From: "Tim" <tjp314@pacbell.net>

Date: January 18, 2006 9:48:44 AM MST

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: Can't autoguide with Flea (or DSI Pro, for that matter).

Milton:

ROTFLMFAO!

I do something like that too, only with my Nexstar 925 it's supposed to be "just roll off the

roof hatch cover, take off the dust covers, and turn everything on." Only it's a lot more

complicated than that. I can't leave the Megrez 80 piggyback, or the hatch will hit it when

I close up, so on it has to go and off it has to come, from the top of a ladder both times.

It's mounted in rings mounted to Losmandy plates, with no adjustment, so it's not

boresighted or boresighteable, until I make it so (haven't had a chance yet). To

counterbalance, I've got one of those losmandy weights, which isn't heavy enough, so I've

found a use for the DSI-pro that Meade hadn't quite intended - additional weight with the

Mogg Nikon adapter and a Quantaray zoom lens on another losmandy gizmo. I've not

taken pictures with the DSI-pro since last summer, but I probably will once I get

everything else figured out.

Main event was the ST2000XM, and trying to make sure everything works okay. I wasn't

able to reach focus on the C-8 with the Lumicon Easy guider in place with the lens set for f

0.5x, not 0.6x, and I didn't want to have to futz with changing things more than once after

setup, so I shot at f/10. I was very pleasantly surprised that EquinoX and the out-of-the-

box guider cable worked with the NS 9.25 very well first time I tried calibrating. I even

shot 3each 5-minute exposures of the Crab through LRGB, then averaged 3 darks of 5

minutes duration, but when I went to process the images after I got home from work last

night, I realized that I hadn't checked the "save all" button in Equinox and so the folder is

empty! I haven't done anything quite that dumb since 1979, when I guided a 1/60th

second exposure of the Horsehead nebula for a full hour outside Yucca Valley on New

Years Eve - when it was 16F outside.

F/10 is clearly too long for our seeing and the C-8 and 9.25 with 7.4 micron pixels. I've

shot a couple images unbinned, but the stars are rather fat, so most of the time I'm

shooting binned. I tried the ST2000XM on the Megrez one night, taking a focus frame of

the Pleiades, but the camera was too heavy for the focuser, and I couldn't find the allen

wrench to adjust the tension. But the Pleiades FIT the frame fabulously. I'm going to have

to try that again soon.

I've found myself wishing that Pt Grey made one of their 1600x1200 cameras with a larger

CCD. Like, why do they make a Scorpion with a 2/3" CMOS, but not a 2/3" CCD? I

suppose the chip would be prohibitively expensive, and machine vision isn't so concerned

with sensitivity. But it's neat that the Flea is several orders of magnitude lighter and

smaller than the ST2000XM.

I'm going to upload the Crab nebula shot I took with the Megrez while I wasn't saving the

ST2000XM images. It's not great, but it was taken with three 5 minute exposures, so it

shows long exposures are possible. I should have shot without the Mogg FR in place, but

then the crab might not have been on the chip!

-Tim.

--- In Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com, Milton Aupperle <milton@o...> wrote:

Hi Tim;

LOL .. well don't go to far. I really need you for beta testing,

especially if you go and get one of these "KITS and ASSEMBLED BOARDS"

and want it to work with Astro IIDC. It should work fine as is, but

one never knows for certain when they say "emulated". The SkySensor

2000 PC did things a little differently than a "true" LX200 scope

behaves, but it's been worked through and now tracks really well.

Also I had the first really clear day in nearly a month, the 80 kmph

winds howling all day have dropped down to almost nothing and I was

just out trying to snag some shots of Cetus A M 77 (Mag 10.5 / 8.9

arc minute sized Galaxy) using the MAK 127 mm scope (focal reducer

gives 550 mm focal lenght) with the Flea Fire Wire camera using the

ActiveWire IsoOptical USB board on my "hacked" EQ3/2 mount and the

80mm aperture 800 mm focal length with a Unibrain mono camera as the

Guider. Got it all wired up (both cameras attached to FireWire Hub,

hub to Mac, ActiveWire USB box hooked to "hacked" EQ3/2 drive and

Mac) , both scopes sighted in, RA drive / scope guider calibrated and

then use the finder scope and star charts to find M77 general

location (no GOTO scope here and faintest star you can see visually

is Mag 3 from the 10th story apartment balcony). So I crank the

camera up to 2 second exposures and find the surrounding 9th to 11th

mag stars around M77 in the Field of view. Took a quick 60 second

shot, saw the galaxy (faint fuzzy shape with bright center) and

realized that that I forgot to put the !@##$%# LPR filter on and the

light pollution is nearly wiping everything out.

So put the LPR filter on the Flea FW camera, point scope at Sirius,

focus it and then repeat all the steps above. Then I get the guide

scope adjusted so it's pointing at the 4.05 mag star 50 arc minutes

away and get Astro IIDC tracking that. Take another 60 second shot,

decide to run it up to 2 minutes but will do a dark frame shot first.

So I turn around to put the cap on the scope for the dark frame,

look up and see the !@#@#$@#$% clouds rolling in and I'm looking

through a convenient hole which is just closing up.

And now I can take it all down and disconnect all the cables and hump

it all inside before it starts snowing again.

What a lovely hobby we have..

LOL..

Milton J. Aupperle

President

ASC - Aupperle Services and Contracting

Mac Software (Drivers, Components and Application) Specialist

#1005 - 815 14th Avenue. S.W.

Calgary Alberta Canada T2R0N5

1-(403)-229-9456

milton@o...