Namid - Still lots of stuff...

After we traveled home, we decided to image M51 first. Easy, bright target, fits into our FOW. But during the next nights, quite a lot of stuff came up:

• Turns our out polar alignment isn't great. It's 1'30" off. Nothing we can do about it now. At least our model will compensate for it. Need to improve next time somebody is at the scope.
• 30 min exposures had slightly elongated stars. Tried to guide but that made it WAY worse. If I had to guess, I'd say it's differential flexure in some direction. Which means we can't guide right now - need to fix next time somebody is at the scope.
• Port forward to ACP web interface and the power switch didn't work.
• Delta-T app constantly segfaults.
• Tried to update the firmware. But that failed.
• Contacted Planewave support - never go a reply :-(
• Talked to Tolga. He checked it and reduced the temperature difference of the main mirror from 2 to 1 degrees. That made it much more stable - though still fails once a night or so. He suspects that the power supply can't deliver enough power if the heaters are fully powered and other devices (camera, focuser...) are working at the same time.
  Will install second power supply plus direct power connection next time somebody is at the scope.

So, there are some things that still need to get done - planning on going early August for a week or so.

Other things we did:

• Configure FocusMax
• Configure Focusing with SGPro
• Setting up filter wheel and filters in SGPro, TSX and ACP
• In SGPro, we have to use "Mount Offset" for "Sync Behavior" - otherwise the mount does not improve pointing
• Setup ACP for sky flats
• Started taking bias, dark, flat and light frames ...

Namid Observatory - Day 8

Figure out the default temperature of the camera:

• The ML50100 can cool 45 C below ambient
• At night, it's maximum 20 C here (most nights it's 15 C or below)
• So, we'll use -20 C as our operating temperature

We noticed that the shroud was still tending to slip into the tube. Rich had the idea to screw in some bolts to the front of the scope to prevent this:

Mounted the flat panel box:

And finally, we mounted the little webcam that Rich brought:

And are streaming live to YouTube :-)

Cleaned everything up.

And we are done!!!

... well we still have to polar align tonight...

Luckily at midnight it cleared up and the wind calmed down. So, we could finally do our polar alignment.

I talked to Tolga about this and he recommended to do the polar alignment on a star straight south and very low. Do the Azimuth alignment first. Lock down the Azimuth lock screws. Because the scope points straight south, the only movement that should happen when tightening the Azimuth screws is in Altitude (the mount will be front- or back-heavy). Then adjust Altitude and lock down the Altitude screws (these shouldn't affect the alignment of the mount).

We still had the model from 3 nights ago in the mount and used that to polar align. By now, Rich was a pro and he centered the star (Antares would have been perfect, but it was behind clouds. So, we used Zuben Al Genubi instead).

We then ran another model to measure the remaining polar alignment.

First, we noticed that most plate solves failed. Which was puzzling as ASTAP was so reliable a few nights ago. When we checked everything we noticed two things:

• The clock in the mount was 1 hour behind(!!!) We had no idea how that happened as we set the clock exact. We corrected this, but were uneasy if this will happen again.
• Then we noticed that the mount was not tracking anymore. I had this issue with my 10Micron mounts too - I suspect TSX to sometimes do that ... We enabled tracking again.

Now, we ran the model and all platesolves worked!!! While the model was built, I installed the TimeSync tool from 10Micron that will sync the mount time from the PC time.

But the polar alignment error was still 1'30" !!!

With all the issues, we resigned ourselves that our alignment wasn't correct and that we'd have to do it again. But when we wanted to do a polar alignment, the mount pointed exactly at the target stars (tried several). It seems as if we couldn't trust the model building and/or polar alignment routine.

We decided to use the drift measurement/alignment from PHD2 - it doesn't rely on location or time but just checks how a star drifts.

We first measured near Deneb and got a VERY small polar alignment error (0.1"). We then measured deep south where the star movement would be fastest and got the same result. Seems as if our polar alignment was correct after all. We called it a night - but need to figure out what went wrong with the model...

Next: Day 9

Namid Observatory - Day 9

This day was supposed to be just for travelling.

But when I went one last time to the observatory, I noticed that the mount wasn't parked properly - I thought that I did that last night, but maybe forgot. So, I moved it manually to the parking position. But when I moved it, I noticed that the DEC balance was quite off - it was very heavy in the front ...

... turns out that the screws that Richard put in the front to prevent the shroud from slipping inside added some weight. I removed one of the three little counterweights and could balance the whole scope by moving the guidescope slightly forward.

... and while I was doing all this, I could hear a very faint clicking sound from the filter wheel. It could be that some of the filters are not fully fixed. But it got too late and I had to leave ...

Namid Observatory - Day 7

Drove all the way to Thatcher, AZ to get a TV mount for the flat box. Just after I drove back, I got an email from Al that our network cables might be faulty. Turned around and bought Ethernet cables (and a VGA-HDMI adapter and an RJ10 cable).

