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vineyard

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Everything posted by vineyard

  1. Hi Paul, thanks that's v helpful. Crikey re the more expensive solution - for some reason reminds me of crab claws! I'm going to try the first solution you show - luckily @Ant was just selling two Vixen DPAs from ADM for a v reasonable price so I've snaffled them and will thread them on and see 🀞🏾
  2. Congrats - yes I saw that sale. That set-up looks lovely. You're right about those mounts: my elderly father recently gave me his old Vixen 102 on an SP mount (well we swapped scopes - he uses my little PL72 on a Porta mount now). Those SP mounts are so smooth! I've been doing some tinkering these last two days and have put some old Vixen motors (w manual clutch releases to disengage the motors if needed) on both axes. I think I'm going to use it normally as a motor-driven alt-az mount though it can always be switched back to EQ :) May I ask what saddles you got to attach to the old SP mounting cradle so that they're flush (because of that 1-2mm rise, or did you use washers)? Right now I've got to screw in the 102 rings each time which is fine, but if I can securely mount some saddles that can allow other scopes to also be slotted in, that's going to be even better. Anyway, enjoy - just need the clear skies to come back now!
  3. You've been rumbled John. Its like that book of all future sports results that Marty McFly had in Back to the Future... Also, crikey that photo & oxidisation! Is that from not being stored properly or just random happenstance? Btw, I heard back from Astronomik (I'd emailed them my UHC filter serial number as the box showed 95.8% transmission on the label vs 97% cited on their website so I was curious). They were v prompt in replying (one of the many reasons why I stick to Astronomik) and explained that 97% is a typical transmission rate, and that they find from tests that differences of up to 3% are barely visible. They also told me that my filter serial number had a FWHM of 22.2nm vs a typical figure of 27nm so will give 18% less background light. And that this narrower FWHM was also a factor in the transmission rate difference? Anyway, net-net I think they test the combined specs of each filter & decide whether it can be sold or not - which is good enough for me Stay safe all!
  4. Its definitely worth persevering. I also had difficulties (perhaps b/c of too high expectations of how easy it would be) at the start. Even to the point of occasionally thinking of selling it. But now its a lovely piece of kit which I wouldn't part with (except for the helical focuser - that will be replaced one day, although perhaps a Solar Quest mount is ahead of it in the pecking order!). I also had difficulties finding focus (ASI178MC) but various SGLers were v helpful. I now use an ASI120MM mini (normally guidecam) and it is much easier - you do need to pull it out a bit but with the added nose that can be threaded on, its not a problem and is quite easy. Definitely the right approach to find focus & features w an EP and then switch. Enjoy!
  5. I'd echo others comments Don - your contributions are always incredibly helpful. That's a great link (already bookmarked). As per @bomberbaz I also noticed the multiple versions of Astronomik UHC (and your caveat re post-2017). Do you know what the differences are between them - the curves don't look that dissimilar (although perhaps the marginal change at the eyeball is quite dramatic?). I've got an old Astronomik UHC - no idea whether its type 1, 2 or 3 as per the semrock website, but I've emailed Astronomik w the serial number to find out (I suspect mine is very old - the serial number begins with 002003... which suggests 17 yrs ago...maybe filters are like fine wine & get better w age? πŸ€žπŸΎπŸ˜‚). Stay safe all.
  6. I have an old William Optics Eazy Touch which was made by AOK (it even has AOK branding on it). Beat Kohler told me he only ever made about 300 of those before WO switched to inferior Chinese production (his words ). I don't know what the subsequent ones were like but the AOK one is v nice. Strikingly similar to the Ayo II - enjoy @heliumstar!
