powerlord

So tips: don't buy a 3d printer to print stuff that you can buy. if it's a product - buy it - it'll be better quality injection moulded, and cheaper. 3d printers are best utilised to make stuff yourself (CAD) that doesn't exist. that might seem obvious, but lots of folk seem tobuy one and then just print STFs from the internet out. You won't get the full benefit that way. I've had 3d printers for 12 years now. Still got my first one, and have a second one I use too. They are awesome if you are the sort of person that wants to solve a problem. And as you say, cheap as chips now. My latest is an anycubic mega s. works out the box, solid, reliable and prints ptu, nylon, the works. I'd recommend it

For those with a child in eduction or know someone who has, try to get an education discount version of solidworks. It is the defacto CAD modeller for engineering, and is absolutely awesome for making 3d stuff. There's plenty learning tutorials on the internet. Once you get the basics you can design parts in no time really. It's vastly better than the free stuff.

First Light from my new Observatory. SY135, asi1600. Around 4 hours SHO.

Decided on a starless version for this. 100 mins Ha - 10 mins subs.

time2.mp4

Well, first light went like clockwork. Great conditions last night. I PAed both mounts, checked the guider focuses and bogged off back inside. I setup my gopro for some timelapse so we'll see what that looks like later too. As I say - don't trust asiair plans, so I managed the targets myself on the asiairs - lost a bit of time on mount 2 as that asiair had never had the filter wheel on it before - so had to faff about setting that up - and I think in the end got the names of filters wrong.. so my H is S, and my S is H, but won't matter really. It seemed pretty calm during the night with decent seeing - the 135mm was getting FWHM less than 2. I got all 4 targets shot for as long as they were visible. My framing of my widefield wasn't as great as I'd want, but as I started with Oiii, it was an hour in before I noticed and didn't want to lose that data my reframing. Mount 2 (the dodgy EQ6 I got and fitted rowan belt kit to), so knowhere near as good as my new EQ6Rpro - but it was getting 0.7rms or so on the first target, and about 1.2rms on the second, which is good enough for the widefield. Mount 1, the new EQ6-R was ticking along at 0.3-0.6rms most of the night with the 500mm 80ED on it (1rms by last target) Looking at the subs from this, there is some stretching of stars at a few corners, but with the targets in the middle of frame I reckon I will still get more detail than if I'd shot with the 0.8 reducer/FF. Out this morning, shot the flats, popped roof back on, went inside and downloaded all the subs over the network then told alexa to 'turn the stars off', turning the power off and alarms on. So first light complete, and around 20 hours of imaging in a single night !! 🤩 It could be I've never noticed this before, but I was amazed anyway - when I noticed that 1 second guiding exposures were getting me clear detailed images of M42. I should have screenshotted one, but didn't think. I did screenshot bodes later - +6.7 target, and still clearly visible in a 1 second sub - thought that was quite amazing (but probably just never noticed before as it's only now I've sorted the guidescopes to be aligned with main OTA). It was 6am by this point and it was getting lighter as I faffed around trying to remember how to get a screenshot on ios, so by the time I did it was far less visible - but still.

First light tonight in the new observatory.

I use app with my asi533. I use flats, bias and darks fine. Have you tried retaking your darks and checking they ARE dark? Sorry if egg sucking advice.

Well, blue sky, roof off. I did fit in conservatory just in case gets windier.

thanks all;. fingers crossed. @Mick J I think will have to wait and see. main defence of it getting too hot it the fan system. this should change the air out every few minutes stopping it getting too hot. If that isn't enough it might need some sort of reflective layer on the roof (mylar maybe). or, worse case, I just don't leave the OTAs out there when it's roasting hot. It's still pretty windy just now, and some rain forecast for 3ish. So I think I'll leave taking roof off till 5.30-6. And if I can Im gonna try to squeeze it into conservatory with the wind tonight. Other than that, hoping it goes ok. I've only shot HSO with the 135 once a while back as I had to jerry rig an adapter to get it all together and focus. Since then I've got the proper zwo adapter so should be better - and I was inspired by @geeklee post of the rosette widefield to try something similar. And though I've shot M33 a few times now, and once with the 80ED, I shot it with a cheap svbony IR/UV blocker which I'm not sure is very effective. So looking forward to see if @AstroNebulees zwo one is better. also shooting at native 500mm rather than through the 0.8FF. Just for kicks. I've had quite a few nights imaging ruined though by the asiair plan just 'sticking' - sometimes for no reason - saying its running but doing nowt, sometimes failing to stop plate solving after a meridian flip, and a few times, losing guiding for some reason and getting off target, and then since it only ever does a goto once at the start of each plan it continues to take merrily subs of something else entirely for several hours (that one I've moaned to zwo about and asked for a 'goto after x subs' type option). Long and short of it is, assuming forecast is accurate(!), i'm gonna be up most of night checking my ipad and my samsung tablet all the time to make sure first light is a success! Now, down to Aldi to see if they have any virgin chickens left in stock - I feel a sacrifice is required. 🐔🔪🩸🙏

All setup and ready to go.

well forcast is awesome for tonight. still 25-30mph winds. but going for it. I might see if I can squeeze the roof into the conservatory, but if not will just have to put some chairs on it. fingers crossed. don't trust asiair Plans - I've had quite a few times where they have just stopped for no reason, so I've got 2 targets per mount planned for tonight - (hours due to visibility from my location) mount 1: SY135+asi1600 widefield: 5 hours fox fur/cone and rosette 3 hours heart and soul mount 2: 500mm 80ED, asi533 and new IR/UV filter I got from @AstroNebulee 3 hours on M33 7 hours on Bodes 🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞

Oh also , I should add that I watched this happen before I added the roof strengthening/doming. As the wind caused the pressure on the roof to drop, the roof 'popped up' into a dome, as the pressure inside was then enough to sort of 'blow it up'. Buy add the strengthening and pre-doming, I take away a bit of the kentic energy. If however, say the door was open - all bets are off.

no your quite right olly. (I'm a pilot). And it's the reason the roof is so secure when on the obsy - since the negative pressure on the top side during wind tries to 'suck' the roof off. But because I made it very airtight, it cannot - since any attempt for the roof to lift causes the pressure to drop inside too, and hence balance out. this is achieved by the long cross over between the roof walls and the ground walls- it's like a big bicycle pump or one of those old ballon inflation pumps if you remember them ? But that is the same reason why air 'getting under' the roof on the grass will cause it to be blown away. Basically, the same thing happens, but since the roof this time is just lying on the grass, there is nothing stopping it being lifted into the low pressure- and as soon as it is by a few mm, the pressure inside the roof is unconstrained/not sealed. and then - well you've got a wing basically - and up it goes.

well, I've got 2 permanent mounts in there, and they'll be pointing at different targets each night - so a hatch doesn't really work. tomorrow is looking good for first light. 🤞

yeh i reckon removing or fitting roof is not a good idea if windy. take tonight for example, against forecast I can see stars. but far too windy. it's all a compromise but its not very windy here usually tbh - current chain-storms aside. tbh its not so much putting on or removing as what to do with it when off if windy - it's too big to put in conservatory, etc. So it has to be calm enough it can be left in garden. I need to sort out a sort of 'weight bag' I can put on top if the centre when upside down on grass - something not too concentrated.. just in case it gets windier during night like you say. maybe just a bit of 2 foot x 2 foot or so of 1/2in plywood actually - that'd work. other option is I work out a way it can sit on grass right way up. then wind is fine provided it doesn't get underneath it - but that bit I can't think of a great foolproof mechanism for at present.

are they actually missing ? have a look in there for the head of an allen grub screw. if they, are they are just metric allen grub screws - gets from ebay,. etc. sounds like mirror is fine, but really, cleaning mirror is not difficult - folk do tend to over egg stuff like this - mirrors are not made of unicorn tears - maybe like me you just can't stand that it looks dirty and want to clean it - get a bit of calotherm calocoat and some good quality lens cloth. I've cleaned all my newts like this. they are now like a mirror (sic). Obviously don't have at it with a wire brush or alcoholic wipes, etc. you don't mention if you've collimated it ? if not: https://www.astro-baby.com/astrobaby/help/collimation-guide-newtonian-reflector/ all the best stu

Hi chaps, Now I've got my obsy I'd rather not be carting in and out my usb sticks on my asiairs all the time, and just access the subs over the network. However out the box the samba shares asiair creates are read only - meaning you can't delete the files without either doing it laboriously from the asiair app, or by removing the usb stick, plugging into a pc, and doing from there. If you want to make the network share writable here is how to. WARNING: do at your own risk. if you brick your sdcard don't blame me. BACKUP SDCARD FIRST!!! YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE THAT ANYWAY, AS IF YOU LOSE IT OR IT BECOMES CORRUPT YOU'RE STUFFED. SEARCH FOR HOW TO DO THIS. FOR MAC - IT'S APPLE PI-BAKER. ENSURE YOU TEST THAT THE BACKUP WORKS!! Right that out the way, you need to plug your sdcard into a linux pc. If you don't have one, you can use a virtual machine of say, ubunto 10. use either the free vmware player or virtual box, etc. Once you've started that, mount the sdcard and you need to mount that has linux on it (/bin, /etc, /root, directories). you want to open an editor for /etc/samba/smb.conf this is the samba config. go down to the bit that talks about the Images shares (there are two). and after the line that says guest access = yes add the lines force user = pi force group = pi in both sections. save the file. That's it, stick the sdcard back in the asiair and boot it. You should now find that when you access the network shares you can add files, delete files, etc. note, this also means you could perhaps setup plans remotely using some other tools, but I havn't tried that yet. stu

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Final wee touches today. I've made up some scenes and Alexa routines, so can now get alexa to 'turn stars* on/off'. This disarms/arms security system, turns lights on/off, and turns main scope power on/off. Tbh its the first useful thing I've found to do with iot on/off stuff! Next thing, backup asiair cards then root them and modify samba shares to usb to have write access. Then I'll have no need to take usb stick out or use asiair to delete files. Surprised no one else has done that tbh, but can't find any info on it, so suspect I'll be the first. Tue looking good for first light 🤞 *I had to change from observatory as Alexa kept thinking I was saying conservatory. Racist ai. Humph(im Scottish)

thanks Graeme, you are correct. I just heard back from Altair who said the same. drat - thought that might be an easy fix. well, just need to move it out and in a bit. got a set of metal spacers from FLO

So er.. I think I might have screwed up here. Looking for advice. I'm using this: https://www.altairastro.com/lightwave-08x-reducer-290-p.asp which I think is the same as this: https://www.astronomics.com/astro-tech-0-8x-reducer-field-flattener-for-f-6-refractors.html Now, I'd assumed I was aiming for 55mm to sensor from red line below.. but astronomic mention 'shoulder' and I think that corresponds the the actual optic lens in reducer maybe. green below ? So I should really be aiming to get distance from green line (i.e. lens) to sensor to be 55mm ?

Finished!! All ready for first light now.

really liking that widefield

Unlike my house - 3 large curved edged tiles already departed and landed on the grass. One dislodged, but still sitting on roof precariously - just moved my car from potential flight trajectory...builder should have used duct tape, correx and hot glue. fools. stu