Hallingskies

Nicely processed, I can still see the dark “propeller” that most folk normally wind up losing... Have been sitting under a horrendous cloud of PM10/2.5 air pollution here for the past week.

Yep, I did the same. Also had the same thought re. wires, but my soldering skills would not be up to it. There’s a lot of wires quite close together on really small circuit paths. Think the fault is in the plug rather than the socket, but both are rubbish really. Can’t bear the thought of trashing the handset though, it still works fine, just not reliably.

Still the best telescope hand controller ever, let down by its weak connection leads. Pointing accuracy superb, really user friendly. Shame Vixen dropped it for their Skybook, which was/is rather clumsy by comparison imo. If Vixen brought it back with Skywatcher-style leads and stepper motors they would have a winner.

Couldn’t agree more. I suppose there must be a good reason for the change but Artemis just works and is really user-friendly. Why replace it? But then I said that about Windows XP...??????

We actually didn't feel too badly disposed towards Thanet's finest at the time, despite their initial brusque approach. They have a tough job and had probably had a bad shift. After a little bit of explaining (10 kids, a few parents and a teacher in tow gives you quite a good alibi - as well as back-up) they backed off and were actually quite interested in the constellation tour I was doing! We were about five miles from Manston airport and a few weeks or so after 9/11 so sensitivities were probably quite high, but I still think it's best not to use laser pointers in public even if there are no planes about. Nut jobs have given them a bad name, to the point where anyone seen using one is automatically assumed to be causing mischief, at least on this side of the pond. PS: Just noticed you are Texas-based, Louis. There is a world of difference between US and UK policing styles, I think, sorry for any misunderstanding!

Sorry mate, but I was in a field with a teacher friend and some of his kids when a couple of HM constabulary rocked up, aggressively demanded to know what I thought I was doing and tried to insist I hand over the pointer I was using. I said nothing about them seeing it - I assume someone else saw us and phoned them. Spin on your own axis if you like, just sharing my experience....

From personal experience I would not use a laser pointer. The use of laser pointers in the UK is not illegal but you will find that your local police will just assume that you are a moron and will give you a hard time if you are seen. And given that the majority of the Great English Public do seem to be pretty moronic these days, who can blame them?

Looks really good, though I went the whole hog and got the Pegasus ultimate hub that looks after the USBs and focus control as well. Touch wood, it’s all worked very well so far... Just make sure you keep the power leads, particularly the dew heaters, away from the data cables as far as you can. I did suffer from what seemed to be a bit of interference pick-up on my camera (noise came and went with the dew heater cutting in and out on the auto-control provided by the hub. Problem solved by moving and shortening dew heater lead).

...and yet the FLO blog still carries other (excellent) equipment reviews... No one could ever question your credibility, but I can see how things could get awkward...??? I really like the idea of this product but will be waiting for others to take the plunge (and for some money to spend on it!).

I look forward to your review....?

I tried for many years and never really succeeded (you know about the "crossed" ST4 connection, I assume). I think the RA backlash on my GPDX was just too much at the time. However, at a 600mm focal length I found I could get up to 3 minutes unguided with a good polar alignment and PEC. I have since replaced the SS2K with the SynScan system (the connection to SS2K handset became unreliable - the mount would sometimes suddenly just fly off at full tilt in RA during tracking) and tweaked the mount RA worm adjustment, and it now guides under PHD quite well. I do miss the SS2K handset though. It was superb, just let down by that stupid, useless plasticky connector. One day I will find the time and the courage to take it apart and find out where the dicky connection is.

I wondered what had happened to it. Shame, as you say. Twitbook/Facetube is not for me either. The UKAstroimaging webpage was quite a civilised place...

It’s a snowman.... My next door neighbour just asked me if my observatory scope could pick it up. He seemed a bit disappointed when I said “no”...

Just rotated my 460 camera on the back of my EFW2 filter wheel by slacking off the two grubs screws and retightening, as per instructions. Easy-peasy, but then I noticed that on the telescope adaptor side, there are three little Allen screws on the filter wheel close to the adapter thread. What do these do? They are not mentioned in the manual but they show up on Atik’s drawing. I could take it apart to find out I suppose, but I’d thought I’d ask here first. Tilt adjustment maybe?

Wow, you guys are faster than your download speeds! Don’t know if you have kicked a server or something, but things seem back to normal...

