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Re: iEXOS-100 First Light
#iEXOS-100
Wes Mcdonald
Ian
Nice technique. Very cool. When I said “break the clutches” I meant release them 😀. No problem to push to! You might be interested to know the iexos clutch uses a friction lock system to engage the wheel gear to the shaft. This is a good way, as it does not distort the wheel gear the way a wedge lock clutch might. Thanks for the characterization and method. That a7S seems like a nice camera. The large pixels would make it great at 1600mm fl, match up with seeing very nicely. That would make it a candidate for an f10 scope at 2500mm fl with a .68 reducer - perfect for a 10” SCT I image with a Nikon D5300 Astro modified. The darn thing is danged quiet and takes some pretty pics matched to my ES 127 refractor @ 940mm fl. With a .8 reducer it will capture the Orion Nebula and Running man in one frame. Thanks again for doing these tests. Look forward to your blog on the mount. Wes
-- Wes, Southport NC EXos2-GT PMC-8, iExos 100 ES ED 127, 10" LX200GPS+wedge, Astro-Tech 8" Newt, ETX-90, 60mm no-name guide scope ~ 260mm FL Polemaster, Orion ST-80 and SAG, ZWO 290MM, D5300 astro modified Nina, Bootcamped Mac Mini control computer, RDP to iMAC 110 amp hour lead acid deep discharge battery for field power Electrical Engineer, Retired
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Re: iEXOS-100 First Light
#iEXOS-100
Ian Morison
Hi Wes, I have investigated the tracking further. I always allow the NCP alignment to be slightly off so the image moves across the sensor during the total period of the exposures. This helps remove the effects of hot pixels and 'color mottling'. Each exposure is short enough so the stars were not trailed. In the Orion image, the exposure time was just 15 seconds so that the centre of M32 would not be overexposed. That worked. If there are hot pixels these will leave a trail across the image which will show the tracking performance. It was quite cold and the Sony A7S with its 8.4 micrometre sized pixels was virtually free of hot pixels and I could only find one faint trail. This is cleaned up and rotated in the attached image. One can see the periodic error track. Each pixel of the camera/scope combination subtends 5 arc seconds, so the PE error is somewhere between 10 and 15 pixels - just as you thought. Cheers, Ian
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Re: iEXOS-100 First Light
#iEXOS-100
Ian Morison
Hi Wes, I would not say professional as I was a radio astronomer. Here are replies to your queries.
Yes I am using Explore Stars in the T -mode.
I have used 'goto' fo some visual observing and, of course, for the astrophotography use I could 'goto' an object nearby and drive to where I want to image. However, I do not think manual use would break the clutches! My GM8 with similar clutches is a 'push to' mount having encoders under the control of an Argo Navis hand controller.
I located the artificial star at the end of the garden (not really far enough away) and placed its image in the camera live view when attached to my 430mm refractor. Took a very long 'bulb' exposure whilst the mount was tracking at siderial rate. This produces a long streak across the resulting image. With my small tracking mounts I have always been able to see tracking errors, but could not really see them with this length of exposure.. I suspect though that the exposure was not really long enough. Thanks for giving me the PE period. I will do the same experiment tonight using a shorter focal length lens so the exposure can be much longer and will update you. Cheers, Ian
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Re: Ghetto azimuth adjuster
#iEXOS-100
I printed it with PETG on an Anet A8.
Lutz
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Re: iEXOS-100 First Light
#iEXOS-100
Ian Morison
Hi Perry,
toggle quoted messageShow quoted text
The UK dealers are also out of stock, but I found one on Amazon UK. The price was higher ($50) than UK cost but free delivery. I discovered that it came from Germany taking some time. The website implies that it will be back in stock mid October. Cheers, Ian
On Tuesday, September 29, 2020, Perry Gee <pgee2013@...> wrote:
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Re: iEXOS-100 First Light
#iEXOS-100
Perry Gee <pgee2013@...>
I've been struggling to buy a mount this last month, as all of the American dealers seem to be back-ordered. Where did you buy from?
