DaveL59

19 minutes ago, Cornelius Varley said:

The method is called prime focus not afocal. Afocal imaging is shooting through the camera lens onto an eyepiece. Prime focus uses the telescope as the camera's lens.

ahh doh! mixed the terminology, my bad  (corrected)

cool, so you're using the camera afocal prime focus in that case, hopefully someone with the right expertise will be able to advise with that information  

ah ok, but using an eyepiece in it? or just using it as an extension tube?

are you using eyepiece projection to capture, or just the DSLR in afocal mode?

Can't answer if a reducer or coma corrector is needed but I'd think if eyepiece projecting it wouldn't help at all.

the observing vest looks handy too, better than slipping the EPs in my pants/jacket pocket when I swap them over. A vest used only for observing would at least limit extraneous debris that might gather in a general purpose jacket and be better for the EPs... hmmm

24 minutes ago, John said:

My silly humour Dave - I thought astroturf was a nice term, given our hobby 

It must be nice not to have to mow it - my lawn needs doing !

 

doh! I totally missed that lol

yeah and its green all year round too 🙂 just those damned slugs. Will have to go round and check the lawn at my Dad's soon and mow that again tho. 

Just now, John said:

Is astroturf a particularly good surface to observe from ?

 

well its a case of little option in my small garden John, the patio segment is next to the shed under a pergola and the oak tree reaches toward it too, so a very narrow range of view from there restricted to NE and having to aim over the house roof which is only 40ft away. The ground under the astroturf is rock solid so the scope sits fine and stable, depending where I place if I can view ESE-SSE as objects rise into view, or W-N shooting over the higher fence and roofs. Another bonus too, no muddy feet traipsing in and out of the house, the gear stays nice and clean  

not so much snails, but here I get a load of slugs in the garden, somehow they seem to love the astroturf. Always a worry when the scopes are out in case they find their way into things, the slime is a right mother to clean up, almost as bad as catching eels. Worse still they seem able to find their way into things and cause havoc with electronics. One found its way into the catflap control section, electrocuted itself across the board which rendered it broke and leaving the kitties locked out till I found out what caused it. Took me ages to clean it all up and then it had scrambled the kitties ID codes, they were seriously unimpressed at having to be held and passed under the reader in what was, from their protesting and look at me, such an undignified manner. I bunged up every opening I could find with blutak and so far no further infestation. Does leave me a little paranoid about the SynScan tho so I try to keep cables off the ground or run off battery so there's no easy route they can sneak along in the dark.

in some ways sadly the don't make 'em like they used to... tho optics have improved greatly of course  

looks in great condition John and circle-T is I think Towa, its one of the things I look for when I scan sales ads for older fracs as they're generally good quality. Shows in simple stuff like the focuser knobs being solid ally rather than the plastic type you get on later ones.

3 hours ago, Ledge1962 said:

Just to confirm it isn't a faulty encoder, go into the handset menu, Utility Func - Show Position, and move the mount up and down, then around and check if the Coordinates are updating. I had a similar issue with the scope aligning correctly, but as soon as I used Goto, it would just drop down and bottom out on the mount. It turned out the ALT Encoder was broken and we only found it because the Azimuth coordinates were updating, but the Altitude coordinates remained the same when raising and lowering the scope by hand.  If this is your problem, the Azimuth coordinates probably wont alter.

It may not be the issue, but worth ruling it out.

 

18 minutes ago, DobbieDave said:

I tried this out.

The Alt & Azm are updating when I track the scope using the controller.

When I manually move the mount, only the Alt seems to track properly the Azm is very unresponsive.

as ledge1962 above said, if the encoder isn't working properly when moving the scope manually, then maybe the encoder is the problem, in which case the GoTo isn't sure where the mount is pointing and just goes "wierd". You'll need to have a look at the motor/encoder to see what's up and if it can be fixed.

love how the older gear used to come in a nice wood case, makes for easy storage and transporting as well as having a classic look.

used with an RCD of course...

