teoria_del_big_bang

2 minutes ago, AlanP_ said:

Ok you're right. I rather buy quality stuff rather than buying something only for it to be useless in a few months or a years time. I am very new to all of this, so I wont be straying from my backyard for a long, long time if at all. The furthest I will be is probably 5-7M from my back door. So I would only need a mains plug for my mount and possibly laptop charger if needs be. Can you recommened a safe, outdoor mains extension cord? I will probably buy a protection box too to keep it from getting damp. 

Up to 10M something like This is good for outside.

Over 10M then this

Or a cheaper option would be something like This + This - I chose a 3 way because I do not think a 4 way would fit in that box (not sure) but a bit of searching you will find a bigger box.

Whatever option plug it into one of these RCD

Steve

9 minutes ago, SMF said:

Hi,

This was discussed a few weeks ago in another thread, after spending sometime debating what to use I went for this in the end:

 

https://www.fishingmad.co.uk/31508-bison-battery-box-carrier-with-usb-charger-led-meter-breaker-and-12v-socket-.html
and

https://www.batterymegastore.co.uk/product/hankook-xv27-leisure-battery/
 

 

You don’t need to but I added two extra fused 12V ports, switches and a natty little USB 3A double with volt meter from Amazon.

Then I took the inverter from the truck and tacked it on the side.

90AH, 240V at 600W, three 12V sockets, one at 20A, two at 5A and three USB.

I recon that’s enough power for any night.

Since building this though the weather has been pants so not used yet for it’s intended but it’s come in handy for a few site jobs for work already. 
 

Steve

I still think this is great and determine to get one. What do you use to charge this ?

Steve

1 minute ago, Sunshine said:

That looks like it would power my home in an outage.

Not mine with two kids leaving all lights on 🙂 

Steve

5 minutes ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

I know this is not what you want to hear but the real truth is that providing 12V at the sort of amperage we need, which tends to be at least 3A for a small rig and when we are talking a guidescope as well with a couple of dew bands, maybe focuser more like 5A does not come cheap.

Throw a laptop into it and it is far worse.

By far the cheapest way is a decent size leisure battery and make some for of carrier up yourself (can be a wooden cradle or just some form of carrying strap. but it would need some connectors fitting so does need some knowledge of what to do but I am sure instructions can be found on line, look at websites for camping maybe.

Otherwise you are really looking at £150+ possibly £200+.

Like I say without the laptop the jump start battery will work, probably up to 3 hours but I bet in 2 years it is only delivering 1 to 2 hours. 
I do most of my imaging from backyard so not got this issue yet and have a more power hungry rig than yours, but am starting to look into it because I do want to go to dark sites at some stage .

I do have one of these Celestron Powertank but I need to ditch my laptop though and use a tablet I think and still probably need another source so will look at the leisure battery option.

Steve

The £99 powertank has the same 17A/hr battery as the cheaper one on Amazon so you are not gaining anything really. The setup above by @SMF is really the way to go and what I will be doing. I am sure the battery holder will come back into stock. I just think you will be frusrated with poor performance from the smaller ones unless you can power the laptop with the laptop battery itself. But even then eventually you will need a bigger battery as you build your gear up and the power requirement increases. For around £150 the above setup is probably the cheapest option and it will be future proof.

Steve

I know this is not what you want to hear but the real truth is that providing 12V at the sort of amperage we need, which tends to be at least 3A for a small rig and when we are talking a guidescope as well with a couple of dew bands, maybe focuser more like 5A does not come cheap.

Throw a laptop into it and it is far worse.

By far the cheapest way is a decent size leisure battery and make some for of carrier up yourself (can be a wooden cradle or just some form of carrying strap. but it would need some connectors fitting so does need some knowledge of what to do but I am sure instructions can be found on line, look at websites for camping maybe.

Otherwise you are really looking at £150+ possibly £200+.

Like I say without the laptop the jump start battery will work, probably up to 3 hours but I bet in 2 years it is only delivering 1 to 2 hours. 
I do most of my imaging from backyard so not got this issue yet and have a more power hungry rig than yours, but am starting to look into it because I do want to go to dark sites at some stage .

I do have one of these Celestron Powertank but I need to ditch my laptop though and use a tablet I think and still probably need another source so will look at the leisure battery option.

Steve

13 minutes ago, AlanP_ said:

Thats a brilliant response Steve! Cant describe how appreciative I am for that. 

