Pullock

Good views here too, DSLR and SA set up for imaging, Mak is out for visual, very subtle eclipse but nice to have caught it.

Took a few attempts to get some decent data but of course there was nearly a full moon with this one. This was lights, darks, Bias stacked in DSS and edited in GIMP, thinks this was around 30-45 mins of data with my DSLR mounted on the star adventurer, it's not great but I'm really impressed with what I have managed to pull out of it.

So I had to get a new tripod, the one I got with my DSLR works fine but as it's a 1/4 thread and a quick release plate it just wouldn't take the star adventurer and my DSLR without it wobbling and wouldn't tighten properly. So I have been using the mount for my 127 Mak which is solid but has it's own problems as you can see in the pictures of the Mak tripod and my new one. Mainly being on the Mak one it sits in a cup and I can't access the altitude or azimuth adjustment knobs, so for Polar alignment I'd have to loosen, adjust, tighten, loosen, adjust, tighten etc which gets tedious fast. So hopefully this new one with a solid 3/8 head and more adjustable will do the job! 

Not sure how this will be perceived on here, I was after a dew heater for use exclusively with my DSLR, the ones I found were £30-50 with 5 weeks lead time and with the colder weather that wasn't ideal. So I took a look on eBay and managed to find this for £15, a USB 31cm long dew heater. It heats up well and should hopefully do the job, have to wait to use it before I can say what I really think of it.

Had the adapters come today for attaching the star adventurer to my tripod and guess what? We're forecast cloud the next few nights!

1 hour ago, DaveS said:

Sounds like a camera lens filter thread.

Good call, it's roughly the size of the front ring on my DSLR, won't fit this one but certainly the right size, thanks.

19 minutes ago, freiform said:

It goes in front of a lens, I guess?

 

Have fun with the SA, I use mine not nearly enough.

I figured that... but don't know of anything that is a 62mm/2.4 inch fit

I bought cycling gloves that I use for driving when it's cold, they're really warm and have good grip on them!

Picked these up 2nd hand but hardly used, Star adventurer, Skytech CLS clip filter and IDAS LPS-P1 Light pollution Filter 62mm (not sure what this is used with but had it thrown in) only thing missing is the 1/4 to 3/8 convert screw which is what I need to mount it on my tripod, should be able to make do with using my Mak's tripod tonight and have some on the way to hopefully arrive in the morning.

I've also had issues with my Synscan but the Alt/Az version and I'll just describe what seems to have worked for me. I also had issues where it seemed like it would work for 10 minutes and then start slewing in the wrong direction like it had the hemisphere confused. Forgive me if any of this has been said but first thing I did was factory reset the handset. this made no difference, next step was I updated the firmware on the handset this seemed to have partially solved the issues.

There was still something a little off and as I don't have an official power supply and being reluctant to buy one, I tried a few different ones I had ensuring they were tip positive and found one which outputs 12.2V consistently. Since then, albeit only used a few times due to the weather it has been working absolutely fine. I can't see anywhere you've stated what power supply you use but forgive me if I missed it as I've experienced some very erratic behaviour with incorrect power supplies. Hopefully this may help and I hope you solve it soon!