6 minutes ago, Stu said:

Tee hee. I hope some big burly dob boys don’t come an duff me up on a dark night now 😉😉

they'll probably just say we look like dalek's with those long bug-eyed things poking from our heads  

ahh a nice age to get them interested then  And yeah, just like we used to figure out the VCR controls that our parents couldn't get the hang of I expect

I played about with my gear in daylight a lot before going out in the dark, just so I got an idea of how things moved and the controls, same with the GoTo on the EQ5. Always easier when you can see what you're doing/looking for than frustrated fumbling in the darkness.

Dark sites, I'll be honest I've not looked. My back garden albeit with the limitation of the oak tree that obscures SSE-SSW completely while small is reasonably dark and the viewing has been pretty reasonable.  So I've been a bit lazy to trek around, plus I'd like to sort some form of case/box for the refractor rather than just strap it on the back seat and hope it stays put. For the moment, convenience wins, easy setup by taking them from the conservatory and a couple steps into the garden, or just point out the door, amenities like warm drinks are a few steps away etc, getting to be a lazy old g1t huh  

the EQ mount would likely throw them when trying to point to a target but other than that they're sturdy enough I think, depending on kids age and height. A bumper on the end of the counterweight bar might be a good idea tho. But then again, you'd end up relegated to the travelscope once they take over the "proper" one lol

I'm Medway/Maidstone area by the way, there's quite a few kent based here I've noticed  

2 minutes ago, apophisOAS said:

i wonder what they would think if they found it in your luggage at the airport.💣

Roger

think they've stopped asking "please turn it on, sir" like they used to, brings out the naughty side of me as last time I was asked, I replied "sure, not  a problem, but surely if it was a B... then we'd both be stuffed..." CLICK  Don't try that in the states tho, no sense of humour their lot  

42 minutes ago, BoredPhil said:

Thanks @cletrac1922 - that looks a lot more reliable than the flimsy wiring on the pack I've got, thanks for the tip! 

And thank you to everyone for the kinds welcome. I've even seen some names from posts on the boards I've been reading for a long time - you're all as friendly as I hoped!

Welcome Phil.

The SW130 you have, is the battery pack 4xD-cell and a single RA motor drive like this one?

Quite likely it is in which case a jump start pack like that will not suit since your clockwork drive would be 6v. Connecting a 12v jump start pack would fry the control box so please don't try that. The battery box isn't great but should work so long as the wires are still connected and the battery contacts are clean. Do you have a meter to check there's voltage at the terminals and the plug at all?

You might notice I have mine switched to S rather than N, the way the motor fits onto the EQ2 means it drives the opposite way to the instructions or the scope ends up tracking the wrong way.

Not asking for assist here folks, just been re-working my 12v converter as I had to nick the floating cigar plug for something else a while back so while putting in an alternate solution earlier this eve I thought I'd grab a few pics and share. After all this often comes up so it may be useful to someone down the road.

So For my EQ5/SynScan setup, it needs a 12V 2A supply to be able to slew and not drop out with undervolt issues. I also wanted another 12V out in case I want to hook anything else up, at the moment a modified mini-CCTV that uses 12V power. At home I can run a mains lead out, sure, and use a regular 12V 5A power brick, which as you can see gives a correct output.

But that means a mains wire and isn't always convenient. So portable power options then - Lead batteries are a no, I use way too many of those in UPS's, they're heavy and having to recharge after use each time etc is a drag. LiFePo are way too expensive for me given I'm pretty casual at this lark, as for those fancy powertanks, way too pricey for what they are IMHO  So a simple cheap, lightweight solution that's easy to swap out once worn out, a LiPo car jump starter, in this case a 20AH one that has 12V out and 2x USB out, plus USB micro/C in for charging it up. It came with a cigar socket outlet as well as the car battery croc-clips so I can plug the OEM cigar lead for the SynScan directly into this and away we go, right. NO, don't! Here's why

Now in theory the SynScan (mine according to the manual) has a 15V max limit, so here we're teetering on the edge of maybe blowing the boards?