That does seem like a good option, and at worst case 2.5 hours would probably be enough for my needs. However, if I wanted to add a guidecamera in the future, that would more than likely reduce the performance even more so. 

If im honest, I'm kind of liking the idea of using this jump starter.  The main reason it's nearly 3 times as cheap and i've spent far too much than I should have already! Plus, I need to buy the laptop invertor and likely another cable or two. 

Am I wrong in thinking that 4 in 1 jump starter would work just as well? 

 

It will work probably about the same power, but needs maintaining well as it is a lead acid batter (same as a car battery) so do not fully drain the battery and keep it topped up, so recharge after every use and it if sits unused for a while then make sure you trickle charge it every so often to keep it charged.

It will last a couple of hours, maybe a bit more if not using laptop on it all the time but generally you will probably find the performance gets worse after a year or two and without replacing the battery there is no way to recondition it. A bigger leisure battery would last much longer as you will never drain it anywhere near fully .

Are you just starting out with astro imaging then ?
If so if you can start off near to your house then at least to start I would power stuff from the mains with a good quality garden extension powered via an RCD for safety.
Starting out gives you enough headaches without running low on power after a couple of hours. Also you will be slewing the mount a lot to begin with trying to find targets so power drain will be greater. Also then if you buy a 12V power source gives you time to see how long it lasts before going anywhere remote. At least then you have a chance to plug into mains and keep the session going.

Also gives you chance to do a bit more searching and asking questions to chat others use, or save for a better power source. 

Steve

If you mean this on Amazon then the invertor could power your laptop using your existing power supply for the laptop as it is 240V. But I am not sure how efficient it is so the battery inside may last a bit longer with that 12V device I linked maybe better , I really couldn't say.  But I assume your laptop has a battery so if you know how long the battery lasts then just use the 240V invertor as you probably only need it plugged in for 1 hour or so. It is rated at 150W and I would think more than enough for a laptop (check rating on your laptop power supply) my laptop is like a brick and power supply is only 65W.

I cannot sy how good the one on amazon is but @Owmuchonomy knows someone who uses one so sounds okay.

Then use the 12V outlet to power your mount - the link to the cable I think is fine but was very expensive (good quality mind). I thought you should have got a cable with the mount but I am sure there are cables good enough for around £10 maybe less.

The USB are only for power so would not fit a hub to it personally, there are 3 USB ports already not sure why you would want more. You could use one with the dummy battery for DSLR you saw, although reading some of the reviews some say they did not work, but again maybe they had them plugged into USB ports with not enough power as many only can deliver 0.5 A but these are over 2A so maybe fine and if faulty just return to Amazon they are pretty good at refunds.

Also it uses a LiFePO4 Battery which is easier to maintain than a lead acid so that is good.

It is a bit of a guess, but at  166Watt/Hrs  at it should last around  13 hours just powering your mount, that is maximum assuming mount uses average 1A at 12V (=12W) then can provide 166/12 = 13.83. A HEQ5 does take about 0.5A when tracking and 2A when slewing so it does depend on how often you slew at fast speed from target to target but an average of 1A is about right, 

But now as you add other equipment that time will reduce.

The camera, not sure what this takes but as it states 5V at 2A lets assume that is 10W (5 * 2) we now have 22W so maximum time is now 166/22 = 7.5 hrs.

If you do add a dew band then depends on size, a small frac probably about 0.5 A, a bigger reflector maybe 1A.
Lets assume 0.5 A at 12V we now have another 6W (12 * 0.5) so total 28W and time is now 166 / 27 = 6 hrs.

The big one is now when you add your laptop, again no idea what the power consumption is. My laptop power supply is rated at 65W but will require less than that to power the laptop as that is a maximum. 
But lets say it takes 40W (if a new modern laptop could be much less than this)  but at 40W we now have 67W and the time is now 166 / 67 = 2.5 hrs.

So the laptop could drain the battery much quicker that your other equipment so I do keep saying to get a good battery for it and if you know how long it lasts then make sure battery in laptop is fully charged and start with laptop plugged in at start of session and if battery lasts 2.5 hours then unplug 2 hours from end of session and it will allow the power station to supply the mount and camera longer. Also get a controller for the dew band and run at lower power if enough to prevent dew may not need full power.

I think my calculations are all correct however, they are assuming no power losses and battery is in tip top condition and fully charged. There will be power losses and so the actual times will be shorter than I quoted.

