BCN_Sean

Not done any seriously bad ones yet as I've not spent enough money to get to that point, but the other night I thought I'd lined up a touch above Sirius to get some more data in IC2177 before it got too low, thought I'd got M50 in the frame to use as my reference from the previous session, turned out it was M47.  Did have some fun though, first time I tried configuring EKOS on the Pi... I'd forgotten I'd left the one that usually lives under the TV turned on and loaded with the backup SD of Astroberry, and as that is connected to the hardwire the computer was latching on to that (bit of a red face on that one, as when work is quiet I moonlight as a network and systems tech).

1 hour ago, fozzybear said:

I came home one day and all my astro equipment put into tote bins to my horror. The kids have left home and a spare bedroom to store my stuff I thought. the horror 😱 

My other half can be like that, and she'll just throw everything in to places where she thinks is right; one day she put all the resistors I've got together in one tupperware (they're all blue, right?)... That was not what I had planned for that weekend!

57 minutes ago, Capt Slog said:

@BCN_Sean Sorry, I'm retired now, I can play all day but it still looks a shameful mess.   

Ah don't worry about that, nearly every week my other half comes in and starts complaining about the mess in my office (hers is pencil aligned perfect); and every time I'll tell her "A tidy desk is a sign of an empty mind..."

7 hours ago, Capt Slog said:

...

I've got shed jealousy! At best now I'm managing snatched hours here and there on the kitchen table... The downside of moving in to a first floor apartment!

Really liking the idea of the quick-release lever on the ring, might have to borrow that one for my current tinker project!

Overall, though, looks really neat and like it was bought not rattled up in the shed.

SiriL is my go to tool, but I must admit that when I first got in to it, it felt like trying to run across a muddy field.  There's still a lot of room where it could be improved (after all it's still not even version 1.0) and some stuff like background extraction on a sequence or multi-session sequence merging could be a tad more accessible or brought on to the UI in a useable manner.  Still with how well it works, it should get more traction and user feedback implementations once it's a "real" programme not a beta.

A vid I did find useful when getting the head around the post stacking side of it was this one: 

The other route to do it, would be to buy a "finderscope hot shoe adapter", Geopik make one and there are clones on e-bay, fasten the finder in to that and then slot it in to the flash shoe on the top of the camera.  Personally, though I'd go with malc-c's method, as whilst an adaptor doesn't need mods when it's all mounted up it soon becomes a bulky contraption that could rip the flash shoe off with a whack in the wrong direction.

38 minutes ago, niallk said:

Ah-ha!  Like a Bond villain's lair

Funny you should say that, but that's exactly what I said the first time someone explained this place to me; and thinking about it, I'm sure one of the large prints on the office wall at work is of this area at night which (aside from the fact that I've worked there five year and it's only just clicked) I'll ask the boss about when I get chance.

On 05/04/2021 at 09:47, niallk said:

Wow 😮

How do you even get up there?!!!

Looks spectacular- wonder if the public can visit...

It's got a public area on it and there's also an elevator built up to it through the mountain from the railway station underneath the mountain (Jungfraujoch).

1 hour ago, TerraC said:

...

 

 

Sounds like when the ssh session is terminating, it's also terminating the processes.

Have a look at "screen" to maintain an active task even if you're logged out of the ssh.  Here's the relevant page on the GNU website and here's a little cheatsheet with how to do things (basics would be start session/detach/attach).

The Star Adventurer 2i I've had backordered since January appeared today, wasn't expecting it to be honest (especially as the shop aren't that communicative), so no playing to be done tonight.  At least the forecast doesn't say cloud for tomorrow, but that'll change...

There is a quiet shooting mode on the D3200, but I'm not sure if that is the same as on the D810's I use as that slows the movement down some of the shutter and mirror.

Another way around it if you are doing attended shooting, though it's a bit cumbersome, is to get a black card (or table tennis paddle) hold that in front of the lens/objective, hit the shutter release and then move the black thing out the way.

