Category Archives: Astronomy

This is an ex filter wheel!

Posted on August 31, 2019 by james

I was having trouble getting my Xagyl filter wheel working with Ekos last night, partly because INDI fights with the serial subsystem thanks to both the wheel and the NEQ6 mount using /dev/ttyUSBn devices. I worked around the entire problem … Continue reading →

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More T2, Vicar?

Posted on August 31, 2019 by james

Setting up cameras on my telescopes has shown up a distinct lack of all the fiddly little bits of kit that you don’t think about 🙁 In particular, extensions to fit T2 threads on cameras, and male-to-male converters to fit … Continue reading →

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Progress with the Dumbell

Posted on August 31, 2019 by james

After my efforts on the Dumbell Nebula a short while back I’ve been collecting more data. I actually threw away my luminance subs and collected 250 minutes of new luminance data as 600s subs, and 50 minutes each of 300s … Continue reading →

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Skywatcher drawtubes are different lengths. Who knew?

Posted on August 30, 2019 by james

I have a focuser I’m unhappy with that I wish to upgrade when I can find a replacement I’m happy with, but as a stock Skywatcher R&P focuser came up for very little money I bought it to use in … Continue reading →

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NEQ6 guiding failure after meridian flip

Posted on August 30, 2019 by james

I’m using Kstars/Ekos to control my mounts and in theory it’s possible to set things up so the mount will automagically meridian flip if the hour angle increases beyond a certain value. Having seen it in action it does look … Continue reading →

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On-mount USB hubs

Posted on August 30, 2019 by james

With the proliferation of devices attached directly or indirectly to my telescope mounts it seemed sensible to consider placing a USB hub directly on the mount and running a single USB cable to the controlling PC, rather than having a … Continue reading →

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Missing icons in Kstars and Ekos

Posted on August 29, 2019 by james

After installing Kstars and friends on my Mint 19 desktop from the launchpad PPA, I discovered that none of the buttons in the application had icons. Some were blank, whilst others had text overlaying them. I only actually realised this … Continue reading →

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Success with libgphoto2!

Posted on August 29, 2019 by james

Since the last release of oacapture I’ve mostly been working on oalive, an EAA-type application that will share a large amount of code with oacapture. One of the new things I wanted to do with this was to add support … Continue reading →

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Rassin’ frassin’ satellites!

Posted on August 29, 2019 by james

All astroimagers know they can be a pain, but was there really any need for this on the first sub of an imaging run?

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A couple of galaxies

Posted on August 29, 2019 by james

A couple more images from the Photoline 72 and ASI174MM last night. No filters, as for the earlier image of the Iris. M51 is 30 minutes of 90s subs, stacked, stretched and cropped, but no darks. Looking at the full … Continue reading →

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