The “Black screen of Death” and other trials of the remote imager

The “Black screen of death” appears on the PC called “observatory” in the TeamViewer app. This is the desktop operating Pier 1, 16″ scope. This turned out to be a failed motherboard. “Observatory 2” controls Pier 2 and “Station” is basically providing info on the UPS backing up the router.

Let’s talk about the “black” screen of death. Not the blue screen that perhaps some of you PC users are familiar with. No, the black screen is perhaps a little more unsettling as it means you have lost communication with your remote computer and perhaps your equipment is now running exposed to the elements with no way of intervening! I use the Team Viewer application which is free and I think pretty robust. It has been very solid over the last couple of years anyway. They do have down times for maintenance which they inform you of ahead of time and very rare unanticipated downtimes which they are very quick to address. I have seen only one of these which lasted about 3-4 hours. Once you set your remote computers up and you open the Team Viewer application the computers typically appear with a small blue screen icon. That is a good thing! That means your computers are good to go and when you double click on the blue icon you go right to your remote computer screen for whichever computer you are using. When the computer icon is black that means something is wrong. On the Team Viewer screen you can see how long the computer(s) have been inaccessible. This can be helpful in diagnosing the problem. The following are the typical reasons:
1) All computers are black- this means that you could be in the middle of an internet reboot especially if the down time has been short, say less than 10-15 minutes. In that case once the internet is rebooted, the computers will come back online. You just need to wait “patiently”. Alternatively the downtime could be much longer, say a couple of hours or more. This is likely due to an extended power outage, one that has gone beyond the life of whatever backup battery you have hooked up to the computers. In that case you have to wait until power comes back on. Hopefully there is not an imaging session in progress! It is also possible that some event occurred to disrupt power at the observatory such as a lightning strike.
2) One computer is black- this means that something is wrong with that particular PC. You can try to cycle power to it to see if it will reboot but usually there is a major hardware issue. If you only have 1 remote computer you can check to see if your network is still operating by trying to access one of your monitoring cameras for example. These are typically not PC driven and can be checked from a mobile device app. In my experience on the 2 occasions this has happened the reason was a computer system board or “motherboard” failure. This occurred on both the Pier 2 laptop and Pier 1 desktop within about 6 weeks of each other! Now it is possible there could be something quirky with the Teamview app on the remote computer. This does happen to the “station” laptop (see above image) which is not involved with any of the observatory equipment but communicates with the main back up battery . This battery provides backup to the router specifically. I haven’t figured out exactly why this occurs periodically but I think it may be occurring when the laptop restarts after system updates. Something to sort out going forward but not a show stopper if that computer goes offline because I know how to fix that.

The “black screen of death” is only one of the many potential pitfalls in this battle we call “remote imaging”. Since this past Spring I have had to address the following:
1) Failed roof control. We discussed this in earlier posts but this required changing the entire system.
2) Camera on Pier 2 malfunctioned. This occurred when during camera rotation a cable connecting the imager to the guider was inadvertently pulled out and shorted the camera circuit board. That was just a dumb but costly mistake when I had the cable tethered to the main cable
3) 2 motherboard failures in 6 weeks as discussed above.
4) Circuit board on the MX+ mount on Pier 2 malfunctioned and required replacement.
5) Both RA and Dec cam knobs had to be replaced on the Pier 2 mount (MEII) due to excessive wear.

Fortunately both the laptop motherboard and the MX+ circuitboard were under warranty, but still a fairly expensive 6 month duration of problem solving; not as much as it would have cost having a hosting site run your equipment (see below). I understand why people are moving away from “doing it all” with this remote imaging stuff. I get it. Managing the equipment side, data collection and data processing can be very frustrating. Between the hardware breakdowns, software glitches, and not to mention the weather not cooperating when your in the middle of finishing a project can be very frustrating. Despite having 2 imaging platforms and operating this for about 15 months now I have completed only 5 projects. Every week there is something else to fix. But despite all of this, when you get that moment when things are working and you get that “Wow” result, it makes it all totally worth it! I would say that people like myself are in the minority these days. Most people are either forming teams where 1 or more are handling the equipment side and one person is processing the data, or you have the situation where you bring your equipment to a dark sky “hosting” site such as a Deep Sky West etc. where you have a team of people managing your equipment and you just operate it remotely. This does cost quite a bit; a few hundred dollars per month typically. There is also the option of paying for data and using a remote site such as iTelescope or Chilescope or any one of the 100 or so of these sites in operation now. Finally I think most people who are doing astroimaging these days are using smaller setups they can travel with to dark sky sites and doing everything on site. Everyone will have their reasons for doing what they do. It’s all good. For myself, I feel lucky I can operate equipment from a dark site that I don’t have to set up every night I’m using it , I can operate it from another location and don’t have to stay up with it all night and have 2 platforms I can use potentially simultaneously. If I want to travel to a dark site with smaller stuff I can do that too at some point. So if you are like me and are thinking of “going remote” remember you have to get used to expecting the unexpected and like a Hall of Fame football coach once told his Superbowl winning QB: “you can’t be afraid to go down in flames”. Be sure to check out the “Going remote” page and of course thanks for reading!

