Realtimedoctor

Hello lovely people, Decided to tinker a little bit with my setup, and optimise things a little bit. I wonder what is everyone's opinion on this collimation. I also wonder, if someone could shadow some light, on why the outer border of the star looks hazzy. Cheers, Nish

Unfortunately, there isn't much you'd able to find that many telescopes in that range, which will give you anything good visually. If you already have a 700mm FL scope, and you want something longer best would be maybe try a Barlow, x2 or x3. These will double or triple your FL and give you more bang for your buck from your 70mm refractor. If so intend to get something new, probably look on the second hand market for a long focal length reflectors. Cheers, Nish

. I'd suggest getting a skywatcher 130p, it's good for visual and astrophotography. Also the lightweight means you'd not need a Hefty EQ mount for it. If you just want to do visual, you could look for a similar scope on a dobsonian mount. In the end it depends what your goals are? Do you just want to do visual or delve into astrophotography? With a budget of $160, it would be very difficult to get any decent set-up

I use ekos, which is essentially asi air without the fancy app. If you use the schedular, you can check "warm camera". It doesn't do much, just turns off the cooling. The camera will slowly come bach to ambient temp. My schedular just turns off everything, never had an issue with the camera having a thermashock. Cheers, Nish

Just got it delivered today, after three days of rescheduling by UPS. Looks good on first impressions, solid build. Can't complaint, now I'm stuck without a coma corrector at the moment, as do not have appropriate spacers to get the 55mm back spacing just yet. Got a few things in mail, hopefully will be delivered soon. I've quickly attached it to my set-up and seems to work fine with ekos. I know people have been using this, so I wonder what settings people have been using in ekos/indi with this camera for their night time adventures? Cheers, Nish

Hi Steve, Yes this is the 10A version PSU that pegasus sell. The reason, I'm powering everything with the PPBA, is that keeps my set up quite clean. I only have one wire that goes up my scope to power the PPBA. Everything else is attached to the PPBA, and stays mounted on the dovetail. Powering the mount with another PSU is certainly doable, but as some have noted, that PPBA should be able to power everything I've connected to it at the moment. I'm going to get a temp big ac/dc converter to power the PPBA, and see if the voltage drops. If it does, then there is certainly something wrong with the PPBA, if it doesn't then its the PSU. I can't think of any other reason the voltage will drop. Something has to give, and I think it's the PSU that isn't doing its job correctly.

Hi, The pi4 is connected to the USB - 1 port on the PPBA. It powers well, even when PPBA cuts off power to everything else, due to voltage drop, the USB reports remain powered. So the RPI continues to run, without any issues. It's the reason, why I'm able to see the voltage drops in the PPBA indi control panel.

I had looked at the Nevada power supply, considering the pegasus PSU is £60, the Nevada is not far off. My reasons or concerns were, that I leave everything outside on the mount, under a telegizmos cover. And leaving Nevada in an weatherproof box didn't seem to sit right with me, given the heat generated. I did think, of running the Nevada inside, and running a long cable to the PPBA, but then voltage drops becomes a concerns again. How are you using the Nevada unit? Do you have a permanent obsy?

I just sent a support request to pegasus with the following. Thought, I'll post on the forum as well, if anyone of the brilliant members here could know what the issue is? I recently bought a PPBA, and the pegasus PSU. Peripherals connected to the PPBA are 1. EQ6R-Pro 2. QHY8L camera 3. RPI 4 4. ZWO EAF 5. ZWO 120mm-s camera Now, the issue im facing is, despite using the pegasus PSU, the voltage displayed on the PPBA control panel is 12.0V, and soon as the system is put under any load, that is camera cooling turned on, and mount slewing at full speed, the voltage drops and the PPBA cuts off all supply. I've seen the voltage drop to as low as 11.3V at times before power being cut off to all the peripherals. Once PPBA cuts off all supply, the voltage displayed in the control panel jumps back to 12.0V sometimes 12.1V. I'm not sure why such a significant voltage drop is occurring, and if there is a problem with either the PPBA or the PSU? Furthermore, the temp/humidity sensor always shows humidity at 99%, and dew point 0.2 degree below the current temp, not sure if the sensor is faulty.

