DaveL59

ah ok, fair enough. So essentially these private operations don't care about polluting and carbon footprint, so long as they can do it cheap, not good

reminds me that one day I must dig out the old german cuckoo clock from my childhood and overhaul it... been in a box for years now but got diverted with other stuff, lately bino's and scopes and now it seems 2 failed Seagate HDD's in the fileservers

well assuming the usual H+O2 fuelling, perhaps not as much as you'd think. but that said the footprint for building it all etc, a fair bit...

this just arrived, now just need some clear night sky to try it and see if it helps with sky glow on the bridge camera

I run up the portable AC in the conservatory to cool things down in the summer eves which helps

if you do end up having to drill it out be careful not to damage the threads if poss. Not the end of the world tho as you can always re-tap with the next size up and use the appropriate size grub screw to replace it. Have had to do that on a couple of the micro size binoculars where prev owner had butchered the flat blade type grub screw and the threaded hole by using too much force and too wide bladed screwdriver. A LH drill bit you may be able to work by hand or using a pin wrench to hold it, rather than a power tool. As noted these small bits are quite brittle so beware. After all it's hopefully only nipped tight rather than over-torqued As Billy above mentions tho, glue can do it but you really want a tiny amount so you don't have the key stuck in the thread too. Another way is heat, a micro torch with a fine flame (jewellers type) just aimed at the screw area and a drop of WD40 while hot may break the thread free, but not good if the shaft its fixed to is plastic etc of course.

While I do have a shed, it's not in great order and have had to refix the felt a couple times earlier this year, plus storing the "spare" road wheels etc in there doesn't leave much space. Luckily I've a conservatory so that's where the 4 bigger scopes live, set up so they're easy to move into position either out to the garden or viewing with one out the open door. Upside is they're pretty much at ambient given its an unheated space and if windy but using them thru the doorway there's less wind effect on the long OTA's and easy access to mains power etc. Downside is summertime it can hit 45C+ in there but doesn't seem to have caused any issues with them so far. I'd think the critical issue to avoid is damp conditions, add spiders and maybe slugs into the mix and you can have problems aplenty if they get into the optics. Don't forget too that slugs if they find their way into the electronics cause havoc. One got into the electronic catflap a year or so back, stopped it working and wiped/scrambled the chip memory. Once cleaned up and working again I then had the fun of herding cats and persuading them to go thru to re-programme the chip ID's so they could get back in again. Bearing that in mind I keep the scope electronics bits in the eyepiece case as it sure wouldn't be fun trying to get those working if that happened to the goto components.

yep that's pretty much how an EQ mount works. You can rotate the OTA to get the focuser back to a position that's comfortable to use by loosening the ring clamps and turning the tube, just take care not to get the rings to release and you find the OTA leaps out onto the floor For a refractor you can usually just reposition the diagonal to get back to a usable angle.

don't worry, am fairly new myself and took me a couple goes and then seeing what was up in daylight to figure it out too

hi Neil, is that with the OTA mounted? Does it move freely with the OTA off the mount? also worth checking if the lock levers are what's causing it to get stuck as they may be impacting the body as you rotate the mount. These can usually be sorted by removing the screw and turning the lever so it clears and then refit the screw. I only have EQ2 and EQ5's and so long as there's clearance so you're not hitting the tripod they'll rotate fully with no problem, but hopefully someone who has the EQ1 will be along soon with a more informed view

in the tropics they run the reinforcing bars in the concrete walls up above the wall top so they can use it to secure down the woodwork for the roofs. But they they have to survive much stronger winds than we generally get, but as James suggested, some long steel plates may well help keep things in place, tho the risk is the structure being able to take the strain over time.

can you check in task manager if there's any related processes running in the background. If so then kill those and try restarting the app. Not a user of this app as yet but have seen similar with CCTV and other apps under winwoes

wow that moon is bright tonight, figured why not see what the 5MP cctv makes of it all, 2m40s video in H264 and stacked, not too bad considering

oh I should add... You'd need your internet WiFi to run a different IP address range than the SynScan or the laptop won't be able to route traffic correctly. Same would apply if you ran a LAN cable to the laptop.

