[rzgp33 (Brian)]

...So it was a good night to stargaze or so my app "Good To Stargaze" told me. I have just received a QHYCCD Polemaster from Optics Central after 4 freaking weeks on back order !!!! The AVX adapter is *still* on back order. I have so far totally failed to polar align here in OZ... I've just been star hopping, apart from a lucky few times when the rough placement is good. I just can't see Octans, so I have high hopes for PM.

I get to feel like a DIY King by finding the right washers and bolts to mount PM via the universal adapter directly to the mount without drilling, glueing or breaking anything.

Once it gets darkish I set the mount up southish, east 10% for SCP and set the latitude dohiky to 36 (Bendigo,Vic).

I then connect PM to my old HP laptop and fire up the software that I DL from QHYCCD. I connect to the PM and get a nice unfamiliar star field. I should say that most star fields are unfamiliar to me, I'm not a real noob, but I don't really know the sky well.

I then spend the next 45mins adjusting the alt/azimuth knobs looking for Octans.... nada... nada... The sky is strangely static. I tried to save a bmp, to plate solve, but the software would not do so. It gave me zero length files. I "reset to a known state".. double checked everything, and you guessed it, the cap was on and I was looking at hot pixels the whole time... There were still very few stars, but now I could see a flicker when I moved my hand over the lens.

That didn't explain the lack of bmp saving so i did the usual Winblows thing and rebooted... queue 30mins of waiting on updates... After the glaciers melted... i.e Winblows rebooted, no change, zero length files, or nothing at all.

I got tired of Winblows and noting that there was a version of the PM software for Linux and a MacOS "informal" version, started first with Ubuntu. Both 19 and 18LTS gave me "Segmentation fault core dumped" and so I moved to MacOS.

The MacOS version worked. I could save files and my hopes began to recover. Its 2am now, and I am looking to find a picture of the night sky to upload to astrometry.net. The image is still just hot pixels with the occasional flicker while I adjust the knobs. In one of the flickers I note that the image has resolved my thumb. 2cms away.

So I need to focus it.

Nowhere in the manual or anywhere else did I find any mention of focusing the PM. I assumed it was fixed on infinity.

There is no focus ring that I can see. I see in the manual a reference to an allen key "for lens focus adjustment" but where do I !@#$ing put it. I finally find that the outside shroud unscrews, and you get access to the actual lens with the focus ring.

I finally can see stars ... but I can't recognise Octans

I save a picture to plate solve and the software on the Mac throws up a spinning rainbow telling mne that it is working. Thats better than Winblows. It keeps spinning, and keeps spinning... 15mins later its still spinning and I give up and try to stop the software... to no avail. Its hung. I power off and try again and this time the software hangs when it starts.

Its 3am now and I'm over it all... time for me to "reset to a known state". I'll try again some other night.

I carefully pack everything up. The mini-USB cable that connects to the PM is a gnarly heavy duty version that has thumb screws to keep it safely inserted, and to support the flexing of cables, those mini-usb sockets quite often wear and fail. Since I'll be using it again soon, I wrap the cable around the tripod legs and carry it all inside. The mount has a camera and lens attached that I was foolishly hoping to try tonight. As I turn to get the rest of the gear the heavy duty cable flex's back off the tripod and wraps around my leg.

I feel it, but loose balance and stumble. The cable grabs my leg well, and the momentum rips the cable out of the PM, toppling the mount/camera/lens towards the tile floor, I'm able to desperately catch the gear before it hits the tiles but the cable is toast , the connection is just bare wires and I'm afraid that the nights adventure in PM will be the only one that this PM has.

Fortunately the Minu-usb socket has survived, if a little bruised, and the PM works with another mini-usb cable.

So thats my PM adventure for last night.

This morning I found a new Winblows version to try on the QHYCCD support forums. Its ugly but works and doesn't hang. Of course QHYCCD says its unsupported.

Perhaps I'll just try a guide scope and Sharpcap.

time for a nap.

--
Brian O'Connor