powerlord

The 10 quid one from the seller on ebay is great honestly. it gives very nice X pattern, focus in seconds. And did I mention it's only 10 quid.. I printed that mount/raf for mine (see previous post) - and the thingiverse link has the BOM of the bearings, belt, pulley wheel you need. total parts cost about 10 quid. Obviously you need a 3d printer. but the one I use cost 220 quid. so print 1 of these, save yerself 100 quid, and you've already half way to ROI! I mainly printed it for when/if using with asi1600 as then it's going to need to eaf between filters itself. If you are not refocusing, it really is not required. however, if you want a super super cheap and easy way to electric focus - just do what I did in another post: stu

So.. maybe I've been doing it wrong, but I just take one master flat with L filter and use it for everything ? stu

And one more (last one) - with the background IFN added back a bit. More details about processing in Affinity: I brought the no stars and with stars pics into affinity, and created a stars only by subtracting no stars from startools output. I then worked on the no stars version, using affinity live filters - clarity filter on the galaxies, while masking off the rest, then combining that. I then seperated out the rest of the background and did a gussian blur on it a bit, to make those dark clouds more smooth and smoky, since the low SNR there made them quite noisy. I boosted saturation a bit to bring out the reds mainly. I then added the stars back, but at only around 60% opacity so that the galaxies are the main focus.

Here's mine. I used Startool v8. RGBL and loaded the Ha as accents. Went though most of the workflow, playing around with it. After that, it went into starnet++ then into Affinity where I could play about with it some more, and combine the stars back. I was trying to aim for something 'natural' and clean. Pulling the reds out M81 and M82.

First, talk to your home insurer - it's what it's for. I had my home flood 15 years ago.. As a geek I happened to have 5 laptops lying around on the floor at the time and I worried they would not believe they were all under water, but they were totally understanding. They will expect you to get an estimate of repair cost or a letter to the affect it is not repairable. Since each is likely to be a single circuit board, I'd look for a price for circuit board replacement. If none, then by definition that's not repairable. That failure mode is common for switched mode psus. Basically the output ties to the input. Very few USB ports will survive 12v being applied to them. What bits have released the magic smoke will change component to component. Stu

Step back imho. Emmc is abysmally slow crappy storage. Sdcard is the same but my asiair Pro boots in seconds.. So it is a non issue. And it is much easier to back up an Sdcard. And once you've bought a 10 quid wifi extender and plugged it into the nic, its fine. I realise for some the better WiFi makes it better, but really it's a disappointing lack of innovation.

but there is no left arm. not anymore anyway afaik. but yeh - it's something like that. all i need is a night i can see a few stars and have a play where I know im not wasting imaging time as it's too cloudy. I'll still stick one of em back the 3.26 though.

they have not unfortunately. it only works with specific celestron scopes.

he did - got it. thanks @Shimrod I hunted through logs to find an example of me calibrating the azgti on roughly the same area of the sky as the EQ6-r. Here is an example (DEC and RA not miles different) - but the calibration graph TOTALLY different! wtf is going on ? EQ6-r on the left.

And didn't there used to be a firmware for east, and one for the west mounting ? and now there's only one. or did I imagine that ?

actually the more I think about it - that makes no sense. they say - mount it on the right, scope facing forward... ok.. but with asiair, it decides what way to move - and it PAs the the west (pier on east), and IT gotos with the pier on the west for easterly targets, and with pier on the east for easterly targets. BUT if you look at those phd2 alignment logs - the say 'pier side = west' always - yes, first one was west, but then pier side was east as in pic.. so.. does that explain why it doesn't work ? For those that DO have it working can you please post exactly how OTA mounted directions wise, where you targeted and calibrated and aligned ? stu

arg.. I think I screwed up - when pointing to west, I had pier to west (i.e. telescope on right as skywatcher said), but when I went to east sky, I moved it the same way as my EQ6-r had moved.... this seems to have pier on the east - see pic of them both pointing at cygnus. I think that's my screw up! - the firmware only works with pier west, and when I've been shooting stuff in the east I've had it as pic below. Should I have had it pointed at cygnus with the weights side high and the scope low, so that the mount was still in the west ? In pic , east is where the phone is pointing.

Here's my phd2 log from the night I tried 3.3 I'm not a phd2 guy, so don't really know how to interpret it ? Be great if someone could help ? But basically, I calibrated in west sky, then guided - and you can see it was guiding ok. I then moved to west sky and calibrated again.. it was terrible. I then repeated to try calibrating and guiding several more times, sometimes rebooting asiair - and you can still see the DEC running away ? PHD2_GuideLog_2021-08-12_225702.txt

could you zip it and PM 3.26 to me please ? I think that's the one that worked for me, and I seem to have deleted it. stu

