gazza

Hello,

the Evostar ED50 guider makes a nice cheap widefield imager when combined with the Starizona matching field flattener. The only issue is that there are no commercial motor focusers available to fit it. A friend who is an engineer (Maurice Valimberti) designed the focuser mount here for me.
It was printed with Esun PLA+ on an Ender 3 Pro using 20% infill.
I used 3 brass inserts that are melted into the PLA using a soldering iron. These were sized for m3 x 12mm cap screws.
The motor is mounted with the cap screws that come with the Focus Motor. There are slots in the mount so you can shift the motor to tighten the drive belt.
The GT2 timing belt was made by cutting the belt a bit too long trimming 3 teeth off leaving the bare belt and overlap gluing the two ends of the belt with CA
The ZWO motor has backlash, as does the helical focuser. In NINA I used backlash 700, step size 1500. This is because the focuser has an extremely fine action.
The large gear is an extremely tight fit, but size can be adjusted using the "horizontal expansion" setting in Cura if it is too small/large for your focuser.
There are holes include for locking screws on the gear and motor mount, but I made mine a tight fit and don't need them.

Pics attached

If you want a copy of the stl's pm me - do not want to put them up publicly just yet, but happy to send you a copy.
cheers
Gary

Good luck with your design, I'm following the thread, as simple is always good. I built this one so I could set it up and run it remotely. Something small and cheap to take on trips for widefield shots would be very welcome. Good luck!!

cheers

Gary

Hi,

cost was a bit over  $200 Australian dollars, from what I remember:

Most of the cost was in the MKSGenL v2.1 with drivers  $60

Stepper motors had them already

Camera mount $30

Bearings $60

Hardware Screws/nuts/bolts etc about $40

A kilo of filament (PLA)

Took about 2 weeks to print all the bits at about 8 hours a day, and about 6 hours to assemble.....

Hope this helps

Gary

What about this 3d printed startracker, full goto, and automatic polar alignment. Have just built one myself:

https://openastrotech.com/

Auto PA:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKDGDcrhc6Q

cheers

Gary

Hi,

wondering if anybody has tried the Esprit 80mm or similar scope with an EQM35 mount. I'm looking for the lightest possible AP capable mount for my Esprit to use as a portable rig when I visit friends in the country - who have magnificent dark skies. The Esprit is a chunky scope at 4.1 kg sans camera etc....

I should add that I need the light weight as I am 70 yo and have a form of heart failure so need it to be as light as possible. An HEQ5 is too heavy.....

TIA

Gary

I never did resolve it. I thought I had, but I was mistaken.  Ultimately I returned the unit to the vendor for a full refund. The Starsense worked for pointing using the Celestron unified driver/Ascom, but I was never able to guide. PHD logs showed that PHD was sending correct commands to the mount, but it was not responding. If I remember correctly, the initial pulse setting in PHD was 800ms, the mount would not respond. I did get the mount to move manually using both 200 and 100ms pulses (using manual guide in PHD), but the mount would not complete calibration. It looked like the electronics were somehow not able to respond adequately to the guide commands. I contacted Celestron support, but never got an a reply from them. I also posted on Teamelestron, but they were unable to help. The Starsense worked fine for everything but guiding. If you can, return it for a refund and go back to EQmod.

Sorry to pass on the bad news

Gary

On 11/05/2020 at 00:19, Ricker said:

I would suggest that many ppl would want just a rotator and not necessarily a derotator, that would simplify things. 

 

Fantastic job. Well impressed. 

There is a nice 3d printable field rotator here:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4399875

cheers

Gary

I'm only using the Starsense camera itself for alignment, I have a seperate guidescope fitted with an ASI224. The hand controller is the Starsense  Handcontroler, hooked up  to a PC with a USB cable. I'm trying to pulse guide using PHD connected to the ASI224, and the Starsense hand control via the Celestron Ascom driver. The camera and mount connect to PHD, but when PHD issues calibration commands, the mount does not move......

cheers

Gary

Thanks, but the driver is loaded. All other functions work via pc as they should, guiding doesn't though..

Gary

Hi,

Everything seems to work correctly except for two issues which may be related:
When the Hand controller is first turned on, the autoguiding rates in the controller are both %00
I set them to %50, however this setting is not saved upon powering off and then on again, and has to be set each power up.

Note that in the hand controller the rates are shown as %50, not 50%, not sure if the  per cent sign should be first?

The mount will connect to PHD2, but will not calibrate, or guide as the mount does not respond to guide commands, so the calibration never completes correctly. PHD2 issues commands, but the mount does not respond.

All other functions seem to work perfectly

The Starsense firmware is the latest from Celestrons site upgraded via CFM.

Any ideas?

TIA

Gary

Hi,

wondering if anyone has built a small obs for a wedge mounted SCT (mine is a CPC925). Looking at space only for me as visual observer, and mostly the scope will often be used remotely for imaging.