Dr Dave

Perseids meet the Zodiacal light

The annual Perseid Meteor Shower peaked earlier today. However I was able to catch a better showing from Mayhill NM on the morning of the 11th, yesterday. While the Moon is waxing and near full, it fortuitously set just before 4 am and the dark skies over the Sacramento Mountains followed! The Earth passes through the debris trail left by comet Swift-Tuttle every year at this time. The direction of travel is toward the constellation Perseus, hence the name. The meteors appear to originate from a central point in that constellation. Just after 4 am on the 11th Perseus was nearly overhead, so most of the meteors were seen closer to the horizon. I saw approximately 20 in the hour before dawn! Now the other phenomenon featured at the same time was a triangular glow of light originating from about the position of sunrise. This can be seen in a dark site either just before dawn or just after sunset. Zodiacal light (also called false dawn when seen before sunrise such as this) is visible in the night sky and appears to extend from the Sun’s direction and along the zodiac, straddling the ecliptic or the plane of the solar system (red line in image below). Sunlight scattered by interplanetary dust causes this phenomenon. Zodiacal light is best seen during twilight after sunset in spring and before sunrise in autumn, when the zodiac is at a steep angle to the horizon. You can see in the Stellarium capture below the steep ecliptic angle and the constellations of the zodiac beginning with Gemini. At any rate, a welcome moment of visual observing from the astronomer’s living quarters at Orion’s Belt on the morning of August 11th!

View to the South/ Southeast on the morning of Aug 11 a little after 4am. Unfortunately the screen reproduction is undersized by this site’s server but you can see the constellation Perseus marked with an ‘X’ near the top which is where the meteors appear to originate from. The white triangle is the Zodiacal light and red line is the ecliptic, running through the constellations of the zodiac. You can see Gemini is rising at the base of the triangle. Taurus is next “in line” along the red line. The bright red star Aldebaran is shown there, and if you go further up you will run into Pisces. Orion is at the lower right center

This is kind of how the zodiacal light looked, about an hour before dawn. Courtesy of earthsky.org.

Thanks for reading!

Dr Dave

A Horse with No Name

One of the things you begin to realize after imaging various regions of the universe is that space is not empty! It’s filled with dust. In fact if there were no dust, we would not have a night time here on Earth. The second completed project from Orion’s Belt Remote Observatory is entitled “A Horse with No Name” which harkens back to the early 70’s and the song from the band ‘America’. The “Horsehead nebula” is one of the most fascinating regions of our galaxy and is part of the Orion Molecular Cloud which is a huge star forming region toward the constellation Orion. I have reproduced the detailed description below with a few edits, courtesy of Wikipedia. For a full resolution version of the image you can use the link on the lower right under “My Astro-images”

Image captured from Orion’s Belt Remote Observatory Dec 2018-Feb 2019

The “Horsehead nebula” is a complex star forming region 1200 light years from Earth toward the constellation Orion and consists of emission, reflection and dark nebulae. The deep-red color originates from ionized hydrogen gas (Hα) predominantly behind the nebula, and caused by the nearby bright star Sigma Orionis. You can see the blue diffraction spike from the nearby bright star. Magnetic fields channel the gases, leaving the nebula into streams, shown as foreground streaks against the background glow. A glowing strip of hydrogen gas marks the edge of the massive cloud, and the densities of nearby stars are noticeably different on either side.
Heavy concentrations of dust in the Horsehead Nebula region and neighboring Orion Nebula are localized into interstellar clouds, resulting in alternating sections of nearly complete opacity and transparency. The darkness of the Horsehead is caused mostly by thick dust blocking the light of stars behind it. The lower part of the Horsehead’s neck casts a shadow to the left. The visible dark nebula emerging from the gaseous complex is an active site of the formation of “low-mass” stars. Bright spots in the Horsehead Nebula’s base are young stars just in the process of forming. (Courtesy Wikipedia)
Capture info:
Location: Orion’s Belt Remote Observatory, Mayhill NM
Date: Dec 2018
Telescope: RiDK 400mm
Camera: SBIG STX 16803/ AOX
Mount: Paramount MEII
Acquisition: LRGB Ha: 5, 5,6,5,7 hours respectively. Luminance 10min; Red, Green, Blue 12 min; Ha 15min
Filters: Astrodon Gen 2 (3nm HA)
Processing : Pixinsight

Thanks for reading!