Power when in remote situations without mains power is always a headache and generally we do not realise how much power we do need. Quite often people have more than one power source as they bought a small power tank and realise it is not enough so buy another.

Steve

26 minutes ago, AlanP_ said:

Probably wouldn't power my laptop though is the only thing if I wasn't at home..

I seen this jump starter also recommended - https://www.halfords.com/motoring/battery-maintenance/jump-starters/4-in-1-jump-starter-594335.html

How would that work? Does it need to be connected to anything? 

It has an invertor to deliver 240V so would power your laptop power supply. They are fairly inefficient and as it creates 240V ac from 13.8V DC then runs it through the power supply for laptop to bring it back down to 19V, or whatever your laptop requires you can see plenty of potential for power being wasted. 

So yes it would power your laptop but I still think converting 12V to your laptops supply voltage would be more efficient Using This but as I said with a good battery for laptop then maybe you only need to power the laptop with the external supply for an hour or so so maybe the invertor is fine.

Although I have not gone this route personally I am very impressed with the leisure battery and holder also in that link I gave you and it gives you loads of power and about the same cost as the supply on Amazon you found.
This battery + This holder + a trickle charger. You do not even need this much power so there are some cheaper batteries with less A/Hrs on the same site.

Steve

HERE is one thread about power tanks.

Also HERE is another recent thread about using mains power supplies for backyard imaging.

If from home then the mains options is more reliable and easier BUT please if you do make sure it is safe using the proper equipment and an RCD is a must. Ideally use a garden socket fitted and wired ny a qualified electrician and cover any mains supplies with a splash proof box with enough air around the supplies to keep them cool. If using an extension then please get a proper garden extension and unroll all the cable, do not leave any on the reel, even a few turns left on the roll can get quite hot very quickly.

Steve

For up to 3 hours then a fully charged battery might just be okay for your canon but a more reliable way is to get a dummy battery. 
Something like This  but not sure this is compatible with your particular DSLR.

Power to your laptop from a 12V source is a little more difficult as most laptop power supplies are more like 19V, but I am going on laptops I have used and not had a new one for some years so newer ones may differ and also will probably last longer on their own battery.
Again for 3 hours maybe but a new battery and it may last 3 hours especially if you dim the screen and let it turn screen off altogether after a short while.
But if you do want to power laptop from 12V then you need something like This 

But now we are powering more than the mount you may not even get 3 hours out of that power tank, I can't say for sure, if fully charged and kept in good condition and you do not do a lot of slewing of mount which does take far more current then it might just last.

There was a thread recently on this very subject I will try to find it and give you the link..

Are you imaging from your back yard or from remote locations ?
If from home then so long as not too far from house many do use 240V, but obviously care needs to be taken.

Let me find the link to the recent thread.

Steve

Good advice from @Cornelius Varley.

It would help if we knew in total what you need to power, is it just the HEQ5 or do you have cameras, dew bands, focussers etc ?

A HEQ5 will probably take an average current of 0.5A when tracking and around 2A when slewing between targets so say an average of 1A.
So in Theory the Powertank you suggest will last 7 hours.
But in practice I do not think that will be the case, this will have a lead acid battery and you should not fully run the batter down otherwise it will never fully recharge. Also in very cold weather the capability will also be reduced. So even with just the mount I would guess it will last maybe 4 to 5 hours reliably, 

But if you do want to power a camera (especially if cooled) and dew band then this time will be greatly reduced.

The leisure battery is a far better option.

Steve

Hi, Welcome back and good luck with your new setup and hopefully no more headaches 🙂 

Steve

22 hours ago, gilesco said:

Depending on where you got the Pi4 from, you will need to ensure that it has the EEPROM firmware after 1st September 2020. You can do this by booting Raspbian off a SD card, performing a "sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade", and then run "sudo rpi-eeprom-update", check that the date of the EEPROM is after 1st September 2020.

If you have booted of the SD card, then you can now plug-in the SSD, and if the space on the SD card allows, install rpi-imager "sudo apt install rpi-imager", and run it, select the Astroberry image, and select the 240GB SSD as the destination (it should be detected).

If you don't have a SD card, then on a laptop you can attach the SSD and download the raspberry imager for whatever OS you have on your laptop. If the SSD is M.2 then you may need a USB A <--> USB A cable to detect the SSD on the lower part of the M.2 case.

