Viewing Report 13th April 2020 – IMT3 – Last TPoint ?

Viewing time period – 20:32 – 22:13

Dome has been open a few hours now and the 12″ cooling down with the fans on.

At first the TPoint run was not solving the image, I had to change again the Image scale which was set to 0.01 for the automated TPointing back to 0.32.

Once this was done I started a new TPoint run. The new numbers coming in looked better on the scatter graph, however at about 29 points the mount stalled and the TPoint stopped. So I went out and backed off, turning anti-clockwise the spring screws 1/8 turn on the RA axis. I then restarted the mount, but now it is too late to start again as I have work tomorrow. So I will leave the mount in Bob’s capable hands and head off to bed.

Viewing Report 11th April 2020 – IMT3 – TPoint again part 2

Viewing time period – 21:02 – 04:21

Started TPointing at Point 153, at 22:00 got to Point 231 which gave us 192 confirmed points.

Tpointing

Then went back and did the following points

Point 28 (DONE)

Point 50-55 (DONE)

Point 60 (DONE)

71-92 (DONE)

100-153

101-106 (DONE)

Failed – 107, 108, 112, 113, 130-132,134

Not tried – 100,109-110, 114-118

Completed – 111, 119-129,133,135-152

We had some cloud around 22:45 until 23:29

TPoint visual

Throughout this time I processed some Lunar images on the Windows laptop with AutoStakkert from the previous few nights of imaging through the Mak 180. I have noticed you cannot open anything larger than 4GB file size !!

Gassendi crater

@1:52am TPoint finished

@2:09 GingerGeek took over to look at focuser positions and backlash and autofocus on the Takahashi FSQ102.

Autofocus

Then we started to image M53 on the Tak for RGB data to add to the Luminance data we already have from GingerGeek’s data on the Esprit 120ED.

M53 Frame and Focus test

Tomorrow I will need to look at the TPoint model to refine it!

Addendum ……

So I took a look at the TPoint model and could not get it below 109 inner circle and 200 outer circle without removing a lot of points. So I posted question on the Bisque Sky X forum.

They came back and stated there is something loose in my imaging train or the mount. There is nothing wrong with my imaging train so instead I performed adjustments on the worm gear as they suggested. I will now need to re-TPoint to see if this makes a difference.

Worm adjustment
Spring screws left and right and Cam Stop screw in the middle