Goto all checked out but no images

[griz11]

What a disappointing week weather wise. Cleared up long enough for me to get my goto system all configured but not long enough to get any imaging done. Teased me all week. I decided to play with the relay board and get my weather station up and going during the rain and clouds. The relay board I bought wasn't as advertised. No way to get to the digital pins unless you reprogrammed the PIC. I was in Houston so I went to a big electronics store that has lots of components etc and picked up an Arduino and a Sensirion temp humidity sensor and a 2x16 lcd shield with a set of pushbuttons. The Arduino is really easy to get going. What used to take days of prep is now all done for you basically. Tons of libraries for pretty much anything you might want to do. Even telescope controllers I've found. As usual as soon as I started playing with the board the ideas came so my simple temp and humidity project has morphed into something much more complicated. Now I have sensors either installed or on the way for temp humidity barometric pressure volts amps and a critter radar to keep the wandering deer away from my equipment. A buzzer and light will come on when the ultrasonic ranger detects one of them. Also going to do a touch screen keypad for my mount. I ordered the screen it should be here in a few days. An Arduino uno or nano will be perfect and I can add wifi to it easily. All this fits in the battery box I made for my goto system. 2 12.5 ah 12v batts and a charger. The unit will turn on my dew heaters when the dewpoint gets close turn on a light and camera so I can watch the slews monitor the critters and run the proximity sensors I'm going to install for limit switches. All in all a very productive week and we did some work on the bikes as well.

Critter scanner dual ultrasonic rangers mounted on a hobby servo.

Weather station with display. The display will have several screens which you can switch using one of the buttons. RA DEC weather info voltage and amps for the power pack and whatever else I can think off to add to it.

And a couple of shots of the first night out with the goto system

And I managed to take image of the month for my club

Now if the weather will just clear up for a few days. Man its been so long since we've had a clear night.

Griz

[griz11]

My god the sky is clear here. Wasn't supposed to happen till 3am or so. Getting my stuff ready for a proper test. Going to test the Astronomik 6nm Ha filter tonight. Guessing I'll have to use a very bright star to get focus. Don't think its parfocal so I'll have to have the filter in the camera to get proper focus I suspect.

Griz

[griz11]

Wow this servo system tracks even better than the steppers. Really nice. Trying some Ha tonight if the dew will hold off a bit. Gotten some excellent 20 minute shots so far.

Griz

[happy-kat]

Interesting project read :-)

[damnut]

Nice Thread,

Please update as you go, I am setting up the electronics for a 14" dob so interesting to see how you do it!!

[happy-kat]

Meant to ask will you be keeping the breadboard for the final build or is it for test work?

[griz11]

No I'll figure out something else. Too easy to unplug stuff like it is. Might have a board made I hear its not that expensive these days. Decided to buy a used Losmandy G-11. Its just the head no motors or electronics. I have the motors and controllers to do the G-11 and the Starlapse. I'm going to use this software on an Arduino to run the Starlapse http://www.stellarjourney.com/index.php?r=site/software_telescope  Pretty complete even has an ascom driver and will work on an android phone. That should be easy pickings to convert over to my handpad. It will be nice to have a mount just to experiment with. I'm really getting into this microcontroller stuff. Lots of nights you can't image. I don't know if I'll keep both of them but for now I'll have two set-ups. Running into issues with the wedge trying to use the 102GT. So rather than battle it I'm just going to get something that can handle about twice what I have to put on it. It was a really good deal and I know the guy so I'm not worried about it being defective.

Griz