BCN_Sean

Looks very interesting! Going to get it on a virtual machine when I get chance to sit down and have a look properly.

I don't know the sort of pricing on them at the moment but the legs when I bought them were around the 180€ mark here, but I've a couple of Benro tripods and my Mach3 TMA27 handles a heafiter load of similar configuration quite well if it's only on the two upper stage leg sections; it probably could do it at full extent but I've only ever used the last stage of the legs on any tripod for levelling. Not too bad weight wise either, comes in just under 2kg and rated for a straight down load (so discount some of this for the axial shift of the mount/scope) of 12kg. I don't think you'd have any trouble with any of the ones recommended to you above, but when looking at tripods be wary of the odd named imports as (I didn't know this until an equipment importer I know explained it) where tripods that are targetting western markets are usually calculated by the least load in the system (so if the legs can take 12, but the head only 8, it's an 8kg load) but sets that are sold from eastern markets are usually marketed as the sum of the total load of each component so if something seems crazy high in it's load capacity for the price, then it's probably the summed component figure.

It's completely off line tonight, just checked it and it's a no-go.

Had a little break in the clouds, so had it out on the back for a bit and with a rough alignment, seems to track ok in EKOS and PHD2, next test the alignment tools and plate solving on it; but as there was a storm rolling in, only the important got tested.

The postie dropped off a big box of clouds, again, as well as a Svbony 165 guide scope for the carry about imaging rig which is a lot more robust than the pictures would say, some odds and sods electronic components; and a ASI120MC which I got for coins because "it didn't work on Linux" though after finding something on the Indilib forum posted by @alacant and a pot of brew, it'll do until I've got my head around the guiding side of things.

Superb! A punt around Antares is on my list for next month, don't think I'll get anything as spectacular as this but it's a bit of inspiration to go make something of it!

19ºC, good visibility with a bit of light fluff kicking around, a light breeze coming down the valley from the north west and the frogs are singing. Not worth getting anything out, though as it's the sort of conditions that will bring the clouds in short order.

Moltes gràcies, soc a prop de Berga. El web es una mica antic pero no tinc ganes per canviar res al moment! Back to English so others can follow in, though! Sorry for not replying sooner, late/early flip over as it's my weekend on call so bed was calling (and knowing how effective the work phone is, clear skies until Monday). Rather strangely, I've not looked at AstroAmics, I've had a couple of nudges from a couple of friends here but will do later on. Bon cap de setmana!

Greetings from the empty end of the province, o bé, benvingut al fòrum.

I'd never thought I'd look at a mounting unit and think "Hey, that's sweet....", but I just did. I'm just wondering if I'd be able to modify that to sit on my kit as down the line I'd like a RedCat, but the current kit is only a few millimeters the difference on the focussing ring.

Another Pi fan here, they are excellent little devices for this purpose and whilst it does have a few minor niggles, like not liking poor quality power supplies/cables and the USB 2 and 3 ports being a bit close together causing some frequency interference if you want to use things like USB 2 GPS / WiFi dongles (though that could be as well down to poor shielding jobs on cables that a few wraps of grounding tape from touching the plug metal to about 5cm up the cable and two minutes will solve) and the Pi 4 bottlenecking a bit if using an SD card over a USB drive. For the price / performance view on them, they are as good as any budget laptop but fully tooled about half the price; and as with what Pete said above about the software updates, without doing a full Linux install on a laptop, that's a pretty strong pull for me as well especially in a control system environment.

The village carpenter has a little doo-dah called a Digi-Pas, it's a twin axis level with a bluetooth connection and an app so it can be levelled off without actually being able to see the level. Cost wise it wasn't cheap at about 200€ but at the same time I don't think I'd be able to build something as precise (0.1º) with a similar sort of capability once I've taken the time in to account for less.

I don't know if it is the copyright, but could just be that because it was later than the Messier, NGC/IC, Hershell that it was overlooked somewhat; and then whilst we've a idea to some degree on it and by relation Patrick Moore and The Sky at Night, to one of my astronomic friends here it may be totally overlooked as there's not the same associations.

Caldwell-Catalogue.pdf Here's the copy of the one I keep on the mobile, just waiting patiently until it's possible to be useful again.

I've always felt like that with it; it's one of them surprise packages which really does put manufacturer's own offerings to shame and the bonus with it is that when the manufacturer ends support for a calibrator is that it usually still will work in DisplayCal for a long time after and produce results. I've a Spyder2Express and a 5Pro and even though the former was "out of date" a few years back, I can't tell the difference between one or the other when I've done a profiling run. It's one of them bits of software that truly does give the hardware value for money.

Usually it's an icon in the system tray down the bottom right near the clock, hover your mouse over them to see if something (usually with the name of the graphics card manufacturer) pops up. As for DisplayCal taking it's time, on mine it takes anywhere between three quarters to an hour and the results do seem better than the fast sequence in the brand software.

First off check if the laptop has any ancillary functions running that relate to graphics; some companies like to bundle "helper" software in to the driver package, usually can be found down in the task bar and can be a pain in the sitting tool with overriding things, kill it and leave it dead. Also, before you start, make sure that there's nothing like auto-brightness (or these scaling warm modes that simulate daylight when it gets dark) set up on the monitor and that you have the display settings (RGB) set as flat as possible, and the brightness set to what the software recommends. Another handful of things, first is to let the display warm up for at least half an hour (even with these LCD the colour can drift a bit) before calibrating, then make sure the room where you are calibrating is neutral light (no strong light sources, daylight) and if the backlight of the screen is projected through the top case, in a similar way to how the older Macbook Pro would illuminate the logo, make sure the calibration panel isn't over that as light/colour from behind could affect the measurements. I've been using Spyders and DisplayCal for years, and when you say it does look a bit green on the blacks/greys I've had a couple of displays that when calibrated do look a bit like that and the best measure to see if it looks right is to fix the image up on the calibrated screen and then look at it on an uncalibrated one as the eye is used to looking at uncalibrated colour all the time and sometimes using a calibrated screen seems "wrong" because it's not what your used to.