Dr Dave

Reflections on Apollo 11’s 50th

As this blog is devoted to “space exploration” (with ground based telescopes), I would be remiss in not devoting at least one entry to one of the most compelling achievements in human history. Where were you on July 20,1969 (Assuming you were alive then of course and old enough to be aware of the event)? I was 8 years old at a sleep away camp in Maine. We were scattered in sleeping bags on the floor of the camp’s cafeteria. There was one television in the center of the room. I was pretty close to it. I remember it was late at night. Definitely past our bedtime but the camp counselors let us stay up for it. The only visual I remember was when the lunar module camera came on as Neil Armstrong was climbing down the ladder. Lots of brightness and shadows. I saw movement which looked like an astronaut’s glaringly bright spacesuit against the darkness of the background and the dark shadows below at the foot of the lunar module. The movement stopped and then I heard a voice which was probably one of the most famous one-liners ever: “that’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind”. I don’t think I heard the actual words at the time. Years after that I would periodically watch the documentaries, visit the museums, read the stories and just be in complete awe and amazement at how humans were able to do this with such seemingly rudimentary resources. If you have ever seen the lunar module in person it looks like a 3rd grade diorama project! What it all means to me is that when people have a certain collective will and focus, even the impossible is possible.

The Apollo 11 (2019) documentary produced this year and available on Amazon as a $6 rental I thought was the best beginning to end presentation as it showed much of the video taken during the mission which was unavailable at the time. I enjoyed the prelaunch original CBS broadcast with Walter Cronkite which is on You tube. The commercials, especially, bring you 50 years back in time!

Since the Moon landing 50 years ago, many lament about the fact that no humans have ventured back into space, beyond the space station. However, many discoveries have been made. Space telescopes have contributed enormously to our knowledge of the large scale structure of the universe. Hundreds of planets outside our solar system have been identified. Space probes have landed and explored Mars, visited Pluto and beyond. Of course, no one has been discovered waving back at us yet but perhaps that will come soon.

At any rate, the Moon, which is usually an object that just gets in the way of deep space observations 2 weeks out of every month, has special significance today!

Thanks for reading!

Dr Dave

Recollimating the 16″

Accurate alignment of the optical elements, typically 2 mirrors, of your telescope is known as “collimation”. Proper collimation is the key to success in astroimaging. It was time, probably overdue, for re-collimation of the 16” (400mm) RiDK telescope. I had not collimated the scope since around first light which was now about 1 ½ years prior. My bad on that , but I had not noticed any issues with star quality until very recently. Since I had to do maintenance on the mount, I thought it was a good time.
The RiDK is a corrected Dall-Kirkham Cassegrain telescope or ‘CDK’. ‘Ri’ are the first 2 letters of Riccardi who is the optical engineer for the Italian version of the CDK and manufactured by Officina Stellare. I believe it is basically similar to a Planewave CDK except the corrector lens is closer to the focal plane theoretically reducing chromatic aberration to zero. I chose this design for the main telescope because it’s much easier to collimate than just about any other reflecting telescope! The corrected Dall Kirkham Cassegrain, CDK, or in this particular case RiDK is a 2 mirror telescope with a corrector lens. The primary main mirror is a “prolate ellipsoid” or something in between a spherical mirror and a paraboloid, found in the classical Newtonian telescopes. The secondary mirror is a convex spherical mirror. A doublet lens is placed at the level of the primary, in the center of the optical train, to eliminate distortions in stellar images created by the raw spherical configuration of the secondary and to create a “flat” image through the entire field, in other words perfectly round stars from “corner to corner”. This arrangement is much easier to align than for example the Ritchey Cretien “RC” design which employs a hyperbolic primary and hyperbolic secondary. It’s also easier than Newtonian telescopes in my opinion as usually you have to collimate the secondary mirror as well as the primary. Often the secondary is offset from the center of the primary which hugely complicates things! In the RiDK scope, ease of collimation was confirmed when I first did it a while back. It wasn’t too bad at all right out of the crate. Initially around 6 arc sec off, I was able to reduce that to less than 1 fairly easily with small 1/10-1/8 turns of the primary mirror collimation screws.
The method I have used time and time again is a software based algorithm. CCDWare’s CCD Inspector or ‘CCDI’ is the application. In order for this to work well I think a few things have to be true:
1) Collimation is “in the ball park” which is difficult to quantify but I would say if you have confirmed with a Cheshire eyepiece or similar it looks right and you are ready for star testing then you’re good. I’m going to guess that means it’s not more than 15 arc seconds off at most but that number is a guess
2) Only one mirror needs adjusting, either the primary or secondary but not both
3) Your telescope is not fast, i.e F/5 or lower
As an example a while back I tried unsuccessfully to collimate my Tak 180 using this method alone. This is a unique optical system with an offset secondary and a super fast F/2.8 focal ratio! So 2 of the 3 criteria were not met.
So how does this work? Before that I just want to point out the great thing about this method is that you are testing on an imaged star which is what the goal is anyway. I think it’s harder to do this visually with an eyepiece because the small changes are difficult to be certain of. CCDI gives you an actual number in arc seconds so you know exactly what your corrections are accomplishing quantitatively. Plus you can use the camera set up you are actually imaging with.
For best results you will need the following:
1) Ability to place a star in the true center of the image field. Most camera acquisition programs will have the option of adding a cross hair to the screen. This is necessary.
2) Knowledge of the focus position of your set up such that you can reach a defocused position yielding a star image which is a minimum of 200 pixels in diameter
3) At least average seeing. This is going to limit how much of a correction can be made.

