Varavall

PS Is the scope balanced wherever it is physically pointed and with the clutches disengaged?

Hi Any possibility of cable snag or, as I discovered on my HEQ5 once, the head of the counterweight lock screw fouled the head of the altitude adjustment screw on the mount. Has the backlash been adjusted? Or even what I just sorted on my mount, which had tracking issues, was a deformed Rowan belt. A few ideas to consider. Adrian

Hi I use ASTAP and do manual alignment. And the result is As can be seen I am using a mono camera just to make life more difficult. I am trying to create a starless comet image that I can slap on a starry background, but that is proving taxing. at the moment. PS Some success. I used Starnet++ CLI to process all the images for each filter, then stacked and aligned in ASTAP, and combined the star field images and the comet images in GIMP and the result is I think it needs a beter star field. Good luck Adrian

There was an offer on A-Z for a BMAX fanless mini PC which appeared to have sufficient spec (just) to run NINA, PHD2, CdeC, ASTAP and ASI studio. It is only a celeron dual core, 6GB RAM, 64GB storage and Windows 10, but I thought worth a punt for 99.99 euros for me in Spain or £90 in UK. It came with a power supply, HDMI cable, VESA TV bracket and the mini PC. I happened to have an old USB keyboard lying around and a USB mouse which made configuring it easy when connected to the TV via HDMI. The mini PC was fast to boot and straight into the familiar Win10 setup. I setup a user account without password so it would boot into Windows directly when powered on. The automatic updates are disabled by default, so it is necessary to search for Windows updates. As usual there were many updates to be installed. It is to be noted that the processor is not the fastest and it took almost 3 hours to download the updates and install them; be patient when the message "Do not turn off your computer" seems to be there forever. With Windows up to date I installed Chrome Remote Desktop which I used for control and to instal all the software I would require for DSO imaging. The installing of ASCOM through to NINA together with all the drivers all went without a hitch and surprisingly quickly. Then to transfer as much of the configuration files from my laptop to the mini PC as possible; easy process more or less. ASCOM was a little more troublesome, so I needed to configure it all manually once the equipment was attached. Allow a good few hours to configure and check. When everything was installed 20GB or free space remained for capturing images. The device was now ready to attach to my mount. I attached it via a homemade support behind the guide scope. The power supply is via a standard 5.5mm 12V jack, so I soldered in a cable run and jack from the 12V power supply to the rest of the equipment. Powered up the kit and waited to see what happened. First thing I discovered was that which USB cable needs to go to which USB socket. In my case the EQDIR cable needed to be in the lower USB2 socker, the ASI1600MM in the USB3 socket adjacent to the memory card socket and the guide camera to the other USB3 socket. Once I discovered that foible everything connected up and the software could see all the bits of kit. All that was left to do was do an imaging run, skies were clear and wind gusting to F7, but good enough to see how it would go. I set it to do a 4 panel mosaic of the Rosette nebula which included a meridian flip. There are only 4 subs per NB filter for each panel, but with a quick bit of processing I can see that the mini PC performed brilliantly. The imaging was done with a SW 200pds, ASI1600MM-cool, HEQ5 with belt mod, QHY5l-II-C guide camera., NINA, PHD2 and ASTAP sky maps for plate solving. I transfered the images by attaching a USB3 hard drive to the mini PC as transferring 4GB of data by wireless means would take forever! An invertment in a fast memory card would make that task easier. I hope someone finds this interesting and/or helpful. I'm happy to respond to questions. Adrian

Here in Spain Wallapop seems the place for astro gear.

That's worth a try as it doesn't cost anything and if the symptom persists, then the cause can be narrowed down to the power supply to the mount or something at the PC.

I don't believe that would help if eqmod crashes which appears the case here as in my case where NINA and PHD2 both displayed a mount connection error and eqmod was frozen, so the mount carried on trundling through the night until dawn (luckily the mount was on a pillar and no collision occurred).

