Steve 1962

Yes - that's what I did!

@JeremyS I'm very pleased with the way that my dome has come out with Polytrol The two lessons I've learned are: Don't try to apply too thicky - mine worked best in the places where it was a bit thinner and "soaked into" the surface. It went a bit matt, but I've applied a second wipe over and it's now got a nice sheen all over. Make sure you allow enough time for it to dry before the dew comes down - I found that it goes milky if gets damp before it's dry. This wipes off with white spirit and can be resealed with another coat. Hope you're pleased with it Steve

Haha @hughgilhespie! Thanks for that Hugh. It was actually easier than Photoshop - although something I've learned is to make sure that it's done in the morning so that it has time to dry / soak in before the dew comes down. The last panels that I did on Thursday didn't have long enough to dry and were a bit milky in the morning - but I found yesterday that a wipe of the milky bits with white spirit followed by a wipe of Polytrol restores the shine. I (and more importantly Mrs L) am very happy with the way it looks. Did you get your USB woes sorted??

Hi @JeremyS I just washed the dome off then brushed the Polytrol on and wiped it off as per the instructions. It’ll be interesting to see how it looks in the morning.

I've had my dark green Pulsar dome for nearly seven years and I've washed / polished it most years, but recently it's started to look very faded and dejected. I've tried various polishes and waxes but after a few weeks it always goes back to worse than before. Now I've found some colour restorer called Owatrol Polytrol that says it's good for bringing gel coat back to life. This stuff has good reviews and the best price I could find was on Amazon (about £25 per litre delivered). One coat took about a quarter of a litre. I'm going to wait for this coat to dry, then give it another wipe over, so I reckon it'll be about half a litre for the whole job. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00E3VACQE/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Here are some before and after pics of my efforts today...it was really easy to apply and looks fantastic, but the true test will be to see how it looks in a couple of month time. Watch this space. By the way -Polytrol is a yellowy brown colour, so isn't suitable for white fibreglass. Hope someone finds this useful. Steve

That is simply jaw dropping Sara. I really like the palette. It gets a definite thumbs up from me. Steve

I would have thought poor PA would give rise to field rotation rather than a "tilt" effect. Bear in mind that we're looking at micron scale pixels here. A human hair is about 100microns across - or 20 pixels to put this into perspective. Looking at the problem from that perspective makes it obvious (to me at least) that the slightest flex or slop can show up - so I only use big, solid, bolted or threaded fittings and an OAG. The OAG takes a whole raft of "risks" out of the equation - and in my opinion doesn't have a down side - providing you've got the spacing available.

Hi Steve....another Steve here! I agree with the other Steves (what sort of name is Olly for goodness sake?) - the spikes look like micro lensing. I get the same with my Atik 460. The stars look bit odd to me, but given you're working at the native focal length of the scope and spacing isn't an issue I'd be inclined to live with it. I found that any egginess from my Tak 106 "stacked out" during processing. I agree with Only about pixel peeking. Your camera (and mine) has small pixels and therefore has a high sampling rate. When you see perfectly flat images from a Tak they're gemerally paired with something like an 11000 chipped camera. These have 9um pixels which cover 4 x the area of our pixels. They therefore are more tolerant of tilt, curvature and all the others things we worry about. We've got higher resolution of the target..and field defects. So just process down the stars and enjoy the signal!

I've been away this weekend - that's why last night's conditions were so good. Anyway, when I saw this come up on my iPhone with "400 hours", "Olly", "Tom" etc. one of my first tasks tonight on getting home was to power up the home PC and have a look at the image on a decent monitor. Although I was expecting something special - I was completely unprepared for the sheer scale, detail and beauty of this. Congratulations to both of you and curses to you both too for raising the bar so @#£%^ high that us mere mortals who need some sleep occassionally and / or live in the UK can only ever dream of. Thanks for sharing. I would imagine that your next big challenge will be to find a display medium to do the image justice - do they have iMax theatres down there?? Steve

Martin I have a 2.2m Pulsar dome which I've managed to motorise with an DIY Arduino, M542 Stepper Motor Controller and a Stepper motor - it slaves to the mount and allows for auto flips. I'm just in the process of motorising the shutter. If you want any details, PM me and I'll let you know the details. Steve

Thank you Steve - I found this by chance yesterday and had a play with it last night. I think it's great!

Sorry Neil - I'm quite chuffed - that's a first - it's always me who gets beaten to the post normally!

Hi Frank The belt does mesh with the pulleys because they're the same pitch. The "gear ratio" of the belt and pulley is always one to one (i.e. one tooth movement on the pulley will give tooth movement of the belt). It's the ratio of the two pulleys that sets the gear ratio i.e 48:12 or 4:1. The number of teeth on the belt has nothing to do with it - the mod just needs a belt 80 teeth long because of the spacing between the pulleys. Does that help? Steve