When I came back, I could connect our NUC to one of the VGA monitors and finally set it to automatically reboot on power on (in the BIOS).

Then I setup and configured SGPro. Ultimately, we want to use ACP. But it will take a while to get all those script written (power up/down mount, start Delta-T...) In the meantime we will use SGPro to get going.

We then built the mount for the flat panel and did all the cabling - tomorrow we'll install that. And that's the last piece!!!

... and then night was windy and overcast again. No polar alignment. This means that we will only have one shot left for doing that ...

Next: Day 8

Namid Observatory - Day 6

Not much left at this point:

• Changed the internal IP addresses (made a mistake before)
• Changed the Web Power Switch port forwarding to port 80 - somehow https didn't work
• Downloaded and installed the MGBox Ascom driver, so that we can use the MGBox as an Environment device on our imaging software
• Checked where we got focus on the main scope: the focuser was 30% out!!! We could replace the 0.5" spacer with a 0.25" spacer to move the focus to 55%. But decided that this is good enough. If it gets colder, the scope will contract (though not a lot) and we will need to move the focuser further out. So, we shouldn't have a problem.
• Covered all the remaining lights
• Labeled all cables and ports
• Downloaded Dimension4 to have correct time on the NUC
• Configured the MGBox such that it sends Meteo (but NOT GPS) data to the mount
• Set output of the MGPBox (in the MGBox software) to Ascom

Night was windy and overcast again. Couldn't finish polar alignment

Next: Day 7

Namid Observatory - Day 5

First, we had to wait for the scope to come back. At noon I drove over with Michael and Diana to what could only be described as a scene from MadMax:

But the most important part was that Rory had the mount cut, welded and ready:

Drove back - and then we had to put everything back up. Instead of 3 days it took us only 3 hours this time:

And with that, we were back where we left off. Plus we got the FedEx package from Manoj to finish everything.

• Connected the ASI camera - it also needed a powered USB connection.
• Connected the MGPBox to the mount and routed the cable through the pier.

Night was clear, so we could continue:

• focused the ASI camera and locked down the Starbase focuser.
• Final polar alignment:
1. Ran a model using the ASI camera: 30+' off (not too bad!)
2. Polar aligned with the ASI camera
3. Ran another model using the ASI camera: 5'
4. Polar aligned with the FLI camera to get a better resolution
5. Ran another model, now using the FLI camera: 6' !!!
   How could we have worsened the polar alignment?
   Well, by doing the model with the guide scope/camera and the alignment with the main scope/camera. And they are obviously not aligned...
6. Now, we polar aligned with the FLI camera
7. Ran another model (with the FLI camera): <10" - yei!!!
   We decided that that is good enough and carefully tightened the Azimuth and Altitude Lock screws.

Next, we wanted to check collimation. We used CCDInspector and it measured:
Tilt in X: +0.2"
Tilt in Y: +0.3"
Collimation: 1.0"

Awesome! This would safe us from doing collimation - yei!!!

Before we went to bed, we started another full model run to measure our final polar alignment: 1' 30" !!! Ran another model - with same results.

Turns out that locking down the Azimuth and Altitude screws changed it quite a lot. So, we will have to do the final polar alignment again...

Next: Day 6

Namid Observatory - Day 4

Started with forwarding the right ports to our internal devices (ACP on NUC and Web Power Switch).

Now, where we had good polar alignment and balance we wanted to try what happens if the scope is fully extended upwards and the roof opens:

The rubber on the roof slightly touched the scope - which we were OK with. But there was a wooden bar behind the rubber that passed the scope by barely 1"!

... lots of deliberation...

... and we finally decided to have the pier shortened by 6".

Michael knew a guy who has a full welding and metal shop. He could pickup the scope in the afternoon and have it ready the next day.

So, we disassembled everything :-( and loaded the scope on Rory's truck...

... and with that, we had a quiet evening.

Next: Day 5

Namid Observatory - Day 3

Lots of fine-tuning and finishing:

• Tightened all kinds of screws (focuser, guidescope...)
• Measured all amps of all devices and put the right fuses into the Rigrunner
• Figured out how to turn off the lights on the USB hub. The difference is that turned off they are passive USB plugs, turned on they are powered USB ports. The filter wheel needs a powered USB port, so we have to turn that one on and cover it.
• Configured the Web Power Switch (accounts, outlets, IP addresses...)
• Configured Windows
• Applying updates NOT at night, but at day
• Never go to sleep
• Tried to set in the BIOS to automatically boot on power. But for some reasons, my little monitor does not display the BIOS settings. Need to find another HDMI-capable display.
• Routed all the cables through the pier
  
• Switched all devices (NUC, Web Power Switch, Mount) to static IP addresses
• Set a park position (sideways, downwards pointing. You can't slew the 10Micron mount below the horizon. But you can loosen the clutches and move it manually and then define that position as a Park position.
• Figured out how to power the mount on/off from MGBox. It has a "Pulse" button that does exactly that: send a pulse - which is then used at the mount to toggle on/off. Took me a while to figure that out.

