Horwig

I'll have to extend the thread up the centre bolt by about a cm, then it should be fine. Truth is I don't use the spreader Huw

An update on this, extension arrived and fitted. I did price up making my own, but it was hardy worth the effort, the aluminium blanks came to not far short of the price of the genuine part. I can now image within a few degrees of the pole with no meridian flips. A result. As an aside, as discussed in my other post here, I've machined the tripod boss to give more stability to the assembly, it was getting a little bit top heavy. Huw

Just an update on this in case anybody's going to try the same. I machined the tripod boss to allow the legs to open wider ( the red section in the original photo). Didn't remove a lot, probably about 3mm. This allowed an extra 10 cm spread of the legs, and lowered the whole thing by about 5 cm, a much more stable arrangement. Huw

I've just ordered an EQ6 extension tube to help with camera/tripod collisions. I really don't need my scope 8 inches higher, and I'm worried about stability. My question is if anybody has tried lowering/spreading an EQ6 tripod by machining the top of the legs or the hub to spread the legs further, (ie the red or blue areas in this pic)? I'm probably over worrying the situation, but I'd rather be prepared. Ta Huw

Thanks all, order placed for one from FLO

Ta. White suits me just fine. Huw

I'm thinking of getting one of these to cut down on the collisions between camera and tripod legs, anybody use one and have any feedback? Ta Huw

Here's a version with more data, captured on the night of the 27th. The original attempt is here: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/350422-m81-82-wip/?tab=comments#comment-3816515 Now with an extra 13 x 15 minute Luminance 7 x 10 minute each RGB Ha as before and now with new flats darks and bias😀 Hopefully doesn't look to shabby. Huw

Oh yes, flats, I didn't use any, I did use darks and bias, but they were from two years ago, might need to take some new ones. Huw

I must be one of the least productive members here, last year I only managed two! This is very much work in progress, imaged last night. I'm very rusty by now, so wasted a couple of good hours beginning of the night till I got everything singing. I'm fairly happy with M82, but M81 is very noisy, need more photons, will add some tonight. Techy stuff: FSQ106 and QSI6120 on AZ EQ6 SGP, PI and PS L, 80 minutes in 5 minute subs RGB, 20 minutes each in 2 minute subs Ha, 3 hours in 30 minute subs. The short sub lengths have given me clean galaxy cores, but no background detail, longer subs are in order I think. As always, pick holes in it please, after most of the day tweeking, I can't see the wood for the trees😀 Huw

What a selection of mounts on one bench😀 Huw

Typing in a hurry doesn't work does it..., too many thumbs, not enough brain power

I used to run the obsy on Netgear ethernet over mains adaptors. When they worked they were good, but would drop out not infrequently. The obsy was powered from the breaker board in my workshop/shed next to it, the run from the house to the shed was cabled in SWA. The adaptor in the shed eventually gave up the ghost three years ago, when I was away for a month in winter, and powered it down. I assume it didn't much like the damp on power up. I now run the obsy in SWA ethernet cable from the house, seemed to solve all problems. Huw

Right, got the Nano clone to work, I had the wrong drivers for the usb to serial chip😀 Uno still miss behaving, but at least I've got something to play with Huw

No, reset button works fine, if I press it the sketch stops then restarts

Thanks Gina, I've actually got two arduinos, the other one is a nano clone, win7 is not recognising that one on USB, claims drivers are not loaded, but also claims drivers are not needed...Blinking computers...

I have an Arduino Uno R2 which ran my autofocuser before I bought a Lightphase focuser. It's been sitting gathering dust in a cupboard, but since I've got some time on my hands I decided to have a play with it. For some reason I can't get it to run a sketch after power cycle, I've seen reports of similar on the Arduino forums, but this board used to run just fine. If for example I upload the 'blink' sketch, it runs fine, then I unplug the USB and reconnect, and the LED just gives rapid bursts of flashing not the steady one second flashes, am I doing something incredibly stupid? ( I admit to not knowing that much about the Arduino, as you can see) Huw

Yes we did, spent two nights at at Denham, and two at Monkey Mia, we're both non swimmers, so topside only for us. Huw

Yes indeed, this was our third trip. In the outback the night sky is well worth seeing, especially in their Autumn, trouble is the Aussies love their LED lighting and generators even in the remotest camping grounds. There was no such light pollution here, but what I was fighting was salt spray filling the air from the Indian Ocean swells breaking on the rocky shore, these are the famous Quobba blowholes. Looking down the line of the shore in daylight the spray was visible everywhere as a mist, and probably reduced the contrast considerably for my Milky Way image. Huw

Yes, they are visible in dark locations, but only really come alive with averted vision. Huw

Had a trip to OZ back in Oct, and finally got round to processing this panorama It was taken at point Quobba on the West coast. You know it's dark when the Zodiacal light counts as light pollution. Huw

That is starting to look like a beast, what size cameras do you intend to hang off it? Keep it coming, it's good to see designs unfolding. Huw

Just to clear things up, in my post above, I called the Gurley encoder an absolute encoder. IT IS NOT, what I'm sure I meant to write was mount encoder as opposed to a motor encoder. I'm not sure where my brain was when I wrote that post, apologies to those I mislead. Huw

The Gurley I'm using (or not at the moment) is the 320K pulse R158 encoder, and it's £882 Huw

If I may add my experience here with trying to add an absolute encoder to my Sitech controlled DIY fork, I bought a Gurley encoder as specd for Sitech (not cheap), and mounted it via a flexible shaft coupling to the RA axis, the body of the encoder was solidly mounted by bracket to the bearing block. I must have some axial offset in the centering of the encoder, it gives differing RA speed, dependant on pointing position, so will have to go back to the drawing board in its implementation. EDIT The encoder is not ABSOLUTE, don't know why I called it that!!! Huw