Space available is very tight, perhaps 5 feet wide, length a bit more . Ideas? Really, really want a permanent setup! Links would be helpful as well if you know of any small obs...Have seen a couple at Sky and Telescope, but looking for more suggestions...

cheers

Gary

Hi had a disastrous night last night with my  Rowan belt modded HEQ5. This is in no way the fault of the Rowan mod, but entirely my fault in installation. The mount had been working superbly for a couple of years, but the last couple of nights out, I found guiding was pretty bad, It looked like cable drag - sudden jumps in ra, then last night (incidentally the best night for 3 months for imaging) it became hard to get accurate slews, and guiding was impossible.  OK, it's 1 am on a great night, the penny drops. Check the mount, off with the side cover... &%&^%&%^ the motor had slipped next to the idler, and had jammed an effectively destroyed the belt. I had obviously not tightened the cap screws holding everything down tight enough, my fault entirely. Unfortunately there were no grinding noises to warn me. In future I think I'll check everything as part of a maintenance routine. New belts ordered, but I expect they will take a few weeks to get to Australia.

Maybe you should check yours?

cheers

Gary

Found this on Thingiverse and printed one. Cover for the back of the mirror - a little more elegant than the shower cap I used to use:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3476080

There's  also a Bahtinov mask for it her:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3514044

cheers

Gary

Thanks,

won't be a heavy camera, just an ASI071MC Pro one shot color,so about the same as a DSLR. Based on your experience I'll at least try it and see!

cheers

Gary

Hi,

a while since I have posted due to health issues (heart). Due to a weakened state I have sold off a lot of my gear (Mesu 200, 12" f5 newt Esprit 100, QHY9 etc) since I did not have the strength to use it - getting old really sucks. I kept my Heq5. I also have an 8" f5 dob fitted with an Argo Navis DSC. 

Unfortunately 😀 a friend offered me an Esprit 120 at a price so low I could not refuse it.  I have tried it on the HEQ5, and when well balanced it damps in a few seconds. Does anyone have any idea how much better the HEQ5 would be on a permanent pier (I have a 250mm diameter  x 10mm thick wall pier) I would love to keep the HEQ5 mount rather than spending money on an EQ6R.  Has anyone any experience as to how the mount would perform for imaging on the permanent pier with the Esprit 120? I guess experience with an an 8" f5 newt would be relatively similar as well. Please save me from spending more money.

cheers

Gary

Great stuff! Will be interested to see what ou think when it is under the sky....

cheers

Gary

Hi,

have just built a motor focuser that is Moonlight compatible  for very little money. Details here:

https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/594658-pnp-focus-the-simplest-ever-arduino-focus-controller/

Works a treat using either unipolar OR bipolar steppers. The motors I use cost $3 each ? .Works so well I'm building another one for my portable scope. Simply stack arduino shields.....

Hope this helps

Gary

26 minutes ago, Adam J said:

People who cant colimate a newtonian and dont like diffraction spikes. Its got to be said thought that this is all without the use of even a premium 4 / 3 element coma corrector etc.  My personal thought on the matter is that a premium edition of the 130PDS with premium focuser and a carbon fiber tube would sell very well, I would buy one at any rate.

As would I in a heartbeat!  I also wonder if it's worth an extra 4 and a half thousand quid to get rid of diffraction spikes  !!!

Gary

after looking at lots of the images in this thread, as well as my own test, I have to say who needs an FSQ106? ?

Gary

2 hours ago, Atreta said:

That test went really well then,  looks like pixinsight did its magic

Could you post or pm me a picture of how it looks like without processing? 

Thanks 

PM'd you a Dropbox link to a calibrated only fits file - let me know what you think

cheers

Gary

1 hour ago, Atreta said:

? impressive for a bortle 9 sky. What filters did you use? 

Only an IR blocker...used Astropixel Processor for stacking and PI for processing - used ABE in PI to remove gradients - did a great job, other wise it was only stretched. No sharpening at all - the wavelet stuff in PI smoothed background , but reduced detail so I didn't use it in the final image.

My skies suck - I'm 1.5km from the Central Business District of a city of 250K + people, I can only image in the East which looks directly over the central city. I have nights where I can barely see 6-8 stars ?

This was a test of whether I could image with OSC here, as well as a test of the 130PDS.....

Gary

Tarantula

249x60 sec lights, Bias, Flats, no Darks

ASI071MC Pro

130PDS/Skywatcher .9x Coma Corrector

Bortle 9 Zone (Red Zone), 1/4 Moon

cheers

Gary

However they do refer to:

"We are working to provide more major releases of SGPro! SGPro, going forward, will release somewhere around one major, cost-bearing, release per year. It is important to note that we are not moving to a subscription based system! Once you buy SGPro, you own it and can use it forever. Incurring the cost of an upgrade means that you get new features and bug fixes."

This means that you will have to pay a yearly fee to keep up with the latest releases...

cheers

Gary

Hi,

I was wrong about the Skywatcher f4 coma corrector not working on the 130PDS. I had allowed for filter thickness and ccd chip coverglass  in calculating spacer distance. This made threw me out. After a long night - 'til 3am last night experimenting, I came up with a distance that works perfectly. Using 52.5 mm physical distance - no allowance for filters etc, the corrector gives perfect correction on a KAF8300 chip. No longer need to buy a new corrector :-)

cheers

Gary