  7. Hello, Just putting this as an update in case anyone else comes along w a similar intention or problem. Managed to get the K70 to be seen by EKOS. First update the firmware on the camera (as of today, the latest is v 1.11). Then on the camera, press Menu & go to Settings. Look for the USB connection option and set that from MSC (which will be default) to PTP. That way the camera won't mount on the laptop & EKOS will be able to see it. Then in INDI control panel, you'll have to update the camera sensor settings in the "Image Info" tab. For a K70 this is 6000x4000 (WxH), and 3.88. www.digicamdb.com seems to be a good resource for sensor specs. Unfortunately that's as far as I've been able to get so far. EKOS still doesn't take images. A brief conversation with Karl suggests that this may be b/c the driver he is working on is not yet compiled for Mac so EKOS still uses the old gphoto_ccd driver (indi_pentax_ccd) which seems to be v buggy based on indilib forums. Hey ho, at least a few steps fwd! Cheers, Vin
  8. Hello, Based on indilib I think folks (led by a guy called Karl Rees) have been working hard on getting Pentax compatibility into EKOS Has anyone on SGL used that yet? I would like to use my K70 w EKOS. But I'm so basic on that, that right now when I connect the K70 to my Mac it mounts it as a USB drive and so EKOS can't see the camera. Does anyone know how to stop it doing that so that hopefully EKOS can see the Pentax - I'd like to play with the new driver that the folks have been working on? Thank you (& apologies if I'm making a school-boy error somewhere!), Vin
  9. Hi Jambouk thanks for this - sorry for some reason I didn't get an update from SGL for the reply. That will have seemed v rude, apologies but I didn't know! In the end I got this from TS Optics. I'm waiting for an EvoFF flattener to attach to the Evoguide and then I want to try some wide-field imaging. Thanks again, Vin
  10. Thanks for the update folks. Grabbed a few minutes of sunlight to do a quick WL setup. They're beautiful! My first ever sunspots through a frac (projection via binos was decades ago πŸ˜‚). And my first ever BV'ing on the sun too. What fun - thank you again for the head's ups!
  11. This is a v useful thread, thank you Space Oddities. I'm going to move to a cooled camera, and was going for a cooled OSC & then thought maybe mono (but that would be more expensive w filters etc). Then heard about tri-band filters and found this thread! Will stick to cooled OSC w one of these filters I think. Happy-kat's idea of the Astronomik UHC sounds the most appealing - I think it needs to be used with a UV-IR filter as well. But since I have that already for a solar mod, it means just a UHC filter needed Cheers & stay safe all!
  12. Hello, So I tried imaging things in Cygnus for the first time these last few days gone by. My goodness its rich up there isn't it! Tried the the North America Nebula first and then realised that with a tiny chip like the ASI178MC, it'd take me forever to do that as a mosaic (each little section with hrs & hrs of data). So I figured I'd wait for the larger targets until I get a larger chip size (am on the scout for an ASI294MCPro). And instead turned my sights on a smaller target NGC 6857. I haven't been able to find out much about it other than its c magnitude 11 and is not a planetary nebula (unlike originally thought apparently). And does have HII rich areas. Anyway, this is v much w-i-p - need a LOT more data to start getting the more dispersed nebulosity but will go back to it when the clouds disperse to try and get to about 12hrs of data at least? Cheers, Vin
  13. Hello, so I set the meridian flip in mount control to 0.1 hrs as per above suggestions (thanks Mark, I wouldn't have noticed those bits in EKOS otherwise). And fingers crossed it seemed to have worked - got a full night's worth of data. Hopefully that was what the problem was and it doesn't recur 🀞🏾 Thanks all!
  14. Hmm, thanks for the head's up, will hold fire on an adjuster for the time being. I've had NR occasionally in the past w just the 120MM mini and then they disappear, so maybe this was one of those days! Cheers again.
  15. Hello, I got a chance to have a quick go w the little Lunt 50 while the mount was still out from the last few nights (gets packed up this evening given the clouds coming in). Also tried with a Powermate 2.5x in. Didn't have a chance to image properly (& have only done basic AS!3 & ImPPG - a little bit of dodge & burn in GIMP on the gained-out silhouette image). Liking the closeness via the Powermate - but v strong NR unfortunately, which I subsequently read can happen w PMs & that a tilt adjuster is called for? Anyway, stay safe out there. Cheers, Vin
  16. Thanks wimvb. I will keep an eye on that - I don't think there were any clouds last night here (v clear, and the last subs taken show no sign). I thought the flip just happens automatically (is it possible to control or calibrate when it happens)? Cheers!
