Author Archives: james

Possible meteorite image?

Posted on June 10, 2020 by james

I suspect long exposure images that catch genuine meteorites burning up are not that common and I try quite hard to explain any unexpected trails on my images as satellites or aircraft, but this one doesn’t seem to fit and … Continue reading →

Posted in Astronomy | Tagged | Leave a comment

Guidescope in need of TLC

Posted on June 10, 2020 by james

I recently purchased a used Celestron 80mm guidescope with a focal length of 600mm. Normally I’d probably have gone for another ST80, but in fact I wanted this one to use with a slightly longer focal length OTA anyhow, so … Continue reading →

Posted in Astro Equipment, Astroimaging, Astronomy | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Interesting guiding drift plot

Posted on June 10, 2020 by james

In relatively poor seeing recently, the drift plot for guiding in Ekos showed up like this: An interesting pattern, I thought, like three circles on a line through the centre of the plot. I can’t explain either the circles or … Continue reading →

Posted in Astroimaging, Astronomy | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Odd diffraction spikes from a refractor

Posted on June 10, 2020 by james

The other night I was framing an image using my 80ED and Atik 314L when I noticed that some stars in one corner of the image had odd diffraction spikes: I couldn’t see what the problem was at all at … Continue reading →

Posted in Astroimaging, Astronomy | Tagged | Leave a comment

Odd Maksutov reflections

Posted on June 10, 2020 by james

The other night when I slewed to a bright star to check the focus on my Skywatcher 127 Mak I got this image from the ASI174MM camera: I’m thinking the off-centre ring must be a reflection of the bright star, … Continue reading →

Posted in Astroimaging, Astronomy | Leave a comment

Darkstar restoration, part 6

Posted on June 10, 2020 by james

I think the next step has to be sorting out the spider and secondary mirror assembly. Now I’ve had some time to consider options, what I’d really like to do is to build a secondary assembly similar to those used … Continue reading →

Posted in Astro Equipment, Astronomy | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Darkstar restoration, part 5

Posted on June 10, 2020 by james

The new stainless bolts arrived, but I’ve had little chance to get out to the workshop so this morning I got out and started work on fitting the new focuser. This took a little longer than planned as I realised … Continue reading →

Posted in Astro Equipment, Astronomy | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Robert Brown Focuser Controller build, step by step #13

Posted on June 10, 2020 by james

Woohoo! It lives, Igor! I did wonder why the tests to turn the motor an entire revolution weren’t actually turning the spindle very far until I remembered that it has a 27:1 gearbox on. Easily missed, that one 🙂 And … Continue reading →

Posted in Astro Equipment, Astronomy | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Robert Brown Focuser Controller build, step by step #12

Posted on June 10, 2020 by james

I have some 24AWG cat5 patch cables that are no use to me any more, partly because they’re not good enough for gigabit ethernet and partly because they’re not assembled very well (they were supplied with Sun Microsystems kit, too; … Continue reading →

Posted in Astro Equipment, Astronomy | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Robert Brown Focuser Controller build, step by step #11

Posted on June 10, 2020 by james

Finished the lid. No photos yet, but I’ve run some of the tests. The LEDs and pushbuttons appear to work fine, though the buzzer doesn’t. I wasn’t entirely happy about my connector for the buzzer though, so I may need … Continue reading →

Posted in Astro Equipment, Astronomy | Tagged , | Leave a comment