First you will need to install CCD inspector here. There is a free trial period of I believe about 30 days

Open the program. Go to the settings tab and click on “default image properties”

Settings > Default image properties

Enter image scale and pixel size of your imager. Saturation level for most applications is not critical.

Here you will enter your main imager’s specs as above: image scale etc.

Next you will need to tell the program what camera control software you are going to use. If you are not using either CCDSoft or Maxim then click on ‘Generic’. It does not matter what program you use as long as you indicate to CCDI where the files are going to be saved. This is the key.

Use the “Generic” setting if not using either CCDSoft or Maxim

When you click on Generic, Windows explorer will open and you will be able to choose where CCDI needs to look for the saved image files. I would recommend doing this first in your camera program where you will need to tell it to autosave the files and select the folder where you want to save them. If you are using The Sky X autosave, my suggestion is to turn off the option to create a new folder for each date. This will be confusing to CCDI.

Clicking on “generic” pulls up the Windows explorer to select folder for “real time” images

We are now ready to begin the process! First slew to a medium bright to very bright star. This will take some trial and error to find the right combination of exposure time and magnitude for your optics. CCDI will tell you if you are on the right track. You will get an error message “star distorted or too bright” or “star too dim”. Remember to select “autodark” in your capture program and typically bin 1×1. For my 16″ F/7 scope I used a 4+ magnitude star for this with an exposure of 2.5 seconds to get consistent readings. You will need to get consistent readings without error messages to do this accurately. Also you might need to subframe your image depending on the size of your sensor. For example I am using a full frame 16803 sensor with 4096 x 4096 pixels. In The Sky X, I used the subframe option with 1/4 frame selected. This resulted in 1000 or so pixel square which worked well. If you have a medium sensor you might not need to use this feature. Just see what happens when you take several exposures. If , for example, you get 2 or 3 readings, then a bunch of error messages with “too bright”, then “too dim”, then “too bright” etc., you should definitely try subframing.

In The Sky X program you can select “subframe” and “size” . Note also “autosave” is checked. Once you select “size” you are brought to a screen where you can specify how small you want the frame down to 1/4 of the full size

Next confirm you are at or near focus and the star is dead center in the frame. I use the “closed loop slew” feature in The Sky X which will plate solve the image and move the star to the center automatically. Use a hand paddle if that’s what you have. You just need to make sure it’s centered.

Star is centered to begin the process. The live collimation viewer is seen on the left. The number is in arc sec.

Once it’s centered then you need to defocus the star image. Move to a focus position where the defocused image is no less than 200 pixel diameter. Now I would point out there is nothing wrong with defocusing the star first and centering that manually. You can continue to do that without having to refocus etc., but I decided to make use of the closed loop slew feature which requires focused stars in order to plate solve the image. Once the star is centered, go to CCDI program and open the collimation viewer.

Go to “collimation” > “Defocused Star Collimation Viewer”

 

You can also select “images to average” also under the “Real-Time” tab. I usually do just one to make sure the readings are consistent. The exposures are typically short.