Is it just me or are SGL page views getting a bit slow again? SGL has been pretty sluggish at my end of the wire for the last day or so, other web sites are fine...

Thanks for your reply, Hugh, it’s good to know it’s not just me! The EQDIR cable I use is of the FTDI variety, but I do have a shorter Lynx-made FTDI cable that I could connect the mount to the hub with. If I get any more problems that’ll be the first thing I try.

During the “close season” I decided to upgrade the camera and peripherals on my venerable Vixen ED114SS. Whilst the scope itself has some minor faults, I am rather attached to it and decided I could live with the slightly halated stars at the blue end of the spectrum, and reckoned that the addition of a focus motor might help reduce the considerable image shift I was getting when trying to manually tweak the rather hefty rack and pinion focuser after swapping between filters. The first stage was replacing my old and equally venerable SXV-H9 for a wider field camera with set-point cooling. I had ruled out shuttered cameras and big chip jobs, partly on cost, partly because I wanted to stick with my existing 1.25 inch Astronomik LRGB filters, and partly because I wasn’t too sure the ED114 could give me a flat field over too big an imaging area (although DLSR frames had always seemed reasonable). After much agonising I went for the ATIK 460EX, rather than the Starlight Xpress equivalent, the SX674. My SXV-H9 has been absolutely brilliant for the last 15 years and the SX674 (with its excellent cooling capability and nifty inbuilt USB hub) was therefore very tempting. What put me off was that I have never had much luck when it comes to Starlight Xpress software. I have yet to successfully install the SXV-H9 on any of the computers I have owned over the years first time, without an endless series of error messages and “missing driver” warnings every time I changed computer. I had a similar nightmare when I bought a Lodestar last year. Although I cannot fault the support I got from SX’s Terry Platt, who helped me get it all going in the end on my obbo PC (though even he couldn't make the Lodestar work on either my XP laptop or desktop), I would rather just have something that works out of the box first time, without the need for a subsequent series of e-mails and additional software downloads. My old ATIK manual filter wheel was also overdue for replacement. This has always leaked light and I had to resort to wrapping it up in tin foil, like the turkey it was. The act of manually changing over filters also seemed to cause a tiny bit more image shift. As I had plumped for the ATIK 460, I thought I may as well push the boat out and get the EFW2 electronic filter wheel to go with it. And a new set of narrow band filters while I was at it. My existing H alpha filter was a 12nm bandwidth, and my Astronomik OIII filter was utterly useless for imaging, giving horrendous halos around stars. As the EFW2 is a nine-place job, I also went for a full stack of Baader narrow band filters (SII, Ha, OIII and Hb), which, when combined with my LRGBs and a CLS, filled it up nicely. I have never used SII or Hb filters and it will be interesting to see what they add. So eventually, I gave many, many of my pounds to local astro dealer Ian King who, in return, promptly sent me my shiny new toys. It was with some trepidation that I downloaded ATIK’s software on to my observatory Windows 7 PC. It took a nerve-wracking few minutes for it all to squirt over the airwaves and down the wires, hanging for disconcertingly long periods during which it seemed to be doing nothing. And then finally… …it all connected and it all worked, first time. It was the same story when I loaded it all on to an old Vista laptop. No drama, no fuss. I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t get the camera to talk to Astroart, which I had been using for image acquisition, despite downloading and installing the Astroart plug-in. However, ATIK’s Artemis capture software seems to be, in many respects, a better way of working and I soon got used to it. The EFW2 is a beast of a unit. It is very solidly built and makes a satisfying little hum to let you know it is doing its thing when you ask it to. Its size meant it needed to be mounted “upwards” on the back of the scope to avoid hitting the telescope pier when the scope was pointing at targets overhead. Fitting the filters is easy, and having nine places makes that a one-off job. With the image train sorted, I decided to look at the focuser. I also now had a veritable rat’s nest of USB, power and dew heater cables hanging down from the scope that meant a snagging disaster would be inevitable. Whilst I was wary of introducing a USB hub into the mix given the many and varied horror stories I have read about them on this forum, I thought a hub would be preferable to the alternative of four five meter USB cables (mount, filter wheel, camera, guide camera) and a similar run of 12v power cables trailing from the scope, down the pillar and along the floor to the PC/power supply, the former of which was already USB’d-up with the dome controller, keyboard, mouse and radio dongle for the internet connection. So yet more of my pounds went to Altair Astro for a Pegasus Ultimate Hub and associated focus stepper motor. The hub mounted easily to a dovetail bar on the top of the scope and a set of quality Lindy 1m USB cable connected everything up, with a single 5m Lindy going back to the PC. As a bonus, the Pegasus hub allows you to plug in and control your dew heaters (one for the main scope and one for the guide scope), saving yet another run of cables. I had a few minor niggles with the Pegasus kit. The mounting brackets are optional and rather expensive extra for what they are. For the price they charge for the hub, you’d think they’d include them. Similarly, they provide a nice diagram telling you how to wire up a cable for the focus motor (which I did), but I’d much rather they just supply the cable! Maybe I am being unreasonable as I suppose some users will not require either. The hub comes with a full set of 12v supply cables which fitted the ATIK camera and filter wheel, but