DaveL59

2 hours ago, redbase said:

@DaveL59  Thank you for sharing your picture.  My mount is slightly different.  In your picture, what is the silver bolt pointed downward called? I have this too, and it is still attached.  It doesn't connect to the piece I removed.  I am also afraid I may have ruined the mount.  Do you know if this is so? 

The top silver part is the DEC SloMo drive that the cable attaches to. The bottom one is the socket that the shaft from the SloMo goes into and acts like a bearing so it runs parallel. I've not had mine apart so far so can't say if there's a spring or bush inside of if it's just a single piece. We'd need a pic of yours to have any idea if parts are missing etc. What does the rest of the DEC gear look like?

If you can straighten it then maybe it'll work again as that bend will make the thread and bar bind against the component it acts against and when backed off probably the mount will just turn in DEC if the threads aren't engaging against the mechanism inside.

I don't know your specific mount but it seems similar to the skywatcher EQ2. That spindle being bent isn't going to help as the threads are probably going to bind as you wind it to/fro. On my EQ2 the DEC adjustment is limited and under the plate I can see a lever that moved to/fro driven by the SloMo spindle. It has a limit to travel by the housing that contains it (see pic)

Not sure how easy it would be to straighten the spindle, you might get lucky or it may snap of course. Heating it may help prevent it snapping but add a challenge to handling unless you've a vice and blowtorch. 

best to post a pic of the bit you're having a problem with so we can try to assess and suggest what may be wrong. Does it screw in either direction at all etc?

On 25/08/2020 at 20:30, JamesF said:

Had I known back when Steve posted this what my future held then I would have been very likely to have applied.  But that's the way the croissant crumbles, as someone once said.

James

oops shouldn't have posted that comment in public searchable pages, but yeah, same boat myself it seems...

Not that I think I'd have been a fit for this one, too new to pointing bits of shaped glass at the stars and all that 🙂 

a few bits arrived today and wasn't intercepted and returned to sender like previous attempt 🙂

A Meade accessory tray with controller handset cradle - for the SW SynScan on the round leg steep tripod. The triangular trays are too big, just need to sort a securing screw for it and typically it ain't metric. If anyone knows the correct thread I'd appreciate a heads-up, else I'll use a M8 and wingnut which should secure it ok, M10 won't pass through the threaded hole.

Along with that a couple soft bino cases and straps, a SW EQ5 short plate for the 140mm tube rings that arrived the other day and will let me pop the TAL-1 onto the EQ5. Some bolt cases and also a couple 0.965 inch end caps. 

Free gift of a lens pen too 🙂 
 

2 hours ago, Rusted said:

What if there really is no productive work for the vast majority.
How do we feed them? Or should we just turn them into Soylent Green?

They can't all make beads for barter for the new generation of lifetime unemployed "hippies."
Nor can they all produce one-off electric cars [for barter?] in the newly empty factories.

Without "earners" we have to invent a whole new way of paying for our "toys." What toys?
No wages means zero demand from the vast majority for anything except food and shelter.
With no "earners" there are no taxes. How do we pay for all the "essential" services?

 

following from this, no work and lots of time to do whatever, cue population boom when they find procreation is a nice way to idle time away... more stress load on housing and essential services and maybe a rapid collapse into anarchy

what concerned me on the theorising about finding a new earth was the idea that we'd lug crop that we use here, clearly not learned from introducing foreign species on our own planet and the effects that can have, we'll happily go do the some on another one too. 

8 minutes ago, Davey-T said:

Imagine the computing power and actual power required to " beam somebody up" even if it was possible 😂

Dave

or the effect of a memory cell error 😮 

in case anyone's wanting one, there's a 100R with wood tripod up on the bay at the moment

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/224129836528?ul_noapp=true

not sure if this would help?
https://thepihut.com/products/wifi-dongle-ultra-long-range-high-gain-w-5dbi-antenna

Best check compatibility with your particular Pi model first, does sound like its a WiFi dongle and not just an aerial. Otherwise a directional WiMAX aerial if you can hook that to the Pi may get you the range to the home WiFi.

https://tienda.siliceo.es/en/wifi-panel-antenna/121-alfa-network-apa-m04-7-dbi-gain-sma-directional.html

Better solution tho would be run armoured/direct burial LAN cable back to the router and have something more reliable. You may want to put surge isolators on that too tho to give some protection to the end gear in case of spikes caused during electrical storms.

edit - seems they've made the aerial integral to the board track print, bummer that'll limit any aerial mods I expect.

34 minutes ago, pete_l said:

I have used IP cameras (they send a video stream across an internet connection) with both IMX291 and IMX335 sensors. I find the IMX291 (1920x1024) unsuitable due to the wide+narrow format. It is a poor match for a lens that projects a circular image. However the IMX335 has a 4:3 format and a chip size that is a good match for many M16 lenses.

