markse68

had a little play with new scope and cameras this evening- getting to grips with the very basics. It was quite hazy but not too cold which was nice. Good news is Sharpcap polar alignment is pretty great- its easy and seems to work! And the Bahtinov mask is a genius thing! It works too I synchronised the focus of the main camera with the asi120 on the oag so i can use the little Asi which has a much faster frame rate to focus them both- seems to work quite well. Mark

That's a good idea Dave- they're in the UK now aren't they? Mark

finding blackened stainless isn’t so easy- i couldn’t find any on amazon or ebay- the normal black oxide type rust. I found one size (1/2” for the missing awkward wsg cover screws) i can buy individually from Accu in A2 grade ss which is good, but not the others unfortunately. I think i’ll just learn to live with their damaged heads and just paint the silvered bits black Mark

This may not be allowed in which case sorry and pls delete. I recently got a new old QSI camera. It is missing a couple of screws and a couple of them are a bit damaged through use and It’s irritating me as it’s otherwise in very good condition. I found some replacements- blackened stainless #4-40 cap heads from Accu screw but min order quantity is 25 of each length. They’re reasonable price around 50-60p each but i need 2 lengths and don’t really want to spend £25 just to calm my ocd! So i was wondering if anyone else would be interested in a group buy? Or any idea where else i could get

http://unihedron.com/projects/sqm-le/PDFspecs/PoE/TL-POE200_V2_Datasheet.pdf ? Mark

I put the blank plug in it so even if i try really hard i can’t be that fool again (though plenty more opportunity for that )

It would be funny if wasn’t the second time it caught me out. Just spent 1/2 an hour rebooting pc, reloading drivers, swearing at Ascom. Never again! No Mark, the ST4 port isn’t a USB port! doh

Beautiful- love the animation- takes me back to good times! Mark

Yes that’s a great idea- I’ve been trying to get my head around Onstep and others- i definitely need it to be Ascom compliant either by emulating another existing mount or whatever. Right now though i need to figure out how and if i can drive them at all- the built in motors are AC servos designed for 50-100V but i’m hoping they’ll have enough torque with just 24V DC. I think it should be ok- I don’t need much speed after all. They came with ac resolvers which i can’t use so I’ve picked up some encoders that i need to fit. Lots of fun Mark

Thanks Craig That’s my plan but it could take some time. I think a motorised dec is pretty essential for long exposures and whilst I like the Tal, it’d be a real bodge to motorise it. It’s filling me with excitement and an equal amount of dread at the moment- there’s a lot of bits of aluminium to design and machine and the costs involved in that and then there’s the interfacing it to a pc which i know nothing about and it’s all so confusing. But i work with v clever programmers so i’m hoping i can convince one or two of them to help me out with it if i need it. Harmonic drives are

I’d like it to be wind resistant Glob

Lol They should make a v nice mount i’m hoping Dave but there’s only one way to find out I already bought a dovetail for it so I’m committed now

Harmonic drive units with integrated motor- ex google robotics i believe! Found them v cheap on ebay and couldn’t resist. Bit of a project though Mark

I haven’t got a rigel or a standard finder shoe though I’ve got a red dot that fits on a picatinny rail and an old Tal finder that has its own weird mount- the rectangular bits were meant for the Tal finder but i’m not sure i’m going to use it now

Thanks Glob. I’m hoping i haven’t bitten off more than i can chew with the new project- couple of these arrived last weekend