Nothing more interesting at the moment than a dedicated set of good quality USB cables for the kit; I've had a headache with a job I got called in to "fix" (after being installed by some so called experts), and the culprit was a tuppence-ha'penny USB cable that any sensible person wouldn't charge the phone with, let alone use as a power/serial connector. Didn't want that risk with the rig when I'm finally let out at night again.

I don't think I've gone crazy, just quicker. Before the lockdowns and curfew here I'd have probably had five or six hours a week to sit down and learn things, but now I can dedicate days at once to getting stuck in to learning things. All in, I think I'm going to come in about a two hundred above my original envisaged budget on the initial build of the current rig as I've put a couple of things in that I'd not thought about until after seening things on here or practising with bits as they came in (like GPS on the Astroberry, as the Pi doesn't have RTC).

This here is an AF unit I built taking some code I found for a Moonlite Protocol focuser from Github, but I've added (quite) a few modifications to it. First thing that the code didn't have was any way to compensate for backlash, so I've worked that one in to it; and then the other big thing which annoys me with building things on to an Arduino is when it comes to setting defaults, it's either get in to the code and change lines or build in a capability for reading from an SD card. Neither of which have ever seemed to me as an integrated solution. In that, I've put in a function where it is possible to use the Serial Monitor in Arduino to send a few commands to the board and set the defaults that way, as well as a modified EEPROM to save them when the power is off. To access that, once the sketch is uploaded, open the Serial Monitor, set the baud rate to 57600 (others will work, but you will have to change the first line of the sketch to match, and then upload) and really important set the serial monitor to "No Line Endings" as that can corrupt serial data. After that, type :?# in to the Serial and send it to receive a list of what can be set (backlash compensation, default temperature, temperature compensation threshold, save/reset). Also on that, with the drive buttons, the step forward and backwards, these have a set of options on them as well. If the reverse button is held down at power on, it will reset the starting position of the unit to 0, useful if mounting up against a hard stop (like on the camera lens I've built it on to). Both buttons held at power on will completely reset the internal memory and set everything back to default. Tested and working on Indi/Ekos The board used for this was an Arduino Nano flashed as an UNO, for all intents and purposes they are the same boards just under different packages; the pin assignments are the same for both. The motor was a 28BYJ-48 driven through an ULN2003a; this motor will run quite happily on a standard USB port, it's a very low current affair, and doesn't tax the power output on the USB 2 on a Raspberry Pi 4 with a good power supply (though with anything like this, a powered hub would be better). The temperature probe is a Dallas DS18B20, this is optional as the code will detect if it's there or not. The rest of the parts list is a 10nF ceramic cap, 330ohm resistor, a 5mm LED (any colour apart from blue!!!!), a 4k7ohm resistor for balancing the temperature sensor and a pair of non-latching push buttons, a piece of perf board and a box (as well as the final drive to focuser + mount). The only things to note with the circuit diagram, is that the pins assigned for the motor controls and the leds show to the relative analog pin position, but within the code itself are assigned to the digital pin which shares the same pin. Here's the circuit diagram: A couple of shots of what it looks like both mounted (that's going to change, as the last thing on to the system will be the proper mounts, and then whatever optic on it) and the internals. I've just realised that the capacitor isn't visible in the photo below as it's positioned underneath the DIP holder I've used for the ULN2003a. And here's the sketch, open it, read the headers as the libraries needed are linked from there; download them, copy them to your Arduino/Libraries folder (in the sketchbook); the circuit diagram is also in the zip. Nano_Moonlite_Focuser.zip @barbulo

I found a moonlite type code on Github, then it was built up with an Arduino Nano and a small 5v stepper motor. When I get some time in a bit, I'll make a thread on it in the DIY.

What surprised me was how easy (and cheap) it was to put together, if you are a tad handy with a finger burner then the hardest thing is working out a mount. When I've got things a bit more settled on mine, there's a few bits in the code that I still need to look, I'll be getting it up in DIY in case folk want to crib some ideas.

I've got both a Baht and a Moonlite protocol AF system which I put together; and after having a look at both (though even with building things, it makes the cloud god angry so not had that much testing time) I'd have to say that for imaging the AF is better but if (when) I get an ST80 for a quick visual it'd probably not be worth spooling up the AF system. The biggest advantage of the AF system over the Baht I've found at the moment (aside from it being a bit more precise than fingers on a focus ring or stopping ring creep) is I've not got a nag in the back of the head if I've set up and then I've got to go to work about losing x of the sequence due to slippage or temperature changes. To me, the Baht is good enough for where I am at the moment, but having the AF and sequencer on it just reduces the failure risk a little.

I've done that as well, many times. So much so that I got a 6mm nut, glued a rare earth magnet on to, then threaded it with a metre of string and keep it in an old film canister in the part of my kit bag that's the furthest away from anything that can be affected by magnets.

A Pi Zero is a great bit of kit for a small repetetive process, but it'll soon cough when faced with Astroberry; and from a design point, it's limited by the two (one of which would be taken up by a power supply) micro USB ports. A 4 or 8GB Pi 4 kit would be a better investment for a task like this.