo are now controlling the website. Flo control the horizontal, and the vertical. Flo can deluge you with a thousand channels, or expand one single image to crystal clarity... and beyond. Flo can shape your vision to anything our imagination can conceive. For the next hour, Flo will control all that you see and hear. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the deepest inner mind to... The Stellalyra telescope Please stand by.

Yes you do.....

Your not alone on this point. My brother spent quite some time in arriving at a specification for his imaging pc having used a basic laptop for a couple of years. The trigger was that the size of the imaging sensors now available in cmos coupled with the relatively short imaging exposure times means that there is now lots of data to be processed.

I see its got a 1 terabit hard drive and 8 gb of memory. I used to process with APP on a used laptop with 4gb of ram, i5 and win 7.

Sample drawings

Helios Quantum-5.2 20/40x100 Semi-Apo Binoculars I posted some sketch's on SGL of the views through these on SGL somewhere

Actually I fibbed a bit. I mentioned that 1.25" standard eyepieces don't fit so I machined up a matched pair of eyepieces to fit and they do give very flat and sharp views and I know they give slightly smaller field of view than the 20's so I am guessing they are higher magnification. But before I had them the 20's got used the most. That's not to say I don't use the 40's though

I have both. The 80's are mounted on a parallelogram and the 100's are fork mounted. Both have provision for precise Alt/Az positioning which when used with a laptop makes finding objects easy. I would say that neither are usable without some kind of support. The 100's that I have say that they can be used with standard 1.25" eyepieces but all the ones that I have will not achieve focus. There is not enough " in" movement. Mine came with x20 and x40 eyepieces. The x20's get used the most. The 100's give brighter views but a smaller field of view

Its likely that the focus motor/gearbox will hold the focus tube when focus is obtained so the knob lock will not be needed. I would try it without and make provision only if experience dictates. I am guessing that if you try to turn the focus motor when powered it will not move.

I had a look at Tomato's hand control. Looks to be straight forward to make a tactile switch version so have ordered some parts to make one. sitech2.bmp Sitech1.bmp

Managed to download and take a look at the graphs. Nothing I could point a stick at and say that's a SID. Latest version of the software works as intended.

I have done my back in so at the moment cannot climb up to bring the recorder down to connect up and download the data but the amended software should have fixed the problem of the long recording times. The software takes a reading every 2950 milliseconds and after the 10th reading takes an average and then waits for an external clock pulse (every 30 seconds) to write the data to memory. Originally the pulse came from a separate timer which was started at the flick of a switch so both the signal analyser and the timer all started in sync. I would watch a radio clock and would start the timer as the second hand struck midnight. It did not matter if I was out a second or two as both started together. But with the mechanical clock providing the trigger if the signal analyser missed the pulse it would wait another 30 seconds before recording the data. I use Maker plot to auto produce the graphs from serial data and it expects data in 30 second periods but was actually receiving 1 minute periods. So the graph's axis is still 12 hours but the data profile (from the visual shape of the graph) is clearly 24 hours. I have changed the software so the clock pulse starts the process which now means that I can throw the start switch anytime within a 29 second window. I also added a 720 count delay before the actual logging starts so 17:59:31 to 17:59:59 is the window I need to be present to start the process for a 00:00:00 start. Six o'clock is a much more convenient start time! There is enough memory for 20 days of continuous recording but this would result in 40 12 hour graphs so I like to keep the recording periods to 7 days unless a possible reported SID event means I cannot wait that long

I tried Atik Dawn a while ago after I got my Horizon II OSC but could not get it to work. Artemis and Sharpcap were ok. It seemed to recognise the camera but non of the buttons worked.

I have had a quick look on the net and cannot find a ready built keypad so it looks like one will have to be scratch built using extended button pcb switches. When I have Tomato's keypad I will report back.

I tried to find a circuit diagram before and had no luck. I searched again today and could not find one so it was my intention to take it apart and find out how it worked. Looking at your drawing its pretty straight forward in that all switches are normally open and the diodes just switch a high/low pattern on the signal wires 1,2,3 and 5. I am assuming that the bridge shown next to the controller (bridges 5v to wire 3) is not really present. The diodes give the following voltage pattern (H=5v and L equals Ground pulled low by SiTech) 1 2 3 5 Right button H L L L Left button L H L L Down button L L H L Up button L L L H Top left H H L L Top right L L H H Slew/Pan L H H H

My Brother has this problem with his Sitec hand control and its on the to do list to see what can be done to effect a repair. I will ask him if he has seen the normal switch replacement drawing (in the manual) so I can build one.

Perhaps a bio signature has been detected such as phosphine somewhere. Enceladus maybe?

I from time to time have the same issue. The pattern seems to be that is the kit is used regularly (I set up and take down each session) then the connectivity problem goes away but then after a period of inactivity comes back. If I have not used the kit for a while I plug and unplug the various connectors several times to wipe and try and brighten the finger contacts. Seems to help but I have no hard and fast data that says it fixes the problem. When connecting the Usb cables one at a time to the The D-Link usb hub I listen for the confirmation audio from the PC.

curiosity found evidence of a Mole on Mars.....Another first for SGL

I figured out how the system switched to 24 hours. It was to do with the change from a processor timer to the mechanical timer and its reliance on my flipping a start switch within a limited time frame. As part of the software review and change I have added a six hour start delay. This means that I don't have to be present at midnight to start it running but can arm it at six o'clock in the evening. This change auto triggers the start so is not switch timing dependant. I did wonder if 24 hour per .jpg image of the data would show the same or less detail so its done me a favour in showing me the difference. The signal is definitely stronger post transmitter shutdown but will leave the vertical axis min max values alone for the time being as it only exceeds maximum during the night time. p.s. The six o'clock arming means I miss the start of Star Trek if its a mid week start up but I am prepared to make that sacrifice in the cause of science