I wasn't going to risk that, given how expensive new boards would be. So the solution, put a buck converter between the LiPo pack and the SynScan controller. So my setup is LiPo pack -> Cigar outlet -> SynScan Cigar lead -> buck converter -. SynScan module power-in.

As you can see, the buck converter drops that LiPo pack output to just a shade under 12V, so a safe level to feed into the SynScan controller boards. Yeah that inline socket with screw connectors ain't ideal I know, I do have some moulded ones on flyleads... somewhere in another black hole that formed in the house after I put them down  Now if I'd got a starter unit that had a regular 5.5x2.1mm or laptop output as well it'd have been even simpler to wire in lol

So a side concern, perhaps, what happens to the output on that mains power brick should we get a surge or it starts to fail? So just in case, how about feeding that through the buck converter too as a failsafe?

So there you go, a simple 12V 5A buck converter with a couple plugs on flyleads to hook to the mount and camera and a socket to connect to either the LiPo starter or the mains brick and I should now have peace of mind that the power source won't blow the SynScan boards. Works very nicely too, no idea how long continuously as I'm not imaging or running dew heaters or fans but the battery level hardly drops with a couple hours play time slewing and tracking. Yet to hook the CCTV which will be an extra 0.5-1A draw.

Hopefully useful to someone else, but also hopefully a prompt to check the output voltage of this type of battery pack before hooking them straight to your GoTo controllers.

cheers  

4 minutes ago, GiggaKubicca said:

Firstly I don't want anyone to take this the wrong way because it's not how I intend it as I do really appreciate peoples time and help. However it's starting to get frustrating for me. I seem to have loads of people conflicting with what others have been telling me.
...
All I want to do is photo the moon and even that seems to be incredibly difficult to achieve, like smashing my head against a damn wall.

Might be best to just enjoy using the scope visually until we're out of our restrictions and then go along to an astro club and get someone there who knows how to take a look and advise/show you?

does that knurled ring on the drawtube with the 2 thumbscrews in it unscrew off the tube I wonder?

If so is there a 2-inch T-thread adapter that would screw directly onto it?

That first pic is I guess your 2-inch to 1.25 inch eyepiece holder yes?
Looks like it's adding 1/4 inch to the focuser length before you even get to installing your camera to it which might be preventing you reaching focus.

Now I could be talking out of my hat, not having a 2-inch eyepiece setup but just my 2 cents...

a picture showing good detail of your focuser might help here I think?

Some the M42 thread is on the end of the focuser drawtube after removing the eyepiece holder, I've no idea on the orion's though, never having seen one IRL

I'd agree, especially as this thread relates to the older TAL telescopes that used a non-standard eyepiece range, so any solutions contained here would be completely different than for a modern scope using standard 1.25-inch eyepieces.

that's mighty nice of him Lee, hopefully it'll be able to reach focus in your scope and you can get some nice afocal images if the clouds let us have a peek at the night sky again. Be prepared for a learning curve doing this though, but plenty here to advise when you need it  I've yet to get around to buying a DSLR, plan was to get a full-frame Minolta as I still have my old film SLR and lenses, but then they got bought by Sony and when the full-frame came out the price was eye-watering! So still on the fence on which way to go on that really.

For the barlow, sounds like a decision made, looks quite like the one I got with the SW130 scope I have and is quite usable. You can unscrew the barlow element off the end and fit that onto the end of an eyepiece too, which I think would give around x1.4 which can be handy. It'll be one you can use on the upgrade when you do go for the 130 and useful to have to extend the range of mag, tho maybe not the best for imaging, others will be able to advise better on that. 

amazing watching a true craftsman produce something like this (not to mention your other projects!) and seamlessly working on different material types not blinking an eye. Pretty sure if I'd tried what you've done so far the wood sheets would have snapped along the bend and this inner structure would be leaning to one side as I built up to the top!

Part of me is wondering if you couldn't fit a real reflector system and EEVA inside it and then be able to articulate the model to point at different objects and display what it sees. Would likely blow away the minds of those coming to see it