Carrying Bags for both Scope and Mount. Posted by Doc B at 19:31, June

Transcription

1 Carrying Bags for both Scope and Mount Posted by Doc B at 19:31, June I have now a Orion Carrying Bag for the Skywatcher Quattro, and a Army Duffle Bag for the Celestron CGEM DX mount. This should allow me to safely transport both in my vehicle if they will fit. I will have to test that since my car is the Chevy Volt. I have also attached some wire clips to the scope so the wire management will be easier. New Battery Posted by Doc B at 01:31, May The 12V battery I was using for my portable telescope was dead. Could not recharge it. so purchased a 75ah, 12v AGM Deep cycle Battery. This along with the Kendrick Power Box will provide me with DC voltage for the Mallincam, Celestron, and laptop (still waiting for DC cigarette lighter cable for the Dell to arrive, any day now). I have also ordered a Duffel bag for the mount, and a Orion bag for the telescope. These should protect them during transport. Dedicated Guide PC Posted by Doc B at 19:20, April Well, I can run my Celestron and Mallincam from one laptop. But, I had a old (I mean old) laptop with 40GB drive. I loaded PHd autoguider on this laptop and test it out. It works. So If I have room I can use ttwo laptops. One for Mallincam and Telescope goto abilities. The other laptop will be control the auto-guider. Collimating the Quattro Posted by Doc B at 19:22, March Today I took the plunge to collimate the Sky Watcher Quattro while to telescope is i a nice warm place (the basement). I inserted the laser collimator, followed the instructions on the handout that came with the collimator and the telescope was indeed in need of collimation (or it was perfect and I am not using the laser collimator correctly). The red cross hairs where not in the centre of the primary. So I took the 1/16 allen wrench and tweaked the three screws on the secondary to get the cross hairs directly in the centre of the donut. That wasn't too bad. Now went to the back of the telescope and placed the reflected dot into the centre of the grid on the laser collimator. Again just loosened the holding screws on the back and adjusted the adjustment screws. Again very easy. Well, if I am using the collimator correctly then my Quattro is collimated. Only one way to tell. When the weather gets warm I will check the collimation on a star. Found an old laptop, will see if it has the power to run the PhD guiding software. Just working on getting software onto Computers Posted by Doc B at 02:43, March The last week has been relatively uneventful from the Telescope hardware perspective. I have just been loading software onto the laptop that will control the Celestron, as well as software on the primary video capture laptop. The Observatory system will consist of three computers (2 laptops and 1 desktop). The Desktop will control the Observatory telescope via software (Starry Night, Sky Tools, and Virtual Moon atlas). The Dell XPS will control the video camera(s) and download and broadcast the video onto the Internet plus control the focusing of the

2 Telescope. The 14" Dell will be the autoguider control for the telescope. The 14" Dell will also control the Celestron while in the field which includes video camera control, Autoguiding, and possible telescope control. Just ensuing the each computer has the updated versions of each software. Still waiting for a usb double rs232 cable to arrive. How to Reduce Wires to the Telescope Posted by Doc B at 22:34, March Still playing with mount. I looked at the cables that will exit the CGEM mount: 1 for the Power (this should be connected to a power supply underneath the tripod legs), 1 for the Guide Scope autoguider, 1 for the Hand controller to the computer, 1 for the Mallincam power (again this should be underneath the tripod legs), 1 for the rs323 feed from the Mallincam, 1 for the svideo out on the mallincam, 1 for the composite video out to the Tv monitor for outreach. Wow, that is 5 cables moving away from the telescope. I am looking at wireless ways to reduce this number. Celestron has a product called the SkyQ link wireless adapter. this would eliminate the hand controller cable to the computer. There are wireless AV transmitters and receivers available the transmit video wireless. I can use one of these to take the composite video, send it wirelessly to the receiver, this then will eliminate another cable. Wee, that reduces the number from 4 to 2 with the 2 being from the Mallincam, which I have a combined rs232/svideo combination cable. That then is only two cable from the telescope to my computer. One from the Guide Scope autoguider and the other from the Mallincam. Something to think about. Celestron DC Power adapter Posted by Doc B at 00:03, February Went out to purchase the Celestron 12V 5 amp AC/DV power adapter. I like this adapter since it can screw into the power jack on the CGEM DX. There is no way the power plug can come out from the CGEM side. Got great service from KW Telescope for this product (the accepted a Celestron 2.5 amp adapter that I had and lowered the price of the new adapter by the difference in price). While I was there, I also obtains a Bahtinov Mask for the Quattro. This will allow me to obtain exact focus of the telescope by simply aligning cross hairs on the screen. Still waiting for Spring to come so I can take this telescope outside. Extending the USB Auto Guider Cable Posted by Doc B at 14:35, February Well, the Autoguider cable (as any long USB cable) has about 10' reach, manageable but not ideal. So I researched the Internet for usb extenders and located the IOGEAR USB 2.0 Extender. This looks like just plug and play, with the option of inserting a powered hub between it and you decice's cable if your device draws ALL of the USB port power (such as portable hard drives). My dealer has the 39' version on sale, so I ordered it (Thanks Future Shop), and it was free delivery to my house in 48 hours. So I plugged the extender into the laptop, let the driver load, plugged into the extender cable my Autoguider cable, and success. The video signal was perfect, no signal loss. This device worked as advertised. My larger telescope uses a Mallincam SSIc planetary CCD camera which is powered off the USB port but sends more video data along the cable, would this device work on the IOGEAR Extender cable? Yes it does. Wow, another successful attachment to my telescope system to improve its operation. My laptop can be a safer distance from my telescope. This allows me to get some distance between the public and the telescope,, as they will be looking at the laptop monitor for the images being captured. Auto Guider Installation Posted by Doc B at 15:17, February