Hi Christian If the problem occurs whilst the handset is in your hand, I would check the security of the cable connection at both the handset and the mount (I had a poor connection once), and maybe closely examine the cable for deterioration. Maybe that helps. Adrian

Hi Peter Has it ever worked in parking at the end of a session? How is the setup connected (long USB runs, etc.) to the PC/ laptop or whatever? I have had this as an intermittent problem, one was the right angle 12v power cable connector being a bit sloppy and I think when the meridian flip happened there was a momentary power outage/spike that upset the EQMOD; the second was with the USB connections via a cheap USB 3 hub, I think that if an image was downloaded at some critical point when PC was sending commands to the mount it caused a glitch and that was solved by running all the USB connections through a Startech USB 3 hub but running the mount EQMOD cable via its own USB cable to the PC. I have not had that problem since. Hope that helps. Adrian

Images taken over 2 nights, 31/10 and 6/11. SW 200pds; ZWO ASI 1600MM-cool; filters: Astrodon 5nm Ha, Optolong 7.5nm Oiii and Sii (15x600s Ha, 24x600s Sii & 40x600s Oiii). Calibrated, aligned and stacked in ASTAP; star removal using StarnetGUI and processed in GIMP.

If I didn't need the tripod to host an HEQ5 head, then I would be revving up the angle grinder and in a few seconds the pin will be gone. In the end one could drill and tap the tripod head and put in a threaded bolt and use same angle grinder to recreate the pin which then would be removable. Easy 😉

The Spanish Gods have already given the thumbs down. Day 15 here with clouds and at least 6 more to come. Missed all the Jupiter action 😭

That mirror is like 1m down the tube, so I can't see a dew shield of any practical size being helpful. I think you need some warmth at the mirror. Some people put a small hand warmer at the back of the mirror. Perhaps someone here has some experience in that regard.

If this is the identical 8" Newtonian reflector to that I have, I have never needed a dew shield. Where is the dew settling?

I leave the cap on. Keeps the blighters out. Hmmm....maybe that explains the dark images I thought were black holes 🤔

Wait until midnight on a moonless and cloudless night away from light polluted skies, make sure the flash is turned off, set on a tripod, set a 10 second delay, exposures 10-15 seconds, point at a constellation and experiment with ISO settings to see what you get. As a student you may have Photoshop at college? If not, look for free image processing software such as GIMP. Get a free star atlas programme, such as SkySafari, for navigating the constellations if you are unfamiliar with them. Hopefully top marks await!

People have with some success. Look here https://www.astrobin.com/3cl1ak/0/?nc=AnonymousUser&mod=solved https://www.astrobin.com/417536/B/?nc=user

Hi What is the aim of the project? Is it to actually take photos of something or to demonstrate/discover the probems of astrophotography? The minimum focal length of your camera is 27mm equivalent, so you are limited to exposures under 18 seconds unless you can stick it on a tracking mount.

Hi I come late to the party, but do you have an automated camera rotator? Setting the angle in framing assistant without a rotator will cause a problem with plate solving (this was hinted at in an earlier post). Been there, done that. I create a mosaic without setting an angle which doesn't create a nice square mosaic image. That's life until something like a Falcon rotator is acquired. Adrian

Hi For my 2d worth, the risk is if the views through the telescope are underwhelming it will kill her interest in astronomy, at least, very quickly. I would seek out a local astronomy club where she can look through some pricier kit, then if she is enthused it's time to consider selling your relatives into slavery or selling a kidney to get the kit that will enthuse your daughter for years to come. There is always hiring a telescope too, depending on your location there is this https://www.ldas.org.uk/observing/telescope-hire/ Try Googling astronomy kit hire uk and see what turns up near to you. Adrian

No you don't. Sorry, I assumed you were using a mono camera with filter wheel as I do.

In the advanced sequencer, Dark Customs plugin. I'm using version 2.0.2.9001

Looks like my curves. I use Hocus Focus in NINA. Now you just need to run the offset wizard.