On Mon, Sep 28, 2020 at 4:44 AM Ian Morison <ian@...> wrote:
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Cloudy Nights Thread
#CloudyNights
Someone is asking about mounts again on CN, see this link
https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/731681-so-who-is-happy-with-their-mounts/?p=10541861 -- Tim Myers Telescopes: Celestron 4SE, Celestron 8SE, SkyWatcher 100ED Pro Mounts: 4-5 SE, 6-8SE, EXOS-2GT with PMC-Eight Cameras: ASI1600MC Imaging Camera, Cooled, ASI120 Guide Camera Focuser: ZWO EAF Scope Mini PC: Topton Pentium Laptop: Lenovo Software: CDC, SharpCap Pro, NINA, PHD2
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locked
Re: #iEXOS-100 using Ekos and Kstars, problems when running GoTo
#iEXOS-100
Please move this conversation to the PMC-Eight Applications Subgroup as it is no longer relevant to the PMC-Eight
Thank you -- Jerry Hubbell Vice President of Engineering Explore Scientific, LLC. jrh at explorescientific.com www.explorescientificusa.com 1010 S. 48th Street Springdale, AR 72762 1-866-252-3811 Author: Scientific Astrophotography: How Amateurs Can Generate and Use Professional Imaging Data Remote Observatories for Amateur Astronomers: Using High-Powered Telescopes From Home Mark Slade Remote Observatory (MSRO) IAU MPC W54 Equipment Wilderness, VA Mounts: ES PMC-Eight G11 + Telescope Drive Master (TDM) Scopes: ES 165 FPL-53 ED APO CF, ES 102 FCD100 ED APO CF Cameras: QHY174M-GPS + FW, QHY163C Misc: 3-inch 0.7x Focal Reducer Field Flattener, Filters: Luminance, Red, V-band Photometric, Diffuser, 200 lpmm Spectral Grating Software: MaxIm DL 6, Cartes du Ciel, Astrometrica, AstroImageJ, AutoStakkert!
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locked
Re: #iEXOS-100 using Ekos and Kstars, problems when running GoTo
#iEXOS-100
Hiya,
Not using astroberry specifically as I rolled it all together myself on the pi but we had very similar problems to yourself with Ekos/Kstars and the iExos-100 and it got compounded by using a polemaster for alignment. Similar to yourself what we tended to find was that after setting the camera to the NCP in the "home" position (i.e. counterweight bar straight down, camera pointing at Polaris - using a vixen plate directly, no ball head) and then plate solving we would try to do polar alignment and it would rotate in all kinds of strange directions (and frequently fail to plate solve from the polemaster in the process). What we had to do was use an iterative procedure to fine tune things as it seems a single solve isn't always good enough for the mount to know where it is so what we did was; Roughly polar align the mount - I find the polar tunnel impossible to use so I broadly eyeball it and then my wife uses liveview on the camera to see if we're in the ballpark. Solve (with the action set to sync rather than slew) Slew to a target not super far away from polaris - it'll quite frequently end up nowhere near. Solve again Slew to another target - it'll likely to be much closer now Solve again Slew once more and it'll normally be bang on. Then we'd run PA with the polemaster and it would typically solve quickly and slew correctly during the procedure Finally once PA is dialled in tight a final 1/2 solve and slews would set us up for the night. It's a bit of a faff to get the mount dialled in but it only takes a few minutes and you only need to do it once per session. my working hypothesis was that by having the mount quite a way off PA the solving gets a bit messy and whilst it solves it's not fully sure on the absolute position of the mount and get's it wrong. A few repetitions fixes this by giving it more data to work with. Hope that Helps Jacqui
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locked
#iEXOS-100 using Ekos and Kstars, problems when running GoTo
#iEXOS-100
I have a raspi running astroberry and could successfully connect to the mount using USB.
Everything seems configured correctly but I do not really know how to initialize my setup before starting a photography session. What I did try was to approximately polar align the mount, then release the clutches and move the axes such that the camera is pointing at Polaris (Camera is currently mounted on a ball head but I try to keep it parallel to the polar axis as much as possible). Then I run plate solving in Ekos and get the correction. The mount then slews to that direction to center Polaris in the camera. The next step is where the problems start. When I chose a new object in the sky and command to mount to slew to it, it goes to a totally wrong direction. Kstars shows a right motion in the sky map but the camera goes to a position where it is pointing very far from an obvious object (Andromeda for example). I couldn't really understand what the problem was. Also, when sending back the mount to Polaris, it does not go back to where it was initially. Did anybody get the iEXOS-100 to work with Ekos and faced similar problems? Some hints would be helpful. Also, sometimes the mount becomes very loud when slewing and seems to get stuck for a moment. The noises are quite scary, sounds like it will break or something. What is that? I attached a picture of my setup.
