New pier and AM3 for Samyang rig.

[ollypenrice]

We've squeezed a 5th pier into the 4-rig robotic shed thanks to the super compact AM3 and Samyang 135.

The pier is dead simple: 4 concrete column sections bedded onto the ground and to each other using building epoxy. Epoxy-bonded into the floor is a length of threaded bar (also held down by a plate and two more threaded bars) which goes up through the middle and holds the black ZWO pier extension down onto two metal bits we had already, the green plate and alloy disk. And that's it.

Bravo ZWO on the mount and pier. 1) You can fasten it onto a pier top from above so no need to contrive access from beneath. 2) You can rotate the mount through 360 degrees on the black column so no need to worry about getting your North pin within micro adjustment range. 3) No counterweights so the circulation space inside the observatory is hardly affected at all.

No leveling facility because... oh no, not again!!! 

The new rig is below the horizons of all other setups in the shed.

With luck, this winter, we'll be able to get a bit more field of view to add to our rather cramped Orion-Monoceros close-up. 

Olly, with Paul Kummer and Peter Woods.

[happy-kat]

that looks neat, clean and compact

[Adreneline]

Hi Olly.

Very nice tidy setup.

Can I ask where you sourced the angled plate onto which the EAF is mounted? Is it 'home-brew' or a stock item?

Adrian

[Vroobel]

Great setup of course, but the first thing my eye caught was the tension pulley. 

I'm crazy about DIYs... 😁

 

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Neat stuff. These Samyang 135mm lenses are just great, and the harmonic-drive mounts like the AM3 are just wonderfully compact. Looking forward to seeing the results

[ollypenrice]

2 hours ago, Adreneline said:

Hi Olly.

Very nice tidy setup.

Can I ask where you sourced the angled plate onto which the EAF is mounted? Is it 'home-brew' or a stock item?

Adrian

 

2 hours ago, Vroobel said:

Great setup of course, but the first thing my eye caught was the tension pulley. 

I'm crazy about DIYs... 😁

 

It's Paul's and comes from a kind of 'adult Meccano' system made by MOTIONCO https://www.motionco.co.uk/ which also provided the bits for the tension pulley. I hadn't seen it before but their range of parts is ideal for these jobs. (The aluminium outrigger which carries the guidescope is my own effort.)

Olly

Edited July 2 by ollypenrice

[WolfieGlos]

Nice looking setup, look forward to seeing the mosaic expand 

[Earl]

Space for a few more on that !

[Laurin Dave]

Looks very good Olly...    and no cables to snag  ..    

[Gfamily]

Nice - Paul shares his images with us at Mid Cheshire - so we'll get to enjoy them in due course. 

 

[ollypenrice]

1 hour ago, Laurin Dave said:

Looks very good Olly...    and no cables to snag  ..    

Ah yes, cables... 😬 All in good time!

Olly

[tomato]

Is that a Touptek/Rising Cam IMX571 on there?

I like your camera support, it looks familiar…

[ollypenrice]

1 hour ago, tomato said:

Is that a Touptek/Rising Cam IMX571 on there?

I like your camera support, it looks familiar…

Yes, that's the camera, Steve. It belongs to Peter Woods.

We are mulling over the possibility of using a remotely controlled front aperture mask. The idea would be to shoot the main run wide open at F2, as at present, then flip up a front aperture mask to bring it down to F6, or whatever, and shoot a quick bunch of subs for the stars to be added to a starless stretch of the F2 image. Better star shapes.

Thoughts?

Olly

[tomato]

That sounds like a good hardware based plan, but after reading Nik Szymanek’s Imaging Masterclass article in Astronomy Now about optimising BXT to fix star shapes I gave his settings a go on my latest set of SY135 data and was very impressed with the results.

At F2 my lens is extremely susceptible to stray red LED light inside my dome, I have had to stick black tape over nearly all the instrument indicator lights, to get an unaffected frame.

[ollypenrice]

9 hours ago, tomato said:

That sounds like a good hardware based plan, but after reading Nik Szymanek’s Imaging Masterclass article in Astronomy Now about optimising BXT to fix star shapes I gave his settings a go on my latest set of SY135 data and was very impressed with the results.

At F2 my lens is extremely susceptible to stray red LED light inside my dome, I have had to stick black tape over nearly all the instrument indicator lights, to get an unaffected frame.

That's interesting. I don't use the BXT-modded stars on our Samyang data because the most elongated ones get split into doubles. I can control size with the stretch I give the standard stars so I do better with those for now. I need to experiment more with BXT settings as well, but I like the improved detail on nebulosity.

Olly

[Stuart1971]

1 hour ago, ollypenrice said:

That's interesting. I don't use the BXT-modded stars on our Samyang data because the most elongated ones get split into doubles. I can control size with the stretch I give the standard stars so I do better with those for now. I need to experiment more with BXT settings as well, but I like the improved detail on nebulosity.

Olly

As I have mentioned to you before Olly, this can be sorted by reducing the default sharpen stars setting in BXT, from 0.5 to around 0.2, 0.5 is way to high for many types of images, and the worst stars are then split into doubles…I had the same issue, and this solved it..

I am not sure why he has set the default setting this high TBH

[tomato]

That is pretty much the break through change I made with BXT after reading Nik’s article in AN.

[Stuart1971]

44 minutes ago, tomato said:

That is pretty much the break through change I made with BXT after reading Nik’s article in AN.

I realised the first time I used it that something was wrong, as I got double stars appearing after using, and so started to compare to the previous version, and saw the large increase in the star sharpen setting, so put it back to the default number on the previous version and all was good again…not sure why it was changed, but it’s no big deal I guess…I see most people reduce it considerably usually to under 0.3..

[ollypenrice]

3 hours ago, Stuart1971 said:

As I have mentioned to you before Olly, this can be sorted by reducing the default sharpen stars setting in BXT, from 0.5 to around 0.2, 0.5 is way to high for many types of images, and the worst stars are then split into doubles…I had the same issue, and this solved it..

I am not sure why he has set the default setting this high TBH

Yes indeed, and I tried this successfully on RASA images but BXT still damages Samyang stars for us. Our camera has no tilt adjustment, which may be the problem.

Olly

[tomato]

Olly, my SY135 is the cheaper Sony version, Tomatobro adapted this to the RC 571 camera. The rather flimsy plastic adapter is still in the optical train which meant a decent camera support was essential. The flexibility in the plastic and the 3 screw arrangement on the camera ring means you can do crude but effective adjustments in situ to improve the corner stars.