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New Mesu being commissioned

Zakalwe

By Zakalwe
in Discussions - Mounts

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Scott

Scott

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Tapping the 8mm hole is made a bit easier if a block of wood has a clearance hole drilled square, the tap then goes into this hole and can't be anything but square  in the hole......

A tin of this and it'll glide through like a hot knife through butter....or just use butter ;)

Trefolex.jpg

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Zakalwe

Zakalwe

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That looks terrific.  Seems very quiet too.  Do you find the tinfoil round the SCT helps?

Yes...it's very quiet in operation-you certainly can't hear it over the racket that the tiny fan in the Atik camera makes!

I blanketed the SCT with aluminised bubble wrap (the sort of thing that used behind radiators). I'm not sure if it makes that much difference to be honest. Some people says that it does, others less so. It seems intuitively correct that it would help the tube internal temperatures to remain a bit more stable when the temperature is dropping fast.

It won't harm to keep the tube a bit cooler when I am doing solar work with the triplet. I'll make a reflective cover for the front dustcap too, otherwise the OTA will boil in the heat.

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Zakalwe

Zakalwe

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Right, I have just about finished with the cabling, though I was blooming annoyed when I found that two of the new cables were DOA. I use a zip up nylon braided sleeve to run the cables through, so changing them out isn#t too much of a faff. Still, a bit of a PITA.

This evening is far too cloudy to do much,but I managed to create the horizon file and build a custom horizon for Carte du Ciel. I also installed Stellariumscope to interface with Stellarium. Stellarium is just about the prettiest planetarium program out there....certainly prettier than my main program, CdC. I've noticed that it's GOTOs don't seem that accurate though...the mount seems to stop short of the specified GOTO. No such problems with CdC...OTOs always seem bang on with that.

I will have to wait for a clear night te rebuild the PointXP pointing model. However, as it stands, the pointing on the Mesu is remarkable. It is flinging a load of about 35Kg all over the sky and each target is very close to the centre of my Atik 428.

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NigeB

NigeB

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Looks fantastic!

That's a pretty awesome wiring challenge. Question - do you do any visual observing? How do you deal with the wires at the camera end when you remove the cameras if so? Mine just dangle, which isn't exactly elegant -and I probably have only 5% of the cables you have...

The Mesu is an impressive beast, no doubt about it. Hope your sky clears soon.

N.

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Zakalwe

Zakalwe

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Looks fantastic!

That's a pretty awesome wiring challenge. Question - do you do any visual observing? How do you deal with the wires at the camera end when you remove the cameras if so? Mine just dangle, which isn't exactly elegant -and I probably have only 5% of the cables you have...

Thanks Nigel,

I'm pretty sure that I have an eyepiece or two somewhere.  I can't remember the last time I actually looked through a scope! I know that the triplet has never had my peeper against it.

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Zakalwe

Zakalwe

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Hi Steve, 

Great setup, maybe frustrating now, but boy, are you going to enjoy the fruits of your labour. :grin:

Just a side note. Do you have a contact for the zip up braid cable sleeves. for the life of me I can't track them down :sad:

Steve 

Thanks Steve,

These are the ones:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fisual-2m-Zip-Cable-Tidy/dp/B0073ELQLS/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1442226821&sr=8-2&keywords=zip+up+cable+management

I'm starting to get the hang of the SiTech system now, though I had a little rant at midnight last night when Nebulosity wouldn't play ball when attempting to do the CalXP sky model. It's a matter of being patient, and working methodically through the manual (all 200 pages of it! :shocked:  )

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Helen

Helen

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Great progress Steve  :grin:   

Cable management has been a real challenge for me too (I'm regretting building a square pier with edges which love to trap unsuspecting cables :rolleyes: ), but I've had nor problems for a few night's now so hoping it is sorted.

It is a beast of a set-up, and handles the weight of multiple scopes really well (I too had to get an extra counterweight when I went side-by-side).  Can I ask about how you did your horizon file with the s-by-s?  I did it using just one scope.  But I found that I then lost access to some sky when the scope I used was below its visual horizon but the other scope was above it.  My usual imaging scope is the refractor, but I use a C11 for planetary and that needs as low a horizon as I can get.

Did you combine the scope data?  or thinking about it as I type, I wonder if it is possible to have different horizon files for different scopes.. :confused:

Helen

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Zakalwe

Zakalwe

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Great progress Steve  :grin:   

Cable management has been a real challenge for me too (I'm regretting building a square pier with edges which love to trap unsuspecting cables :rolleyes: ), but I've had nor problems for a few night's now so hoping it is sorted.

