LaurenceT

I'm unclear why a phone and a tablet are needed for this, on my Ipad Pro I connect the Ipad to the Az Gti hotspot, open Synscan Pro and connect the Ipad to the mount. I then open SkySafari, click "connect " and then I can control the mount. What I'm not clear about is whether the mount is actually pointing exactly at the new location it has slewed to or where the SkySafari app thinks it should be. I'm also confused with the park/home/hibernate settings of the mount when it's being controlled by SkySafari.

I had success in selecting "Skywatcher SynscanLink" as the Scope Type and Equatorial GoTo (German) as the Mount Type. Looking at the app I can't determine the port I selected.

I'm just starting out configuring Stellarmate so I'd be interested to know what problems you've been encountering. The man reason I've chosen the Stellarmate over the Asiair is that the latter does not support my Sony camera and of course the Stellarmate is cheaper when used with the Raspberry pi.

I'll try that tomorrow, cheers

The sd card with Stellarmate OS on is possibly not big enough to contain all the data, that's why I thought a USB drive just dedicated to data storage would be a neater solution.

Thanks for the reply, I've just found a 64Gb USB flash drive so I'll format it to Fat32 and stick it in the Pi. My only concern is creating a folder to save the images to.

I'm just getting to grips with Stellarmate OS on a Pi4, I've got to the stage where all my equipment is connected and all drivers installed, I can control the mount from my Windows laptop remotely. Rather than have the image data sent back over wifi to the Win10 machine during an imaging session I'd like to add a usb stick to the Pi but I have a couple of questions before I start and muck everything up! My knowledge of Linux is restricted to being able to open a terminal window and type in exactly what I'm told to. I will simply connect the Pi to a mains power source and connect a monitor, keyboard and mouse for this process. So, 1) what do I need to type into terminal to permanently mount the usb drive? 2) how do I create a directory on the usb drive to store the image files as they are created during an imaging session? 3) how will I be able to transfer these files back to my Windows machine for editing? Sorry for all the noob questions and thanks for looking

A 130PDS for £60 is amazing! What mount did you use for this image?

Took my £60 Orion ST80 into the garden at about 23.30, lovely clear night in Surrey but you could hardly call the sky dark. Although this little scope was clearly at it's limits I easily found M42 and gazed in wonder. No colours but it's shape was clearly defined. I wish I'd started this years ago.

From what I've read here and elsewhere it seems that you get what you pay for in terms of the premium UHC filters but Astronomik have 2 UHC offerings, the UHC and the UHC-e. There is a considerable cost differential between the two, is this borne out in the observing effect? Are these UHC and OIII filters discussed here confined to observing or can they be used for imaging too?

Speeding up the focusing on the Maksutov would be an advantage, I'll look into it, thanks for that. I'm having a slight issue with a Skywatcher focus motor on the Orion ST80 I bought for an excellent price recently. It came with the focus motor already installed, I wouldn't have chosen that combination but the price was simply too good. The outward travel of the focus tube is fine but the inward travel is prone to suddenly stop, the motor pausing. I can overcome it by reversing the direction slightly and then restarting the inward travel and it goes OK. I think it's either some torsion of the bracket or something to do with backlash which is apparent.

The red dot finder on my 127Mak would have been perfect if I'd been 3ft tall but using it meant virtually lying down in the grass, not desirable at my advanced age. I did think about the Rigel but opted for the Telrad because of various height extension options. It does look somewhat weird on my short Maksutov but no one is looking except me.

I bought the Skywatcher auto focus unit and also had some bits made up by a fellow in Portugal specifically to fit the 127Mak with the dovetail bay positioned for an alt az mount. Works very well but because of the long focus travel of the Mak I disengage the belt from the focus knob to get rough focus quickly and then just slide it back onto the knob.

As a complete novice in astronomy, only started last year, I bought a 127Mak purely for lunar and planetary observation and photography with an Altair planetary camera. I've used the Baader zoom eyepiece on the moon with the Baader moon filter and the views were wonderful and exquisitely detailed. For a wider view I have a 130pds Newtonian and my new little baby an Orion ST80.

On closer examination it seems that the focusing is done with the rear cell.

Perfect match.

Thanks for all the information everyone.

Thanks John, I'll get some nylon thumbscrews. As for why it's mounted the wrong way..............I'm an idiot🤣

I've been gifted this rather ancient illuminated crosshair reticule finderscope and I quite fancy using it. Firstly can anyone identify it and secondly the retaining screws are missing and nothing in my collection of screws will fit so can anyone also give me an idea of the screw sizes I could try. Thanks for looking.

Welcome Emlyn from Laurence in Camberley.

Thanks for that Lee.

Right, I get it. I've now simply re-imagined the mount as being my old Skyguider Pro so I can see how I've reversed it in my photo. So to put it in language I can understand, if a polar scope were to be fitted then it would have to be pointing in the same direction as the camera............. So in that misleading second image I posted the correct position for the mount to be facing polaris would be at right angles to that yellow arrow, ie the direction the camera is facing? Sorry for the newbie "baby" language, must be infuriating!

Yes Ady, I think I'm getting my planes confused. What ( I think ) I should have said is that the camera is positioned at right angles to the north/south axis, does that make more sense? I was looking at this image on the web:

For powering my mount and dew heater I use this Talentcell: TalentCell Rechargeable 36W 12V/6000mAh 5V/12000mAh DC Output Lithium Ion Battery Pack for LED Strip, Tape Light, CCTV Camera and More, Black : Amazon.co.uk: Electronics & Photo for the rest, including a Raspberry Pi, a Sony camera and some other bits I use one of these: Power Bank 26800mAh Portable Charger, Riapow Fast Charging 3.0A USB C High Capacity Phone Charger with LED Display Compact External Battery Pack 4 Outputs for iPhone Samsung Tablet and More : Amazon.co.uk: Electronics & Photo but I don't know if they will meet your power requirements.

Absolutely, trouble is, every time someone buys a piece of kit the clouds pile up! 🤣