Just the 3 telescopes, a SW200p Dobbie, ST120 and a Evostar 120.

Hopefully, I'm not too late to the discussion...  I've got a couple of achros, specifically the SW ST120 and EV120.  Both of these experience some for of CA, which I tend to filter with a Baader Fringe Killer filter (from memory).   Before I got these, I was using a SW 200p Classic Dobbie.

My mum was in a lot of pain and was suffering from metastatic cancer, for nearly 18 months.  She lingered in pain and it was cruel to see her like that, just wasting away.  Palliative care was good, but not perfect.   I had plenty of time to say goodbye to my mum and she had a good send off.

My pony (Misty) took Colic one time, then another 2 bouts within 10 hours.   She was in agony and suffering from gut death, it happened so fast that I had no choice but to have her euthanised.  With Misty, I had planned to move her and my other pony to be with a friend's horses, but nature got in the way. She was rescued when I got her and was in very poor health.  I had her 5 years and she was 21 years old when she died (not old for a Shetland).  I feel that both her and I were cheated of many more years together!  The regrets are very bitter, I can assure you.  

Your mileage will vary...

59 minutes ago, Nigella Bryant said:

Loosing a well beloved pet is really devastating, a lot of people don't understand how we can feel so lost. It's hard because it's just as real as if we've lost a family member, (which of course it is). Hopefully the more you get back into this hobby the more enjoyment of life you'll feel. 

Believe it or not, losing my pet was worse than losing my mum (2021).  I was very close to my mum, but closer to my beloved pet.

7 hours ago, Adam J said:

Sorry to say this but your not going to be doing any imaging using a chrome book. You need a good old windows PC with windows 10 or 11 on it. Not sure what I can suggest, there is a small chance you can install windows on it but to be honest your just as likely to brick it trying. 

Would it work with VNC and a RPi?

I've not used a telescope in nearly a year, due to poor mental health.  I lost a beloved pet on 5th February 2023, which caused me great anguish.  For a long time, I couldn't get the loss out of my mind and still miss my beloved pet every day.  I eventually tried to keep busy and concentrate on other hobbies.  I've just set my astrophotography rig, for the first time in nearly 11 months.  Obviously, I've missed out on nearly a year of things and have became very rusty - but hopefully, I'll get back into it again...

PS:  I've suffered from poor mental health for many years, but this was one of the worst bouts of it.

22 minutes ago, City9Town0 said:

Are light pollution filters still needed?

Lights just added to the garden behind me... my one piece of 'reasonable' Bortle 4 sky is gone.

That's disgusting!😠

There are laws against environmental, sound and air pollution - there should also be laws against gross light pollution.  I'm sure there are already existing laws dealing with most of this stuff, but getting it enforced is a different matter.

I thought Demystifying Visual Astronomy was a guide on how to use dew heater straps on a Dob!😅  I'll get my coat...😜

9 hours ago, andrew s said:

That's all there is then. Sorry if I misled you. Regards Andrew 

No worries.

48 minutes ago, andrew s said:

Try FW Udate tab https://astronomy-imaging-camera.com/software-drivers

Regards Andrew

I did, but it's still showing v1.0.

On 30/01/2023 at 09:49, andrew s said:

Not directly related to your issue but ZWO released new drivers  etc. in early Jan that solved the issues I was having with my ASI 294mm pro. There is also a firmware update for the ASI120MM. 

Regards Andrew 

I see the ASCOM driver update for the ASI120MM mini, but no firmware update other than v1.0.

23 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

There's no point in asking a question if you don't want to hear the answer 

Isn't that a form of cognitive dissonance? 

7 hours ago, BigBobbyD said:

I need some help.  the first thing I tried on Astroberry was a sudo apt-get update and upgrade and receive the following error:

astroberry@astroberry:~ $ sudo apt-get upgrade

Reading package lists... Done

Building dependency tree       

Reading state information... Done

Calculating upgrade... Done

The following packages have been kept back:

  indi-astroberry-diy indi-bin indi-toupbase libindi-dev libindi1

0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 6 not upgraded.

 

 

Okay, Running sudo apt-get install distro upgrade corrected most of the problem, still have one package not upgrading so instead of fighting this mess, I am doing a new image.  I guess this is mostly solved..😂

I'd try this...  sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade && sudo apt dist-upgrade

36 minutes ago, AstroMuni said:

I use Team Viewer on a phone to connect to my laptop. This way I can view the screen of the laptop while I am changing focus at the scope. BTW, have you tried the Bahtinov mask focus assistant in Ekos, that should help.

I've got VNC Viewer on my smartphone, so I should try that out more...

From what I've read, the focus wheels on my refractors can't be removed, therefore can't be fitted with the likes of the drive shaft type EAF.

3 hours ago, bosun21 said:

Which scopes do you have? Is it both the 120 Evostars?

It's the Evostar 120 achromat and the Startravel 120 achromat.

39 minutes ago, Xilman said:

Are you able to take the laptop outside temporarily just while you focus?

I have to do much the same with the manually focused scope. Forever trotting up and down the stairs between the control room and the dome.  I really must fit an electric focus; they are relatively simple and inexpensive.

 

Yes, I can.  I'd like an electric focuser, but there are none that I know of that would fit my telescopes.

3 hours ago, Xilman said:

If you can feed your images directly from the camera into a computer I heartily recommend getting hold of Bahtinov Grabber.  Available from https://www.dropbox.com/s/tp9cvni3okk1azd/Bahtinov_grabber64.exe?dl=0 and https://www.dropbox.com/s/k3tb6n32k8v78bo/Bahtinov_grabber.exe?dl=0

Works regardless of focuser type (I use it manually and with a relative motor focuser) and gets a much more precise focus than doing the same job by eye.

to me your image looks very slightly out of focus, but likely not enough to be important.

I use the connection between my Raspberry Pi and laptop, so I've got a live FITS viewer on KStars and Okos, that allows me to see what's going on with the focus.  I still have to go out and manually focus the telescope, then come back in to see what difference it's made...

10 hours ago, knobby said:

Slightly unusual looking bahtinov pattern but looks bang on in focus 👍🏻

Here at the two Bahtinov masks that I use, both bought from eBay. The small green one is a 3D printed one for the guide scope and the larger adjustable one is for either my Sky-Watcher Startravel 120 achromat or Evostar 120 achromat. 

I'm pretty that I had 'nailed' the focusing. Many thanks for confirming that. 👍

Just looking for some input, please.  Does this image look like it's correctly focused using a Bahtinov mask for imaging?  Please bare in mind that this is from an achromatic refractor, with only a single speed manual R&P focuser.

I've been using KStars and Ekos on my RPi for quite a while now, but have been getting large errors when it comes to coordinates for plate solving.  I'm wondering if this is due to poor polar alignment?  Can someone take a look at this log file, please and let me know what you think...  I've removed my lat and long references from the log, for privacy reasons.

log_18-40-54.txt

It's designed to stop scammers and rip-off merchants.

Try a Raspberry Pi loaded with Astroberry OS, as it supports INDI drivers for dome controls, etc.

5 hours ago, Cornelius Varley said:

I assume to insert photos later. In the meantime the gaps in the text have been deleted.

I thought my browser wasn't loading images correctly, but it wasn't the problem.  Posts can be edited later, to add photographs - I do that myself.