From: Alan Friedman <alan@greatarrow.com>

Date: October 2, 2009 1:56:55 PM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] Scorpion experiences


Is there discussion/instruction anywhere for connecting the GPIO0 and GPIO1 pins on the Scorpion to enable long exposures? I've never soldered anything outside of copper plumbing pipe and that was many years ago. 


thanks!

Alan

Tim, 

I soldered the 2 wires on the rat-tail I was provided with together (& even followed Milton`s instructions for making my own Peltier cooler) but haven`t done any time exposures with my Flea 2 yet. With 2 of those 1600 pixel PGR cameras available (perhaps some of the other 1300 pixel ones) I`d have had to beat Alan to the punch & I only remembered my niece after Peter`s post! Last time I spoke to her she was between addresses so I didn`t follow up the option. 


Mark.

On 03/10/2009, at 3:40 AM, doobisary wrote:

Hi all:

I've only had two nights to play with my NOS Scorpion camera. First night's results I posted before (bad-seeing Jupiter monochrome).

Last night I set up my TV NP101is on Jupiter, as the seeing didn't seem like it would warrant using anything larger (turns out I was probably wrong about that, but I was too tired to start over). I fiddled with things like dark frame subtraction (which seems to work VERY well for this camera), and binning (not as well as 1x1, noise-wise). I haven't put a wire in the GPIO socket yet, as I need to look up the instructions first, so I couldn't take exposures longer than a half second or so.

I tried experimenting with a filter wheel I'd made several years ago out of PVC plumbing parts (6" pipe caps, IIRC) and some HOYA filters (not dichroic), but the thing is clearly not machined surfaces and the alignment of the innie and outie tubes aren't coaxial enough (and the whole thing is plastic, so it flexes a bit. So, I need to either build a new filter wheel or buy one.

At PATS, I drooled over a thin profile Starlight Xpress USB controlled wheel that just came out for ~$500, and an Orion, also USB for about $450. I imagine I could control the SX with iCCD or something similar, but does anybody make anything for running the Orions on a Mac? (cameras, too?).

The other possibility is to just use a manual wheel, but that precludes me from using it on my NS9.25GPS, which I run remotely. I can certainly use a manual wheel on my other scopes that I set up outside, though.

A final possibility is to get a "stand alone" kit for my SBIG CFW-10 filter wheel, but my experience is that removing it from the ST2000XM involves taking it apart to get at the mounting screws, so I'd rather leave that system alone (a very nice DSO camera).

Any suggested favorites? Like the Orion or Atik manual wheels? (same wheel, right?).

TIA,
-Tim.