Cures for what ails us.  Mostlly housekeeping chores.

November 27, 2006. Geraldine the mail lady handed me a PCMCIA USB 2.0 adapter.

It was an odd thing somewhere between OEM and retail packaging: a driver disk and zero documentation in a spiffy retail box. Things did not start well, but the key insight was that PCMCIA adapters do not provide any electrical power to their connected devices. So in order to use a USB port mounted on a PCMCIA card, one has to supply power seperately. There was a hole in the adapter's face and a bizarre cord in the box --RCA plug on one end, USB connector on the other. The only place it fit was from the old USB port to the round hole. So I tried it. No digital smoke escaped, and devices previously attached but unrecognized suddenly appeared and functioned correctly. I arranged the powered USB hub downstream of one of the new ports and plugged both the DSI and the Shoestring guider into the hub. Windows installed the DSI (several times).

I rebooted for good measure, then asked Maxim to take a series of faux focus frames. The camera was capped on the kitchen counter and the Shoestring guide adapter was connected and recognized at the same time. Hooray: ten second exposures completed just fine and were free of the white lines of death. I let it roll for a while. An hour later, the images were still good. Now we're cookin' with gas. Not bad for an $8 bid.

I ordered a cheap 0.5x focal reducer for the DSI so that its field behind the guide scope will more closely match the ST2000's behind the 5-inch. That should make it easy to use the DSI for orientation, make it even easier to pick guide stars, and let the DSI serve as a deep, electronic finder without having to mess with the ST2000's crucial setup (I still remember shooting and carefully saving an hour's worth of guide-chip images of M13 when the camera was new). Image scale should still be adequate for guiding (if not, I can always remove the reducer, add a barlow, adjust as needed.)

Meanwhile, I finally thought to put a 9x50 finderbeside the ST80 so I can see where we're aimed without having to take frame after frame and stare into a monitor. D'oh!

Ideally, I'll be able to use the SBIG only for imaging, the DSI as an electronic finder and guider, and the optical finder for rough positioning. The combination should speed things up greatly and reduce opportunities to mess up. Good deal.

I made one more earnest attempt to organize the gear into cases that will help with quick and unsuspenseful set up and take down, organize power and data cables, and bring peace to Darfur. One benefit seems as likely as another. This sort of thing never works for me. Nevertheless, everything is now in two cases -- ST2000, DSI, long-exposure accessories for the Canon, the little computer, adapters, power bricks and data cables. We'll see what happens under the stars. There are already ways I want to change what is stashed with what. We'll see.

Minor projects:

Make some sort of tube to block light, dust, etc to replace the empty filter slide on the DSI. [done]

Add a heating pad to the kit so I can stop worrying about the computer.

Make a clip-on red shield for the computer screen. [done]

Put the electrical case on a stand (any old tripod) to help keep it dry and provide a work surface for the computer. [the battery stand works...]

Put a shelf under the Losmandy 492 control box on the G11 so I don't keep using the controller itself as a too-small shelf. [There are better solutions...]

Make some provision for focusing the 200mm F2.0 EDIF lens without using Robofocus (more wires). Some kind of vernier belt drive, a tangent arm – something I can manage by hand. [done]

Write instructions to configure the whole mess, and label all the cords. I don't want to have to figure out the details again and again or even remember the steps. [Labelled cords are great! As for documentation: when I figure it out, I'll be the first to know.]

 

You're on Page 4

Cameras behind Telescopes:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14
15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25
26 | 27 | 28 | 29

Text & Photos by David Cortner
Link all you like; please
get in touch for other uses.