DaveL59

another option might be laser link devices tho how they fair in rainy days I can't say, likely expensive tho. Have you tried high gain aerials on the wifi gear to improve the link, or directional wi-max types, might get you hooked up without having to run cables in?

plus you'd have immunity to any spikes from lightening which you need to put filters in for cabled connections 😉 Downside tho of course, cost and getting pre-made lengths of the fibre to run unless you fancy learning how to DIY all that and chance getting it right. For my place the shed isn't far so I just ran some cat5s in trunking along the base of the fence, with suppressors each end. The mains in there doesn't look too clever (previously done before I rented this place) so I didn't even try powerline. Besides which of course my network is segmented with vLAN's and I didn't want my main server/internet etc exposed outside the house itself so this kept it simpler. I've supressors now on any external cable feed into the house, phone, satellite etc. After storms a year or so back with lots of low sheet lightening etc when my desk phone just died all of a sudden just around a big burst of bright flashes in the sky. I figure a few £ is worth reducing the chance of more major damage in the future 🙂

nope - fibre would be the way to go. Then volt differentials across earth etc ain't a problem 🙂 One office I worked in years ago had to use fibre between the sections and each had its own power feed and earth and regular ethernet just couldn't handle the couple volt differentials

thing with powerline is they work best if you aren't crossing the consumer unit, i.e., both on the same piece of ring/wire. They used to recommend bridging methods if crossing between rings esp in larger houses but not sure if the later MIMO types need that any more. For what is effectively a long-line with potential for loss in both voltage and signal and perhaps potential drop on the earth wire too, might be a struggle to get it to stay in sync or attain stable speed if it does make the link. Should add too - any electrical noise will knock the signal down to v poor levels and that can be something as simple as an LED lightbulb, cheaper ones tend to be quite noisy and you see drops or speed drop of 50% or more. Motors too (washer etc) if they induce any noise can be a problem as will heavy current draw on the cable.

in this post I talked about the Tal-M I got the nitrile bearing cap for the mirror end and used a modified pipe cap for the open end on that scope. Keeps the dust out and also closes any light leaks at the mirror end

wow, very nice that one! This 1 has the plastic end cap intact, worst case if it breaks I'll source a nitrile bearing cap of suitable size like I did for the M. it's metal internally and a snug fit to the tube. Nice mod, how far did you raise the mirror if I might ask? For the M I obtained some 3d printer springs and raised that one 25mm ish, probably could have done with being a touch more but those parts may well work ok on the tal-1 once I revert the M back to original screws/springs.

ahh ok, that's kinda limiting if it needs contaminants. Perhaps roof run-off from the roofing felt or down the guttering would be more effective to trigger, tho that'd also mean v light drizzle/rain may take a bit longer before it fires. A plastic tray may not hold much contaminant, at least initially, texturing the surface might help it build some quicker tho 🙂

just collected a 1995 tal-1 this evening, luckily it has the 15, 25 and 3x barlow. Sadly no original wood box but otherwise in pretty good shape. Assembled now but no chance to test it as true to form it's all cloud outside in every direction. @Astroblagger, did you ever do the mirror shift? If not and you still have the scope then I'll update once I've had a chance to look at this one properly but that'll be sometime over the next month or so, probably. My plan for this Tal-1 is to shift the mirror so it can use regular EP's and use the originals on the baby Tal-M I have, which will complete that scope other than the 32mm extension tube. Seems an easier solution than trying to figure how to adapt the built-in finder to work with newer EP's. I need to drop the mirror back to original location on the M and then test and once I'm happy it can get stripped down and repainted (or powder coated) etc and be stored in its wood box 🙂 I've so gotta stop collecting vintage optical gear!!! 5 scopes and 35+ airs of binos is getting a lot too much lol. Tho I'm quite pleased with the TAL collection, being a TAL-M, TAL-1 and TAL100RS with a range of EP's now at 42 (mk2), 25(mk1,2,3), 15(mk1,2), 9, 6.3mm and 2+3x barlows. Really hope I can resist if a Tal-2 comes up locally 😮

have you figured yet how many sensor bars need water bridging them in order to trigger? Could be why it doesn't detect light rain so well and not having any sensitivity adjust makes it a lot harder to tweak for your requirement. I know it's not ideal but are you able to see how the water is laying on the sensor once its wet? Is some sort of coating affecting it from bridging the bars perhaps? Or is it maybe figuring short so stop triggering... Hard to figure much without a cct diagram or adjust much without access inside - is it potted or just in an openable IP66 box?

so true, tis summertime in the UK after all 😉 Was kinda thinking a small amount of distilled in the watering can... should pick up a little contamination that might get detected, but the weather here will usually co-operate every few days lol

could you not try with a small amount of distilled water, just as a test if rain doesn't co-operate?

yep since I got the SynScan mount the other day and now sorted power for it, has only been cloudy nights here. Always the way. Fingers crossed the rain sensor works, could be it'll need more than one pair in the grid to have a droplet on it to cause it to trigger. I seem to recall a rain sensor circuit in one of the electronics mags many moons ago that used vero and that pretty much needed 2 or 3 tracks bridged by raindrops to cause a trigger event.

