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Today sees the start of something interesting...

Milamber

By Milamber
in DIY Astronomer

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Milamber

Milamber

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... so to cut to the chase, today - on coming home from Tescos - a large parcel was standing waiting in the conservatory. Immediatley this was a problem since Mrs Arthur was getting some of the shopping in and I had... "postponed" mentioning said box. Some fast talking and a hastily-made cup of tea assured her that the box was of negligible cost and anyway, I could legitimately claim the contents as business expenses. This last, oddly enough, is true... here's the package in question, delivered direct from Adam Hinds in maybe 16 hours:

Boxes.jpg

Mrs Arthur has now nipped out to a friend's house to watch Casualty or something (I have no idea, go figure) so I got the chance to open something. Now then, the visually acute amongst you will have noticed that this parcel was in fact four parcels wrapped together... four shiny new Celestron C102mm refractors actually... at a knock down price from David Hinds that is still available if you want one yourself (part number is 52270, search their site) and here's a piccie of one of them - basically a Skywatcher 102 with 2" focuser, Celestron colours/stuff on it and a copy of The Sky thrown in as well:

One-Open.jpg

What the heck do you want four of those wee beasties I hear you say? Come closer then and I shall tell you.

Once upon a time in a land far away, the wide angle search for planets (WASP) was born... basically scopes mounted together with others dotted about the world. Greg Parker, at the New Forest Observatory, saw this and decided to tailor it a little to his own ends... and then transferred his energies to NIP (narrowband imaging platform) leaving his WASP thing redundant. His basic premise, that of four scopes on one mount doing all the work in 1/4 the time is valid and this is where the four Celestrons come in. With the introduction of new mounting systems ( :) ) it became clear that an HEQ5 could now support four 4" scopes (plus one guiding), all imaging either same target in LRGB, or quadrants of a superwide view, or whatever. Cameras will be expensive to do that though so I intend to start with local/planetary stuff - whilst it will invlove using four computers it will also mean that for planetary imaging I can get up to 120 fps, and we all know that with variable seeing then high frame rates are important to hit the peaks of that seeing.

So there you have it - the start of a multi-scope imaging platform that will start off planetary and hopefully, by the Autumn (money permitting) will have moved on to deep space imaging.

As they say... watch this space!

Arthur

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beamish

beamish

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When it comes to DSO's though, surely 1x puta would do it? Buy 3x Intervalometers, use the puta to go round -robin checking focus and FOV ,once set, let'em go-no app for filter wheels since each will have there own fixed filter. Guide thru a 5th setup ( ?? Karlo's Kwiq Guider lookalike ??) in the middle .

Great idea Arthur- can't wait to see your results. I can see Peter's ( Psychobilly) ears pricking up already :)

Karlo

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Psychobilly

Psychobilly

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When it comes to DSO's though, surely 1x puta would do it? Buy 3x Intervalometers, use the puta to go round -robin checking focus and FOV ,once set, let'em go-no app for filter wheels since each will have there own fixed filter. Guide thru a 5th setup ( ?? Karlo's Kwiq Guider lookalike ??) in the middle .

Great idea Arthur- can't wait to see your results. I can see Peter's ( Psychobilly) ears pricking up already :)

Karlo

We did discuss the mini-deluxe version... but then i priced it all up :(

EQ6 Syntrek

Arthurs "trick" mounting system

then 4 sets of...

Megrez 72's

WO FF III

Hutech IDAS P2's

Canon 1000D's (modded of course)

laptops...

What are those Acro's going to be like for imaging - ok for mono I supppose... which is the point of the multi OTA "LRGB" setup...

I shall follow this with interest... :)

Peter...

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Milamber

Milamber

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What are those Acro's going to be like for imaging - ok for mono I supppose... which is the point of the multi OTA "LRGB" setup...

That's the point - for single/narrow band imaging the achro-ness is not an issue since I am only using one band at a time anyway - who cares if the green focuses here and the red over there?

Might be fun for planetary though but I know a few tricks for that too - I have been around a while after all :)

Arthur

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NickH

NickH

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It's already being used in this config for Solar, white, cak and H-A in parallel at chez Howes...

Am mulling a similar config, sticking 1 x atik 314L, 1 x Atik 314L colour, and one guide scope..

WASP tastic..

Greg Parker are you watching this?

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Milamber

Milamber

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Update - just got hold of a Compaq 4 way powered KVM switch, panel mount, with dedicated keyboard (with rollerball mouse) and all 4 sets of leads for a dead silly price.

Now looking at 4 USB repeater cables... best price so far is £22.38 for the four - can anyone beat that?

Also chasing some sff PC base units, either Compaq EVO or Dell Optiplex seem to be in my price range of £30 max each - spec not so important as is having XP installed. Only four since I will be using the Cube here for main guiding and mount control - these base units will only ever have to do image capture, nothing else.

And also there's the cam issue... having to look wayyyy back in my old history files to see which webcams I can get cheaply but still can be modded later on. First one I got confirmed/paid for yesterday and is on the way, second one being stalked even now, have a few other possibles waiting in the wings :icon_rolleyes:

Keep watching!

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Milamber

Milamber

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6-way power distribution panel in the bag, as is #2 webcam. Waiting on another two if they hit the right price... Oh yeah, got a couple of Evo 1.5GHz D500 base units, clean XP Pro install on both... under £50 delivered - waiting confirmation on another two 1.7GHz but otherwise the same spec.

Still no 19" case, but may end up making something bespoke anyway... am loving the idea of a big case full of PC's/PSU's and stuff connected up to the HEQ5 and a bank of scopes - can't wait, going to put ESA and NASA to shame I reckon.

Arthur

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Milamber

Milamber

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... or lip grinblah.gif

The two cams, both with ICX098BL chips, set me back under £15 for the two, delivered... I bet your posh cam cost more than that just for the delivery!

Besides, this was ever going to be a budget system otherwise there would be no point in the excercise. With enough money you can do anything, the fun starts when you got none :icon_rolleyes:

Arthur

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Psychobilly

Psychobilly

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... or lip grinblah.gif

The two cams, both with ICX098BL chips, set me back under £15 for the two, delivered... I bet your posh cam cost more than that just for the delivery!

Arthur

Delivery was free... so your wrong on that one... :icon_rolleyes:

I admire your "budget" approach... and I am sure it will make you very happy and the rest of us jelaous of it when its up and running...

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Milamber

Milamber

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Delivery was free... so your wrong on that one... :)

For £400 I would expect at least 2 scantily-clad nymphets to deliver it by hand - and to wait for a signature... ;)

When... it's a four-letter word you know! Should be soon, but health-type things are getting in the way, today had what seemed like a pint of cortizone injected around various points in my arm so typing with one hand atm. (Can't move the other).

To tell the truth, most of what I intend doing is old hat, if anyone's interested then the howto can be gleaned from the QCUIAG archives - a goldmine of shoestring astronomy ideas and methods built up over the years by people with much more knowledge than me... I'm just putting things together really, a bit of this, a bit of that - the main thing though is to enjoy it and have fun, that way when the smoke starts to curl out of the electronics you can sit back and take the long-term view :icon_rolleyes:

Arthur

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Milamber

Milamber

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The source is Ebay - but the sneaky bit is knowing which cams 1) have the 098 ccd sensor and 2) can be LE modded at a later date.

Should be picking up the HEQ5 later today - I am borrowing it from Atik's newest UK recruit - but I doubt idf any scopes will be mounted on it for another day or so since right now my arm feels like it's been stomped on by the All-Blacks...

Arthur

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