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In fact, I’ve got several on Amazon too if anyone is interested; most have been given to the Society for the History of Astronomy and they just need to go to good homes.
Jack there is a video of a chap making adjustmetns to one of these mounts, and also a thread on cloudy nights describing adjustment of the slop in the system, these may help you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvf8SJiXZOg
https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/382939-vixen-porta-mount-repair/
James
Bill if this meets your requirements in terms of capacity and connections, then it looks good; it seems to be £20 cheaper on Amazon. The others out there seem to be significantly bigger and heavier.
Bill there are countless options out there. As Jeremy says, you need to work out how much power you need between recharges and go from there. Much more expensive than lead acid though, and still needs to be looked after and recharged appropraitely and regularly. There is nothing wrong with lead acid batteries, though twice the weight of lithium, as long as you take care of them.
Thanks Paul. If the solar panel is on the dome, that makes sense. I’ll discuss the idea with the others. Thank you.
Mel, thanks. We want something which will hold it whenever someone takes their hand off the crank handle; if they let go it runs away as described above. The U bolt idea is good though for holding it; we use a rope at present which does something similar. But thank you.
Paul, that is a good idea. Our shutter is pretty heavy so it may need to be a chunky battery. How do you go about charging up that battery? We’d need someone to remember to connect it to the charging circuit unless we always parked the dome in azimuth in the same position and set up a positive and negative contacts at specific locations on the dome and the on the rim of the supporting wall. But an interesting idea.
James
I think it would be too slow Bill unless we motorised it but getting power to the dome at any position in its 360 degree rotation would be difficult.
And posted this on SLG: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/427185-ratchet-mechanism-for-opening-slit-in-dome/
Alex, thanks for this. The image you have created is much more akin to what I was hoping to get. You’ve managed to bring out the tail in lots more detail and there is structure visible within it, without blowing out the nucleus. I can still still the impact poor flats are having on the data, but I am really impressed. I’ve made an animated gif to show the image you could get out of my data vs the image I got out. Given it is the same data, I think there is something you are doing in the stacking process and in the post-processing step which I am not doing. Maybe sometime I can watch what you do and learn from that. I am so grateful for your time.
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Thanks both. My flat panel is an illuminated artists sketch pad from Amazon; I wonder if I should have just made the pad brighter so that I could have reduced the exposure length which may have avoided the flickering. I’ll experiment.
The DSLR doesn’t use counts so I used the histogram and aim for a range between 25-50% and take 5 or so at each setting to later review on the PC and use – I only use one exposure batch, not flats from different exposure settings.
Thanks again.
James
I suspect no one definitively knows. You may have to conduct experiments with an existing solar farm.
I suspect day time seeing could be impaired as thermals rise off it.
The panels and metal frame structure will release heat quite quickly in the winter I suspect, but large areas of concrete, tarmac, buildings etc will release their heat more slowly which could impair seeing conditions.
Security lighting at night could also be problematic.
It’s good fun watching the trails appear. We used recycled dry ice. The website won’t allow me to attach a video to show the trails.
Post some pictures of the current set-up from the side, so we can see what the top of the pier is like and the current adapter plate under the mount. If there is an owl hole, try and get some pictures inside there too looking at any bolts.
If it was me, I’d remove the old adapter plate, clean off the top of the pier, maybe re-paint it, and then attach the new adapter plate. If you know what sort of pier it is we could work out if the new plate would fit. Do you have any old photos of the pier with the current plate attached to see? Or whoever you purchased it from may know what adapter plate the EQ6 one is (where he got it from) or have some photos.
I think if you can do as much planning and preparation in advance of taking the whole kit down, your kit will be out of action for the shortest time possible.
I have found two pictures of the adapter plate we used:
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Grant,
There are commercially available adapter plates. I got one of these from Altair Astro when we mounted an EQ8 on a steel pier:
https://www.altairastro.com/skywatcher-eq8-r-and-cq350-pro-pier-adapter-plate-443-p.asp
Out of interest, why put the C14 in rings and not just use a dovetail?
James
Michael, thank you.
Valid point. I suspect most of the additional weight will be on the rear cell of the C14 which is pretty thick and very rigid. I don’t think as much weight and potential distortion on the front cell. I am off to the International Astronomy Show in a few weeks so I’ll speak to people there. The only rings I’ve seen for the C14 are over £1000 which seems crazy, and I do wonder if the thin skin of the scope is better or worse in terms of stability and applying forces through/over the C14.
James
Grant,
Here is the link to SGL: https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/424477-maximum-payload-eq8/
I am not seeking to guide, I am seeking a second refractor to [semi-]permanently fit with a camera to project an image on a TV, leaving another refractor with an eyepiece and the C14 with an eyepiece.
Thank you.
Thank you Richard. I should have said that; yes I’d need to drill holes in the front and rear collars of the C14, which isn’t difficult to do once the corrector plate and primary mirror cell are removed. I was potentially going to use the opportunity to install a fan or vent at the back at the same time to help with cool down.
