Ventured Out Last Night

[Fay]

Went outside & setup, but the lighter nights are a pain. We have had no opportunity to make the most of the early dark nights this year.
Had a problem with webcam & PHD, so had to switch to SX for guiding. Had another go at NGC4565 but only got 11x480. Went indoors for a while & lost 30mins of subs due to cloud bank.
I tried to add this to what I had already done last year, which was a better image, 12x600 but due to moving the setup, the flats were not good & made the background too blotchy. Had a lot of dust bunnies so did need the flats.

I would like to do NGC4565 again at Kelling & also add to M101.

All the same, it is good to get outside & have a practice.

I used my hookup plug. It has 4xplug connections & I plugged into these, the laptop, SX, mount, Atik. Do you think this was ok, or was I taking a chance?
If I had plugged a 3x extension cable into hookup, &plugged something in there, would the equipment think that the power was coming from another source & so have been safer? I am not too up on electrical setup implications. Thanks

[Carole]

Yes I went out too, one of my "nothing went right evenings!!!"

First of all I could not slew to the alignment objects the mount seemed to get stuck and it took me a while to realise the Dec lock lever was turned back too far and causing an obstruction (it fell off recently and must have screwed it back slightly wrong) Hope I've not done the motor any damage when it was stuck!!!

Mac has kindly done some work on my laptops recently and the XP is up and running again so I thought I'd try to do Mars - this time with a Barlow and guiding.  (my Vista won't accept the webcam as there are no drivers for Vista).  However the XP STILL will not recognise the SC3 guide camera in PHD and this is a re-install of PHD by Mac.  I tried seeing if K3 would recognise the SC3 on the XP laptop and it did one time out of about 4 and then wouldn't again!!!  I am wondering whether if could be because I am using a USB2 Hub on the XP which is I think USB1 because it kept telling me it might not work properly, but I only have two USB ports and the webcam takes one and the SC3 takes 2.  I could not find my old USB1 hub.

Anyway, in the end I had to use both laptops, guided on the Vista and imaged on the XP with no hub needed now.

Did not get a particularly good image of Mars and K3 kept playing up.  I knew I had captured a file but could I find it?  It did not appear listed as a file for some 3 minutes or more!!!!(Give me strength).  

As I was packing up, guess what?!!!  I found the old USB1 hub!!!
Will try that out today on the XP with PHD and SC3, not sure whether it will make any difference as like Fay I'm not Au Fait (pun Fay!!) with electrics.  

All the same, it is good to get outside & have a practice

ditto

I've also devised a contraption to help me polar align see "technical" which I tried out last night.  

Carole

[Mike]

Well done. You win the "Most amount of exclamation marks in a post" award.

[Carole]

Well done. You win the "Most amount of exclamation marks in a post" award.

I would have won it last night as well with all the exclaiming I was doing to myself when things were not going right.

Frightened to put any more exclamation marks now!!!

[Carole]

Will try that out today on the XP with PHD and SC3

Right well I tried it out today with the USB1 hub and everything worked OK, PHD recognised the SC3, and the GPUSB, all I needed was a star!

Duh!

I had installed the drivers for the SC3 and the webcam and tried it out over the last few weeks, but didn't try it out with USB hub.

Oh well, next time........

Carole

[Mac]

Hijack alert!!!!!!!!

Did you fit the new battery??

Hijack over.

[Mike]

Another of Carole's infamous thread hijacks She does it so subtly too I hardly noticed till Mac mentioned Hijack.

[Carole]

It was all to do with venturing out last night (the title of the thread), apart from the fact that I didn't start the thread, how does that make it a hijack?

She does it so subtly too

I can assure you it's not done intentionally, more likely because I don't see the subtlety. 

Did you fit the new battery??

Hasn't arrived yet had to order it on line as couldn't find a retailer selling it.

Carole