  17. Hello, not sure if its the same problem, but I've been having problems w EKOS, guiding and I think meridian flip as well. It starts off fine, and then - judging by the records the next morning - at some point the mount moves, tries to recalibrate, the guide exposure fails and the whole sequence aborts. Judging by the time that this happened for the target last night, I think it may be the meridian flip that's doing it? Which is strange b/c its been fine in the past (and I haven't knowingly upgraded my installation)? I'm going to rummage on indilib forums to see if there is anything going on at the moment. Cheers, Vin
  18. Thanks Avocette. I turned off the dithering and it worked fine. Then last night, it failed again during the run (with the dithering off). I think it may be around the meridian flip. That's really frustrating b/c EKOS didn't use to have that problem. Will check on the indilib forums too. Cheers & stay safe, Vin
  19. Hello, Hope everyone safe & well. So I had a quick Q - 2 of the last 3 nights that I've had the AP setup going, EKOS guiding has aborted. It stops being able to find the image from the guide cam - I think it may be linked to dithering (but I can't be sure). I noticed the error message last night was "640x480 #1 channel error(11)". Has anyone had that pop up before? I will try without dithering tonight to see if that makes a difference. Separately, has anyone ever tried this for twin-camera photography on EKOS: 1. Schedule a job for the target via the guide-cam - but have align, focus & guide off in the scheduler. 2. Align the main cam & load up the main cam image run on the camera module. 3. Start the main camera going, and then start the scheduler job. Since the mount will just be tracking, and the two sets of jobs are using two different cameras writing different files, would that work (giving a narrow-field and wide-field image of the same target) - or is that just daft? Anyway, stay safe, Vin
  20. Here's a v quick grab. I was using an alt-az so I couldn't video for v long. This is best 20 frames from 108, and just put through AS!3 and ImPPG - no other tinkering. Took a bit more footage which I'll try & look through during the week & try not to butcher too much! (PS - there's a nice looking big feature on the surface further down too. I think I need to get a Solar Quest!)
  21. I know right! I'm trying to process some footage to see if I grabbed anything useful.
  22. Hello, there is what looks like a spectacular prominence at about 2 o'clock on the sun today (Ha). Cheers, Vin
  23. I already have a couple of EQ setup mounts, and I prefer this as alt-az to my old WO EazyTouch (the Beat Kohler version w AOK also branded on it). That mount is really solid & smooth too, but I find the counterweight arm on the SP a better ergonomic design for me. Also I think the manual worms (?) on the SP are a bit off and so if I tried it as EQ I don't think it would work v well. That would be a nice head to head. I guess the FL would "win" but it would be interesting to see the relative strengths & weaknesses. Pls share findings if you do do this! Stay safe all
  24. I'm going to make a foray into my first cooled camera this year as well. OSC to start with. And currently my thinking is the ASI294MC Pro. I did look at the 533 too but I prefer the FOV of the 294. Good luck - looking fwd to seeing your images!
  25. Ha, that would be beyond me Rusted πŸ˜‚. If you mean the green & white thing, that's something my wife got for growing vegetables. Light & water get in, but no snails or slugs which would otherwise feast. The scope itself was wonderful to use btw. Pin-sharp stars edge to edge, w no discernible colour fringes from what I could tell. I tried it w 40mm plossl, 25mm Zeiss, 18.2mm Delite & 13mm Delite (ie, EPs good enough to have shown up any weaknesses in the optics) and no problems. In fact the scope showed me a problem I had w my old UHC-S filter! I had put that in first just to see, and the stars kept having a definite red shadow. I thought oh this must be the achromat, but it still seemed too much. I realised then it might be the UHC-S b/c the glass in that shakes a bit. Took it out and the red tinge disappeared. Spent the rest of about 2 hrs just star-hopping, and letting stars just emerge. At the end, split one of the Leonis twins (I think it was Zeta but I can't be sure) at 13mm, and then put a 2.5x power mate in to take it to 5mm (200x) and perfect round twins moving fast across the FOV. A really lovely scope - my go-to visual now. A bit long so I think putting an extension will be necessary. You can see the metal tripod takes about 2 secs to still, so perhaps a wooden tripod at some point in the future. But the scope itself was wow. I think I'm going to use the SP mount as my alt-az too. Very very smooth! Stay safe all, Vin (PS @Rusted - that was a great name for that prominence you came up with 'Tower of Destruction'?)
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