the input 1.8m 12v cable with a 2.5mm pin (the outputs are 2.1mm) isn’t really long enough. I couldn’t find a suitable plug on the web to make up my own power lead, and so I just cut the cigar lighter plug off of the supplied lead and extended it (my power supply output is fused so no worries there). Given that everything runs off this one input, I was a bit disappointed that it’s just a push-fit plug with no locking screw collar. Other than that, the hub build quality feels excellent, with (all six) USB and (all four) 12v power outlet sockets firmly gripping their respective plug-ins. The focus motor comes with a somewhat bendy bracket that nevertheless fitted readily onto the end of the scope dovetail bar and enabled a straightforward coupling of the motor to the shaft of the rack and pinion of my scope. I had to drill the flexible aluminium coupling boss out a bit as it was too small for my focuser, but other than that, it was a cinch to install. The control software for the hub downloaded and installed easily. I would have appreciated some detailed instructions for using it, although to be fair it is fairly basic in nature. I had an initial puzzling couple of minutes before I realised that the “connect” icon for the hub is a tiny squiggle tucked away in the top left hand corner of the main control screen. Once I worked that out, everything connected up just fine. Although my scope rack and pinion is a direct drive with no geared reduction, the Pegasus focuser allows really tiny adjustments to be made. There seems to be a capability to manually put a backlash figure in to compensate for the inevitable lag in the rack and pinion, but it doesn’t seem to store the figure. I guess the design intent is for it to run with an autofocus set-up, but I have still found it quite easy to use in “manumatic” mode, in conjunction with the ATIK Artemis focus screen. It has greatly reduced the amount of image shift I get on refocusing, and allows me to make much finer focus adjustments than I could ever achieve manually. One outstanding minor aggravation is that the Pegasus software seems to “hog” the USB ports on my PC. I have not (yet) routed my NEQ6 EQDIR USB connection via the hub, preferring at the moment to send that back to the PC separately. However, if I turn on the mount before I try and connect the hub via its command screen, the hub sulks and simply refuses to connect. It connects just fine if the mount power is off, and then stays connected when the mount is turned on. However, the hub seems to then “block” the EQDIR connection to EQASCOM from the mount. The EQDIR connection shows up on the PC device manager, but I get the dreaded ASCOM “time out screen” when I try to run the planetarium programme. I have to then unplug the EQDIR cable from the PC and then plug it back it in. This seems to “force” the connection, and I can then open the EQMOD telescope control and connect my planetarium software to it. I now also need to make sure I connect the guide camera and mount to PHD before I connect to the planetarium software, otherwise connecting PHD after I have pointed the scope freezes the EQMOD control, stops all tracking and locks up the planetarium software, requiring a re-set from the Windows task manager. I’m not yet entirely sure that this is 100% down to the Pegasus software, but I had none of this aggravation before using the Pegasus hub. I do wonder if my EQDIR cable is on the blink instead, but provided I start everything up in the right order, it all seems to work – touch wood. I may try and send the EQDIR output from the mount through the hub to see if this improves connectivity, but at the moment I’m inclined to leave things alone. The Pegasus hub offers temperature and humidity monitoring that has already proved invaluable as I live by a river, so that even inside an observatory, dew heaters are an absolute essential to keep the optics clear and dew-free. There is an automatic option that allegedly adjusts the power sent to the dew heaters based on the temperature/humidity readings, but so far, it just seems to be full on/full off from what I’ve seen - not that this is a problem or necessarily even wrong. It definitely runs the heaters once the dew point catches up with the temperature, so that's one less thing to think about. As for the ATIK 460EX, initial images seem very promising. Although its cooling capability is a bit pathetic to be honest, running it at -5 degrees seems to give quieter and far more reproducible dark frame stacks than I could achieve with the SXV-H9. And the image field offers twice the area, which I look forward to exploiting in the coming months. Although I am fairly pleased with them, my first images with the new set-up do show slightly eggy stars at the corners, with the axes of the eggs directed towards the centre of the frame. This is almost certainly a camera spacing issue. I have e-mailed Vixen UK to see if they know what the right corrector-to-focal plane distance for the ED114 is, but it may well be a case of trial and error to fix things on that front. One small thing with the EFW2 software is that although the filter wheel connects and goes through its initial start-up rotation as soon as I power it up via the Pegasus hub, attempting to subsequently select a filter position gives you a choice of a hundred filter positions, none of which work! Disconnecting and reconnecting via the Artemis software brings up the usual nine positions, and the wheel works fine after that. So whilst not a clean win on the software front, I am reasonably happy with the upgrade exercise as it stands. The ATIK camera and filter wheel work well and the Artemis control software seems hassle free and reasonably intuitive. The Pegasus hub really cuts out the cable tangle, allowing me to easily de-mount the whole scope/hardware bundle and bring it all indoors for security purposes if I know I won’t be imaging for a while. And I'm pleased with the simplicity of the stepper motor focus control and the delicate touch it provides. Early days I know, but the hardware all seems to work fine. I think the software is going to be the immediate ongoing issue (as ever) but fingers crossed…

