Ouroboros

Persoanlly I found the upbeat American-style of presentation extremely irritating. Pity really because for me it spoiled what was interesting content, some of which I didn't know. 

On 13 August 2019 at 15:35, wrvond said:

I have polar alignment scopes in two of my GEMs but don't use them. For visual, simply aligning the mount on true North and setting your latitude on the elevation guide is (essentially) the same as performing a polar alignment.

I will grant that if you are using tracking motors a good polar alignment with the scope will yield better results, but if you are using GoTo, performing a three (or more) star alignment will eliminate any error.

In my pre-polar scope days I normally set up as you describe and then eyeball up through the mount's RA axis tube, whilst adjusting elevation and latitude, until Polaris was more or less centred.  That gets the mount polar aligned to a bit less than 1° of the celestial pole. 

On 16 April 2019 at 21:30, chaxastro said:

Hi Simon,

Came across this YouTube vid recently, hope it helps,

Regards,

chaxastro

'Humour is reason gone mad!'  Grouch Marx

 

 

Thanks for that. At least I now understand what this sort of astro gizmo will do for the imaging astronomer. 

Pretty impressed that he picked up his whole rig and carried it outside too.  

We don't see him polar align and plate solve his target in the video, which presumably he did to get the decent guiding. 

23 hours ago, Plumb71 said:

Thanks for your replies, i am at the moment not that interested in the photography side yet, i still too eager to try and see everything at once, and will probably be like that for sometime

OK.  Good luck and have fun with your scope. 🙂 

Georgeous images.  I prefer the more subtle blue in the first one. On my iPad and to my eye the blue in the second image is a tad too strong. 

If you're only planning to use the scope for general observing the Moon, Sun and stars I would say you don't need a polar scope.  A polar scope is used to obtain good alignment with the earth's axis in order to do long exposure astrophotography.

The finder scope is used literally to aid finding the objects you're interested in. It helps because it is of lower magnification than the main scope so allows you to see a wider area of the sky.  It's lined up with your main scope so by centring the object up in the finder scope, you should see it when you look through the main scope. 

I used a mount similar to yours, in fact I've still got it, for some while without a polar scope just for observing. It was fine. I bought one eventually to do some astrophotography. 

PS there are ways to use a finder scope and camera to polar align, but that's a separate story. 

Edit: sorry, I'm repeating what Ron posted. 

2 hours ago, alacant said:

 

But they gave you a good alternative. Vnc in from your 'phone is probably easiest from there.

Cheers and good luck.

Yes. Good point. I'd tried that already with my iPad using an alternative to VNC called Duet.  I don't have wireless network at the scope, but Duet allows wired screen mirroring  between an iPad/phone and a Mac. It works but that mount control popup is a bit, well, clunky. A game pad is definitely more responsive.  

I think maybe I've got to reconsider how I work and pursue different avenues.

Thanks so much for taking the time to help.  🙂 

Having posted this question on the INDI forum the short and simple answer appears to be that joystick support is limited to Linux only. 

I'll have to find another way to control the scope at the mount. 

I am am a bit surprised at this.  Joypad support is an integral part of ASCOM EQMOD on Windows.  It seems such a simple requirement.  

7 hours ago, alacant said:

Hi

If I understand correctly, you are using indi's eqmod and canon drivers to control your mount and camera and they work under EKOS. Try:

indiserver indi_eqmod_telescope

I'm assuming the command line app on a mac does the same as a Linux terminal. Anyway, if that command returns we know indi_joystick is an omission.

The executable should be in your path so no, but just in case maybe try the commands 

/usr/bin/indiserver /usr/bin/indi_eqmod_telescope

That's where executables normally live on Linux at least.

If not, we need a mac user to chip in...

I've just seen this this morning and will try it later.  Thanks for your help. 

15 minutes ago, alacant said:

You should type:

indiserver indi_joystick

HTH

Yeah, tried that. I got "command not found". 

Do I have to be in the appropriate directory or something? 

1 hour ago, alacant said:

Yes.

It was added with indi 1.7.something so it should be included. 

I'm not a mac person but I'd guess you downloaded the latest version and ran the installer? IOW, whatever you did to install what you have now but with the latest version. But that's a guess...

--- --- ---

I'm not sure why you'd want a paddle with eqmod though...

Let's hope a mac user can get onto this:)

Thanks

I guess it's just the way I'm used to work with ASCOM EQMOD in Windows and Cartes du Ciel.   My laptop is in a warm room 5m from the scope. So if I'm aligning the mount visually during set up I need to be at the eyepiece. Similarly if I am doing visual astronomy I use the planetarium to send the telescope to the object of interest. But at the eyepiece I want to scan around the target etc. There is reason in my madness. 🙂 

I can see that if you just do imaging, or if your PC is right next to your telescope,  that you don't need a separate way to control the mount at the telescope.  

I tried Terminal.  No idea if this is what you meant me to do but I typed in

~ indiserver indi_joystick

and got back: -bash: ~$: command not found. 

Sorry, I'm very unfamiliar with a Mac other than just running apps.  

... And I have KStars Ver 3.2.2 Build 2019-05-12

The most recent version in your link is Ver 3.3.3

I can't imagine something as basic as a joystick driver would have only just been added. 

Nevertheless it has made me wonder how do you update KStars. I can't find an obvious Update option.  So how are updates achieved? 

PS I only ask this question after much googling as they seem so basic. 

Sorry, this is probably a really stupid question, but where do I find the command line dialogue box? Is this in the KStars application somewhere or are you referring to commands run on the Terminal app on Mac? 

I did at first but then came to like the red. More detail. 

Very nice image.  This object had escaped my attention too. I doubt my equipment would do it justice. It's well placed at the moment too. 

I am trying out KStars on my MacBook. I want to see if I can use it to run my equipment instead of using EQMOD + Cartes du Ciel + PHD2 + EOS BackYard running in Windows7 in a virtual machine on my MacBook. 

So far so good. It's been a bit of a steep learning curve. Nevertheless  I've got it controlling my mount.  It talks to my Canon 450D and my guide camera.  

The specific problem I'm having is getting KStars/EKOS it to work with the gamepad I use to control the mount at the telescope.  

I understand I have to connect the gamepad to the mount in the Device Manager as described here: https://indilib.org/support/tutorials/135-controlling-your-telescope-with-a-joystick.html#h2-go-to-device-manager-under-the-tools-menu-gt-devices

When I do this I get the error message: " ... make sure the package that provides the indi_joystick binary is installed." 

Any suggestions how I do this? 

50 hours is an unimaginably frightening amount of time to a dabbler like myself. If I get 5 to 10 hours decent imaging in during the course of the astronomical "season" I'm doing well.  Presumably you leave the kit all set up to go when the opportunity occurs. Do you concentrate on the one object over the course of many nights, or might you image different objects? 

Cracking image that! Cracking object actually. 

Wow is the word!  Amazing image.  

I see! A bit of a red light district then.  I'll rephrase that ..... 😉 

Lovely that!  I'm trying to work out why the rocks are red. What are they lit by? 

I like that. It's like a pair of misshapen legs. 

I notice there's an Astrophysics: A Very Short Introduction book amongst the Very Short Intriductions series published by Oxford University Press. 

I have not read it but I have read quite a few of the Very Short Introduction series and  think they're usually very good. Lots of subjects from quantum physics to Homer covered. 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Astrophysics-Very-Short-Introduction-Introductions/dp/0198752857

Chuckle. So, they're not all extinct then! Nice image. 

I doubt complaints from amatuer astronomers will make much difference. 

But what about professional astronomers?  Most of their work involves imaging. How do they feel about it?