Some helpful links:

https://linuxhint.com/install_raspberry_pi_imager/

https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-imager-imaging-utility/

https://www.raspberrypi.org/software/

Most of the installation methods are cross-compatible with the methods for SD cards, the SSD will be detected as a valid destination just as a SD card would.

PS I recently bought a Pi4 8GB and it already had the latest firmware already loaded, but if yours has been on a warehouse shelf for a while it might not be up to date.

Thanks ever so much, up and running off the SSD in no time at all.

The case you recommended is brilliant.

Out of interest I also bought the Stellarmate OS. When I had looked at this before I did not consider buying it as I did not think it had anymore features than Astroberry and from what I have seen so far is probably correct.
However, I will give it a go. I transferred my EKOS profiles from my old Rpi with astroberry and seems to work fine. 
As I  say cannot really see any particular advantages to Stellarmate over astroberry, but to be fair I personally think the process of downloading and putting it on the RPi was very easy and for a little more than £40 is maybe a good option for somebody not that Tech savy and has some good documentation and I believe you can get some technical assistance if required so I think has its place and I think for around £160 (Pi 4 4Gb £50, Case £40, SSD £30, Stellarmate o.s £40) you end up with a real robust and compact control of your imaging rig, which comparing to the Stellarmate plus or Asair pro is a bargain. But I know the Asair pro is not just same as either Stellarmate or Astroberry, which are essentially the same, so am still curious to how this performs and what advantages it may have over either of these systems (if using ZWO cameras).

Steve

20 minutes ago, nephilim said:

Won't the dithering option using ASIairs guiding software get rid of  satellite trails. You can also do calibration frames with it aswell.

No, I wouldn't think so, dithering will help with hot and cold pixels as they will be on the same pixels each frame but the image will be shifted slightly so when stacked, which aligns a large percentage of the stars on each frame,, the hot and cold pixels will not line up. But the sat trails will be in the same place, with respect to the stars, and so when stacked will also line up on each frame same as the stars will. 
But, Kappa-Sigma clipping will.

I think because the trails are not in every frame they do tend to get dimmer as the stack gets bigger but if in an area of the sky prone to many satellites then almost half the frames can have sat trails in somewhere, and so it is good practice to use a stacking algorithm (if thats the right phrase) to get rid of them altogether such as Kappa-Sigma clipping.

I think that's right anyway - that is my understanding anyway but could be mistaken.

Steve

Thanks, just got my Pi4 8GB (yes I also always want the latest one when I could have just used my existing Pi 4 🙂 ), not powered it up yet but its from the Pi Hut so i expect it will be pretty up to date.

Once again many thanks for the help 🙂 

Steve

On 29/12/2020 at 13:41, gilesco said:

One way of improving the performance of the Pi is to use a SSD instead of the SD card, a nice case that uses a SSD seamlessly is the Argon One M.2 case, I have blogged about it on my website.

Thanks for this idea I have just bought a 240Gb M2. SSD and the case you recommend.  
Is there any easy instructions anywhere for booting the RPi from the SSD ?
I will start a search but just thought if you are on line if you can point me in the right direction 🙂 

Steve

4 minutes ago, SStanford said:

That's really helpful, thank you all.

After further consideration I think a good approach would be using the USB3 hub as recommended by @Budgie1. As much as I would like the StarTech system the extra distance provided is not a necessity at the moment.  I can operate the scope comfortably within 5 meters; within 10 meters I'm able to operate from my desk with plenty of extra length.

As USB2 is more reliable over longer distances, I'm thinking of the 10m USB2 extension cable here plugged into the USB3 hub. @teoria_del_big_bang, in your experience, do you think this would cause any connectivity issues?

I really can't say one way or the other.
When I was having all sorts of issues I tried several setups and repeated exactly what at least one other SGL member was using but had issues. USB seems to give some people issues and others not.
Now it might be all down the the actual equipment using the USB and the drivers they use, maybe some are quite happy with certain setups and some not. Reading many threads about USB it does just seem pretty flakey.
Generally the issues I had were that I could setup sometimes and it all worked yet others one or more pieces of kit were not recognised and when I went into control panel in Windows to look at the equipment connected something would have a warning symbol next to it and it said it was not working. 

As I said above I never got a repeater cable to work at all, I tried passive repeater cables and active ones, the extension cable you are looking at is an active repeater cable.

