Tomatobro

Mrs Tomatoes new clothes line?

How about a Daystar Quark, Skywatcher 72 ED pro, Skywatcher Solar Quest, Baader 2 inch IR/UV filter, an Altair or other 2 inch diagonal and a ZWO mono camera as a possible setup? And a ZWO camera tilt adapter to remove the Newton rings.? Gives the option of going to a bigger refractor in the future but would need an ERF on the front end

But look for the dust on the mirror as it was put in the tube! I guess it was all staged for the camera though so the dust might have been removed before the final fitting.

You can take reasonable pictures with a long focal length refractor fitted with a mylar filter using a zwo colour camera But you do need some surface to photograph which is in short supply at the moment

Yes that's the one. I had used it a few times till Mrs Tomatobro pointed out that the stiff flap I used to rest the laptop on should be folded into the bottom to stiffen up the frame. The sides are stiff cardboard so I cut holes to suit the power and USB cables

There is a topic "solar imaging issue" which details a fold flat box from Ikea which works a treat and is cheap (£3 ish as I recall)

Have you tried connecting with string instead of the USB cable? Stack overflow due to 32 bit / 64 bit DLL compatibility issue......

cork is commonly used as a cushion for the mirror. if you look carefully there will be at least 3 cork pads. The one you can see might be a little out of position but the gap between the mirror bottom and the white aluminium cell should be even all round if they are in place. search "cork in mirror cell" if you need more reassurance If you want to see what a mirror cell looks like when the mirror is removed there is a 8 inch cell for sale on Ebay with pictures showing the three cork pads next to the collimation screws. Ebay number 193101423641

Electric heated socks from Amazon....just don't wear the wrong trousers with them

Take a pin, move it 400 metres away and the distance between one side of the pin head and the other is roughly 1 arc second. That's the angle you are dealing with. So ANY relative movement between the imaging scope and guide scope will cause problems. If the camera can sag slightly in the focuser or the guide scope body can deflect in the rings. PHD is guiding the guide scope and has no knowledge of what the main scope is doing relative to it.

I saw on Cloudy Nights that someone was having this issue with a DSLR on the Pleiades but in the follow up no resolution emerged. Take a look at https://www.eso.org/~ohainaut/ccd/CCD_artifacts.html

as they are only appearing from the brightest stars is it a saturation issue I wonder

I am seeing Tomato tonight and will ask what was the model of standard van he booked to move the dome from my house to his. Whatever it was it was not big enough and we had to do it in two trips. It was a long wheel base Transit we used to move it from Scotland to Thirsk. Needed coverings to stop the panels rubbing against each other. The van had floor mounted "D" links so we were able to restrain the movement with straps for the journey Will get Tomato to confirm

Attached is a sample image taken with the setup I described and the Atik314l OSC so you should be ok

The pro came with two weights and I could get balance when I had my SW200, Altair guide scope and guide camera and Atik 314L OSC camera but it was on the limit. When I went to a Atik 383 mono and 7 position filter wheel together with a mount clamp upgrade which pushed the scope further away from the mount head I had to use a CW extension bar to balance. Even at this I could image ok. Sample picture posted

you cant fool me. This is Flo's attempt to pull the clouds down to southern Spain away from the UK so they can sell more kit. Its already working judging by Sat24

That is the one I use £3 from ikea. Had to cut holes in the left had side for USB port access but its only cardboard behind the cloth. I used mine for a few times until my wife pointed out that there is a lift up panel to stiffen the zippered back cloth...........☝️

Just to add a bit to Tomato's write up one of the key requirements at the time was that the Espirit Pro 150 had to live in the carry case it came in so the stepper motor arrangement had to be as compact as possible, second the telescope focuser should have no additional modifications that might impact on resale value. I tried a small stepper motor with reduction gearbox but it did not have sufficient torque and with this kind of self build the motor chosen had to work rather than being subject to continual trial and error. This motor will be changed to a smaller number 17 at some point in the near future. The Hitec controller requires a 6 wire stepper motor rather than the more common 4 wire. One other point is that the toothed drive belt does not place any side loads on the 10:1 reduction shaft. If you look at the large toothed pulley you can see a brass pin drive plate. This means that the pulley rides on its own bearings and not on those of the 10:1 focuser Hope this helps

It was a near miracle Tomato and I got those pictures as lots of cloud and my laptop starting a lengthy Windows update as we could see a clear bit of sky approaching from the west . We ignored the "do not switch of the PC" and restarted. Then we had to wait for the "rebuilding" message to end before Sharpcap was available. Also thanks to Flo my Skywatcher Solar Quest worked beautifully.

Taken at the wolverhampton Astro club meeting Coronado PST, asI220 mono, 1000 frames, Autostakert, Registax, windows photo

I have just checked mine so pin one goes to the two spring tags on the side of the car plug (ground) and pin 2 goes to the centre pin (12v positive) Hope this helps

With the transit of Mercury coming up and possible outreach meeting I wanted a sunscreen for my laptop (forever an optimist) and looking online they varied from £30 to £90 which was a bit out of the budget. I found that Ikea do a fold flat box (Drona for Kallax shelving) which does the job. The sides are cloth covered cardbord so I cut holes for the USB cables to suit. laptop cooling does not seem to be a problem as there is enough clearance on the sides. Box cost less than four quid. It worked for me.....

Could you post a picture of the board?

pi 4's go into thermal cutback if pushed hard so I guess that is why the aluminium case

As long as no damage was inflicted on the astro gear that is the important thing........