We then wanted to continue polar alignment, measure collimation...

... but it was too windy and they didn't open the roof.

But we had a call with Manoj and talked about our two missing pieces:

• The nosepiece for the ASI camera, so that we can put it into the 1.25" holder in the Starbase scope
• The RJ10 cable to connect the MGPBox to the mount

Manoj had a nosepiece. I have RJ10 cables on my mount. We agreed that Manoj would stop by our house, get the cable and overnight both to us (normally, that would have been $78 - but with our Google corporate discount it was only $15!!!)

Next: Day 4

Namid Observatory - Day 2

We started the day assembling the imaging train. Again, it was great to have the studios onsite, so we could do this in a clean, air conditioned environment

A good thing about our setup is that we don't have to be too worried about getting the backfocus exactly right. First, the scope has a fairly large critical focus zone, and second the Nightcrawler focuser extends up to 1". I.e. we only have to get it roughly right.

We mounted the whole imaging train on the back - everything is super stable!!!

Other things we did:

Delta-T box and program
Install the Delta-T box and control program (to control fans and heater)

Was pretty easy. The control program (PWI - Planewave Interface Software) keeps the mirrors above ambient temperature


But we couldn't figure out yet how to control the fans. There is a tab in the software for the fans, but I don't know how to connect it ...

Set site coordinates

We don't want these to be set automatically by the MSGPBox - they can vary slightly based on satellite acquisition. Instead we measured really carefully and :

Latitude: 31° 56' 49.00" N

Longitude: 108° 53' 51.00" W

Elevation: 1342.00 m 

Entered them in the mount and TSX.

Connect MGPBox

First, we noticed that we didn't have the RJ10 cable to connect the MGPBox to the mount to set temperature and pressure (for refraction correction). Will keep looking. A few years back it would have been easy to find one as every phone was using them. But these days ...

Front counterweights

The scope comes with small counterweights that go into the very front. They are fairly light, but being so far in the front make a huge difference

Guidescope

When we tried to put the guidescope on top, we realized that we didn't have the right bolts that fit into the rings AND sink into the saddle plates, so that we can mount them on top of the dovetail. Now the machine shop came REALLY handy. Richard extended the holes in the saddle plates just enough that we could use hex screws. Apart from that, this was straight forward.

But when we tried to put the ASI camera on it, we realized that we were missing and adapter!!! The scope (being designed for visual) only has a 1.25" eyepiece ending. The camera has a C- and T-thread. Need to figure out how to get this adapter ...

Balancing

Now, with the guidescope on top, we could balance the scope. Instead of moving the entire scope around we could use the guidescope for DEC balancing.

We balanced it manually and measured with the 10Micron software:

RA: 1.1% shaft-heavy

DEC: 1.7% front-heavy

Good enough for now...

Finally, we

• tied the cables down a little (don't want to do the final one until we are done).
• setup everything in TSX (equipment, filter config...)

... and with that, we were ready for some night work!!!

First, we wanted to do the polar alignment. Using any plate-solving based method is tricky if you have such a small field of view (< 1"). Both PemPro and PHD2 have a drift-based alignment. We can't use PHD2 as we don't have the guide camera mounted yet (FLI doesn't have an ASCOM driver!!!)

So, we tried to use PemPro. Installed, configured (tricky as neither the FLI camera nor the 10Micron mount were in the PemPro database). But we somehow couldn't get it working (didn't display any images that we took).

So we tried to make plate solving work. Usually All-Sky platesolving is easy to setup and very forgiving. But it wasn't. We could not get it to work - even when we were right next to the target star.

Then Richard realized that the small pieces on top of the guidescope were for manual targetting

<PHOTO of red circled guidescope image>.

With that, we could get a rough polar alignment using the 3 star alignment of the 10Micron mount. Tried again to use TSX plate solving - but no luck!!!

My hail mary was to use ModelCreator and ASTAP. I've never used ASTAP before, but everybody was raving about it (installation, robustness...) Installed both, tried ...

... and it just worked!!! Seriously!!! It solved all frames, no problem.

With that, we could finally do this:

1. created a model (using 40+ stars) using plate solving, measured polar alignment error: 5+'
2. do a rough alignment with the guidescope targetting circles
3. created another model with 40 stars measured error: 1'30" !!
4. Now, we could do the alignment with the camera (star was close enough to the camera view)
5. created another model: 35" - and then we let ModelCreator running to do a full model (90+ stars): 15"
6. one more, very accurate alignment
7. another full model: 7" !!!

And with that, we called it a night!!! Awesome!

... one thing we noticed was that the lights from the USB hub are REALLY bright (especially the blue ones). Need to cover them or turn them off completely.

Next: Day 3