Next take an exposure. You should have the collimation viewer open on your screen (see above). If you don’t get a reading or an error message, i.e. nothing happens in the viewer, that probably means you don’t have the file saving set up right or perhaps you have inadvertently selected multiple images to average. Again, make sure the folder you select in CCDI (click on the “generic” tab under camera control in settings) is the same as the the folder your camera control software is autosaving to.

Take several exposures to make sure the readings you are getting are consistent, i.e. the arrow is pointing in roughly the same direction every time and the collimation number in arc seconds is also about the same. For my first run I was getting 7-10 arc seconds in the same direction.

The collimation viewer is seen to the left reading 7.1. This was my initial starting point

Once you get several readings you are ready to make a correction. The goal is to tilt the primary mirror in the direction of the arrow. If you are working with a secondary mirror such as in an RC scope (e.g Astrotech model etc)  you might have to move the secondary mirror OPPOSITE the arrow. You will have to trial and error it to see which collimation screws move the mirror in which direction. Label the screws as you are doing it. Start with very small movements of the screw, not more than maybe 1/16 of a turn.

For my RiDK 16″, there is a collimation wrench for the primary screws. There are 3 set screws, one with each collimation screw (above the collimation screw and to the right slightly) which are loosened prior to collimation. One full turn of a collimation screw moves the mirror 1mm!)

After you make the small screw turn(s), take another image and you should see the defocused star move in the direction of the arrow if you have figured out your screws’ directions properly. Next what I did was refocused the star, recentered it, then defocused again. Take your image. You should see an improvement in the arc sec number. Perhaps a more efficient way of doing this if you are using The Sky X is to calibrate your main imager as an autoguider. Then you can right click on the center of the defocused star and it will recenter the star without you having to refocus, closed loop slew etc. I did not do that, but it really did not take more than 30 seconds to go through the routine I did.

After several iterations of this you should ideally be getting consistent readings at least below 5 arc sec, depending on seeing. In average seeing you should be able to get perhaps 3 or less. At a certain point you will start to see the arrow acting “weird” meaning it will point up after one exposure, then point down after a second exposure and then point to the side, etc. This means you are done!

After several iterations we got consistent readings less than around 2 arc sec but the arrow was flipping around so we are done for this session. Seeing was around 2-2.5 arc sec

And that is how I recollimated my RiDK , and also how you can collimate your reflector!

Thanks for reading!

Dr Dave

 

Roof control Redux

It’s been nearly a year since that day last July 7th when everything changed forever and I was finally able to open and close the observatory roof remotely! You can read that post how excited I was about that because from then on I had pretty much unlimited access to the sky since I did not have to physically be there (hence the term “remote”). A few weeks ago I went about my usual routine, about to start an imaging session, clicked on the “open roof” button, watched the progress bar indicating everything was fine, all systems operating normally, but one thing was different. The roof was clearly NOT OPENING! The system which was fairly easy to install and operate had failed after about 9 months. For the 2 weeks following I spent hours troubleshooting it. I started from the beginning, testing the board, checking the wire continuity, metering everything, even replacing all of the wiring I had going from the 12 volt relays to the board. For whatever reason when I tested the board, only the open relay would light up but very briefly. I even replaced the relays.This was without the roof motor connected. I tried a spare board, tried different software versions, even tried 2 different windows operating systems. Nothing. This really made no sense at all. I checked and rechecked the connections. There was no rhyme or reason to it. Unfortunately support was completely non existent. I was told to update the software which I did but no answers to any of the questions regarding the steps I had already taken. Frustrated to no end I began to realize that this was not only about the system failing but the fact that all indications were that it was working properly and zero support for troubleshooting this. If this happened once it would surely happen again even if I was able to sort it out which probably would have occurred eventually. The only option was to at least look at other “more robust” options for roof control if they existed. The most important function is to open your observatory reliably otherwise you can’t use it! Despite the early success I had with the Foster System board it looked like that was not going to be the long term answer.

