dave_tucker

Thanks @Alien 13 I'd have thought that I'd have seen DC voltage, not AC... but ho-hum. Rather than earthing everything I think I'll have better luck with a battery, or a linear PSU.

I've been rebuilding my EQ6... and when I put everything back together I was surprised when I felt a little electric vibration on the Dec Scale... and again on the counterweight shaft. Being curious as I am, my multimeter has a NCV function... If I point it at any part of the mount or tripod when it's plugged in, it detects voltage 🤯 Now, it's only supposed to alarm when there is > 90VAC... I was expecting it to be a grounding issue, but if I take a measurement from the mount or tripod to ground, I get a reading between 25VAC at basically 0.01mA🤔 I'm at a bit of a loss as to where the issue could be coming from.... any advice or suggestions appreciated.

This is not my work, but I saw this in the news today: https://astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2021/03/gigapixel-mosaic-of-milky-way-1250.html?m=1 It took 12 years, but the result is gorgeous

The postman brought me this rather tasty 102mm f7 ED Refractor. Hot off the SGL classifieds. First light will have to wait until FLO ship my rowan bearing removal tool so I can get my EQ6 ready for action... and a cloud free night of course.

I'm I'm the same boat as I've just bought a case. My local foam shop appears to offer CNC cutting so I might have a go at that. I don't trust myself to produce a decent result with a bread knife.

I echo that sentiment. Her EQ6 guide has been an invaluable reference for me. I've saved some PDFs from web.archive.org but there are some images missing unfortunately. I hope so too.

There is a download link to the exe on this page that seems to work. http://www.hitecastro.co.uk/index.php/support/item/hitecdcfocus2-software-download-version-1-3-copy.html

Oh also worth checking what the PowerBox is rated for. Once you've added up to see what your draw is you might still need to power the mount separately.

One of these: https://www.firstlightoptics.com/batteries-powerpacks/nevada-psw-30-25-30a-switch-mode-power-supply.html It depends what you are hoping to connect to it. Take a look at all your equipment and see what the current draw is. If it's more than 5A you'll need a bigger power brick. Above 10A you'll be looking at the ham radio type of power supplies linked above.

You can get great widefiields shots with just a tripod, DSLR and 50mm lens! Even the 105mm will work. Likewise you can see a lot of the night sky with the naked eye... and more with a pair of binoculars. I' wish I'd learned that before I bought my first scope. Both those books have a lot of good info on that! My advice would be to see where you passion lies (AP or observing)and invest accordingly as an good beginner setup for each is quite different.

As my EQ6 lies in bits while I rebuild it, I've been considering what other "upgrades" I can do... I noticed that the counterweight shaft has an M6 thread won't accept the extension bar from FLO https://www.firstlightoptics.com/sky-watcher-mount-accessories/counterweight-bar-extension-for-skywatcher-neq6.html The battery on my calipers has died, but eyeballing it the OD appears to be close to 18mm, which is identical to the extension bar. I know that a thread adapter might work, but a more elegant solution would be for someone with a lathe to bore out a larger hole and tap it with M12 thread. I'm curious if anyone has had this done? Or if there is anyone with a lathe that might be willing to do it - ideally within driving distance so I don't have to pay postage

My first successful image! (Thanks everyone for the pointers). Mars and M45, from my back garden - best not mention the 150 subs I dropped because the roof of the house was in them. Canon 70D on an EQ3-2, 50mm f1.8 (stopped down to f2), 142 x 6" subs. Processed in The GIMP.

All good advice thanks. I think I'll look for a target with the 50mm lens, ISO 1600 and subs of however long I can get without trails. I'll also leave the Pi indoors. I was thinking about using the Tokina but I find I get a lot of the houses, neighbors tree etc... at the edge of frame 😆

Gear: - Canon 70d (unmodified) - Tokina 11-20mm f/2.8 lens - Cannon 50mm f1.8 lens - Asahi Pentax SMC 135mm/f2.5 lens - Asahi Pentax SMC 200mm/f4 lens - EQ3-2 mount - Intervalometer - Raspberry Pi with Astroberry. I'm photographing unguided and untracked for now. I do have an EQ6 that I'm rebuilding and will use that for tracking and will add a guider later as my results improve. Attempt 1: I struggled to find a decent target to image with my setup - my garden faces East/South-East. I tried imaging Ursa Major, using my intervalometer. - 11mm f/2.8, 50 x 1 sec lights at ISO 128000. No darks (because I only took one set - doh!) - 50mm f/1.8 50 x 1/15 sec lights at ISO 1600. 20 darks, What I learned: - ISO 12800 is very noisy - 1 sec was too short of an exposure, I could have got away with longer without trailing - ISO1600 with 1/15 sec exposures captured practically nothing - I need to take darks after each set of lights Attempt 2: I tried M81 - not a great choice I know. This time, I used Ekos with the Cannon DSLR driver. 50 lights at 200mm/f4, ISO 1600, 0.25 sec exposure. 20 darks. What I learned: - 0.25 sec was too short - Using Ekos was a learning curve and cost me a lot of imaging time messing with formats, transfer settings etc... - The delay between subs was long. I think this delay is caused by sending image from camera -> pi, writing to disk etc.. but it feels like 10-20 seconds (i haven't timed it). Attempt 3: M42. Better target. Still using Ekos... but I didn't get out until later than planned and was thwarted as Orion went behind my house! This was compounded by the delay between subs mentioned earlier so I got only 1 or two useable frames. 50 lights at 200mm/f4, ISO 6400, 0.5 sec exposure, 20 darks. What I learned: - 0.5 sec is still too short - I need to plan better Overall I'm probably doing a lot wrong, but learning as I go, so please feel free to point me in the right direction. Before I head out again (tonight?) to try M42 I could do with some help: 1. To try and get Ekos to take quicker subs OR find another capture program OR revert back to intervalometer. 2. Reviewing the last set of Subs in DSS and they look almost black, barely any stars are visible. This makes me wonder whether I'm using the right setting on the camera? My plan is to keep everything the same but take 1 sec subs which at 200mm is apparently a fraction too long. When I ran the numbers it suggested 0.92s. Should I consider bumping the ISO higher at the expense of more noise?

These ones? EQDir Adapter - HitecAstro