Monthly Archives: August 2014

Coronado PST BF5 positioning mod

Posted on August 31, 2014 by james

A few days ago I posted about the problems with vignetting when imaging with a PST and decided that for me a solution might be to move the BF5 unit as close to the camera sensor as possible so that … Continue reading →

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Astro EQ conversion of EQ3-2 (part 2)

Posted on August 29, 2014 by james

I ordered some aluminium channel (1″x2″x1/8″) to make up the RA motor mount which arrived yesterday. I chose this size because there’s only one mounting hole for each of the normal aftermarket motors on the EQ3-2 and this would give … Continue reading →

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MythTV upgrade to 0.27

Posted on August 27, 2014 by james

Everyone else is away for a couple of days so I took the opportunity to upgrade our Mythbuntu installation from 0.26 to 0.27 last night.  It turned out much simpler than I expected.  We have a backend and several frontends, … Continue reading →

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Astro EQ conversion of EQ3-2

Posted on August 27, 2014 by james

I decided today that it’s about time I extracted a digit and got on with converting my old EQ3-2 “Sky Scan 2001” mount to GOTO using Tom Carpenter’s rather nice AstroEQ box. Although I already have the aftermarket motors fitted, … Continue reading →

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Shoddy Coronado PST build quality

Posted on August 26, 2014 by james

The constant rain this weekend meant indoor activity was called for, so I started work on my new PST mod to move the BF5 filter closer to the camera in an attempt to reduce or perhaps even completely remove the … Continue reading →

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Swimming pool solar heating system

Posted on August 24, 2014 by james

When we bought our current house quite some years ago, it had a reasonable size “in ground” swimming pool that was suffering a bit from lack of maintenance.  The re-made ground around the pool had settled over the years and … Continue reading →

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Coronado PST eyepiece holder disassembly part 2

Posted on August 20, 2014 by james

I got brave this evening and disassembled the eyepiece holder to the point I’d reached as described a few days ago. I then examined the BF5 housing and decided that it appeared to fit into the eyepiece holder from the … Continue reading →

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When life gives you lemons, make lemonade

Posted on August 15, 2014 by james

But when it gives you apples, make cider… And to that ends I’ve just taken delivery of a new apple “scratter” for pulping apples before pressing them to extract the juice.  I used to use a manual crusher, but it’s … Continue reading →

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Coronado PST eyepiece holder disassembly

Posted on August 15, 2014 by james

Following on from my thoughts that I might have to move the blocking filter on my modded PST closer to the camera sensor, I decided to take it apart to see what I might be dealing with.  Though I’ve got … Continue reading →

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Another possible PST mod

Posted on August 14, 2014 by james

My PST has been repeatedly modded and now looks like this: (though now with the addition of a motor to the focuser.) I have been pondering of late however on the amount of vignetting that occurs when imaging and what … Continue reading →

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