I'll download older one just now then I flash one of em. Just build a little power box for each of them - they were sharing the one on my big mount previously. Now each has it's own - so lots of less wire clutter and they are now independently portable. 12v in, 3x12v out, plus 3 usb, plus the XT30 connector is 8.4v for DSLR (I have matching cables to dummy batteries for both DSLRs) So only 12v power lead to avoid getting twisted. 😀 Now just need to get the fecking guiding working again !! - Off up to scotland in motorhome in a week, and plan to bring at least one up, maybe 2 of em - but will stick to DSLR imaging I think on hols - so 135mm, 200, 300mm and maybe the 1.4 and 2x extenders. stu

it's a real pity no one has built out a plate solver for mobile - it would be so useful for exactly this sort of thing. 1. a mobile camera with some longer exposures (no need for live stacking, but hey - could be an extra) can easily show most nebulas 2. mobiles have crap loads of cpu power now - they'd locally plate solve quicker than most laptops. and lots of space so, could have locally - but hell, first version could just use https://nova.astrometry.net/upload online 3. a basic cheap mobile mount fitted to the eyepiece of your choice is easy for any telescope. Even without feedback to your mount from the mobile, this would tell you where you were, and could show what direction to move in, AND when you got there, you'd have a semi-live view of the DSO. If I had more time, I'd write one (wouldn't be my first app). In other words it seems to me that nearly all of us have a great EEVA in our pocket, which with the right software WITH plate solving, would open up the world of astronomy to a lot more folk ? This is the sort of thing a single exposure can get on a mobile: Which I think most beginners would think was awesome - I know i did when I took it back in january as my first every image after looking through my first ever telescope. Frankly, why sky safari doesn't add this is a mystery to me. In the meantime, you could still do this manually - but it would frankly not be fun imho. e.g. mount mobile. take photo, upload to plate solve, get coordinates, enter coordinates in sky safari - so where you are vs, where you want to be, move mount, repeat. However, saying that, YOUR main issue I think is with a 224 on a 9" SCT - I have the same issue with my 224 on my C8 - even plate solving fails here, as it's such a tiny tiny bit of the sky (well, fails on my asiair pro anyway) - there, for planets, I rely on a well aligned finder to put it in the cross hairs first.

Hmm not sure about that. I don't think a generic 2.1 has a rating ? A specific one might, and decent ones will be around 5-6 amps for 2.1 imho. for example hear is a 5.5/2.1 from RS rated to 5a: https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/dc-power-connectors/0487858/ But you also get ones rated only to 1a: https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/dc-power-connectors/7719186/ You are far more likely to get voltage losses from crappy thin wire than issues with connectors if you are putting 5-10amps through it. I use 5.5/2.1s everywhere, and have a number of 12v PSUs ratinged 4 amps to 8amps and all have 5.5/2.1s. never had any issues - and I use the cheapy 1a connectors to be honest. However I do agreed that using a male 5.5/2.1 in a female 5.5/2.5 is not going to lead to reliability. it's easy to just chop off the cable side plug and replace with the correct one (do measure voltage polarity - do not assume from the colour - positive pin is always positive (for our purposes*)). connectors on ebay for pennies. stu * with the exception of sony who tend to have negative centres for reasons best known to them.. but almost certainly to do with selling more sony stuff.

I got this one for 10 quid: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/184573856712 very good quality printout, works a treat - nice clear pattern. stu

Yo - just printed up this uber-portable setup for travelling. Print design is this one: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4667525 There are parts for either manual focus (with a level/lock), and for support of several electronic focusers - I have used the zwo EAF one here (with eaf mounted and belt/gears, etc but I printed manual bits too - as unless I'm shooting mono with it, I don't see the need for an EAF tbh. Very well designed, and fits it like a glove. Lets you use with astro cameras or with DSLR - seen here on an asi224, and 135mm with my L-extreme on the end, guide mount above. tripod screw on arm fits asiar pro, or whatever controller you are using, and all bottomed by a standard vixen mount. Printed in PLA on a new printer I got this week (old one still ok, but not as clean and sharp prints as used to be).

good point. Or, a 6000ft FL OTA ? stu

Hi Steve, I made the addition of mono about 2 months ago - I went straight from DSLR though - I see you already have a cooled OSC. But I've found it awesome. Especially narrowband. Not shot much RGBL tbh. 30 mins each on HSO gets me awesome results on most targets - that was never possible with the DSLR. stu

A bit of an artistic take on the Veil Nebula - I'm reminded of deep space nine. Canon 6d, Samyang 135mm, L-extreme 2". 77 x 180 sec subs. stacked, then starnet++, then manual processing in Affinity Photo with a bit of stars put back.

oops just realised I didn't add my darks. with some 6d stuff (bias only) and others asi1600 it's easy to forget. Will try to redo it.

Shot last night with asi1600 and C8. My asiair and EAF are refusing to autofocus reliably with Oiii and Sii filters even if I increase AF exposure, so shot AFed on Ha, then left for same for Oiii and Sii - which is why its a bit blurry. 10x180sec on each, with gain 139. stacked then processed in Startools (binned 2)