6 hours ago, Dazzyt66 said:

I'm in OK! But I don't have a mini hdmi lead anyway... 😂

Ah man, there's always something to temper it!   I've one permanently connected to a HDMI switch to the side of my monitor, just so much easier to couple it and flick a switch out than fishing round the back of the screen to unplug (and as I've seen smoked graphics cards because of that as well, a switch is definitely a worthwhile security blanket).

As for the WiFi, my Astro is in a bit of a heavier duty radiator case than a FLIRC, and I've not found any issues with it so far.

6 hours ago, Dazzyt66 said:

the Rpi4 arrives today

Cool! Just watch out for something that's got me a few times before I realised... When setting it up and connecting it to a HDMI use the port that is closest to the power port as sometimes it looks like the device hasn't finished booting if it's in the other one and it has.

I've a couple of Pi for things, one of them for Astroberry and one thing I've found which really does make a difference to them is to not mess around with the MicroSD but set it to boot over USB and then use a fast USB drive or an external SSD.  I use these Sandisk on mine, and they don't stick out like the proverbial sore thumb.

The cable has a part number of UC-E16 or UC-E17, it looks like a standard mini-B but it's not, it's a proprietary terminal; can be had for under ten notes on Amazon.

On 15/03/2021 at 21:00, powerlord said:

Just an update that I'm using it in action for first time tonight - it worked perfectly - getting me a perfect pattern with the bahtinov mask at 10x liveview magnification - before hand trying to adjust focus at that was near impossible! so mission successful! - currently trained on M42 (again) - I'm sort of concentrating on the same target all the time to make sure any improvements I make in process are obvious.

stu

That's good to hear! It's a great feeling when home brew comes together.  Still waiting on my stuff, if I'm lucky it'll be the end of the month, but as there's nothing interesting off the balcony and we're still locked up at night things can wait.

I did make a start getting the head around Astroberry on the Pi and connecting in the focuser, but made the daft mistake of installing Kodi and the other half had a look and decided to put it under the TV, so had to order another Pi... Ah well, it'll keep me amused for a bit longer

4 hours ago, Nightshift Nob said:

 

Many thanks for the suggestions, ill be sure to give them a try when i get some down time...Working off a laptop probably doesnt help things either with only the very basic screen calibration options availabe. A monitor is on my eventually to do list...

For fine control of calibration I'd say an external calibration tool (something like a Spyder5EXPRESS or X-Rite i1) would be a better option than just relying on monitor controls; wouldn't do much in your situation where website (a la Facebook) compression is causing image problems, but over all would make image colour work a lot more precise.

Just to roughly balance a monitor there is this https://www.photofriday.com/info/calibrate

2 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

I don't think I have ever been anywhere so eternally beset by rain!! At least on the French side

Not a lot different on the other side of them, some folk from back home (North Derbyshire/Peak District) think I'm pulling their leg when I tell them that we get more rain, snow and cold than they do especially as they think Spain is a warm holiday country.

The village where I live 20.6 mag right in the centre and then going out to ~21.5 on the edge of the municipal bounds.

Very timely! I've an 8GB due in tomorrow which I'm planning on putting Astroberry on, though the other bits for the kit still aren't here; I'll keep my eye out for that error and see if it pops up when I'm going through things.

A few diffraction spikes don't take away from the overall image there!

I'm getting a bit green with envy with you lot with the ST80's!  Seems to be a fair old drought on the AZ3 kits at the moment, but a local spot may have a shipment of Omegon badged ones in next week; keeping the fingers crossed for that, as either importing from the UK or part hunting would soon have the cost in to something that isn't a sit on the balcony with a pot of tea type scope.

You've got your co-ordinates out, the ones you've got there will put you in to the North Sea east of the Scottish Border.

14 minutes ago, powerlord said:

Ah, we've taken a bit of a different approach there then - I played about with different libraries and found the AccelStepper one ran really smooth and cool so used that one.

I'll run your code and see how it runs. Mine attached if you want to modify and try mine (my 5 button control is a 1 wire analogue one so you'd need to modify, etc)

stu

 

stu.stepper.ino.zip 1.73 kB · 0 downloads

Cheers Stu, I'll have a look at it later when I get chance!