3 Well, The Skywatcher Quattro will need an auto guider if I want to do some deep sky imaging. So, I opened up the Orion Autoguider, downloaded the latest drivers from their site, downloaded the latest version of Phd from Stark Labs. Installed the drivers, installed Phd, Connected the guidescope, waited a few minutes as the installation by windows 7 did its thing. I received one error message, and one green check mark saying the drivers were installed (Good news or Bad news?). I connected the autoguider to the telescope (still inside the basement), and started Phd. I selected the Orion Autoguider, and it accepted it, I saw a dark screen (lens cap was on), with one hot pixel (a good sign). It looks like it will work (the final check will be when it is tested as an auto guider this summer at the trailer). Computer Control Posted by Doc B at 21:26, February Today my goal was to see if I could get my Computer (Starry Night Pro 6, SkyTools 3, and Celestron NexRemote App) to control the CGEM. Success! Success! and Success! I Powered up the Laptop first, then powered up the CGEM (I used a AC/DC 12V 6 amp converter for this test), aligned the CGEM using the hand controller as per operating instructions (this is required). I started Starry Night First and told the ASCOM driver what port the CGEM was connected to. Activated the connection and the software controlled the CGEM perfectly (well I was in the house, so the mount moved when I told it to goto a star). The software followed the scope when I moved it via had controller. Will need to check how (if) the hand controller knows where the scope is when I use the software. I repeated the procedure with Sky Tools 3, and again success. For controlling with the app, I did not align the scope using the physical hand controller, but rather using the computer app (which is a graphical hand controller). Had complete control. Note: the physical hand controller seems to know nothing about being controlled by the app. It was still waiting to be aligned even though the app had performed all those tasks. A successful day. Come on Spring, so I can take this system outside. Learning the Hand Controller Posted by Doc B at 00:19, February Every night I am reading the Manual to get a gut feel about how to used the CGEM (I Think I will create mu own quick how instruction sheet). My plan is to do some (in house) practice runs on Saturday and Sunday. Updated the firmware Posted by Doc B at 21:11, February This is the scariest moment for any telescope mount owner. The firmware and telescope is working, but the manufacturer has an update. Do you leave well enough alone, or do you upgrade to the latest version which may have extra features and bug fixes. The fear is that something goes wrong during the vulnerable update and the device (Telescope Mount) becomes un responsive and there is nothing you can do. Well I haven t used the mount so what the heck. I reviewed Celestron s site. Did some on line search for advice, and made some notes. My laptop, notes, and rs232 cable went down stairs to the CGEM DX. Plugged in the power to the CGEM, connected the rs232 to both the laptop and CGEM Nexstar hand controller, ran MCUpdate, followed the instructions (took about 5 minutes to figure how to get the hand controller to check the current version number installed,, the up and down arrows don't actually move up and down in the menu screen, it is actualluy number keys 6 and 9). Then I was ready, I proceeded according to directions and everything went smoothly, success for the Motor Controller update. But, next was the Hand Controller time for update. I had read the Celestron's site and it indicated if you have a NexStar + hand controller then use CFM (an automatic updater), well I read my hand controller and it said NexStar +, on it, so I made the logical assumption that I was ready to go. Oh Boy, I spend about 30 minutes trying to get the CFM software to talk to the hand controller (it said it couldn't find it in the COM port, even though the other program had no problem finding it.). I tried everything the CFM software said to do, then It talked about holding down two buttons, one button with a logo on it. Hey my keypad doesn't have a button

4 with a logo on it. Could it be that even though my keypad said NexStar +, it wasn't really a Nextstar + version, but the previous one? Yep, that simple. I loaded and ran HCUpdate, and voila the Hand controller was updated. So, I have the latest versions in my mount (and now I know exactly what software to use and how simple it is), and will practice controlling it over the next week, until the weather improves and I can take the mount outside for FIRST LIGHT. It's all assembled Posted by Doc B at 02:12, February Well it took me 1.5 hours to assemble the CGEMDX and Mount the SkyWatcher Quattro. Boy is the CGEM DX a tall mount (I even have it at the lowest level), I am glad that there will only be a Mallincam attached to the eyepiece, there is no comforable way in which a member of the public would be able to look through the eyepiice when the mount is point toward polaris. I shoould be able to set this beast up in 15 minutes after I become more familoliar with the procedure. My next task is to update the firmware and see if it works.

5 Setting up the Celestron Mount Posted by Doc B at 03:05, February I finally had time (due to a winter storm) to remove the Celestron CGEM DX boxes out of the garage and place then in the Media Room (My wife is really happy about that). I will let them warm up over night and will unpack and set up the mount tomorrow.

6