So a couple of years ago, I decided to stick a DSLR on my primary scope. By this time, I had been a casual visual observer, enjoying the fact that I could show my friends and family something "stellar" (pun intended) However, one day after seeing a very crude picture of m101 from one of my colleagues at work. I decided, I could do better! Man, I should have just kept my mouth shut. So this started a long run down the rabbit hole, as you can imagine. I started with upgrading my EQ5 mount, with a Synscan goto, stuck bought a couple of adapters and stuck on my DSLR on top. A great mess of wires started to morph into an uncontrollable anaconda!! Once I tried to temporary tackle the wire issues, I realised I [removed word] my pictures were compared to others! So guiding was the next step. Soon after, I modded my DSLR and removed the filters from the sensor, and made a TEC cooler to strap at the back of the DSLR. I soon realised, that my punny little EQ5 wasn't meant to lug around a 200mm newtonian on the back, for astrophotography. So next logical step was to make it better, I tuned the heck out of my mount as really wasn't willing to spend another grand or so. Thereafter hoped onto the automation train, astroberry, diy auto-focuser, auto-guiding, dedicated astrocam. I soon realised, that my humble set up had now begun a mess of an uncontrollable anaconda. Despite, the pictures I was getting, which satisfied my ego sort of, my OCD for a cleaner, and more balanced setup was killing me. So this winter, I decided to get an EQ6R-Pro, another dedicated astrocam, PPBA, ZWO EAF, dew heaters, new dovetail plate. Still waiting on the camera, but this is where I am at. Having spend 1000s of pounds into this madness, I wonder, where does this rabbit hole end? Or am I almost at the end? I've attached some pictures of my journey, for your comments

Thought so. I think the aberrations you are seeing are, the circular motions one does while cleaning the lenses or optical surfaces. I suspect you have residue or marks left on the surfaces from the cleaning. When I clean my optical surfaces, I usually leave them to dry on their own, and pick of any water droplets with a cotton bud. Hope this helps. Cheers, Nish

Hey, As far as I'm aware, ASI Air pro/plus only supports ZWO ASI cameras. I do not think you can use any other camera with ASI Air either DSLR or any other dedicated astrophotography camera. It's probably the reason why, your ASI wouldn't recognise your DSLR. Hope this helps. Cheers, Nish

Did you wipe your primary lens or any of the optical surfaces with a cloth, to remove dirt or debry?

Thanks for the advice about checking with optolong/antlia about resellers. As I've been thinking about ordering some Ha and broadband filters. They are much more expensive than the simple uv/ir cut filters, so probably a good idea to check before ordering. As far as haggling is concerned, it's a must. While ordering this, I showed to the seller, that there were others selling the same camera for £870 + free shipping. After a lot of back and forth with the offers, he sent me a special link with the product priced £850 + UPS shipping.

Hello folks, Hear me out, I've this mad idea and I wonder if this will work. Here's my situation, I've got everything mounted and attached to the scope, i.e. PPBA, RPI. All my peripherals run off the PPBA, for power and USB needs. So I have one wire going up to the scope for the PPBA, and two wires coming down from the dovetail plate to the EQ6-R Pro mount ( power and USB). Now, I want to eliminate that two wires coming down my PPBA, to the mount. Getting rid of the power cable, and powering up the mount with its own supply isn't an issue. So that leaves me with one USB cable running from PPBA to the mount. I want to get rid of this USB cable from PPBA to mount, so that there is just one power cable going upto the scope and nothing else. My question is, if I buy a skywatcher WiFi adapter for the mount, can I route it to connect it to my home WiFi network? If so, then I can likely connect to the mount via network on EKOS, than a serial connection. Hence, allowing EKOS to communicate wirelessly with the mount. I know this sounds mad, and too complicated, but just wondering if this is doable. I know EKOS can communicate with the mount over network, just not sure if the skywatcher WiFi adapter will work in this case. And if this is successful, do you think this will effect the guiding etc, as I use pulse guiding instead of ST4? Looking forward to your suggestions. Cheers, Nishant