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Re: iEXOS-100 First Light
#iEXOS-100
Wes Mcdonald
Ian Glad things are working for you. As an armature who has some great results with the ecos2, I appreciate having your professional feedback. A few questions/points 1. To get the mount tracking are you using explorestars? If so be sure to put the mount in T mode which moves at sidereal rate in RA. I presume your were. P mode moves the mount stepwise with 200ms intervals. Fine for visual, not so for photos. 2. The goto function would obviate your need to break the clutches. Might be fun for you to use it 3. How did you have it track a non moving target? I would love to see how you configure your artificial star. 4. Baring ra and dec drift from poor polar alignment stars should move by the amount of PE present, right? I figure you observed something like 12 “ PE. This is really good for the mount. Btw the PE period is 600 seconds. Wes -- Wes, Southport NC EXos2-GT PMC-8, iExos 100 ES ED 127, 10" LX200GPS+wedge, Astro-Tech 8" Newt, ETX-90, 60mm no-name guide scope ~ 260mm FL Polemaster, Orion ST-80 and SAG, ZWO 290MM, D5300 astro modified Nina, Bootcamped Mac Mini control computer, RDP to iMAC 110 amp hour lead acid deep discharge battery for field power Electrical Engineer, Retired
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Re: iEXOS-100 First Light
#iEXOS-100
Ian Morison
Hi all, I acquired my mount last week largely for use as an astrophotography tracking mount for use with long lenses or small telescopes. There have been two clear periods, one 9 pm (Deneb) and one at 04:30 am for Orion region. Having three equatorial mounts already, including a Losmandy GM8 and Astro Physics Mach 1, why did I buy it? Small and light for one thing, a belt drive for another but the greatest reason was the fact that it has adjustable clutches in RA and Dec as does my GM8. For wide field imaging one does not need 'goto' so I have simply activated the mounts motors - so it will then continue tracking at siderial rate and adjust the clutch tensions so that I can manually move the scope to the region of sky that I want to image and the telescope/lens will keep pointing when I cease the pointing adjustment. The full frame Sony Cameras that I am using allows one to 'see' the starfield in live view to align the telescope and camera on the region of interest which the mount then follows. Simples. (Now in UK dictionary.) I polar aligned using a laser beam through the RA sighting tube. Three images: 1) First light of the mount of the Deneb region using a Teleskop Service 65mm, 420mm focal length, Quad astrograph. Sony A7 II with stacked 30 second exposures. 2) I have tried to 'observe' the tracking performance by 'tracking' a fixed artificial star and find it very difficult to spot the tracking errors. I have edge detected the track and the variation seems to be only 2- 3 pixels. 3) The Sword of Orion. Takahashi FS 60 and Sony A7S. Composite of three 'panes' aligned and stacked in Sequator. Nothing special, but the Orion, Running Man and Flame Nebulae are there. Full image is ~30 megapixel. This is 25%. So I am very pleased with my purchase! (From Germany as UK dealers are out of stock.) Thanks again to Wes and Jerry for their help in getting me going. Regards. Ian Morison
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Re: Ghetto azimuth adjuster
#iEXOS-100
cool - what material did you use ? My little printer won't really do ABS reliably and I was concerned that PLA wouldn't have the material strength to handle the force required which is why I used a steel square (although I have a tendency to over-engineer for things like strength).
