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DSLR outside. Mount bolted to house


Guest peepshow

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Guest peepshow

 Bacon and mushrooms with mine please :D .

Ya, ya, boo, sucks...........

 

Whilst you lot are fumbling with a thermos flask of coffee in the freezing dark with thick gloves on I shall be indoors eating my egg, bacon, mushrooms, beans, toast all on a warm plate.  With an elegant cup of coffee and my feet up on the wife's dressing table looking at my results just pouring in from outside.    hee hee hee hee ;)

 

Who am I kidding? :D

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Ya, ya, boo, sucks...........

 

Whilst you lot are fumbling with a thermos flask of coffee in the freezing dark with thick gloves on I shall be indoors eating my egg, bacon, mushrooms, beans, toast all on a warm plate.  With an elegant cup of coffee and my feet up on the wife's dressing table looking at my results just pouring in from outside.    hee hee hee hee ;)

 

Who am I kidding? :D

Method in your madness :thumbsup: .

 

Hopefully it will all work out just as you propose, with you feeling smug and snug in your very warm room enjoying doing some great imaging :) .

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Guest peepshow

Here's my nice cumfy warm control room being assembled.  :D


 


Security camera  monitor just above PC to enable me to


keep an eye on things.


Box to right of PC contains all non PC controls.


 


Just outside that window is the two part cocoon.  That window is triple glazed BTW.


Cable lengths from PC to camera gear is about 5ft.


 


Do you like the astro wallpaper? :)


If this lot doesn't work I can always look at the pretty bedroom wallpaper. :D


 


 


Controlroom_zpsa98f4d22.jpg


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Mission control is looking good, especially with that way out space age backdrop. Have you asked Santa for a cable tidy? :)

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Guest peepshow

. Have you asked Santa for a cable tidy? :)

No I haven't as I use a cable untidy. Get them in Aldi. 

 

They are very good. Here are my two PC's with them fitted.

 

I am doing my doctorate in the Science of Tanglelation.  It's quite a knotty subject to understand.

 

DSCF1337_zps0208590d.jpg

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  • 2 months later...
Guest peepshow

 Last week I finally finished wiring up the Cocoon and got the monitor working.,,


,,,,after 2 months of inactivity. :facepalm:


 


A few nights ago I used PHD to guide for a few minutes before the clouds rolled in.


 


PHD graph was ropey as no PA yet  and this is my first time trying to guide. :rolleyes:


 


It's very comfy doing every indoors  in the warm, looking down on the mount and seeing it slewing on the little monitor.


 


(I must learn how to spell Window too!)


 


Cocoon%20with%20monitor_zpsz5oowb21.jpg


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Fingers crossed for some clear skies soon. I'm looking forward to seeing some pictures soon.


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That's almost good enough to persuade me to sell the dome and use the spare bedroom! 😀 well almost 😉

It will be great for you to be able to keep an eye on things through the window. 👀 🔭

This idea could catch on, just watch this space! ðŸ‘

I like your invisible cable tidies too!

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  • 3 weeks later...
Guest peepshow

An update on the wall mounted rig..........


.


As I am new to guiding with a mount I thought my main trouble would be getting PHD to guide correctly.


But my main trouble was in getting backyardEOS to recognise my camera.


 


After doing a trouble free PA without being able to see Polaris,  last night I did my first attempt at imaging.


 


I found that PHD easily locks to most stars without frigging with any parameters and seems to guide OK.


It guided last nigh for 45 minutes until I switched it off.  Here is the graph which is probably a bit wobbly


but looks similar to others I have seen on forums.


 


But my main trouble was, being bolted to the house wall and me inside in the warm I didn't realise that the anti dew lens heaters


had become disconnected. so all my stars had a bad halo......I will show some images when this is sorted.


 


I have two old Dell laptops now, one running backyard and the other PHD so I can see everything before me.


 


The guiding is a QYH5 ll and the lens is an old M42 thread  f2.8 135mm lens.


 


So it seems that mounting a rig on a house wall can work.........


...........providing the house doesn't have any present moving settlement to its walls. :D


 


 


 


PHD%20graph_zpsm9wtw1td.jpg


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Never mind the graph, I'm looking forward to seeing some nice wide field astronomy images :)

You're getting there with it now Richard :thumbsup:

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Guest peepshow

Oh, it's all right for you with yer big Dob, Pete. :)  


I luv my little graph and won't hear anything against it..  :lol:


 


But  I cannot yet get my GoTo to go to. 


It's more like a, 'ComeFrom gawd knows where', at the moment.


 


I've also encountered what I deem to call, "My  garden gate syndrome." 


...........Rather like a car not starting unless the garden gate is open !!!


 


But we shall overcome, or be overcome. :)


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  • 3 weeks later...
Guest peepshow

Here is first light of stars taken on the house wall mounted rig.


1 minute at iso 100  f2.8  There is a slight red halo on some stars caused by an Astronomik CLS filter


behind the lens.


 


(No PHD guiding in this shot, just Stellarium mount control BTW)


 


I had to lower the iso to 100 as the f2.8 lens  overexposes at 1 minute.


 


There is no sign of house wall wobble nor thermal effects through the bedroom's centrally heated room wall during the 1 minute sub.


 


The focus needs a tiny adjustment but I have difficulty getting stars to show in backroom EOS focus so far. 


 


So it seems that house wall mounted rigs, controlled from indoors will work.


 


The pier was bolted to the house wall with common TV mast brackets.  No supplementary stays were used


 


1%20minute%20f2.8_zps2auxpu9n.jpg


 


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Brilliant. I think you are going to see a heck of a lot of stars with that when you start stacking :thumbsup:

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The stars look good to me especially for one minute unguided.


 


Bit by bit you are getting there.


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Guest peepshow

Thanks guys.


It now occurs to me that maybe Stellarium tracking is good enough without any guiding


in the future  :o


 


It was only by chance that I had PHD turned off last night and relied entirely upon Stellarium


to do the tracking for me over that 1 minute.


 


So, anyone want to buy a redundant QHY5 ll ;)  :)


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  • 1 month later...
Guest peepshow

My wall mounted rig will never be able to take a long focal length scope. 


 


But to experiment I have got myself a 900mm f8 mirror lens (listen to the groans :D )


I know that mirror lenses are taboo for astro work. Slow and poor images. 


One reason is the difficulty in focusing the beasts.


 


Here is my solution.  A 900mm lens adapted to focus at infinity only. 


A quarter turn on that small screw (6ba),  against a rubber compression stop moves the lens barrel around by 4 thou.


So,  using backyardEOS I should be able to get a finer focus.


 


This is all experimental and I  look forward to seeing the focused but degraded  images of the 900mm. :D


 


focus%20screw_zps9laftidk.jpg


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You certainly do some unusual things Richard. :)

But, if it has the required effect, brilliant.

You now have your own micro-focuser :thumbsup:

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