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Old 19-07-2013, 08:50 AM
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Filter wheel/newtonian trials

Fitted my Orion Nautilus filter wheel over the past 2 nights.....
Night one was software install/testing, I eventually got it working, had to force-feed win7 the driver it seemed, finally Sequence Generator Pro can drive it through ASCOM.

Night two was install onto the scope. What an ordeal!
From my calculations I should have heaps of backfocus (newtonian/moonlite focuser), but to be sure I took out the spacers from the focuser, I couldn't take them all out as the moonlites focus motor would hit the OTA, tried rotating the focuser to improve balance, but then the focus motor fouls on the spider nuts! So I've become adept at removing and replacing moonlites, BTW the moonlite spacers aren't symmetrical, put it in backwards, all seems OK until the focuser drawtube hits the spacer!

Finally (and I'm getting tired now) went to get it focused, plenty of sucker holes around, so slew to a clear Milky Way region and start...
Can't get focus, its a newt right - it must be right racked in there somewhere.... took out the last spacer I could and screwed in the camera as far as it would go, nada! Can't get focus at all.
Really tiring now.... decide I need to call it a night and think about it tomorrow, and start thinking of cutting down a second newt OTA....

Then it dawned - I measured the infinity focus in a post on IIS a few months ago - 107mm from OTA....
Outside to the scope, 107mm lines up at least 25mm above the CCD plane.... I have overcorrected big time, and wasn't racking out the focuser far enough.... may need to put the spacers back in now!
I knew I calculated ages ago that a moonlite would give me heaps of room for a filter wheel.....

Gee AP is frustrating at times....

Last edited by Lee; 19-07-2013 at 10:35 AM.
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Old 19-07-2013, 09:23 AM
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h0ughy (David)
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your not wrong there. at least you realised the mistake. have to wait until sunday night now to test?
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Old 19-07-2013, 10:47 AM
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Hopefully there will be few sucker holes Fri or Sat....

I knew things were going too well when the T-ring spacer doodah I bought to connect the coma corrector to the filter wheel gave me the spot on spacing to the CCD!
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Old 20-07-2013, 06:59 AM
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I've had the same issue with my nautilus filter wheel. I need to fidget with it every session to get it to work. It's not my laptop either because I have the same issue with it on my other laptop and on my desktop. I even went to extremes and reformatted my astro laptop just in case it would help. Either it's broken or the drivers aren't worth ****. Either way, I'm taking it back to bintel today.
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Old 20-07-2013, 07:24 AM
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Colour is over-rated

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I have never seen the bundled windows program work, it just fails as it tries to open. I downloaded the drivers from the orion site, and installed through device manager. The ASCOM drivers seemed to install from the CD...
I can power up and control the wheel from my imaging app, so I'm happy now.

This devices drivers/software need serious development I agree. For something so simple, its defies logic it can be so unstable....
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Old 20-07-2013, 08:35 PM
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Yeah, I can't get the ascom app to work either it just crashes, every time. If I reboot my laptop I need to wait until it has started then unplugg the wheel and plug it back in. It's extremely annoying if I'm not at home and I'm accessing it via my ipad, if it falls over there is no way to recover it, not even from the device manager. I need to be at computer to unplugg the USB.

Not happy Jan.
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Old 20-07-2013, 09:11 PM
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I'm using it now, and it seems fine - by the same token I wouldn't trust it in a remote setting (wouldn't trust my G-11 remotely either! - so that's a bit academic..)...
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Old 22-07-2013, 11:24 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by White Rabbit View Post
I've had the same issue with my nautilus filter wheel. I need to fidget with it every session to get it to work. It's not my laptop either because I have the same issue with it on my other laptop and on my desktop. I even went to extremes and reformatted my astro laptop just in case it would help. Either it's broken or the drivers aren't worth ****. Either way, I'm taking it back to bintel today.
Is the filter wheel connected via USB? If so, have you tried running it off an externally powered USB hub?

I used to have the same issues with a lot of equipment that appeared to be driver issues, but one day I picked up a powered USB hub and used a Jaycar 12V -> 5V adapter... then it was magically solved.

(This included equipment such as cameras which had their own power supply, but were still intermittently failing when connected to my laptop.)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lee View Post
I'm using it now, and it seems fine - by the same token I wouldn't trust it in a remote setting (wouldn't trust my G-11 remotely either! - so that's a bit academic..)...
I've had a few issues with sudden temperature changes - especially at the dark site I go to (west of the Great Dividing Range) where the temperature plunges at dusk.

I do notice that many of my USB connections shift with the daily temperature cycles and occasionally need to be reseated. I agree that it's a hassle - especially when it's remotely operated in my back yard about 100 metres away.
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