Jacqui
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Re: Ghetto azimuth adjuster
#iEXOS-100
Welcome to the Hood ;-)
I did somthing similar, exept I 3D-printed it: Azimuth adjuster for iEXOS 100 on Thingiverse Cheers, Lutz
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Re: Ghetto azimuth adjuster
#iEXOS-100
Bob Trepiccione
Brilliant, thanks for taking the time to take the pic! Sent from my T-Mobile 4G LTE Device
-------- Original message -------- From: Jacqui Greenland <ladroquin@...> Date: 9/27/20 3:16 PM (GMT-05:00) To: MAIN@ESPMC-Eight.groups.io Subject: Re: [ESPMC-Eight] Ghetto azimuth adjuster #iEXOS-100 for size reference it's about 42mm high and 67mm long and I used two 16mm wide x 2mm thick corner braces to construct it. the thumbscrews are M6 x 40mm and the mounting slot is a small piece of 2mm thick slotted angle steel. Jacqui
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Re: Ghetto azimuth adjuster
#iEXOS-100
well it's pretty easy to dismount so I took it off and took one
for size reference it's about 42mm high and 67mm long and I used two 16mm wide x 2mm thick corner braces to construct it. the thumbscrews are M6 x 40mm and the mounting slot is a small piece of 2mm thick slotted angle steel. Jacqui
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Re: Ghetto azimuth adjuster
#iEXOS-100
Bob Trepiccione
Cool idea! Any pics of it before you installed it on the mount? Sent from my T-Mobile 4G LTE Device
-------- Original message -------- From: Jacqui Greenland <ladroquin@...> Date: 9/27/20 9:21 AM (GMT-05:00) To: MAIN@ESPMC-Eight.groups.io Subject: [ESPMC-Eight] Ghetto azimuth adjuster #iEXOS-100 Thought people may be interested in this. My wife purchased an iexos-100 as an upgrade to her little star adventurer mini (and largely out of complete laziness since she just wanted the goto to not have to go out into the cold to reposition for her next photo!) but we had no time to be able to order the official azimuth adjuster and since we have a polemaster to get PA I wanted it to be finer controlled than swiveling the whole mount around on the base by hand. So I noticed there was an M8 grub screw in the tripod on the base and I figured if I lined up the part that stick out to support the Alt adjustment with that and attach a frame around it I could then use a couple of machine screws to pivot against that. hour or so later this is what I came up with basically it's two pieces of corner brace trimmed to length and welded together and then welded to a piece of slotted angle iron with an M8 machine screw replacing the grub screw. a couple of nuts welded to the frame with M6 machine screws to act as adjusters and 3d printed knobs. Now I have a welder and 3D printer to work with but it would have been possible to do this using nuts or rivets to hold it together and captive nuts for the adjusters and just use the machine screws directly or you can buy m6 thumbscrews from places like amazon. The slot at the bottom, btw, allows macro adjustment just in case there isn't enough micro adjustment available. It worked surprisingly well and allowed us to get pretty tight PA so I thought it might be useful to anyone else in a similar position. looks a bit rickity and my welding could have been neater but overall it worked for a materials cost of less that 10 GBP. Jacqui
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Ghetto azimuth adjuster
#iEXOS-100
Hi All,
Thought people may be interested in this. My wife purchased an iexos-100 as an upgrade to her little star adventurer mini (and largely out of complete laziness since she just wanted the goto to not have to go out into the cold to reposition for her next photo!) but we had no time to be able to order the official azimuth adjuster and since we have a polemaster to get PA I wanted it to be finer controlled than swiveling the whole mount around on the base by hand. So I noticed there was an M8 grub screw in the tripod on the base and I figured if I lined up the part that stick out to support the Alt adjustment with that and attach a frame around it I could then use a couple of machine screws to pivot against that. hour or so later this is what I came up with basically it's two pieces of corner brace trimmed to length and welded together and then welded to a piece of slotted angle iron with an M8 machine screw replacing the grub screw. a couple of nuts welded to the frame with M6 machine screws to act as adjusters and 3d printed knobs. Now I have a welder and 3D printer to work with but it would have been possible to do this using nuts or rivets to hold it together and captive nuts for the adjusters and just use the machine screws directly or you can buy m6 thumbscrews from places like amazon. The slot at the bottom, btw, allows macro adjustment just in case there isn't enough micro adjustment available. It worked surprisingly well and allowed us to get pretty tight PA so I thought it might be useful to anyone else in a similar position. looks a bit rickity and my welding could have been neater but overall it worked for a materials cost of less that 10 GBP. Jacqui
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Re: Does Explore Stars only work on WiFi for a PC running Windows?
#ExploreStars
Jerry,
I'll definitely take a look at this. I just ordered my EXOS2 today, so next week I'll be able to test against the iEXOS-100, but also the EXOS2 board. -- Explore Scientific iEXOS-100 William Optics SpaceCat 51 APO ZWO ASI183MM Pro, ASI533MC Pro Canon 5D, T3i (Both Astro Mods) William Optics UniGuide ZWO ASI120MM-S ZWO ASIAIR Pro
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Re: Counterweight shaft
#iEXOS-100
Stade
Harry,
Awesome ideal... thanks! Meghan
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