the doghouse Mark2 - a new beginning

[RB (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by glend

On the monitor stand, can I ask why two? I assume your running two separate computers.

Two keyboards, two mice, two of everything in that Ark.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by RB

Two keyboards, two mice, two of everything in that Ark.

There should be two chairs too. One for visitors.

[h0ughy (David)]

Originally Posted by glend

Nice setup, how about a coffee machine and a fridge?

On the monitor stand, can I ask why two? I assume your running two separate computers.

Yep two computers

[h0ughy (David)]

Originally Posted by multiweb

There should be two chairs too. One for visitors.

I dont have any friends

[h0ughy (David)]

Originally Posted by RB

Two keyboards, two mice, two of everything in that Ark.

Had that tested in january always have a spare

[RB (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by h0ughy

Had that tested in january always have a spare

BTW do you need a yellow laser guide star?

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by h0ughy

I dont have any friends

A comfy reclining chair and a glass of Port and I'm anyone's friend.

[xstream (John)]

Where's the bloody bed? After all it is called the Dog House.

[RB (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by h0ughy

I dont have any friends

Originally Posted by multiweb

A comfy reclining chair and a glass of Port and I'm anyone's friend.

Originally Posted by xstream

Where's the bloody bed? After all it is called the Dog House.

Class re-union at Houghy's place guys.....
Maybe we can break the Guinness world record on how many amateur astronomers we can cram into a 2.3m Sirius Dome.

[h0ughy (David)]

Originally Posted by multiweb

A comfy reclining chair and a glass of Port and I'm anyone's friend.

yes quite true. but my Aldi comfy relining chair is all mine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[h0ughy (David)]

Originally Posted by xstream

Where's the bloody bed? After all it is called the Dog House.

its in the warm room AKA shed

[h0ughy (David)]

Originally Posted by RB

Class re-union at Houghy's place guys.....
Maybe we can break the Guinness world record on how many amateur astronomers we can cram into a 2.3m Sirius Dome.

ummm maybe not a good idea i dont like the word BREAK

[h0ughy (David)]

well tonight i tried to drift align = its been so long, work , cloud, life..... what a horrendous evening

i was out by heaps - so much so i think i have made a grave error in the setup from scratch and i no longer have any adjustment left so have to pull it all down and try again

so i rechecked the magnetic declination

Latitude: 32° S
Longitude: 151° E
Magnetic declination: +12° 21'
Declination is POSITIVE (EAST)
Inclination: 63° 17'
Magnetic field strength: 56463.3 nT

then something dawned on me I may have adjusted the whole mount the wrong way from the start, i think i am pointing so far to the east that i stuffed up. I will pull everything down and redo it from scratch

I really think the little electrical wires behind us affected both my compass and the gps phone compass

so what i think i have done is adjust to the east by 12 degrees then done it again by a similar amount by accident then bolted everything together. there is no limits to my stupidity i should have gone the other way

[alan meehan (Alan)]

ooops

[cometcatcher (Kevin)]

If it makes you feel any better, one night I was trying my hardest to drift align and it just wouldn't. I kept this up for hours and finally gave up, only to step back from the mount, take a look at it and realised I was pointing north!

[h0ughy (David)]

Originally Posted by cometcatcher

If it makes you feel any better, one night I was trying my hardest to drift align and it just wouldn't. I kept this up for hours and finally gave up, only to step back from the mount, take a look at it and realised I was pointing north!

thanks for trying to cheer me up i need to concentrate on getting it right - though i cant for the life of me understand why i did what i did

[h0ughy (David)]

Originally Posted by alan meehan

ooops

oh yeah

[h0ughy (David)]

ok trying a calm mind and have a fresh look.

its fully clouded out so I cant even try it on the sun yet

platform is level,
I adjusted the mount to be lined up, level and pointing straight.

I adjusted the lat to be 32.9 on the digital level

ok so that seems ok.

now to the concept I seem to be stuffing up - I have taken off 12.3 degrees from the magnetic south bearing on the compass so simply in my understanding the physical compass needle pointing to S, then rotated mount to point at 12.3degrees to the east from S which then should have the mount now (almost) pointing to true south?

am I missing something crucial but simple here?

[glend (Glen)]

Well yes that is correct basically. Having just setup my new mount on the pier i have been through this again. A compass with a rotating bezel helps because you can preset the offset. I am lucky that when i setup the pier i made a mark on the obs wall that corresponds to true south. When facing magnetic south with your compass, true south will be offset 12.3 degrees to your left (or eastern side).

I found that placing a straight piece of timber molding in the dovetail clamp, and using that as a "gun sight" to true south, i could get very close to exact. You only need to be within about 2 degrees for the various plate solving PA tools to dial your mount in exactly. I used Sharpcap's new PA plate solver tool and it is brilliant, takes less than three minutes to get very good PA. Sharpcap is a free download and contains the plates for Northern and Southern hemisphere pole areas in the app so no Net connection required to solve the PA. You don't even need the mount to have power to use it, just release the clutch and rotate RA until it tells you to stop. I am sitting on 9 arc seconds off perfect right now. Which is close enough for any target to be close to my scopes and cameras centre of field of view for tweaking in framing.

And don't forget the mass of your mount ( if it, or the pier, is made of ferris material) will affect the magnetic bearing. Get as far away from any ferris source as possible, including your belt buckle.

[h0ughy (David)]

thanks Glen,

i have included some of the images i did when trying to read the compass and getting it right the yellow tape is roughly mag south and i have but a few turns of the screw for adjustment for drift alignment