savcom

7 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Perhaps you meant to quote somebody else. I’m actually ok with the new LED lights where I live 👍🏻

You'd made the point that the 'Former can be very hard to deal with'.  I was replying to that point.  Sorry for the confusion.

21 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

The switch to LED in my area was positive for me. But it depends on many variables including the location, height & design of the luminaries, the distance between them, the type of LED. I’ve also seen comments about the type of road surface- reflective or not.

Also depends  on whether the problem is light directly accessing your observing spot or general background light pollution. Former can be very hard to deal with 

I've heard that it's possible to discus with some councils about the addition of baffles on the lights to minimise spillage of light into (say) your property.  It's worth maybe asking your council if this is possible.

Bad luck about the possible TIA - hope that gets resolved for you as quickly as possible.

Sorry, I didn't mean to hassle you, but I also have a C270 webcam and I'd seen the same video as you about using the 7/16 drill.  I was going to do something very similar to you and possibly couple it to an old Jessops Newt I have.  My thought is for EEVA.

Might be worth keeping tabs on each other to see how we get on.

Martin

How have you got on with the images? Any joy with these yet?

What are you planning for gathering images? / what targets?

What scope are you running it on?

On 08/02/2021 at 19:40, Sluke321 said:

Hi all,

First time taking the Binoculars out tonight and I lost the end cap for the centre bolt/thread. (See photo)

They are Pentax SP 8x40

 

I have had a quick look on google and can’t find spare parts anywhere. 
 

Can anyone offer some advice on where to find it?Thanks in advance

Don't forget - Pentax are now Ricoh Imaging.  There's a contact form here that may help you if you're UK/Europe-based:

https://www.ricoh-imaging.eu/uk_en/contact/

Good luck

Thanks everyone.  It wasn't what I expected first time out and that's for sure!

I had intended to take some more of just the core to allow more leeway with processing these pics but, as I said, the battery died in the camera.

I do have a flattener fiitted to the scope but the spacing isn't right yet (I'm mounting the camera with a 1.25" eyepiece adapter, not a proper T2 mount).  The T2 mount is expected to arrive this week so I'll measure the distances up properly afterwards.

Still chuffed to bits - and Running Man came out quite well too.

1 hour ago, johninderby said:

You can set the automatic follow option for threads ypu start or post in.

Just open the notification settings in your account settings and set the options.

Thanks John

On 27/01/2021 at 16:57, symmetal said:

I have a couple of the Synscan brackets which came with the HEQ5 and EQ3 Pro Synscans which I don't use. The brackets are the same for both of the Synscan units shown. If you want to send a pre-stamped 'jiffy' type bag I'll give one of the brackets to you. It even comes with instructions on how to fix it to the tripod legs. 😀 It weighs 50g to give an idea of postage costs.

 

Alan

Ooh!  Thank you very much!

I foolishly didn't set the 'follow topic' on this so I didn't see your reply.  I'll drop you a PM right now.

Martin

2 hours ago, MrZuiko said:

Hi thanks for the help.......I've managed to get Siril working by downloading version 0.9.12 which has the DSLR scripts which I have processed my first attemptat  imaging of The Andromeda Galaxy,I've posted the image here....I'm very happy with the result even tho there was a bright moon light!

Ash.

I'll take a look.  Where did you post it?

Was the guide I did helpful?  It's helped me remember what order to do things in if nothing else.

My first light for my Altair 72EDF refractor was processed using Siril and finished in GIMP (it was stacked in DSS, however)  I posted it here

On 09/12/2020 at 15:50, Anonymous Astronomer said:

Hello,

You can only use it on one of the individual channels (R,G or B ).

Here is a nice video about image processing that also includes SiriL.

Cheers,
Vlad 

Hi.  I've used the video you linked to and it is well presented.  I have scripted the steps that Scott made in the clip.  I've attached these as a PDF document.

SirilWorkflow.pdf

On 17/11/2020 at 16:36, StevieDvd said:

I have seen a few comments around suggesting adding an aerial to the Raspberry Pi - but it does seem a little tricky and in the case of an ASIair could invalidate the warranty.

However, I did find this page on adding an external wifi aerial to a TPLink portable router in case anyone wanted to try it out.

I'm not sure that the modification works.  I've got one on a modified TL-702 which is connected to an Omni aerial outside.  Monitoring the signal in the garden I find it is no more powerful than a similar unmodified unit placed in a window..

It may work better if I try a directional aerial though.  Not tried that yet.

1 minute ago, johninderby said:

3D print file.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2611384

Or try FLO as I’m sure they could order the SW one.

Thanks - but I have said I have no access to a 3D printer.

I could try a supplier and see if they can souirce an original part.  Hadn't considered that.

(I'm not sure if this belongs here or in the Wanted Classified section, but I'll try here first).

