Ags

It is a planetary camera, quite a good one.

Now I can have both my camera and telescopes set up at the same time. Much more likely to get out with my telescopes now!

Artcise CS60C tripod direct from China. 1.3 kgs weight, load 18 kg, carbon fibre. I think it uses R.E.A. tech (reverse engineered alien technology).

I think the noise is much more of a problem for nearby animals than the steam, it is enough to do physical harm. I do feel sorry for the seagulls flapping past rockets just before ignition.

Some more pictures: https://terramex.neocities.org/astro/

Bit worrying as this rocket is supposed to carry tourists! It isn't a test rocket like the previous one.

Shopping and procrastinating.

Reddish face here. My understanding of the AZ GTi wifi capabilities was wrong, leading to heartache last night. I had thought that AZ GTi defaulted to Station mode every time it starts, but actually it remembers its connection to my home wifi, and both Station and Client mode are running at the same time. So the process that appears to work is: 1. Connect ASI178MM to Pi. Connect PI to ethernet. 2. Connect AZ-GTi and Pi to power tank and power on. 3. Use Mesh wifi app to get the AZ-GTi IP (the AZ-GTi is the device called "ESP-######") 4. Connect to Pi from laptop and enter AZ-GTi IP into Ekos. Real shame I didn't figure this out last night. Will update my previous posts to indicate my information on AZ-GTi wifi was wrong.

It all worked indoors by daylight of course!

My reasoning for not connecting everything to my home wifi was given earlier in the thread

I only use the Pi wifi to connect to Pi to AZ GTi. Everything else is connected via network cable or USB.

No luck connecting to synscan wifi tonight - the Pi joins then drops off after 5 seconds.

And now I am looking at stars again! Mount not aligned or tracking of course.

Pi, power tank, AZ GTi, EF 100/f2.8 and ASI178MM are outside and I am inside looking at... 2x2 binned clouds 😐 As they would say in Houston, all systems are nominal, but the launch window is slipping by. I did have a brief period of clear skies that let me nail focus.

Perfect night for astronomy tonight but too tired from work. Still, the stars are brilliant tonight.

Good advice for coffee mugs and telescopes too! We've all seen the pictures of back-to-front Newts in movies.

This may not be the best picture in this thread, but it did win a prize (okay, my family's whatsapp picture of the month)...

I have had both Nirvanas and ES 82, and the ES are a step up all around in my opinion.

Monster good stuff! Thanks! EDIT: On second thoughts, this seems to need to use the mount in EQ mode with EQMOD software, so I will file this one for later consideration 😀 EDIT2: Although one person has it working with Pi according to the reviews... Product description could be improved?

The only reason not to run the GTi from USB is i have no idea how to do that? Can you point me to a resource?

I use TP Link Deco mesh wifi and it has an app that identifies devices on the network and their current IPs. To use that it looks like i would have to: Start mount and astroberry Open SynScan app on phone, disable station mode and log in to home wifi (you have to do this every time) (correction: this only has to be done once) Open Deco app and get IP Open Ekos and configure IP Or I can keep station mode and configure synscan as the default wifi for the Pi, then i just do this: Start mount and astroberry I don't currently plan to connect anything else by wifi to the astroberry so I think this would be the best way.

Tried that, but then I need to know the IP assigned to the mount... This way just works and flipping the wifi on astroberry is much easier than changing station mode in the synscan app. I am sure re-enabling 'astroberry' wifi is simple, i just need to learn how.

I managed to connect the astroberry to the AZ GTi. it was simple in the end - I had to click the Network icon in the top right of the virtual desktop, disconnect from 'astroberry' network, and then I could join 'SynScan_###'. The only issue is I don't see how to now rejoin the 'astroberry' network, it doesn't show up in the available networks list... 🤣 The next challenge is setting up plate solving.

Flashed an external drive with Retropie, so will try that out in the coming days.

No need for enclosure wars, each have their advantages. On the subject of SSDs and cases, I am looking at booting from SSD down the road. But I prefer an external SSD so I can swap images easily. Today has not gone as well as yesterday. My ancient power tank (its so old it doesn't have USBs) looks like it is dieing. And I have not been able to connect the Pi to the AZ GTi. I could connect the mount to the astroberry wifi, but couldn't get INDI to connect to it. I tried reverting to Station mode but couldn't see how to connect the Pi to the synscan wifi...