Psionmark

On 01/08/2022 at 15:46, CKP said:

Hi Space Hopper,

Sorry for sounding over dramatic. At the time of writing this I felt a little disheartened. Reading yours and everyone else's posts, I have realised I was putting to much pressure on myself to get it right on my first night and in an hour 😆 

I have looked on YouTube, however most the videos are converted to eq mounts rather than being standard.

I've been down that route It took approximately 1 entire observing season (so basically a year) for me to get to the point where I can be outside grabbing EAA images with my setup within about 10 minutes of thinking about it. It took a LOT of trial and error, new kit, repurposing of old kit, trying to understand what I'm doing lol. I've still a long way to go, but at least I'm now at the point where I spend more time observing and less time head-scratching.

Keep at it - it's well worth it  I also have the AZ-GTI and plate-solving works a treat but, as others have said, start with the basics and build up.

Thanks both 😀 That helps - looks like it should be okay. I should be able to move the whole thing around a bit to avoid stuff getting in the way - one of the main appeals of this setup.

You both pleased with your Starsense? I've made some expensive mistakes so far lol, so am hoping this will be more suited to me.

 Thanks for the reply. That's good news. I don't mind some minor adjustments so long as it gets me close 😀

Does the mirror for the phone mount point straight up? e.g. if the scope is level, would the mirror being pointing 90 degrees upwards? It's hard to tell from the photos. Reason I'm asking is quite often if I'm looking at an object, then 90 degree "upwards" from that would quite possible be pointing at my house or some trees, so that would impact the plate solving. If it points in the same direction as the scope then that wouldn't be an issue.

Hi folks,

I'm seriously considering a Starsense Explorer, either the DX5 or DX6. Does anyone have any experience of these under fairly light polluted skies? If so, how well does the plate solving work in those conditions?

According to Clear Outside, I'm Bortle 5, although it often seems worse, probably because of the 2 unfortunately positioned streetlights very close to my observing spot.

Regards,

Mark

This is the reason this might be next scope. I think I've been trying to overcomplicate things - I've got my scope set up on an AZ-Gti mount and a MiniPC attached and it can do whizzy stuff like plate solve to get an exact alignment etc, but it's just too much messing about for me. I want to get back to basics and this seems ideal. No batteries, no power needed (apart from phone, obviously lol) and the bit about being able to just pick it up and move it somewhere else and carry on is probably the thing to seal it for me!

I paid £175 for my MeLe, which I still think is a good spec, especially for that price

I picked up the Mele Quieter2 mini PC last week. I first installed Jump Desktop on it (my remote access software of choice) and then the rest I did headless - all worked fine.

I'm running CDC, SynScan Pro mount controller, ASPS and SharpCap. It all runs nicely, platesolving and live stacking - very pleased with it after a monster-battle trying to get Stellarmate working lol.

On 01/01/2022 at 21:17, Padraic M said:

Hi Ian, I was looking into this today, and while it's not 100% gospel (no specs whatsoever on the MeLE website), it actually looks like it runs on 12V, not 5V. Cuiv the Lazy Geek just bought a cable to convert from DC jack to USB C male and it didn't blow up; also, an Amazon listing shows:

Interestingly the same Amazon listing says:

  

I'm using the Pegasus Pocket Powerbox Advanced so the equivalent USB C male - 2.1mm DC jack female is also available for €6.

I'm thinking of pushing the button on this.

I’ve just got one of these Mini PC’s and am looking for a portable power solution. So could I use one of the AAOTOKK adapters above with a 5v to 12v converter plugged into my powerbank? I currently use a 5v to 12v to power my mount but it’s only .8 Amp.