david_taurus83

8 minutes ago, StarDodger said:

Won’t work on the 4 yet, you need a laptop or a tablet to control it wirelessly, and there is an app for both IOS and Android..

Just looked on Play store and there is indeed an app. I think I'll just order a RPi3 and make it work. Otherwise I'll just hum and haw.

12 minutes ago, StarDodger said:

Trust me using an raspberry PI with INdI, is very simple, I a complete numpty when it’s comes to software and especially Linux, and I found it easy to set up if you use the superb Stellarmate OS, which is an all in one solution, and has all the hard work done, you just burn the image file to an SD card, put in the raspberry PI and power up and away you go, have a look here..you can buy your own rpi and the Stellarmate OS you don’t need to buy the whole package from here, the OS alone is $49 but it really makes it simple, and just works...

There are also free offerings of similar set ups such as Astroberry...

www.stellarmate.com

Thanks. Will it work on the new RPi 4? Do you still need a laptop to control it or is there an app to use from a tablet?

The main dish is currently having its surface panels replaced but there are another few dishes in constant operation 24/7. Everyone is requested to switch their phone off on site. Dont think a drone would be permitted.

Yes, he was being threatened with prosecution for misuse of public funds. Along came Sputnik and only Jodrell Bank was able to track it. This spooked the West so the MOD stepped in with their enormous budget and he was able to complete the dish.

I was there a few weeks ago with Bromsgrove Astro Society. Well worth the visit.

I would love to have a mini PC on the mount that could be controlled wirelessly but the above is just gobbeldegook to me!

Yes start at the lowest setting and work your way up. You sure the camera is in focus?

I would say try the things you think are least likely to be at fault. I had connectivity issues with my cameras and it turned out to be my old W7 laptop. If you haven't got another laptop or PC to try you could try a session with sharpcap. You can connect to all the kit in that as well. It would at least rule out APT.

24 minutes ago, Mikey07 said:

I've installed APT and I'm just fiddling about with it this afternoon, trying to take some pictures of the moon between the clouds. However, when I go to Live View I'm just getting a white rectangle.  Any idea what I'm missing?

 

Been a while since I used a DSLR on APT but I'm sure the Live View uses whatever exposure you've set in the drop down menu. Your on 30s which is way too high for the moon at night time, never mind day time. Try exposures of less than a second and lower your ISO to around 200. ISO 800 is a happy medium for DSO work btw.

What have you plugged the FW into? Have you tried via the 1600 hub? I'm sure its powered off the power supply to the cooler.

It will never get higher in our lifetime. Like I said, it will be a few thousand years. 2.5k until its above the celestial equator. Polaris wont even be the north star by then!

Not quite sure what info your looking for? Select the target and press centre on object. Then set the time to minutes and fast forward or reverse until it is due south. It will never rise higher than at due south at our latitude for the next few millennia at least.

1 hour ago, Stub Mandrel said:

I think it's a more recent one, about three years old.

I only ask as I bought one of the older ones off FLO last year. Worked fine on my W7 laptop. Got a new W10 laptop and it wouldnt work at all! Sent it to FLO who tested and it was fine. So if it's working on another PC it's something to do with the laptop your using.

36 minutes ago, ippiu said:

And if you slew 90° the opposite way, your PA should be almost for sure different. I have a difference roughly of about 2' when rotating from 90 ° east to 90° west.

What are you doing to mitigate this little error?

It's cone error, i think.

Now i'm using IPolar: it is mounted inside the RA axis mount and it should give more uniform reading while rotating the mount from east to west....

I've not tried that. Its accurate enough as it is. Getting it perfect makes no difference to my Skywatcher mount as my guiding is limited by the mechanics of the mount. My guiding RMS is currently around 0.6"/0.7" but the grouping of the peak errors is generally contained within the 1" circle. My main imaging scale is 2.33" per pixel so it works for me.

Is it the older one or the later one?

I initate tracking before starting the polar align routine, slew the mount via its motors and then adjust, then slew back to home position to check the adjustments.

Huge improvement!

6 minutes ago, knobby said:

Slightly off topic but I can imagine someone somewhere that thought this PA method up wishing they'd have copyrighted it !

Polemaster / PHD2 / Sharpcap / Ekos ... everyones at it.

Theres some really good software and tools available for us to use. Developed by enthusiasts and members of the astro community either for free or really cheap. Sharpcap, APT, Kstars though I'm not familiar with it, Stellarium, CdC etc. None of it is there for someone to make a quick profit but to help and encourage others. That's what makes this such a great hobby. Besides, we all have no money left after paying for scopes, eyepieces, cameras 😁

I actually managed some subs this weekend on this also. 9 x 900s ha on my WO GT71. Almost identical FOV and framing as you have! It surprised my how big it is. 

The ASIAir I understand. Its fully mobile and you dont need a laptop at all for it to work. Can run off its own app on your phone or tablet. The only thing that keeps me away is it wont support my auto focuser and there seem to be lots of issues posted on the Facebook group. ZWO do seem pretty fast to provide support tbf.

Does Stellarmate or Astroberry also do away with the need for a laptop like the Air? Because that's what it would need to peel me away from Windows!

12 hours ago, wimvb said:

It better be, they're both ASI (ZWO). 😀 Things would be worse if the guide cam were qhy.

StellarMate is also an option, it's without the camera limitation.

The older ASI120 isn't compatible with the ASIAir. Only the USB3 version or the mini.

APT is the best and it's free. It can control your Canon or Nikon dslr, astro cams, the mount, filter wheels, electronic focuser, GOTO capability, platesolving, auto meridian flip....it just does everything!

Except mosaics!

Looks great to me!

Hoping theres a general consensus on this as I've been wrestling for months now with flattener spacing. Let's take a hypothetical situation. You need 55mm from flattener flange to sensor. With your camera and filterwheel you already have 45mm. So you add a 10mm spacer to get to 55mm. However, in the light path after the flattener, you have a 2mm LPS filter, a 2mm filter in your filterwheel and 2mm glass screen above the sensor. So theres 6mm of glass to account for as well. Using the rule of thumb consensus for allowing a third the thickness of glass, you need to also allow for 2mm of glass.

Do you add 2mm to your extra 10mm spacer making 12mm extra in total or do you take it away and use 8mm extra instead?

Previously I had interpreted (rightly or wrongly) that I had to take away. I got ok results but not perfect. A rethink lead me to believe that I should add instead. Again, ok results but not perfect.

What do you kind folks do? Add or take away? Or do you ignore the extra glass altogether?

Well I've cancelled my subscription to iTelescope. I've built up over 100 points which is enough for half an hour on one of the 500mm scopes at Siding Springs in Oz. Booked a slot for 2.25am local time, it started 45 minutes late and cancelled itself for no apparent reason. The session log says the roof is closed but the main menu says it's open. And another scope was still in use. Not the first time my requests for scope time have been cancelled for whatever reason. Dont know what will happen with my 100 points but I do know they wont be getting another penny! It seems that remote imaging, for me anyway, is just as frustrating as home imaging!😢

13 hours ago, Nubian said:

Hi Alan,

i took some more test exposures tonight. EOS 700D, 20s, ISO 800

Still got some issues with the star adventurer, but I hope this one has enough stars for a proper analysis.

What do you think?

I'd be happy with that if I could get my scopes and flatteners that good! The FOV is wide enough and after stacking the edges would need cropping back anyway.