Ordinary fisheye lenses have absolutely tiny apertures so there are very few stars bright enough to register. However, there are some lenses available that work at F/0.95 (yes! less that a unity focal ratio). These are pretty good at gathering starlight, although they don't provide coverage of the entire sky.

 

At present I am using a 4mm FL lens of dubious quality and unknown focal ratio. That gives a 70°x50° view (plate solved example here) and when I stack 100 subs, there is a decent level of sensitivity. Although as you can see, there is considerable distortion on bright stars.

Agree Pete, is very hard to find a good lens for the 1080P format sensor. I'm using M12 and CS lenses but you have a view that is clipped top & bottom for what is available at sensible prices. Not so much of an issue here tho given it'd be picking up neighbouring houses. I've purchased "fast" starlight lens versions and they do help in terms of light throughput but the small aperture limits things along with the lack of slow shutter of the module. Not tried any unity lenses tho.

33 minutes ago, Bruce Leeroy said:

You might get a slightly better result using a PS3 eye camera, in windows using the drivers supplied with CL-Eye-Test.exe I can get a 10 second exposure, these cams where available for 50p in CEX but the price has gone up to £2.50 last time I checked. I have 1 in my shed pointing down the garden and if Saturn/Jupiter are over my roof it picks them up and I can see clouds, there is a prefered model with a good lens if your going to remove the ir filter (i mention this as the bad model seems to have a solid pink lower right corner when you set a long exposure).

In the next few days I will point it up at the clouds and post a pic here if it helps.

Just checked, the price has gone up to £3.

https://uk.webuy.com/product-detail/?id=SPSEYEE001&sku=SPSEYEE001#.WZgRyMaQyUk

handy to know and a bargain price, what are the specs for resolution? I assume it's USB connected, wonder if sharpcap would pick it up.

edit - ah ok, looks to be 640x480, pity as I think that's a bit low-res for a good view with a 150 degree lens

The IR on a webcam or cctv won't be up to illuminating the cloud level, best you'd get would be a switch from IRcut to a clear filter if it has on-board IRcut filter and a black&white image. This won't really improve anything tho in terms of sensor sensitivity. Stripping off the IRcut filter (on the back of the lens or off the sensor if it's the fixed type) again won't improve sensitivity very much and also not switch the camera from colour to B&W. It will tho mean daytime images will have an odd colour cast with foliage showing purple, for example. Also if you have any other IR sources like CCTV their IR will interfere with the image if their beam cuts across or onto the camera.

Units that use the Sony IMX (starvis) sensors will do a bit better at low light but the limiting factor is usually exposure times. I've a couple of CCTV modules aimed at the sky and I can get some view of cloud at night so long as there's other skyglow to help, but limited to slow shutter of 1/20s it's not the best but does show the brightest stars. I have considered modifying a Logi C270 and running that via Sharpcap where you seem to be able to run slower shutter but this far I've not tried as I may need it for other things like remove interviews 🙂 

A sky-cam using an astro camera would normally use a much longer exposure to achieve starfield capture but then you need to handle sensor temps to cut down on noise.

edit - on the camera linked, I'd be real iffy about an ad that claims 12MP and then says its a 640x480 sensor, makes you wonder what else they aren't telling truths about

ahh ok, sounds like maybe you overshot, easy to do. with higher mag you need finer movements to hit the focus perhaps. At least is sounds like you aren't limited by focuser travel. For sure the weather isn't helping at the moment, now it's cleared a bit the planets are behind tree's here plus quite a breeze so I've not played at all tonight.

What sort of star/airy-disc shapes do you get either side of focus?

If round then collimation isn't likely to be too far out but in any case I'd expect you to still be able to reach focus. I assume you were seeing an airy disc or image full of fuzz while trying to focus? Or was it just blackness? It's possible that the Ostara needs further in-travel to reach focus compared to the 25mm you have. Perhaps try in daylight on a bright distant target and see if you can find focus at all and where relative to the 25mm the focuser is set to.

I got the impression that Tal scopes were numbered per year restarting at 1 or whatever. My 100RS is 0985 dated 17-Dec-2003 according to the stamp in the manual. The Tal-1 is #0062 (1995) and the Tal-M #0067 (1996) and were both white (ish) paint rather than the grey of earlier ones so I'd be surprised if those serials were a continuous count for those models.

reading this thread makes me wonder if the 100RS came with 2 focuser options?

The one I have has a R&P focuser that looks very different to the one pictured.

5 minutes ago, Ouroboros said:

I have mused over the possibility of using a bright invisible infrared LED light directed at the sensor of the security light to kid it into thinking it was daylight.  I’m not sure it would work anyway. I guess it’s a matter of whether sufficient Watts per square metre can be delivered at the sensor. I am of course joking if any mods are reading this.  

hmmm it'd not figure on daylight as I doubt the LDR would work that way, but... blinding it with IR may reduce it's ability to see movement across the PIR sensor field and achieve a result in it never turning on 😉 

hi Mark

you really need the mask set to 255.255.255.0 as the 4x255 setting you have on the Mac there would limit to a single address and could prevent things communicating. The Pi at least has decided on /24 which equates to 255.255.255.0 so it would be able to see the Mac just fine. You at least seem to have it working tho which is good.

