Category Archives: Astronomy

M27 revisited

I first imaged M27 quite some years back and it has always been a favourite, so it being the summertime this planetary nebula was an obvious choice for an early target. This time I used the Skywatcher ED80 and Atik … Continue reading

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The observatory at work

Work on the observatory has slowed somewhat as I need to catch up on other domestic jobs, but from the images I’ve already posted it’s obviously being used. I’m not sure I have the arrangement of mounts and telescopes that … Continue reading

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This is an ex filter wheel!

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?

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

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?

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

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

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

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!

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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