I'm getting paranoid about dropping my handset and it hitting my patio, so I was wondering if anyone can point me at a holder for the handset that attaches to the mount or tripod.  I'm looking at smartphone mounts for cars or tripods as a possibility, but again, it's fixing these to the mount in a sensible way.  I've also seen this thread about a DIY version but I've no access to a 3D printer to get one made. 

Does anyone have any suggestions - apart from the Velcro option which I don't want to explore.

Thanks in advance.

19 minutes ago, Stu1smartcookie said:

Cheating ?... depending on light pollution it was probably a necessary evil , shall we say . But finding the targets oneself does give satisfaction 

Well - they were harder targets.  I'd have rather found the DSOs myself, though, by star-hopping, but the moonlight was pretty bright.

As a beginner, I'm also getting my head around how the heavens move around us as the seasons change. 

I tried binocular observing while my scope and mount were being used for photographing M42.  I managed Mars and Uranus and Andromeda, but gthey were all close to the moon and suffering from moon-glow.  The Pleaides were even worse!

I therefore turned round and looked east and found it was easier to find targets there, where the moon glow was less.  I managed M35 in Gemini and M44 in Cancer.

After the photographs were done I used the GoTo on my EQ5 to find some other fainter items but those were 'cheating' as the mount did all the work.

NGC2264 - Christmas tree cluster

NGC2301 - Hagrid's Dragon / Great Bird / Copeland's Golden Worm

It's not easy starting off and you do need to be both patient and methodical in your movements to minimise shake etc.  Well worth persevering though.

Last post this evening - the two eyepieces are also cleaned.

The scope came with 10mm and 25mm Plossls which are adequate to start with.  New eyepieces are on order but not delivered yet ...

Without their covers on the eyepieces again need a clean, so using the blower I removed the dust and then, with lens cleaner and cotton buds I got rid of much of the grease and dirt.

This looks a little smeary so I will see in the morning to see if this can be improved.

The next step in this refurbishment was to inspect and clean the finderscope.  On the 150/750 the finderscope is a 9x50 unit with a cross-hair reticule supported in the standard Skywatcher finderscope mount.  

As with the diagonal this hasn't been protected much against the elements and both objective and eyepiece lenses were quite grubby.  I will need to source new covers for this scope, so if anyone knows the diameters of the covers or the Skywatcher part numbers, please let me know. Thanks.

Looking at the objective you can see that it is pretty grubby again:

It's harder to see, but the eyepiece is just as grubby

I checked the internal surface of the objective and found it was clear (and so it should be - it's not exposed to the elements) but I did notice the non-reflective coating of the finderscope will need to be re-done when I repaint the scope.

After blowing the dust off the objective, I then cleaned with lens cleaning fluid and cotton buds.  Pretty dirty again as you can see.

Here's the eyepiece after cleaning

And finally the objective after cleaning

I then started on the optical parts of the scope.  These steps are basic housekeeping that should have been done by the previous owner, Anyways - on with the refurb, starting with the diagonal:

Here is a view into the diagonal.  I've tried to focus on the surface of the mirror to show you wnat the state of the optics were.  Pretty dreadful.

The diagonal is held together by four bolts on the base. 

Undoing these and gently separating the base shows the mirror is on top of a thick piece of glass supported by two softer pieces, one to provide blackness and one to support the mirror in the diagonal

Here is a picture of the mirror...

First stage was to blow as much of the crud away as possible before any cleaning could be done

That made a large difference, but it was only after cotton buds and lens cleaning liquid was used that any real improvement was made

The result - much better.  And before you say the surface is still dirty, I was using a piece of foam above the mirror to force the camera to focus on the mirror surface.  Now, the surface is so clean, you are seeing the surface of the foam in the picture.

After blasting any dirt out of the diagonal housing, I carefully re-assembled the diagonal and repeated the first view showing a much better mirror surface.

Next step: Finder scope.

26 minutes ago, mikeDnight said:

I love these scopes! They make great comet seekers, and show some of the best views of open star clusters and nebulae. If it were mine I'd give it a respray and mount it on a sturdy Altazimuth so I could glide aimlessly through the constellations, soaking up the glorious diamond dust vistas. The finest view of the double cluster in Perseus I've ever had was through a Helios 6" F5. Something I'll never forget!

Thanks for this - I couldn't find many favourable comments about the scope when I was researching it.  Everyone says it was too fast, so would have chronic CA, but for me, who is also interested in DSOs, a scope capable of decent wide-field views is just what I want.  I know I can't expect great results if I image, but I have just bought a 72mm ED refractior which will do that, so I can shoot through one scope and observe through this one.

I fully intend a respray in time togetrher with a refurb of the mechanical parts of the scope.  Optical steps first though, as you will see.