8 minutes ago, MarkAR said:

 

This could be the key, I didn't put in a IP address on the Pi wired connection.

Just looked at my two laptops wifi settings, IPv4 is 192.168.1.xxx (last is different on both) Router is 192.168.1.254

What should I set the LAN wired connection IP's to ? 192.168.2.XX same on the Mac and Pi or 192.168.2.YY on the Pi ? 

yep that'd work Mark so long as you set the mask to be 255.255.255.0 on that interface

edit - gotta love dual posts saying the same thing. great minds and all that 😉 

7 hours ago, MarkAR said:

 

Problem is Thunderbolt Bridge won't work, LAN 10/100/1000 shows a connection but there doesn't seem to be any traffic, lastly the nmap command this guy uses isn't recognised by Mac Terminal.

Is it possible to connect through an old router ? i.e Pi to router to Mac. Just straight Lan connection not over internet.

Other than that it all seems to work over wi-fi. Trouble is when I get in position in the garden I'll probably have signal difficulties and the Devolo devices I have are not reliable. Hence the need for cable connection.

Hi Mark

if you have an old router then yes that should work, just plug the Pi and Mac into it and the router should assign them an IP each and they'd be able to chat. The problem with back to back connection is you do need to set an IP at each end, manually or neither will be able to use that link, but both ends will report link-up physically since the signal cables are in place. You may need a crossover cable or may not depending on the LAN interfaces, experimentation would be the only way to know if setting the IP's doesn't work then that'd be the next thing to try.

If you are running cabled-direct then you have to set an IP manually with each end in the same IP range as the other and each on a unique address. It needs to be a different range than your main home network is using else the computer won't be able to route properly. Doesn't much matter what IP range you use being it is a private connection, but avoid using a known public one else your computer won't be able to reach it later. Should you have a spare router (not a switch tho) then the router would take care of address assignment so long as both Pi and Mac are still set to DHCP and you should be fine with a regular cable. Worth checking tho that the router is operating in a different IP range than your main home network else confusion will follow for the Pi, Mac and yourself 🙂 

edit:

Looking at the first steps in that linked article I do have to wonder if he's any idea about networking or just got lucky. Cable between 2 computers and leave network to DHCP... hmmm where's the DHCP server? It's on another physical LAN so it's not going to assign an address for a MAC address/LAN connection it cannot see. So it ends up with an APIPA address (169...) which is no use to anyone. Looks to me like in his case both are connected to a network with 192 addresses and the messing about with a direct cable and Bridge100 etc appears to work because of that and not the "knowledge" he's trying to impart and failing to.

So tonight the extender got its first test, very frustrating at the start. Jupiter and Saturn low so just above the fence and playing hide and seek behind the branches of the skeleton oak to the SE. So 25mm Plossl and up to 15mm and barlowed, very nice and clear then realised why they looked small, I was viewing via the finder! DOH!!! Switch to the main scope and that's much better, bigger and nice and sharp. I keep doing that with this scope but I guess that's testament to the finder.

So time to try the extender. Manual says... focuser-extender-barlow-eyepiece. All I could get was dark with a bright fuzz and the spider vanes and the obstruction of the secondary. Not possible to focus at all anywhere in the range. Back to the eyepiece/barlow and planet behind branch. After a while trying I was thinking it was just not going to work but then I remembered that for this scope you can use regular 1.25-inch EP's via the barlow so it shifts the focal plane further out, hmmm.

Tried again with the extender but this time focuser-barlow-extender-eyepiece and its a success! I got larger image once the focus was adjusted, on this scope I needed to wind the focuser almost all the way in but I got a nice image and could more easily make out the bands on Jupiter but not much fine detail but it is only 80mm being pushed to x139 after all. Saturn was nice and clear but not able to make out the division in the rings, no surprise there either. 

The refurb has worked well, controls nice and smooth, can't say if flocking has had a huge effect but it can't have hurt either and is a lot darker looking down the tube than the OEM paint that looked light grey. Probably be more noticeable against the moon than the planets. The DIY extender has completed the eyepiece set and allows the scope to reach the max x139 magnification in the spec for relatively little cost or effort so a good overall result I think 🙂 

ahh to win big on the lottery and the  move somewhere you'd have control of lighting...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-hampshire-53838761/three-portsmouth-island-forts-go-on-sale-for-9m

Tho sea mist and weather would likely still be problematic but  what a location 🙂 

it'll be best for planetary and moon really and maybe the bright DSO's and get you started in the hobby at least 🙂 

6 minutes ago, johninderby said:

And the rejected item was ????? 🤔

the gift - an air blaster

Hadn't expected on low cost mail it'd be sent by air as usually goes overland.