It is a beast of a set-up, and handles the weight of multiple scopes really well (I too had to get an extra counterweight when I went side-by-side).  Can I ask about how you did your horizon file with the s-by-s?  I did it using just one scope.  But I found that I then lost access to some sky when the scope I used was below its visual horizon but the other scope was above it.  My usual imaging scope is the refractor, but I use a C11 for planetary and that needs as low a horizon as I can get.

Did you combine the scope data?  or thinking about it as I type, I wonder if it is possible to have different horizon files for different scopes.. :confused:

Helen

Thanks Helen,

You're right...it's a proper beastie of a thing!

I did my horizon file using the triplet. My thinking was that I can always disable it when doing planetary with the C11. I'm always in the obsy when dong planetary, so I'm not concerned with pier collisions. Its when I'm doing DSO that the gear is unattended.

For cabling I shamelessly copied Per's method, which works great (apart from it needing a whole pile of new longer USB cables- another hidden cost of imaging!)

post-9361-0-42725000-1432971126.png

I'm using 25Kg of weights on mine which is just about enough to balance it. I need another few Kgs for when I mount the Lunt solarscope, but rather than coughing up another £100 for a Geoptik weight I've bought some of these. once they arrive I'll try them out.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01003VY1K?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00

61NSbWqVp8L._SL1000_.jpg

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Zakalwe

Zakalwe

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Look at this thread on CN:

http://www.cloudynights.com/topic/505276-myt-no-cables-no-laptop-no-problems/

post-230714-0-92254100-1436396452.jpg

Everything running off a mini-PC mounted on top of the scope. A Bluetooth keyboard and mouse to interface, and a Wifi router to create a hotspot on the mount.

I really think that this is the future here. Either run a mini PC in the mount, or in the camera, then run a single power lead to the mount. After all, you can now get a full Windows PC on a USB stick

http://www.cnet.com/uk/products/intel-compute-stick/

Now that's a cable management problem solved!

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bilgebay

bilgebay

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Side-by-side bar sorted out and all balanced.

I've also made a new guidescope/solarscope piggyback mounting bracket.

The cable management is an essential pain, but it's just about under control.

The next step is to build a horizon profile so the mount will never GOTO or track below the visible horizon.

Looks awesome ! This is a child's play for MESU... doesn't even feel the load :)

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tomato

tomato

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A fine installation, I have had a Mesu 200 for 14 months now, purchased on the premise of for DSO AP the mount is everything. Only trouble is I have no permanent Obs and for reasons I won't go into when not in use it resides on the second floor of our townhouse!

Biggest project to date is ensuring I can set up the mount without:

a) not damaging the Mesu

B) not damaging myself

Steve

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  • 2 weeks later...
Zakalwe

Zakalwe

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Progress so far:

  • I've re-done all the wiring as I installed a separate PSU for the camera. I now have a mass of redundant USB leads!
  • I refined the polar alignment using the SiTech Polar Align tool. That seems very easy to use.
  • I have tried to use the automated PointXP calibration tool, but Nebulosity keeps dropping out of Listen mode. I can't seem to solve that one at all. More experimentation needed.
  • I did create a manual 36 point model. Im not sure if it is perfect, but the pointing seems pretty good.
  • The mount is now running some test subs. The first 20 minute guided H-a sub of the Elephant Neb is due in 3 minutes. I have everything crossed and am hoping that it comes out OK!!
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Zakalwe

Zakalwe

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Blooming thing!

It stopped after a single sub....I have SGP set up to auto meridian flip once the mount gets 20 degrees beyond the meridian. The mount was stopped with the CW bar horizontal, so there must be a problem with the SGP settings?

Anyhoo, I did a manual flip and now the guiding calibration has failed repeatedly saying "Guiding stopped, mount slewing" even though there was no slew commands issued. The "Stop guiding when mount slews" box is ticked in the PHD brain, so Im not sure what's going on here.

It's back running now...there's a blazing Moon, so the data won't be great. Good enough for testing though.

Here's the first sub....and the blooming stars aren't perfect (or I am going bog-eyed looking at them :shocked: ).

21835381732_bc6131fb67_b.jpgMesu Elephant_-15.0C_1200_Hydrogen-a_215628 by Stephen Jennette, on Flickr

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Zakalwe

Zakalwe

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A fine installation, I have had a Mesu 200 for 14 months now, purchased on the premise of for DSO AP the mount is everything. Only trouble is I have no permanent Obs and for reasons I won't go into when not in use it resides on the second floor of our townhouse!

Biggest project to date is ensuring I can set up the mount without:

a) not damaging the Mesu

B) not damaging myself

Steve

Blimey! That's dedication if you are humping this mount up and down stairs!!

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