MaltaNewtF4

I just posted this elsewhere on another thread, hope it helps you: I spent 4 hours today really trying to make the inside of my scope dark in the daytime. My observing location is quite light bright With an f4 8 inch Newt Astrograph my darks taken on the scope have some reflected light gradients and spikes and my 240s subs mostly have weird spectral rings and gradients that just cannot come from sky conditions. OK, the cover doesn't totally block the light, but I'm not so worried about that, as I want light frames to be all light from the sky and I can do darks with that covered in material while parked or on the bench. But on the bench in the daytime, with the front covered, it's like a theme park in there, when the fireworks are going on! So I started tracing the issues at the mirror end, adding self adhesive velcro strip between the mirror frame and the mirror holder frame (a 1.5cm wide strip does the trick). But the areas around the adjustment bolts let in light so they needed more velcro. gaffer tape, nothing would stop the little holes, and I wasn't willing to disassemble my nicely collimated F4! I also used a smartphone camera light to shine at the mirror. Then I remembered the black bag that a motorbike helmet came in, and I found with it a smaller bag for the visor. Putting both on the end, with them already elasticated and black, bingo! 240 second dark frame. no light.....from that end...l I moved the covers from around the camera and focuser......and Oh No - more light! I read up on focussers and how not to worry about the small amount of light they let in through the gap to allow the tube to go up and down. But, the dark shots (now that he mirror end was sorted) showed me the culprit for the weird circular refractions...yep focuser leakage onto the secondary and onto the primary and back to the camera.....What to do?....Baffles Baffles...hmmm....oh flock it!? a special adhesive skirt around the focuser tube that could ride up and down with the focus? Er - queue brainwave!!!. I found an old black sock, cut the foot part off, and yippee, the leg part of the sock covers the base of the focuser right up to the camera ring. And this sock still had good elastic to hold it securely. And another test....very very small amounts of light....but most acceptable for a budget solution! I really could see the gradients and rainbow patterns on my lights, and even after applying flats, darks etc....so I would suggest the loss of a sock and an old black bag, a good investment! Astronomy is sooo romantic.

I just posted this elsewhere on another thread, hope it helps you: I spent 4 hours today really trying to make the inside of my scope dark in the daytime. My observing location is quite light bright With an f4 8 inch Newt Astrograph my darks taken no the scope have some reflected light gradients and spikes and my 240s subs mostly have weird spectral rings and gradients that just cannot come from sky conditions. OK, the cover doesn't totally block the light, but I'm not so worried about that, as I want light frames to be all light from the sky and I can do darks with that covered in material while parked or on the bench. But on the bench in the daytime, with the front covered, it's like a theme park in there, when the fireworks are going on! So I started tracing the issues at the mirror end, adding self adhesive velcro strip between the mirror frame and the mirror holder frame (a 1.5cm wide strip does the trick). But the areas around the adjustment bolts let in light so they needed more velcro. gaffer tape, nothing would stop the little holes, and I wasn't willing to disassemble my nicely collimated F4! I also used a smartphone camera light to shine at the mirror. Then I remembered the black bag that a motorbike helmet came in, and I found with it a smaller bag for the visor. Putting both on the end, with them already elasticated and black, bingo! 240 second dark frame. no light.....from that end...l I moved the covers from around the camera and focuser......and Oh No - more light! I read up on focussers and how not to worry about the small amount of light they let in through the gap to allow the tube to go up and down. But, the dark shots (now that he mirror end was sorted) showed me the culprit for the weird circular refractions...yep focuser leakage onto the secondary and onto the primary and back to the camera.....What to do?....Baffles Baffles...hmmm....oh flock it!? a special adhesive skirt around the focuser tube that could ride up and down with the focus? Er - queue brainwave!!!. I found an old black sock, cut the foot part off, and yippee, the leg part of the sock covers the base of the focuser right up to the camera ring. And this sock still had good elastic to hold it securely. And another test....very very small amounts of light....but most acceptable for a budget solution! I really could see the gradients and rainbow patterns on my lights, and even after applying flats, darks etc....so I would suggest the loss of a sock and an old black bag, a good investment! Astronomy is sooo romantic.

Hello, just to reawaken this, I spent 4 hours today really trying to make the inside of my scope dark in the daytime. My observing location is quite light bright With an f4 8 inch Newt Astrograph my darks taken no the scope have some reflected light gradients and spikes and my 240s subs mostly have weird spectral rings and gradients that just cannot come from sky conditions. OK, the cover doesn't totally block the light, but I'm not so worried about that, as I want light frames to be all light from the sky and I can do darks with that covered in material while parked or on the bench. But on the bench in the daytime, with the front covered, it's like a theme park in there, when the fireworks are going on! So I started tracing the issues at the mirror end, adding self adhesive velcro strip between the mirror frame and the mirror holder frame (a 1.5cm wide strip does the trick). But the areas around the adjustment bolts let in light so they needed more velcro. gaffer tape, nothing would stop the little holes, and I wasn't willing to disassemble my nicely collimated F4! I also used a smartphone camera light to shine at the mirror. Then I remembered the black bag that a motorbike helmet came in, and I found with it a smaller bag for the visor. Putting both on the end, with them already elasticated and black, bingo! 240 second dark frame. no light.....from that end...l I moved the covers from around the camera and focuser......and Oh No - more light! I read up on focussers and how not to worry about the small amount of light they let in through the gap to allow the tube to go up and down. But, the dark shots (now that he mirror end was sorted) showed me the culprit for the weird circular refractions...yep focuser leakage onto the secondary and onto the primary and back to the camera.....What to do?....Baffles Baffles...hmmm....oh flock it!? a special adhesive skirt around the focuser tube that could ride up and down with the focus? Er - queue brainwave!!!. I found an old black sock, cut the foot part off, and yippee, the leg part of the sock covers the base of the focuser right up to the camera ring. And this sock still had good elastic to hold it securely. And another test....very very small amounts of light....but most acceptable for a budget solution! I really could see the gradients and rainbow patterns on my lights, and even after applying flats, darks etc....so I would suggest the loss of a sock and an old black bag, a good investment! Astronomy is sooo romantic.

Also tried altering the com port settings in the prolific driver in device manager - longer timeouts and buffers may help. Clear night tonight so will have a go later.

Hi, New to the Forum, but have been lurking for quite a while, preparing for the arrival of my NEQ6 and F4 8in Newtonian. I have been having the same mount limits on / with USB to handset / mount stopping issues. I tried changing baud rates and running every program as administrator, but no change. Experimenting indoors is best. Then I found a setting in EQASCOM. You can change the processing priority of EQASCOM. I set this to the second highest level. This instantly cured the problem, and I can slew, track and image through a USB hub for all hardware. Makes sense when you think about it, as the comms from EQASCOM to mount should be place higher priority than, say, imaging or mouse or even guide camera. Confession, not tried it "live" outdoors with PHD2 on, we shall see, but the suggestion is there . And thanks to all for the help in providing lots of info to help with setting up.