Also I also bought a powered USB3 hub and that also gave issues,
I found USB 2 hubs much more reliable, even the cheaper ones, and in fact up to 10M  extension + say a 2M cable to the USB hub I think USB 2 worked okay with just a good quality 10M NON-Repeater type extension cable.
So as @Budgie1 says if you don't need USB 3 then stick with USB2 you are not gaining any speed and possibly limiting the distance you can go using a USB3 hub. 

Also as said above definitely get a dummy battery for the DSLR.

I am really sorry but I really wouldn't want to recommend a USB hub to use or the extension cable as the only reliable setup I had was really when using the USB over CAT6 setup, and I know many others had similar experiences (honestly I spent ages looking at threads on here and starting threads of my own) YET on the other hand many had good reliable setups using cheaper hubs and repeater extension cables.

Steve

Thanks Adrian that is great information  🙂 

Steve

No I know what you mean about doing it yourself route and with these cameras I think it will be great,. As I say I have no experience with them myself but many using them seem well happy  and despite being a bit pricey for hardware that is say £70 to source it is often well worth it to save the hassle of messing about with bits f software yourself.
If you get one I would be very interested in your thoughts as my cameras are mostly ZWO anyway so not ruled out getting one 🙂 

Good luck with it and I hope we get some clear skies up North in 2021 🙂 

Steve

4 minutes ago, nephilim said:

 I still have to buy my camera though so I'm in no hurry 🙂

Are you intending to buy a ZWO camera ?

I am not sure if it is still the case, or was just an issue in the earlier days of the Asair Pro, but I seem to remember a lot of threads about some non-zwo cameras not being supported. This is what put me off getting one and decided to go the RPi and Astroberry route. This is a lot cheaper way to go but certainly not an "out of the box" solution. 
I may be wrong so don't go on my say so alone but I sort of recall seeing people saying with ZWO cameras they were a great way of running your sessions but not necessarily with other cameras.
Have you considered the Stellarmate Plus, both this and the Asair are essentially Raspberry Pi's anyway but the advantage is they come with pre-loaded software and I believe the ability to get help if needed so a much easier solution than loading a RPi up yourself.

Steve

Steve,

I am not that familiar with the Asair but from the look of it it is more or less a Raspberry Pi with some clever software pre-loaded and is not exactly cheap. 

Regarding the WWi-Fi then as it is essentially a RPi it will suffer from a poor Wi-Fi connection and as Steve says above (Blimey all Steve's on the tread so far !) you would need a wi-fi repeater or do what I do on my RPi setup and use a LAN cable which can be up to 100M and work flawlessly.

Steve

I love it when a plan comes together 🙂 

Steve

In my early days imaging I had nightmares with various issues all relating to USB cables.

Some of them my doing by buying cheap usb cables and poor quality powered hubs.

Admittedly I needed really to go a little over 10M so were looking at 15M cables back to computer, at the time all were USB2 which for sure is more reliable over longer distances so unless you need USB3 then I would stick to USB2.

I also tried 15M repeater cables, which I know many on SGL use without issues, but I tried a couple and could not get them to work properly, something each time would not be recognised by the computer, but again maybe this was me and maybe the issues were a combination of using the repeater cable with the poor hubs, but all the hubs worked on normal USB cables that were say 5M or below. 
In the end after several frustrating nights I replaced all USB cables with the Lindy Cromo range (a bit more expensive but came highly recommended by many others on SGL) and also bought one of the USB over CAT6 as in post above and that just worked everytime.

Steve

4 minutes ago, fifeskies said:

I remote my whole setup using USB over Cat6 , essentially it has a USB2 hub at the scope end for mount and my guide camera and DSLR.

Saving DSLR output to computer over the link works flawlessly, it takes a moment for the image to download across the link but that's all.

With APT running subs automatically I add a 15 second pause between exposures mainly to allow the sensor some cooling time. In this gap my image downloads. (in the first second or so)

 

 

 

Yes I used these at one time and they worked faultlessly. I only had about 12 to15M from mount to computer but tried all sorts of other USB hubs but all gave reliability issues, then I used these and I could put mount up to 100M away from computer without any issues whatsoever.
I have now gone to using a RPi at mount so no longer use them but they are certainly worth the money if you do not have a remote computer 🙂 

Steve

Big area to extremes of bed, I have my fingers crossed for no warping. 🤞

With PLA i am sure this will be nice and flat Gina 🙂 

Steve