I currently use, a dew heater strip around my coma corrector/focuser assembly. As for some reason, I was having issues with dew on the CC lens. So hoping that the current remidy will keep the dew issues at bay with the new camera. Also ordered an optolong uv/ir cut 2" filter for £25 off Ali express. 🤣😁 As I said, looking forward to how this gamble turns out. Cheers, Nishant

Probably you are right! But reading on forums, many have only paid a vat of £60 or so odd! Which makes me believe that, they don't usually quote the real price on customs declaration. Not that I'm advocating it, the price quoted on customs declaration is the responsibility of the seller. Worst case scenario, they'll charge a full vat, it will will only come upto £1k, which is still a bargain even if the camera works at half the quality of 2600MC Pro. Haggling saved me a good £50 off the selling price, without paying any shipping costs for an UPS shipping.

So I just ordered this off Ali-express! In case any other members want to order this, do not forget to haggle. I managed to shave £50 off the price with free UPS Expedited shipping. The other thing is you can also ask them the value of custom declaration (if you know what I mean) I managed to order this for £850. Which is a massive saving when the compared ASI2600 MC. I'll keep you guys posted on how well this gamble turns out, can't wait to get my hands on it. Cheers, Nishant

I think there is a it of tilt or incorrect spacing with the flatenner, as the stars around the edges are elongated, the right side could just be secondary to a bit of tilt.

Attached the wrong picture! Here's the correct one!

I recently upgraded my mount to the EQ6-R Pro, after EQ5 Pro, which I had tuned myself, and to be honest even with a 200p I was able to squeeze the guiding just under 1 arc seconds. So getting into this mount, my expectations weren't too high on the improvement of guiding. Today is my sort of first light, abs after everything set up. I can't believe the numbers I'm seeing on phd2. Have I won an equipment lottery of sorts? Or is just good seeing! My money is in the latter. Have attached a pic for your comments. Excuse my blanket

Try the polynomial algorithm. I don't have the hitech dc motor controller, but I made my own arduino which runs the skywatcher focuser. Had issues with it as well, too many nights of tweeking, and this is what worked/works for me. I've attached my current settings below, plus if you don't have a coma correct then I used to select full field. Works like a charm, though these days I barely use it.

Yup, last night I tried increasing it to 0.20 still the same!

My ekos meridian flip has worked wonderfully all this while, until recently when I started noticing a strange problem. My meridian flip setting is 0.10 past HA It used to work flawlessly, and do a meridian flip as it should. Last few sessions I've noticed, that the first time EKOS attempts the flip, it fails Gives error as below Meridian flip completed Meridian flip failed - retry in 4 mins Meridian flip started Then the scheduler goes through the whole thing i.e. Re-align, refocus, guiding calibration and starting the first exposure (even though nothing has changed, and this takes a good 10-15mins to complete) While the scheduler is going through the post flip procedure, the mount tab goes back into 'meridian flip waiting' Once the first exposure is finished, after the failed meridian flip - EKOS attempts the meridian flip again which it does smoothly and without any issues. Now mostly I'd not mind the flip failing once, but because ekos is giving an error flip completed and the scheduler is going through the whole thing I'm adding somewhere 15-20 mins to the second flip attempt which is at times causing my scope to crash into the mount. I'm not sure why this is suddenly happening, as it used to work absolutely beautifully earlier without any problems. Any insight into how to solve this issue would be appreciated.

Ekos doesn't allow any priority changes, it depends on the score which it calculates by itself. Rebooted Rpi 5 times, solved the problem after the 5th boot.