For now, that's as far as I want to go with the mount. I do want to service it, but I hope the service will form additional posts in this thread at a later date.  For now, I want to start some of the initial refurbishment of the scope optics, beginning with the diagonal.

I had noticed that some of the buttons on the handset were not making contact without a firm press, so I opted to carry out a basic service of the internals of the handset.

Turning the handset over shows four screws in the base:

Once these are released the cover can be removed - but a word or caution.  While the main PCB remains attached to the base due to age, the LCD display is screwed to the top, so, if you are not careful splitting the base from the top you will put strain on the LCD cable and risk damaging it.

When opening the unit therefore you should carefully ensure that the main PCB comes up with the top of the handset and stays with the display.

Once fully separate you can gently fold the main PCB back over the display so that it is ready for a clean

You can see that the switches are the black contacts in the silicone rubber membrane that make contact when pressed, to the gold contacts on the main PCB.

I then gently cleaned each of the PCB switch contacts with a fibreglass pencil to wipe away any tarnish or deposits and then wiped every contact with a cotton bud soaked on electrical contact cleaner.

and as you can see, there was a fair amount of crud picked up on the bud.

I did the same to the keyboard membrane:

The final stage was to reassemble the handset taking care to reseat the membrane properly and fold back the main PCB.  I made sure the LCD flexible cable was properly seated in the connector on the main PCB

After re-assembling the case I then took another bud and cleaned the contacts on both the RJ12 and RH45 sockets.  If you do this, make sure you only slide up and down the connector fingers.  Don't go from side to sdide or you risk damaging the socket and possibly the handset.

So that's the handset done now and ready for service.  In testing the handset does seem to respond more readily to key pushes, so this looks to have been successful.

I went ahead and updated the firmware using the procedure outlined in the Skywatcher documentation (making sure, as I had a V3 handset, that I downloaded the correct software for both my PC and the handset.  The software page for the V3 handset is

http://www.skywatcher.com/download/software/synscan-v3-hand-controller-firmware/

Powering on my handset with the original firmware showed this screen:

I then connected the handset to my computer using the lead I made above:

and powered the handset on with keys 8 and 0 pressed to put it into 'Update Mode' as you can see on the display.  Skywatcher refer to this as the bootloader, if you're looking on their site. V1.7 is the latest at the time of writing.

I then went through the steps outlined in the update notes and the new firmware is now installed:

I've connected this back to the mount and the setup I had originally stored (lang/lat and height) was still present.  The mount controls worked as expected.

10 minutes ago, DaveL59 said:

As a word of caution, you might want to check others opinion here as updating the firmware may not be that beneficial and can be a road to bigger problems. @malc-c and others here will know more than I on this. I've never upgraded mine as it works just fine.

Thank you @DaveL59.  It's true that there are arguments for and against upgrading firmware in devices that are working, but looking at the Skywatcher site I see that my old version of firmware (3.27) may have issues with the GPS module, so updating to the latest version (3.39.15 at the time of writing) corrects this and ensures other fixes are included.  Providing the sequence described in the Skywatcher notes are adhered to, there are no difficulties in updating the firmware. 

If anyone has experienced issues with newer releases of firmware, I would be happy to hear them.

After proving it all worked, and noting the condition of the optical train, I've gone ahead and built a lead to connect the handset to my computer, then used this to upgrade the handset to the latest version of firmware:

Cable first:

I ordered a 1m RJ12 '6P6C' cable from Amazon.  This allows me to make two cables.

The 'correct' colour coding for an RJ12 6P6C cable is as follows:

For the Synscan RS232 cable you need to wire three cores to a DB9 female.  These cores are:

RJ12 Pin 2 to DB9F Pin 2

RJ12 Pin 3 to DB9F Pin 5

RJ12 Pin 5 to DB9F Pin 3

If the colours in your RJ12 cable are correct, then this woud be:

Black to DB9F Pin 2, Red to DB9F Pin 5, Yellow to DB9 Pin 3. 

But you shouldn't rely on the colours being correct, so, Step 1 is to note the colours in the cable you have and see which pin they go to.  Mine was wired the wrong way round to the standard as you can see below.

So I need to connect:

Yellow (Pin2) to DB9F pin 2

Green (Pin3) to DB9F pin 5

Black (Pin 5) to DB9F pin 3

Step 2 - take the insulation off the cut end of the cable

Step 3 - Set the DB9F up for soldering (see the DB9F pins are numbered)

Step 6 shows the DB9F with the three cables soldered

You can cut off the three unused colours (Red, Blue and White)

And finally here is the finished cable ready for testing.

I've recently acquired a 'pre-owned' Skywatcher Startravel 150/750 refractor on an EQ5 mount upgraded with Synscan.  I hope to document my refurbishment of this scope one step at a time as a record of what I have done - and, hopefully, provide you with a) amusement and b) a guide if you should wish to do the same.

First steps were to put it all together and see if it works: