Anne S

1 hour ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

First time for me so glad to see other SGL members will be there.
This is actually my first star party so any advice is welcome, I am booked on Yellow Dragonfy pitch 152, not even sure whether to invest in a tent or hire a campervan yet.

Steve 

You can book a caravan which will be brought to the site ready for you and set up. They're a local firm and do quite a few for the starparties.

21 minutes ago, NoelinLiverpool said:

Hi Yes same pitch T143

Nearby then!

We're going as usual. Pitch T149.

I used to use AstroArt 4 with a colour camera. One of the menus has a setting to set the debayer pattern by matching the pattern next to it. You can only change a couple of things. You first set the Bayer pattern you think it is, ie rggb which is what my 533 is, then alter the options to make it match. It just puts an offset in both directions to fix how the matrix has been applied, I think. It used to work with my Atik 320e osc.

Of course if you've a later version of AstroArt it may have changed slightly. 

I'm looking at the Beelink models. The i3 and i5 ones just have "dc" marked by the power socket. The Celeron ones have 12v. 
 

I've emailed Beelink to ask but they're on holiday at the moment. I also asked a friend who was running a couple of similar ones quite happily from 12v. He checked with an Intel specialist who said they ran on between 12v-19v. It's just not clear on the website I was using.

We owned an ETX105 about 15 years ago. If you still have the original tripod you can adjust it to make the scope an equatorial one. As to damaging the secondary, the tube will be at the same angle when you slew to an object, regardless of how it's mounted.

1 hour ago, Skipper Billy said:

I have  a NUC mounted by Velcro to an inverted V shaped bracket on my scope. I changed the lid on the NUC for one with two extra USB ports giving 6 USB ports in total and doing away with any need for a hub.

On the other side of the bracket is a home made power distribution box with 8 x 12v power outlets, 1 x 5v and one x 19v (which was for the NUC but I have since found out it runs perfectly well off 12v).

Custom (home) made power and USB leads.

Only one data cable and one power cable down to the ground.

 

 

What model NUC have you got? I'm trying to decide on one for my travel setup. Some of them just have a dc socket but are sold with a 19v mains adapter. I want to run it from my Pegasus micro powerbox. I was wanting an i3 based one if possible.

 Ian at Altairastro said it was when I rang him after New year. Not heard anything since. There is a Facebook page for it.

2 hours ago, jock1958 said:

Good idea Dave and glad to hear your on the mend just a shame you couldn’t get out to enjoy those four clear nights. No such luck in South Wales, it seems to rain for five months of the year starting in November 😩

You mean it didn't start raining till November. We had it from August up here in mid Wales.

I've only played with NINA inside but I have used SGPro and Maxim DL.

A couple of things:

Is there any reason why you're capturing in Tiff, I suspect that won't support metadata. You should be using fits file type which does.

Subs are usually shown in the capture software with a visual stretch applied so you can see what you've got. They will be saved without this stretch. My subs will only show a few bright stars. You then need to stretch the stacks in your processing software.

Hope that helps.

6 minutes ago, johninderby said:

The 8SE mount was originally designed for the 5” SCT and while the 8SE is usable the mount is at its absolute limit with the 8” OTA. 

Celestron does the 8” SCT on a beefier mount.

https://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/celestron-nexstar-evolution-8-sct-telescope.html

The 5 inch scope was sold on the smaller mount which was also sold with the 4 inch scope. The larger mount could also be bought with the 6 inch.

I do agree the Evolution is the better setup but it wasn't around when I bought my 8SE. I didn't find the 8SE any problem for viewing as long as I didn't try to use my husband's 13mm Ethos eyepiece on it. Too heavy. It was happier with the 22 mm Nagler which was perfect for most targets.

I had an 8 SE years ago. The mount isn't that bad but don't kick the legs! There is some vibration after focusing the telescope but putting in on vibration suppression pads, that Celestron sell, he'll considerably if you are on a hard surface. On the grass just push the tripod legs in.

Also, you need to make sure you've enough clearance to point the scope to the zenith as there's not much space with the 8 inch tube and you need to watch the cord wrapping around the mount. There's a setting to stop it happening in the handset.

I eventually used mine on a computerised CG5 mount which sorted out all the above issues. I only sold the 8SE whe I switched to astrophotograpy and bought an EQ6.

I think that's the laser show at Holbrook Hall near Fakenham. I saw it Monday night.

We arrived on Monday, cold and windy. My astro tent broke several poles Tuesday night so was taken down. Luckily I've got some spares. We're now back home as there wasn't any chance of any astronomy and there's a chance it's more likely to be clear at home! We didn't even take the telescopes out of the motorhome garage.

Tuesday night was really windy and not a weather warning in sight! Kelling Heath up to its old tricks!

Let's hope the spring one goes ahead next year.

I've bought a wine box....

We're on pitch 303 in our motorhome.

Anne

Have you installed the Atik core software? I used to run a 320e camera fine on Windows 10.

Had you cropped and resaved the stack? You may have lost the fits header info.

If so have you tried inputting the catalogue no and camera pixel size etc and looking the coordinates up first?

Yes it's on. Our booking was automatically moved from this year. Unless someone locks someone down.....

On 18/10/2021 at 12:22, Skyline said:

One of the most fundamental requirements are you are using TPM 2.0 for your pc to qualify.

 

I've just checked, my desktop is running TPM2.0 version 1.16. It fails on the processor. My year old laptop passed. It's got TPM2.0 version 1.39.

If TPM is the key issue then I should be OK on my desktop! I may upgrade it a little further down the line but at the moment it's quite nippy enough for me. It's got a SSD and ordinary hard drive so quick to load software.

I'd forgotten the steam trains, I took some pictures last time.

1 hour ago, daz said:

Me too!

First time for Winterfest - on 305 I think...

 

@Anne S - I'm taking that as a guarantee of clear skies

 

I think we're on 303, so near you. We had two or three ones with clear skies, I think I missed one of them. Mind the 2019 one was rubbish. Maybe it's global warming!

2 hours ago, PeterCPC said:

My desktop fails on the processor (i5-6400) but otherwise meets all the requirements. I can't see the point of replacing a perfectly good desktop just to get W11. They say that you can still run W11 using an ISO file but then you won't be getting any further updates - maybe that's a good thing. If it's not broke......

I've just checked my desktop, it's failing with the processor too, i5 7400. It's got tpm switched on. I read somewhere the computer manufacturers may have something to do with it, they want us to buy new pcs.

There's also some suggestion W11 may be a flop because so many people won't be able to upgrade! We're not made of money.

On my main imaging laptop, one that was upgraded from W7 I found that W10 took a dislike to Ioptron Commander which is the Ascom driver for my mount. It kept quarantining in!

My newer laptop wasn't bothered. There's nothing worse than setting up and then having to waste time trying to fix something that's always worked perfectly. I only upgraded to W10 because software vendors kept saying they wouldn't support W7. I think W7 was vastly better than W10. Several times the laptop has started upgrading itself outside active hours just because I turned it on before to check everything was working and it started downloading....

My husband had his laptop waste an hour imaging time waiting for it to turn on after an update!

I begin to wonder who owns the laptops, me or Microsoft....

We're going. It's been good for clear skies several years. Let's hope.