Advice on fitting AO8T to FW8G-STT filter wheel (SBIG)

[graham.hobart]

Hello folks, anybody with an AO8-T and the above filter wheel and the STT 8300 camera help me sort the mounting of the AO8T out?
I am a bit confused about the D blocks etc and would love a picture from someone who has this set up to show me which way around the whole thing goes
Cheers
Graham:thumbsup::thumbsup:

[pluto]

It's been a while since I fitted mine as I leave it on permanently but here a couple of quick snaps of it.

[graham.hobart]

Thanks for that Hugh- just what I needed.
Can you just confirm that the AO8-T cable goes back to the camera and the filter wheel (self guiding) cable then goes into the AO8-T?
I notice you have the Baader 2" nose piece on yours- do have any issues finding a guide star?

Cheers
Graham.

[pluto]

Yep the AO cable to the camera then the FW cable to the AO.

Never had a problem with a guide star. On most targets I find at least one nice bright guide star at 0.2 or 0.3 sec exposures so I'm guiding at 3 or 4Hz. The worst I've had was 1 Hz, that was imaging M83, but that's on my TSA120 so not the biggest aperture.

Guiding used to be such a headache for me with a QHY5L-II on a finderguider and PHD. I use CCDSoft now and it's just calibrate then set-and-forget, the guide star barely twitches, and that's on an EQ6 :D

[SpaceNoob]

I grabbed a few images when I was doing a some tests a few months back, hope this helps.

Cheers,

Chris.

[graham.hobart]

Cheers fellas, now looking forward to first light!!:)

[Peter Ward]

That is the incorrect way to fit the AO-8T to the FW8-G filter wheel.

The AO will not sit flush...it is infact out by 1-2mm due the FW8-G's cover's guide assembly section.

The AO should look "offset" with the cabling 180 degrees relative to the cameras cables when fitted correctly.

The two attached images should make it clear.

[graham.hobart]

Ahh! thanks for that Peter..

[pluto]

Whoa! So I've had my AO on upside down all this time!!!
And so has Chris below by the looks of it!

Yet it's been working perfectly!?

I've just had a glance back at the instructions that come with the ao-8t, Ah I remember now, it doesn't have instructions for attaching the AO to the FW8G so I've followed the instructions for attaching it to a CFW8 which has the cables all on the same side.

[SpaceNoob]

Oh damn.... that's a bit awkward :lol:

Everything is boxed away until the observatory arrives, I'll ensure it has the correct orientation when I setup everything again. To be honest, the image train was very solid and stable for ~5 hours of test imaging at 2.4m focal length. I had some slight drift in the tracking logs but I figured this was due to having the tripod sitting on pavers.