Astrobar

[Wiu-Wiu]

I can't seem to find a lot of info on the QHYCCD Astrobar 1 - only that it seems to be discontinued. 

I think this piece of equipment is very similar to the EAGLE (Primalucelab). 

 

I have one and would like to see if it would be handy to incorporate it into my setup. What can I make it do for me? 

I was thinking to put it in charge of dew heating and autofocus, but it looks like it could also take control over my camera, guiding and goto. (ascom pre-installed)

Any ideas? 

 

 

[Dr_Ju_ju]

It comes with Windows 10, so anything you would do on your pc\laptop, you could do on the bar, with a caveat of how many things concurrently running...

The info is still on QHY's site i.e. https://www.qhyccd.com/index.php?m=content&c=index&a=show&catid=30&id=144

[bingevader]

Came here in the hope this was alcohol related!

Merry Christmas, nearly.

[Wiu-Wiu]

22 minutes ago, bingevader said:

Came here in the hope this was alcohol related!

Merry Christmas, nearly.

It might eventually lead to that. I am just THAT tech-minded.  

[bottletopburly]

Would a stellarmate do what you need it to ? Not to be confused with Stella artois ?

[Craney]

A Stella mate.... me bestist mate yyer cuud evr have (hic!)

[kunene]

On 22/12/2018 at 15:36, Wiu-Wiu said:

I can't seem to find a lot of info on the QHYCCD Astrobar 1 - only that it seems to be discontinued. 

I think this piece of equipment is very similar to the EAGLE (Primalucelab). 

 

I have one and would like to see if it would be handy to incorporate it into my setup. What can I make it do for me? 

I was thinking to put it in charge of dew heating and autofocus, but it looks like it could also take control over my camera, guiding and goto. (ascom pre-installed)

Any ideas? 

 

 

Hi.

How far did you go with Astrobar? Though, it has officially been continued, a lot of aliexpress.com sellers still carry it. 

I guess it didn't really catch on as you hardly find users. This is probably because of its meager processing powers and only 2Gb memory. The manufacturer might after also found out defects and bugs. 

Interestingly, it is still selling for atleast $350 on aliexpress. You were the only owner I could find.

So, how did it go?.

[PlankWithANailIn]

I think when they initialy tried to sell it they wanted way too much money. For my set up I think it would be ok as I use a DSLR for taking images. For guiding and mount control the weak CPU and memory will be just fine but some high resolution image capture might be an issue. 

The video is great but his concerns about dew probably aren't valid. The PCB's on these things will probably be above ambient temperature. They could also be conformally  coated, if not you could do it yourself for a tenner. ￡374.70 delivered in a useful form factor...it's interesting.

 

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33015991006.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.38de1e30YKLfg8&algo_pvid=9c20f345-a16a-431f-924e-66a635c18fad&algo_expid=9c20f345-a16a-431f-924e-66a635c18fad-0&btsid=0b0a0ae216179856043846373ed0be&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_,searchweb201603_

Edited April 9, 2021 by PlankWithANailIn

[Wiu-Wiu]

I have never gotten around to actually using it. The asiair pro had developed so I was able to control and monitor it from indoors, so my interest in further tinkering with the astrobar was discontinued. 

I did get as far as installing a remote control (chrome remote, but windows remote is needed as chrome auto logs you off after x weeks), and software like ascom, NINA, and PHD, and thanks to Youtube I found a way to synchronise the subs folder to my home server (or PC), so subs could be transferred in real time and HD space freed. But as stated above, the CPU seemed insufficient to work well with the data transfer over USB 3, so choices need to be made. 

I am now planning to use a NUC, combined with the pegasus powerbox mini (dew control and power distribution), and that could give me a bit more processing power, as I don't think support is continued so an upgrade of RAM and/or HD space is probably not an option.

I wouldn't recommend spending 400 quid on it, tho. Give me a message if you feel like it has a better use in your setup because I am not planning on keeping it myself.