SniffTheGlove

Or just do the battery mod  and use http://www.caravantechnology.com/Caravan-and-Leisure-In-Car-Charger-P46C25.aspx

Works great with my 1100D

There is a lot of development on the Open PHD2.

PHD2 Forum https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/open-phd-guiding

PHD2 Development Betas http://adgsoftware.com/phd2/

PHD2 Changes https://code.google.com/p/open-phd-guiding/source/list

PHD2 Bug List https://code.google.com/p/open-phd-guiding/issues/list

Take a look, have a play and report issues to make PHD2 better. Some great new features like better visuals, polar align, drift align.......

I've just downloaded this today to see whats its all about, I've not got a clue what its suppose to be doing, but its doing 65 tasks ? says SETI@home

SETI http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/sah_about.php  collects data from the arecibo radio telescope and other sources, processes them into taks and sends them out to us lot to process the data looking for the next WOW Signal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal

These are also many other different projects to chose from. I am currently woking with SETI on my GPU's and Enigma on all my CPU's

Lol, always been a sticky.

The more the merrier I'm beta testing the Seti@home on android at the moment.

How is that going? What are the credits like?

I know this is a few weeks old thread.

As someone mention the inductor blowing I would like to say that 18months ago one of my HitecAstro EQDir failed and it also damaged the EQ6 main board and blew the inductors. As these as really small surface mounted components I was unable to replace them, however I got the board working  (and still is) by using 2amp fuse wire soldered across the inductor joints. I don't know how long it will last but it's cheaper then the £120 +vat +P&P Optistar wanted to charge for the main board and I don't have any other problems.

Took just over a week from placing the order with Juan to receiving it yesterday via Royal Mail Special Delivery.

I Ordered the brand new 1100D Body with the 18-55 EFS Lens Kit. Juan then ordered in the camera and the Baader BCF corrector, modified the camera to also have daytime usage and Magic Lantern and the tested it.

Unpacking the camera you can not tell it has been taken apart, a very nest job.

Autofocus is sweet, now I can use all my other lenses at infinity.

The auto colour correction on AUTO WB is great so great daytime use as well. (Will now buy a cheap busted 50mm M42 lens of ebay to make a tilt-shift lens for some daytime photos)

Out of 10 I give Juan 10....

Oh, and his prices are at least two hundered pounds cheaper than other people who do a camera modification business. I went with the brand new but his second hand or canon refurbished cameras are good value also.

Thanks Merlin66, great to know that length of time the mount will survive albeit with some coating lost.

Thats Great Sboober,

Some info from an actual user with a permanent outside tripod mount. Glad to know it is possible.

My made a mistake when putting my pier in, I though 3 posts (4in sq) bolted together 3 in a line with the middle post slightly longer for the mount to bolt to) would be secure, however I the mount has some flex. I should of used 4 posts located around the a central post.

I looked at 6in steel pipe but are expensive to buy, looked at the local metal recycle centre a few time with no luck and even took at building site for large dia plastic pipe that could be filled with concrete but again no joy. I can not afford a proper made astro pier and also upgrade some of my equipment like scope and camera. So I either get my son to open up the pier hole and level up the concrete mound with a tow-rope tied to a car and remake the wooded post (4 posts around a central post but make be use 5in posts) or the even cheaper setup of the actual EQ6 mount as you have helped sjhow that it is possible to keep outside with some sealing on the steel joints like other have said.

Using the actaul mount is the cheapest option and it is purpose made and I have it. I am much more happy knowing it can be left outside (and covered) and it will be OK. I just need to make the tripod secure so it can not be just picked up.

On my current wooden post setup I removed the EQ6 bubble indicator and drilled a slot in the mounting plate so that a cable based cycle cable lock can be attached to the mount head and to to the wooded pier with a hole drilled through the post with the cable going through.

I also have a small microswitch fitted into the mounting plate and it the EQ6 head is unscrewed then the switch with activate a high pitched alarm, so these would stay in place with the tripod but just need to be able to mount a security cable to the tripod and the ground. You have to protect your gear from non-astro nightly folk.

Thanks.

Going over the tripod with a magnet shows that the screws in the friction leg adjusters is steel, the tiny threded insert (2 in each top leg) are steel, the Az Stop is steel and all the bolts are steel. The rest seems to be stainless or aluminium.

Currently the EQ6 mount and wooden pier (along with a large'ish wooden box that contains all the electronics - usb hubs, 12v - 5v power converters etc) are covered up when not in use with a heavy duty bin bag plus a large tarp that wraps around everything to the floor)

So the tarp would still cover the Tripod OK.

I can not afford a nice heavy duty pier yet.

Currently have the EQ6 mount on a 5in. wooden post which is sturdy but there is slight vibration when touching the mount.

I was wondering how weatherproof the EQ6 tripod actually is.

My intention it to keep it outside permanently instead of the pier. Just wondering about rust and corrosion of the tripod?

Is there anything I need to do to to waterproof/weatherproof?

Thanks

It worked so well that I am thinking of putting a new focusser in (1.25in), putting a better finder on it and adapting it to my NEQ3 set up. I think that I will keep all of the original parts for nostalgia!

You may find that it already has a 1.25in focuser fitted albiet with a 0.965in adaptor fitted. See if the adaptor come out. Mine did

Where stellarium control is lacking is that I can't initiate a slew/sync from the mouse but rather have to fumble around hitting ctrl key combinations.

I agree too this would be nice, maybe an online control panel like the Oculars one. Is this possible Bogdan when you come to put your code into the main branch?

Anyway, the new version of StellariumScope will be out in a few days time I have been told by the author Jon

For the last several years, I haven't noticed anyone coming out of the woodwork to offer new drivers or an extension of the basic protocol. What I've noticed is a lot of users asking "why don't you support telescope X" or "why it can only slew to objects" or "why do I need to use StellariumScope".

That is because their are really talented people out there programming and on the other side of the fence you have thousands of users using said programs and these users look at ways to make said software better by asking for requests.

It's a great talent you and the others have got there. Just like Chris and others with EQMod

The reply from Alexander Wolf was...

Bogdan works for INDI and ASCOM interfaces within Stellarium.

The reply was in relation to my post on the 13th Feb in the thread http://sourceforge.net/p/stellarium/discussion/278769/thread/f85ed4a2/

At first I thought that Bogdan was a particular plug-in I needed to get, only after reading a bit more via Google I found out it was a person.

It has been raining here again but I retried last night but still nothing nothing.

Looks like it's back to StellariumScope but the only version to work with v0.12 is a time limited beta.

I wonder just how difficult it is to put ASCOM connectivity into Stellarium, they are obviously very talented programmers but can not under why they build a beautiful planetarium software but then only put a very limited amount of telescope control.

If I select "external software or remote computer" then I have no way to specify how to connect to ASCOM or EQMod and it just sits there saying connecting....

Hello,

I have been given a one line reply by Alexander Wolf of Stellarium that the new interface written by Bogdan Marinov in Stellarium 12 can now work with ASCOM devices without needing StellariumScope. That's all I got.

I have looked for more details but can not find any, even the Stellarium Wiki is quite a few months out of date.

So I have started up my ASCOM and unparked the mount, checked everything was OK in CdC then shut CdC down. Started up Stellarium and went to the new Telescope Control Panel and tried to setup a new scope.

I put Com3 in as the serial port (where my EQDirect sits on) and in the dropdown list for mounts only about 8 listed there is no mention of ASCOM. There is a SkyWatcher SysScan so I chose that and then went to start the scope in the control panel. It just sits there saying stopped.

I tried different mounts and settings but none worked.

Anybody here got Stellarium running with ASCOM without StellariumScope on Version 12?

I got my first scope back in 1998 and it was a 4in TASCO reflector with a 25mm EP. First light was with Saturn and there was this jewel in the FOV.

In 2010 when I got a 10in Dob along with Meade 4000 EP I look to see if they could fit onto the TASCO and there was a inner sleeve stopping down the drawtube dia, pulled it out and it was a 1.25in and in went my meades and got a much better image. Sadly the scope died early on this year in my garage fire.

For my first scope is was fantastic back in 1998

Thanks to some scrotes the UCB Planetary Science building has been without power for several days and as such my machines are shut down as all have run out of work units...Hopefully we should be back online tomorrow at some point.

Now sheduled for Thursday(for us in the UK).

You can always attach to another project like Milkyway and therefore spilt the work loads and if one project goes down (as SETI does quite often) your PC's can still carry on crunching.

An easy to contol it all is use BOINCstats to project manage everythin. Just go to http://boincstats.com/ create an account then in BOINC manager got to Add Project but choose Account Manager and put in the BOINCStats details, then you can manage your connected PC's from the BOINCstats webpages and it also gives you stats on your workloads etc. Here is mine http://boincstats.com/en/stats/-1/user/detail/0174052052a983a2f537646bacd13d53/

why does it keep saying suspended cpu busy when im not doing anything or just or SGL

Because something on your PC is taking a large slice of processor time to perform it's function. It could be your OS has decided to run a file indexing session, or your Anti-Virus has just started a system scan.

The cpu setting is in the accounts settings and can be adjusted manually to suit your needs. For example If my CPU is 50% busy doing som,eting else then BOINC suspends and comes back when the CPU intensive task shuts down.

Remember you PC is constanlt running 100's of applications in the background.

If you type taskmgr into your Start|Run box you will bring up the taks manager which shows what applications are running. You need to look on the "Processes" tab and then tick the "show processes from all users" box. This show all the currently running application on your PC, then if you click the CPU header in the list header you can sort the rows into order so you can then see which application as using the CPU and by how much.

Thanks for the calculation. I am no scholar, but I'm beginning to realise that it's not hard to build these things yourself with basic electricity knowledge. Already looking at DIY parts.

Speaking of dew and frost. I actually noticed something this morning (since Stockholm got its first hit of morning frost today). My car windows were all frosted over. Except a small patch underneath an aerodynamic part I have above my back window. This indicates that frost really do seem to fall from above, which in turn seems prove the concept of a dew shield.

Here is an Excel file that I have found on the Net with some modifications I have made to calculate heater strips in Parallel or Series. Hope this helps. Just put in the dia of where you want to put the heater and it will show in the greyed out area the specs.DewDesignHeaters.xlsx

some great advice here one thing is worrying me though and that is how much power they draw. I have a celestron power tank so should have no problem connecting a dew strap controller but how long can i expect to run it for before needing a recharge.

You can work it out with a multimeter (if you have one)

1) Measure the Ohms of the heater strip.

2) Calculate voltage*voltage

3) Divide by Ohms to get the wattage

4) Divide wattage by voltage to get current rating.

eg.

34 Ohms Resistance measured

12vdc * 12vdc = 144vdc

144vdc / 34Ohms = 4.23watts

4.23watts / 12vdc = 0.35Amps

Last night I reach my 3nd major milestone in the Milkyway Project. I cracked 10million credits now. Well pleased. I will now start to concentrate back onto to SETI to raise my current 2.6Million credits upto 5Million mark.

Good luck to all other team members in cracking their next milestones.

I've been running Seti@home for years now and have 428175.05 credits. If I joined the group would my credits be counted?

Can someone give me an idiots guide to transferring to the group.

Thanks

Jason

Login into your seti account at http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/home.php and you can join the team there or if you are already a member of another team you can quit the old one and join SGL team

Team details can be found at http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/team_display.php?teamid=117875