I think it’s great that FLO have given the astro community access to its Clear Outside freebie. It is a useful predictive tool but with the inevitable limitations that come with it being based on a huge and unpredictable variable -the weather! I use it to see if there is a chance of a long period of clear skies, but tend to back it up with a look at Metcheck’s satellite cloud maps on the day ( https://www.metcheck.com/WEATHER/airmass.asp). Between them, they are pretty good at allowing me to set up of an evening with a good chance of shutting down when I want to, rather than being forced to by the weather.

Old thread I know, but I’ve just replaced my GPDX Skysensor and motors with the SynScan EQ5 upgrade kit. I actually think the new motors are much quieter than the old ones. And it all talks to EQMOD/ASCOM as well...

Looking good. Now can you resist the urge to tweak.....?

Maybe so. I still maintain that if your guiding is giving you reasonably tight, round stars then actual "readings" are of secondary importance. My own mount is an un-modded, 10 year old NEQ6 and it nearly always guides out at between 0.5" (at best) and 3" . And that variation is a night-to-night thing - that range can occur when pointing at the same object at the same declination, just on different nights. I usually image at 600mm focal length and by and large, star shapes in the resultant subs are just fine for me - or at least my pictures are pretty enough for my liking, anyway. If stars seem a bit bloated then longer guide exposures can often help to tighten things up. My NEQ6 seems to work best at short guiding exposures for some reason, usually 1 to 1.5 seconds. but sometimes cranking up to 3 seconds helps things if the seeing is a bit shaky. I haven't had to mess around with any other settings in PHD/EQMOD for the past year (touch wood), pretty much irrespective of target. I would say that the answer to the OP's opening question is "find what usually works for your set-up, then stick with it".

+1 for round stars. Often as not my PHD graph looks like an ECG, but if the stars come out OK then it’s doing it’s job...

I have exactly the same problem with alignment of colour stacks and have also contemplated going down the Registar route. I do wonder what the root causes are. I manually refocus between filter changes (and the filter wheel is also manual) so I am motorising both to see if that eliminates image shift. I also wonder if the slightly imperfect colour correction of my old Vixen refractor is having an effect as well. I use the image registration feature in Astroart to align my stacked channels; sometimes this is quite effective, other times, not so. If all else fails, it could well be Registar for me as well. Your results look quite unequivocal.

It all used to sit on top of a box with a lap top and all the electrics in, held down by springs so you could level it all. I could just roll it all out of my garage on a wheeled dolly down to a platform at the bottom of my (secluded) drive, and get going in about 10 minutes. It was a perfect set-up. And then we moved house...