That's an interesting point, re clean water. When I was rigging up a couple of water/flood sensors for the house alarm I used a couple of panic buttons and ran a trailing wire from the push switch to act as remote trigger. Fresh tap water - no response at all, input trigger not sensitive enough. Add a contaminant and triggers just fine once damp. For that I found a dry cat biccie with a bare wire each side and wrapped in kitchen paper did the job just fine. I'm not sure the air pollution would make the same difference, after all tap water has a number of things in it at low ppm. Hopefully a rain sensor would have much more trigger sensitivity but is that adjustable on the unit at all? Certainly worth a test with tap water to see at what point it'd trigger.

so I gave up on the old lead batteries, all duds 😞 Since I was going to have to buy something new, decided on a LiPo Car starter as mentioned in another thread. Only thing was output is 16v on the car side of the outlets which si too much I think, so added a buck converter and now have 12v stable which is driving the mount very nicely. All in a lot lighter than lead batteries and this allegedly is 20,000 mAh so should give good run times 🙂 While testing found the R/A on this EQ5 head quite stiff and sticks causing some not so pleasant motor/gear noises at certain positions, so it'll need a strip down and overhaul I think. Luckily the TAL also came with an EQ5 that's smooth so I've swapped the motors across to it and the SynScan is now running nice and silky smooth and quieter as it slews about, result! For the observant, yep is the older type tripod with EQ5 mount, I plan to use this till I can sort a replacement spreader clip for the round legged tripod, tho I do like that this one sits a little taller with the legs collapsed, so will decide eventually which I prefer.

OK so the buck converter arrived today now rigged up and tested. Seems to give a steady 12v - the meter reads 11.99 in the pic as I'm using contact weight so can take a piccy 🙂 Decided to stick with a ciggy plug to make hookup to the LiPo pack easy and wired 2x 5.5/2.1mm short leads to the buck output side so I can go direct to the SynScan motor control module and add a 12v camera later down the road. Hooked up to the SynScan on the EQ5 and had a play for a while and its driving it just fine at fast slew and tracking speeds so a fairly neat lightweight unit for mobile power I think.

I just got one of these, thinking the car outlet would be an easy hookup for the SynScan and be able to drive the mount for a good couple hours. My spare 17Ah lead batteries are just too past it after a couple years in UPS so wanted a lightweight option if I was going to have to go buy something new. Got lucky and caught a limited time deal so figured why not. https://www.amazon.co.uk/YABER-20000mAh-Waterproof-Portable-Flashlight/dp/B07N5XNTN8/ref=sr_1_67?keywords=lithium+car+starter&qid=1564774612&s=gateway&sr=8-67 So it arrived today, looks well made and includes a case and the car starter plus ciggy socket in the kit. BUT, checking the car output it reads 16v so that's a lot too high I think. I plan to stick a DC-DC buck converter in front of it to give a stable 12V to power the mount rather than risking it.

seems I got lucky and picked up a hardly used EQ5 mount with Synscan goto upgrade kit locally for a nice price, just need to sort one of the spare 12v17AH batteries (ex UPS so could be a bit tired) and get things hooked up and have a play to check things out. Guess I'll need a serial cable to update the firmware assuming I can ID the model, current seems to be v3.27 from a brief power-up earlier. Also acquired a 42mm Tal mk2 Kellner eyepiece to add into the collection.

