Viktiste

Whoa.... It looks like a clear night ahead, so I am preparing to test my new 2" 2x TeleVue Powermate on my Esprit 80 ED. The Powermate pushes the camera assembly back quite a bit, so I had to balance the scope on the mount again. While moving from side to side on the DEC axis I noticed a disturbing sound, kind of like a small rock or piece of metal moving up and down! After an initial small panic (imagining a destroyed lens), I calmed down and removed the camera, flattener and the focuser assembly. This little plastic/teflon piece drops out of the focuser asssembly: It becomes clear it is a spacer that has become loose, luckily it could not hit the lens. It was supposed to sit where the arrow indicates: Teflon piece securely back in place: Fastened with these grub screws: Phew.... I was worried for a bit there !!

I totally agree 😄 I'll give the Vogon's a call and have them tidy it up!

From Cyclops Optics, Hong Kong: 😀

Well - easy decision then -The item is gone. 😡 I regret not jumping the gun on that one earlier. Thanks for the advice anyway.

Thanks for the input and link folks 🙂 I don't know, it is advertised as a Titan HGM. The seller links to this video, so I assume that is what he has I found the (ex Yahoo..-) usergroups for Losmandy: https://groups.io/g/Losmandy_users/ but it is rather time consuming to find any useful information there. On the usergroup there is some talk about hi-torque/lo-torque motors, any way to identify which ones the mount has? According to the seller it has never been used, only assembled indoors. It includes the mount w/Gemini 2, tripod, 2 counterweights, a GSM device and a pole master. The asking price is fair I think. It is a fair bit less than what a a brand new SW EQ 8 + tripod + shipping/taxes would cost me. So: Buy a 2nd hand but unused US made mount with 100 lbs capacity? Pay more for a new China mount with similar capacity...? Or just leave it for now? I am thinking I will regret not going for the Losmandy...

Here is my effort. Very nice to practice on these data set's, thanks again for posting them. Processed mainly in Pixinsight. But I have also applied some sharpen filters in Affinity Photo. And the Ha was edited in Affinity photo before it was added to the LRGB using Pixelmath.

I tested this again indoors tonight. Not exactly the error you describe, but still worth a shot: If selecting 16 bits here: Then I repeatedly get this error after "looping exposers for frame and focusing": Selecting 8 bits does not give the error.

In PHD2 try to set your guide camera to 8 bits instead of 16 bits. That fixed the issue for me (with a ZWO ASI 120MC).

Hi. There is no doubt that it felt easier to guide with a guide scope compared to the OAG. However the ZWO OAG with the ASI 120 MC does work ok with my Esprit 80 ED + HEQ5 pro belt mod. Typical guiding is around 0.8 to 0.9" RMS which is probably not great but it is more than sufficient. I image at around 2" per pixel. So 20+ minutes exposures are no problem. There are always 2 or more stars in the OAG to guide on, but not plenty of stars. Still I have always been able to find a guide star. In my opinion these are the OAG pro/cons: pro's: No need for custom guide scope mount arrangement. No need for a guide scope. No need for guide scope dew heater. More compact scope arrangement - so it is easier to transport safely. con's: Took some fiddling to set up the first time, particularly to get focus. OAG is probably overkill for a 80mm refractor (?). I never kept copies of the guide logs from when I used the finder scope as a guide scope, so I can't compare the performance of the OAG vs. the finder scope. But I suspect either does the the job more than well enough.

I'm not familiar with DSLR settings in NINA, but maybe you need something entered for Gain?

What is your camera Exposure Time etc. under Options - plate solving?

I have had many nights like this. But eventually I got the hang of it and my setup is usually pretty smooth now. What helped me was realizing I won't remember everything between sessions - so I made myself a checklist in excel. Make sure you use the L filter when you are platesolving. Which software do you use? USB issues - If you are on Windows - try installing USBview as explained here: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/354148-howto-set-up-win10-from-scratch-to-control-mount-with-stellarium/?do=findComment&comment=3855306

AP or visual or both? I bought the HEQ5 pro 2 years ago, and belt modded it. I am very happy with it and it works perfectly for my 80mm refractor for Imaging and for my SW 200P for visual. However I must admit I am already looking for a bigger payload mount. So if I had to make that decision today I would have chosen the higher capacity mount. But I would have spent a few more hunded £'s and chosen the EQ6-R PRO.

Amazing and beautiful!! 🙂👍

Old thread I know, but Kudos to the OP for this! I just made a spare EQDIR cable for my HEQ5pro. I bought a "FT232RL 3.3V 5.5V FTDI USB to TTL Serial Adapter Module for Arduino Mini Port" on e-bay for next to nothing. Made sure the jumper was set to 5V. Crimped a RJ45 connector to a piece of CAT5 cable and wired them together. Here is the finished cable. I 3D printed a case for the Serial adapter board: Inside the box: Wiring: 👍🙂

I might be totally mistaking, but it seems to me prices are cartel driven, rather than driven by the covid pandemic.. This (and the linked legal paper's) are interesting reading: https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/745844-synta-celestron-ningbo-sunny-meade-et-al-latest/

I just bought Affinity photo. They have 50% discount at the moment! 🙂👍

Hmmm! There is a 2nd hand Losmandy HGM Titan mount, about 5 years old for sale near me, priced around £4K. This got me thinking... Say I sometime in the distant future want to image with a large FL scope, for example Celestron 11 Edge HD. Would a Losmandy HGM Titan be as much mount as I would ever need? Or is that amount of money better spent in the distant future on something like a Sky-Watcher EQ8-R or a Celestron CGX-L? I cant really find much user reviews/experiences online with Losmandy mounts. Talk me out of this please...

I have been playing around with these IKO datasets, thanks for sharing them. It is nice to see how others process them 🙂 Here is my effort. Processed in Pixinsight with some masks edited in Gimp. I am too unorganized to be able list my workflow.

I had a box, perfectly designed to fit my PC inside it but that PC got stolen. The el cheapo replacement PC I bought does not fit in the box, which is why it now stays on top of the box, exposed to the elements.

A few degrees above 0 is probably a lot worse than really cold temperatures as the air is really dry when it is this cold. This night is was -21c in the morning 🙂 I could not understand why the camera cooling set at -20 did not draw any power! I have left the PC out unprotected in a few degrees plus and humid air too, that has been ok so far but it is maybe a bit risky. A box with vent holes would be good for that.

I just leave the laptop out, unprotected but with the lid closed. So I tell Windows to do nothing when I close the lid:

I left it out last night imaging the Heart nebula at -18°C, no issues. I guess the thing is to let it gently warm to room temperature with the lid open before powering it up inside.

Ehhr...Ehhh, Photography?

M42 is often the first one people image. Finally some clear skies, so I had my first go at it. Decided to go for short subs, so did 300 x 10sec subs each of R,G,B. 15 flats, 15 darks. Also took 80 x 20s Ha but have not processed those yet. Stacking this in Pixinsight: Initial Lights folder size was 30GB. Processing created Registered folder 60GB and Calibrated folder 60GB. It took about 8 hours to stack. Then add some intermediate processing data, and the entire size for this is a massive 154GB! And the total exposure time is only 50 minutes for each R,G,B channel. Theoretically I should probably have used even shorter exposures. It just does not add up. Anyway, here is the result. Hard to remove LP gradients as usual.