Ags

I will see tonight, but it will be my first time guiding so I will just trust the ASIAIR defaults… Anything I say must be taken with a large pinch of stardust.

It was nice and stable with my ST80 and was what I could afford at the time. However I hiked around Nepal with it, which might explain my antipathy.

I had an AZ3 once. I was glad to see it gone.

My weather forecast says clearish tonight and clear tomorrow night, so first light beckons! Not entirely sure what I want to point the scope at though...

Whew! Adjusting the mount to 52 degrees latitude was more fiddle than expected. I didn’t expect the doodad to disassemble into 5 pieces, and the tiny washers hiding behind the whatsit took me by surprise. There was a dark moment when I thought it wasn’t going back together!

That was the problem! Zero position is now sorted out. I will check but I don't think the C6 will cause a problem.

Looking at all the stuff I've bought lately, I can say I'm no stargazer... I'm a storegazer!

I did park the mount using the handset - that put the 'scope' to the right of the mount and horizontal to the ground. I had expected the scope up top pointing north.

I promised to post my thoughts about the HEM15 when it finally got here, and it happily arrived tonight on a Friday evening, rather than the Monday next week the courier promised. First off, FLO knows how to pack a box and everything was quite secure in masses of eco-friendly packaging stuffing. Careful excavation, ably assisted by astronomy dog Wurzel, revealed the HEM15 with its accomplices, an ASI120MM and AsiAir Mini. The plan is to primarily use the HEM15 with the AsiAir for visual, imaging and spectroscopy activities, with plate solving to make sure things get found. However, for planetary imaging and viewing, I think I might just set up with the HEM15's hand control. I don't have a telescope that will really tax the mount - the heaviest thing I have is a C6 weighing in at 3.5 kgs. I may sell some things later in the year to buy a Classical Cassegrain 8" - at 8.5 kilos it would certainly be more of a test. I am coming from an AZ-GTi and before that a 4SE mount. That makes this the first mount I have owned with a metal skin, and it seems in a different class . Everything feels very solid with no play and seems well-machined and precise. The DEC clutch is very small but cleanly loosens or completely tightens the DEC axis with a singe twist. There is no wiggle in the power input. The cables don't move when the mount moves. The handset is small but in my opinion the right size, not fiddly at all. By default it beeps loudly on each button press - an absurd default. Slewing without load at maximum speed shows smooth and almost inaudible motion, although Wurzle made it clear there is some noise in the hypersonic frequencies dogs can hear. Maybe someone younger than me would hear more of a whine. I also tested the setup with power fed through from the AsiAir Mini. It is annoying that the Air must be daisy-chained to the mount via the handset, I presume the brains of the mount are all in the handset. It all seemed to work fine and the ASI120MM took a few pictures of my living room. However I didn't see how to control the mount via the Air - I had connected to it using the HEM27 option as the latest firmware still doesn't feature the HEM15 as an option.

A huge astroday for me. FLO's courier brought me a HEM15, ASI120MM and an AsiAir Mini - so tiny!

Would this still be true if the stars were spinning. As they approach would tidal effects cause the spin to be transferred to into orbital motion?

Yes, that was my thinking too, a camera that was raved about only a few years ago and which produced great images doesn't suddenly stop being good... The sensor is 3x times larger than my main camera (ASI485MC), which does have advantages, although I guess I will have to be more careful about spacing between the bigger sensor and any flattener.

I guess with set point cooling I just shoot the darks and bias once. What temperature should I aim for? As low as possible, or low enough to reach the set point on any given night, but not lower?

Due to the great generosity of an SGL member, I am getting an FLI ML8300 Mono camera. I will be using the camera for a variety of things, including spectroscopy and photometry, but will also try to make pretty pictures (but don't hold your breath...).I have never had a cooled camera, a CCD, an astro camera with a physical shutter or one which needs a substantial power supply. I recall that these KAF 8300 chip cameras were quite desirable back in the day, one of the last hurrahs of CCDs? I am just wondering if any former 8300 owners have any tips to share? I have a vague idea that CCDs like fewer longer exposures in contrast of CMOS which work better with shorter, more numerous exposures?

The HEM15 should come on Monday 😊 Excited!

I thought the Hyperion 24 was great in my f13 Mak, but when I tried it in an ST80 and in a 150PDS (both f5) I thought it was appalling, completely unusable (to my eyes).

I mean the diffraction effects of a small aperture. Stopping down a camera lens to f22 causes a loss of sharpness (at least on bench tests) so a tiny lens that is really not much more than a pinhole must suffer similarly?

Was this done with AI?

You can fit a lot on a 120MM sensor clearly!

More like Wrath of the Copyright Lawyers 😀

Yes that suggests I could get away with the 485MC, but it looks like a tight fit. I may have an opportunity to pick up a mono KAF8300 CCD which I think will work better.

I wonder, glass is harder and can take a higher polish I expect. My plastic 'glasses' are fine for everyday use at 1x magnification, but a telescope magnifies substantially. I wonder how phone lenses really work at all, as they are so small their resolution is surely severely impacted? I have a pair of glasses for long distance that I use only for astronomy. They seem to correct my astigmatism nicely but as far as I know they only correct the major components of astigmatism, so the satisfactory view of stars may be more of an illusion created by zero magnification.

Last night I finished writing the potted descriptions of all asteroids featured in the book. I can move on to writing the intro sections now. We are about 30% through editing the charts.

Did you have to collimate it?

I am getting a new setup in the coming weeks, including an equatorial mount, a guide camera and an ASIAIR. I have wondered about getting a Star Analyser for years but with a guided setup I think it may be time. I would be using it with a C6 reduced to 945 mm, or alternately with a refractor with focal length of 500 mm. The trouble is my ASI 485 MC is a color camera, and my incoming ASI 120 MM has a tiny sensor and larger pixels. Are either of these cameras viable for a Star Analyser?