what is it you are hoping to achieve? I can't say regarding webcam which would have a IR filter that's easy to remove, but CCTV units are often switchable IRcut. Even then it won't give night vision unless you are using an IR illuminator and that will have a range limit, say 50-70 yards or so. Probably below what a telescope can usefully focus down to unless you use a high power source. Even so you'll likely find any foreground object will be over bright and further away will be very dim. A starvis type sensor will perhaps be able to pick some detail with tweaked settings but at the expense of image noise. For night sky the IR filter likely won't be any detriment so no real need to remove it... IR illuminators won't help at all for night sky, sensor sensitivity to be able to pick out the objects of interest will be way more important, that and ability to do long exposure to capture what is in effect a faint dispersed pattern of light across the sensor. No idea how the NV cascade tubes would do for this either but I doubt they'd give the best of images, please do let us know 🙂

the barlow should work, does on my Tal-M. Alternatively moving the mirror cell up the tube using longer screws and springs would allow the standard EP to come to focus, if you do a search there's a few topics on that here and elsewhere. I tried this on the Tal-M and it worked fine, downside for me is the finder is built into the focuser body so that now won't come to focus with modern EP's, not figured a solution for both so far, but at least on the Tal-1 the finder is seperate I believe so won't be affected.

finally got a clear night when its not a skool night and my first view of saturn tonight too, with the Tal100RS 3x barlow and 20mm Vixen NPL. Visibility seemed very good so a lovely clear view, could clearly see the rings and a moon (I think). Jupiter was in view earlier and also nice and clear so a good night and well pleased 🙂 Almost tempted to stay up and see if I get a view of neptune but with the moon just ahead of it I doubt it'll be worth it...

just to update re the MA40, the 0.965 to 1.25 adaptor arrived, but it shifts the EP back away from the tube by around 4mm which wipes the far focus ability 😞 Can focus real close with that in place (like 20M) but kinda isn't what we have a scope for huh... Perhaps a bit of further tinkering to adapt the MA40 and adaptor so the whole EP can sit further in and it may work, but perhaps not worthwhile, given this with the 2x barlow would give the equiv of a 20mm? One for the back-burner for now I think

so far am loving the 100RS, I do tend to go for more vintage gear with the possibility of restoring a little 🙂 There is a sticker on the foot of the finder but its blank white so I guess the serial number has come away over time. Also noting that the securing screw for the finder foot is loose in the thread on the focusser body. Guess I'll need to re-tap and find a suitable larger thumb screw at some stage. With care I can get the finder secure so none too urgent. So today I received this nice set, TAL-1 EPs, 25mm 15mm and 3x barlow. They're 1999 vintage I believe, was hoping they might work better on the TAL-M but seems not. Would have been after TAL modified to 1.25 inch fit so was not hugely surprised, works fine with the TAL-M barlow so that's fine. They'll work fine in my RS and 130EQ2 scopes anyway 😄 Gotta stop or slow the buying tho, I now have 3 TAL 25mm plossl EPs! This one and 2 newer, one greenish and the other purple coatings...

I think the USB ones would give you more flex with exposure times but worth checking what the specs are. The IP CCTV type tend to go no slower than 1/20-1/50s but with a fast lens they can still give an image, at least the starvis sensor ones at least. Question is what's the budget as that'll determine the options. You also need to consider ancilliaries like: suitable housing that'll need to be water tight, regular dome CCTV types aren't meant to be mounted dome up like I've done. Gina here has made her own housing so a look at her thread would be worthwhile heat/cooling - painting the housing white will help a little cabling - USB has a length limit of 5M and you'll need some way to link the camera to your network, Raspberry Pi, PC etc. IP will need a network cable, you may be able to use PoE or as I've done a passive splitter setup with a regular 12V PSU at the switch end expectations - FoV and image clarity etc patience - tweaking the camera focus and settings to suit the conditions to get best compromise of viewing do you want to be able to remote focus or pan/tilt... curious critters/insects access for cleaning the dome, regularly The fisheye lenses don't seem to go down to below F1.8 and prices rise the faster the lens. I've seen some nice 1.8mm F1.6/F1.8 lenses but they were in the £90-200 range. The ones I'm using were around £10-12 each so smaller front element and F1.8-F2 M12 or CS mount. Astro cameras (USB) with a good lens will probably give the best image and show more stars but won't be a low cost setup. I went the cheap route as I had a couple spare IMX starvis CCTV modules. Wasn't expecting amazing star images but one day I hope to try stacking some video streams off it and see how it does. Meantime I do see bright stars, Jupiter and Saturn tracking across the SE of the image, aircraft blinking lights crossing overhead so am pretty pleased with the result overall 🙂

tend to agree on spraying the cloth and not the lens, with multi element setups the fluid can find its way between the air spaced lens elements, then you've a potential complete dismantle to clean it all up properly and reassembly can be "fun" getting it all set back into correct order and orientation...

ahhh if only, the LH edge of the image is SE so don't think I'll be seeing much of anything tonight here in kent...