AstroEd

The hope of shorter cables is part of my desire in a permanent pier. But plan to remain running everything from inside my living room, just hoping it will be easier to only need to carry out the scope to setup rather than everything. It takes me 40-60min now to get setup to image. But if I can have the power and cables for the scope, camera, and focuser all run and waiting to be plugged in but protected from the elements all the better.

I currently sit in the warmth of my living room running all cables out the window where I can watch the scope I am unable to put a weather protecr\time building around where I have the iOptron tri-pier mount concrete pads but thought I would put a permanent pier in the center of them and was considering a pvc pipe system to just keep the wire runs out all the time but not sure if I am thinking right, this is new to me.

I had a Hip replacement in 2016 and have not been 100% since so I have not setup my CEM60 Mount more than 2 times since then as it is ungainly to haul in and out of the house now compared to before the surgery. I miss my solar imaging and am strongly considering an iOptron Permanent Pier I have not found any videos on how to set it up though. I was also wondering what I should do about running wiring permanently as well or continue to haul it out every setup I do not and can not have an actual observatory so I run the wires from the livingroom laptop out a window (with a board the has 2 strips of foam on the edges and a notch cut in one corner for the wires to pass through. I am not sure if I just want to toss weather/UV proof bags over the mount once the pier is done or buy a small plastic garden shed and hope it does not blow away in a storm. I also am trying to figure out how to make my window board hold a USB hub setup so I use shorter cables... I designed an idea of what I want based on an old antenna wire window pass through I have for Ham Radio. I have added images of the antenna window pass through and the Minds eye design of what I THINK I want for the Astronomy USB connections. might add a serial to USB port to the board...

Sounds like I wasted my Money on the ASI290MM (cooled), sadly At this time it is all moot as I had to order a replacement power supply for the iOptron CEM60 mount and won’t be able to try and image this weekend after all. I do have a Meade ETX125 (f/15)that I bought on clearance that might be ok for the ASI290MM, sadly the model had a defective mount (the knob for the center shaft screw never could go up far enough to place tension on the leg support tray) So I have owned it for almost 9 years and never really got to use it and misplaced its power supply also. So since I could not use it I sent the Hand controller to another astronomer who needed it. I always hoped I could modify it to be mountable on my CEM60 mount but never got around to trying. So if I were to start from scratch and buy all new PROPER equipment for High resolution Solar imaging suitable for average or less sky conditions what should I buy? I never managed to learn how to properly adjust my 80mm Lunts pressure, I might have to sell it for as close to full price as possible to pay for proper equipment as it has not been used since I got my Daystar quark Ha. Though the focuser has been upgraded to a moonlight focused for automated focusing.

Oh the Quark is already barlowed so I do not need to use my power mate? Also if I use the ASI290MM will the built in Barlow mess up the imaging as according to the calculation it should be about 2x? A side note: I own a 2.5 and 4x powermate Barlow.

This is the calculation for the ASI290MM cooled camera pixel size. I am sorry for being confused, I really am trying to learn, I am just stupid at times.

Doesn’t the above information mean since my scope is 480mm focal length at f/6 the results = 3.660417 times the native focal length so I need to use a 3.5-4.0x Barlow for optimal focal length for the camera?

If I did this right... based on 80mm scope and the Quark wavelength I think is 656nm and the ASI 174mm camera pixel size is 5.86 microns.... but to be honest I do not have the knowledge of what needs to be done to read the calculations numbers.

I still need to learn flats, darks and such currently I capture x amount of video frames and run through autostakkert! or registax and photoshop.

Can I use my iOptron CEM60 with my Nikon D3400 and D500 or would I be better off buying a dedicated DSLR tracking mount (also lighter and easier to setup).

I paired the asi 174mm with a 400+GB ssd drive but thinking I will install a 1TB NVMe drive in lap top just for image captures once I upgrade to the latest laptop with fastest most cores cpu I can afford.I will find out soon if there was any damage to the camera, Saturday is supposed to be cloud free. So Friday night I will try and remember how to do a polar alignment.

Hello, I have been away from imaging for a very long (2016) time after a hip replacement and need to relearn my hobby as I still consider myself to be an uneducated amateur. Several months ago I setup to image and to my horror realized as I was slewing the Sun into view of the scope I had forgotten to install my Daystar Quark Ha filter on my Explore Scientific 80mm triplet scope and I THINK I may have damaged my ZWO ASI 174MM camera but I have not tried to use it since my discovery. I have a ASI 290MM cooled that I bought awhile back (In the hopes of achieving a bit more magnification/zooming in on solar details as I could not afford a larger tripletthen or now) but I have never used yet. Is there a new king of the hill solar imaging camera or should I replace my possibly damaged ASI 174MM (I am not sure how to check it for damage) with a new ASI 174MM cooled camera? Or will the unused ASI 290MM cooled be good enough? I prefer closeups of surface features and proms to full disk imaging and hope to afford a larger perhaps 127-130mm refractor (for detailed close up shots) in the future anything bigger I feel would be wasted for solar or deep sky in my seeing conditions. I also have a 80mm single stacked Lunt Ha scope that I rarely use because for some reason my 80mm triplet with Daystar Quark Ha “seems” to give better images. But I also can not afford to double stack the Lunt... if it even can be.

I have been away from imaging for almost 4 years, I quit due to a hip replacement and just never got back into it, but I hope to return soon. After reading these old posts again I am very upset by all of my typos and I will try to do better in the future.

Skybadger, I am very new at this and have a lot to learn but so far the Interference Eliminator has been my best option, I tried another tilt ring device that I never figured out and to get to the Allen screws I had to remove the camera every adjustment and for me that was too much because by time I got it back together I would for get what score I adjusted what direction. I have not imaged much last year due to hip issues and a Total hip replacement, and I never set up in winter. I look forward to setting up in the months to come. I do have about 100 GB of data I have not processed yet. I will post them later.

The banding has been that way from day one when I use the Barlow 2x or Powermate 2.5x even with out the Barlow at full disk I can see slight banding straight across the whole surface but it is real faint in the finished image. I can not wait for clear skies with good seeing to do more tests with the Interference Eliminator.