you might be able to add a wifi-USB dongle to the laptop so you can then pair the laptop to both the SynScan-WiFi and your internet router (one to each) and then be able to operate the laptop remotely while still having it connected to the mount. Not tried that myself and don't currently have a dongle I can test with to verify that suggestion tho. No chance you could run an ethernet cable out to the laptop? That'd be the better way as you'd get less lag in the remote session tho there will be some. Getting the focus right using this method will need patience and small adjustments so things catch up - I do my CCTV cameras this way, iPAD-VNC over WiFi remoting to my desktop and response isn't as direct as laptop directly connected to the camera, more practical tho when at height

to help with eye relief can't you use the longer FL EP in a barlow and in effect have the same eye relief but a shorter FL and increased mag? So in a 2x barlow your 25mm would be 12.5mm equivalent. A 12mm EP would get you to 6mm etc. Just a thought as might save some funds and give easier viewing.

zooming in am quite surprised, even got the sword, that was unexpected...

had a play with capture with the 5MP starvis module since that still has a clear view and last night the sky was pretty decent. VLC to capture a 10 min H264, fed thru PIPP adding a little gain, then AutoStakkert! 3 and managed to obtain an OK ish pic of Orion. Not so bad for a CCTV module, tho I think the IMX290 2MP may perform a little better but sadly the dome housing is occluded with condensation so no easy way to do a parallel comparison for now. I did have a wee play with a Logi C270 hooked to a LAN-USB server and Sharpcap, was amazed the USB server was able to handle live video tho its only 720 not full HD. Might even be a usable option to remote drive a USB camera over the network if I ever get around to modding the C270 or getting a USB unit and might be handy to run on the scope rather than having the lappy outdoors

yep RCD's a must if using mains outdoors, but not so sure they'd trip if the 12v side of a PSU causes a shock from damp fingers being in contact, given there's a degree of isolation between the 12v side and the mains RCD.

It should still be able to RA track tho... you'd just have to be careful choosing a goto target in case it'll take it into an obstruction. Have the same limitations with my 100RS on the EQ5 SynScan if I'm using it in the conservatory rather than out in the garden, esp as my scopes are all 1M long or thereabouts. The SW130 on the EQ2 with RA motor can at least track and not have the worry of risking it trying to go where it shouldn't Guess I could swap the 100RS or tal-1 OTA onto the EQ2 if I needed to but so far I just work within the limitations as needed.

lol am lucky with street lights in the back garden as that's reasonably dark but get what you mean. The tree, well its not far off the end of the garden so encroaches a lot unfortunately, but it is what it is... attracts a nice variety of birds so can't complain

problem with goto and aligning would be the lack of room to rotate the OTA and not collide with the window/opening I think. Perhaps a simple RA or dual motor might do just as well with the limitations, unless you want to be able to use the scope out in the open

worth remembering too that skin resistance is low once wet, so dew can increase risk, even 12v connectors can lead to some shocks you might not expect

sadly for me jupiter and venus are behind the oak tree at this time of day and too low so disappearing behind the trees in the distance too. The moon is looking nice at the moment against the blue sky, to time outside at the mo ain't great with the cold air and a healing root extraction lol

I'd guess if you set the EQ mount to its RA is set to 0 (level) on the axis then you're effectively using it as Atl/AZ , but of course you then need to make RA and DEC adjustments as an object tracks. No prob if you're visual but not so good if you want to image at all. As I think I mentioned earlier, the polar aligner pro app has an option to do polar alignment by mounting the phone/tablet on the mount shoe without needing to sight the pole star, can be used in daylight hours too. Seems to work reasonably well, GPS signal shouldn't be a problem given your skylight. You'd then have reasonably accurate RA tracking so less adjusting to do when viewing, esp if you've an RA motor.