Ian McCallum

🤣

Does frost like that mean you can turn off the cooling fan, on the camera? 🤔🤣

5 minutes ago, tomato said:

With regard to the lack of cameras, it is an extremely (and expensive) serious scientific endeavour, not a social media exercise, so I can live without camera feeds.

I would rather see what the JWST can discover about the very early universe and the nature of exoplanets rather than it take selfies. We can let Starlink take care of that.😉

Indeed, the JWST is designed to look outwards, not have cameras strapped to it to take selfies!👍

8 minutes ago, ONIKKINEN said:

You can rotate the lens to which these markings are etched on a Skywatcher polar scope, although you will need to collimate afterwards (you also did not mention what polar scope you have).

But an easier way is to rotate RA so that the orientation is the right way up when polar aligning.

It's the SW Polar Scope for the EQ5 Deluxe mount. 

1 minute ago, Ags said:

@Ian McCallum which ASI camera did you get?

The courier dropped by today, but didn't drop anything off. They collected my last two camera lenses, which will fund some filters, T2 bits and a power bank.

It's the ZWO ASI 120MM mini. 

My polar scope reticule looks something like the photo below, sitting at an angle. 

My question is, does it need to be perfectly aligned in the viewfinder, as in the bottom picture, or can it be somewhat offset, like in the top photo? 🤔

DPD dropped this off in the last hour, courtesy of Auntie @FLO. 

Not that long ago, this would have been considered science fiction!😵🧐

On 02/01/2022 at 16:48, RobertI said:

Any pointless external light with a switch on it is just asking to be switched off!! 😆

I'm almost certain those French guys were hitting the Fireman's switch, given the height they have to jump.  Probably illegal to do in most countries, unless it's an emergency?🤔

5 minutes ago, Broadymike said:

Well there's only so much that us public can do. Unfortunately our local MP Craig Mckinlay is a terrible politician that I can't see giving a [removed word] about it, as he's more into whipping up anti immigrant rhetoric at the moment to try and keep his seat. I believe that there's a petition about to come to the end of its time (or possibly has already) that when I signed it was already over the threshold to force parliament to dicuss it.  

I was referring to the powers that be, rather than the public.  Seems that there's many a toothless local and central government departments out there.

1 hour ago, Broadymike said:

Its actually been quite a big thing locally in the last couple of months. So I certainly know the relevant people are aware. 

Knowing about it and acting on it are two different issues.😧

I've got an 8" Dobsonian and have used 375x magnification on the moon, very occasionally. Even with a F6 ratio on the telescope, I can tell you that at those magnification levels, the moon is very dim and you will probably see 'floaters' in your view.  Contrast is very low too, even on a bright moon!

18 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

🤔. No, but if one is struggling to see through the eyepiece, there are solutions. A thong for every occasion….

Are you sure that's not been fitted by the Probation Service?🤔😂

We'd probably get better observing conditions, if we were on the surface of Venus!🤬

That's what I meant. 

11 minutes ago, malc-c said:

Thing is "guiding" to most people these days means using a guide camera and software that runs on a computer which can also control the mount.  I think this was pointed out when you were considering which motorising option to go for, as the synscan unit makes computer control a lot easier.  With the controller you have the only real option without having to modify the handset (and thus void your warranty) is to use an all in one autoguider such as Skywatcher SynGuider but at a pound shy of £290 it isn't cheap.

Before the days of computer control and guide cameras manual guiding was done.  This involved using a guide scope with an illuminated eyepiece that formed a cross-hair, and by using small XY knobs could move the two lines so they intersected over a bright star in the field of view.  You then used the NSWE (or Up Down Left Right) buttons on the handset to make small corrections manually to keep the star under the intersected lines.

However, guiding is really suitable for long exposures, and given you intend to use a mobile phone is probably not worth it.  I would suggest your first target is the moon, ideally when in any phase other than full.  Polar align the mount (doesn't need to be exact) and get the Moon in the eyepiece and set the drive to LUNAR.  Then use the movie function to record a video of the moon for several minutes, ensuring the projected image is as sharply focused as possible.  Then you can use software to take the movie and split it into individual frames and then stack the good ones to form a detailed image with lots of data.  You could try this on some of the larger planets, but Jupiter and Saturn and not as well placed as they were in the summer time.  You might (depending on the capabilities of your phone) be able to image the Orion nebular (set the drive to SIDERIAL ) if your camera can take long timed single exposures of 30 - 60 seconds (any more and you are into guiding territory).  Take 20 to 50 exposures one after another, then just before you break down for the night, and without moving the camera, place the cover over the front of the scope and take 20- 30 exposures of the same length (called darks).  You can then stack all these images in deep sky stacker.  Providing the polar alignment was good and there was little or no trailing then you might just end up with a half decent image.  For anything more, IMO you are going to need to invest in a rig that is better suited to imaging, which involves a decent camera for prime focus photography, and a means of guiding the scope.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but once you've set up the guide scope and camera on a target star, then using PHD2 should keep the guide scope aligned by sending small "nudges" through the ST4 port to the mount? 🤔

At this moment in time, I'm holding off buying a guide camera due to the weather.  I've not even been able to test the motor drives yet, due to constantly overcast skies and rain.😡

12 hours ago, Laurieast said:

OK think I got it now? 

That's better, thanks.👍

6 hours ago, Laurieast said:

Existing shoe will be fine as said, but I prefered to leave the finder in place for PA. So did it this way.

Either dead links or no images?🤔

I'm thinking about converting a SW 9x50mm finderscope to become a guidescope, with the addition of an adapter and camera.  My question is, can I use the existing finderscope shoe on the OTA to hold it, or would it require scope rings for the guidescope, etc, etc.?🤔

I'm very much leaning towards the ZWO ASI120MM mini camera, with an adapter for a SW 9x50mm finderscope.

19 minutes ago, alacant said:

Assuming the mount has a suitable port, just as you envisage, but with the addition of a mount to laptop cable.

HTH

The mount doesn't have a suitable port, only the Enhanced controller does....

41 minutes ago, alacant said:

Hi

If you want to stick with st4, we'd recommenend, in addition to the camera - mount connection...

...connection as an aux device between computer and mount. This will allow you to both re-use your calibration and add the ability to control telescope pointing from the computer too.

Cheers and HTH

 

What did you have in mind? Can you give me an example, please? 

15 hours ago, JeremyS said:

And I was thinking it was the Brussels sprouts …

Genuine rocket fuel, along with cauliflower and cheese sauce!🤣

7 hours ago, rickwayne said:

Pulse guiding has nothing to do with the type of motor, fortunately. It uses a connection (usually USB) to a mount's controller logic to emit pulses to tell the sidereal tracking circuitry to go faster or slower. So-called ST-4 guiding is an older (still viable) setup where the computer sends commands to the guide camera via USB, and the camera issues a signal over a cable connecting the camera to the mount.

If you're going to use the computer for mount things like slewing the scope to its target, you already have a USB connection between computer and mount anyway, so you may as well just use that for guiding too. That connection lets the mount tell the computer where it's pointing, which allows the guide software to adjust its commands to compensate for declination -- the magnitude of corrections will be different for different parts of the sky. With ST-4 guiding, the computer is only talking to the guide camera so has no way of knowing where the mount is pointing. So you have to do a calibration run so that the computer knows how much correction to apply to make the image move by N pixels on the guide camera sensor.

I'm not familiar with that mount so I don't know exactly how to connect which bits to what.

I'm interested in learning more about the ST4 method, so I'm doing more reading up on it.  It's all rather new to me, as you can probably tell.🙄