I looked at it this way. Thousands of people open and close their garage doors every day from a phone app! Never fails. Those of you who are reading this probably have a garage door and never for a second wondered if it will open or not. A roll off roof is basically a heavy duty garage door. There has to be by now a nearly fullproof system for its operation. I understand any time you have a control system which requires usb to function and Windows you can only expect so much, but nevertheless I posted this question on the Cloudy Nights astronomy board and I received several responses from folks who apparently had success with a system called “Skyroof” which I hadn’t yet heard of. It’s produced by InteractiveAstronomy.com and apparently it is based on arduino control board technology. It looked interesting. More expensive than the Foster control board by around $100, so not too much more. It looked like a much more durable circuit board although I am no expert on these. Other features which were attractive were the fact that I could direct connect the motor wires to the board without additional relays, the board was a direct usb connection rather than serial to usb, and powered by usb, so it didn’t require a secondary 12 volt power supply. No cumbersome firmware updates or bootloader programs we had to use. I was going to give it some thought before purchasing yet another roof control system and figured I would try just a couple of other things to get the Foster board to work but actually got a phone call from Jim over at Interactive Astronomy and he answered the questions I had about his SkyRoof system over the phone that same day! He also emailed detailed instructions on how to wire the board. I asked him about their support system and he basically confirmed they responded by email or phone that same day, even on the weekend. No support forums required. Ok I’m sold! I bought the Skyroof kit and it arrived 2 days later. Free shipping! I went up to the observatory that weekend and in 15 minutes the roof was operational once again! All I had to do was connect the open and close motor wires to the board, no additional relays, as well as the common wire and on the other end connect the open and close roof sensors. The software was simple to install and everything worked pretty much right away. We’re back in business!

So in summary, this is the 3rd roof control system I have used. The first one which was installed as a bundled product by Backyard Observatory when the structure was built was M1OASYS ,which is basically the M1 Elk Gold home security system adapted to roof control as an afterthought. It was like trying to kill a fly with an assault weapon. Nearly 2 years I could never get it off the ground. I finally had someone who is using it at Deep Sky West hosting facility in Rowe NM confirm it is not a product for astronomy. They use it there because they have a lot of scopes and benefit from the security features.

The second system was the Foster Astro MC control board which worked great for 9 months but then as I have been detailing, stopped working. It is similar to the Skyroof system I have just started using but different in a few key ways as follows:

Foster                                                                                 Skyroof

$250-300 not including shipping                                          $395 with free shipping

12 volt power supply required                                       Direct usb which powers the board

Serial to usb adaptor required                                      No additional adaptors or drivers

Firmware updates/ bootloader app                             No regular firmware updates

*Warranty not documented                                            *Clearly stated 1year warranty

*Support essentially non existent                                  *Support by phone/email same day

Documentation not clear to inexperienced                   Documentation clear to anyone

 

Skyroof supports many additional features such as a Sky X driver as well as text message alerts if desired. Many standard features are suported on both systems such as emergency shut down for weather related and other conditions but for the Sky Roof these are activated by simply checking a box in the software set up. For Foster, it appears much more complex to set these up. Bottom line, if you are like me and “I’m not a mechanic Jim. I’m just an old country doctor!” then definitely Sky Roof would be for you, but I am not yet going to wax poetic about this new system right now since I have learned there is no such thing as a sure thing in this business!

Thanks for reading!

Dr Dave

The Sky Roof control board is basically an arduino microcontroller about 3″ x 5″. The grey cable labeled ‘A’ is the cable coming out of the roof motor to the panel. Only 3 wires inside that cable are needed to connect to the board: an ‘open’ wire, a ‘close’ wire and a yellow ground wire. You can figure out which is the open wire by connecting the wire directly to the yellow ground wire first and seeing if the roof opens. I did those tests before using the Foster board last year and lableed the open wire with green zip tie and close wire with a red zip tie (‘B’ and ‘C’) Yellow wire is the ground wire ‘D’. E is the blue cable which contains the wires for the open and close roof sensors. Those are connected on the bottom. The diagrams that were sent with the board are very clear and easy to follow.

 

Sky roof control panel and settings menu. Notice the options under “actions/alerts” in the settings menu give you several emergency features which are enabled just by clicking on a box!

 

SkyRoof control panel showing roof opening

 

 

Collimating the Tak 180ED- what I’ve learned

The very mention of the word “collimation” causes much anxiety amongst amateur astronomers. A google websearch for “collimation” produces literally hundreds of detailed accounts of blood and sweat with many a frustrated astroimager brought to the brink of despair. This is no such tale. In fact, like many other things in life, when I finally decided to take the plunge as it were, I found things a lot different than what they were “reported” to be. I decided to write this entry as a series of questions and answers as though you the reader were right here interviewing me. I felt that would cover everything sufficiently for a single blog post. I hope anyone who owns one of these or is planning to acquire one will find it useful

What is collimation?: Collimation is simply the process by which you align the components in your optical system to bring the light from the object to it’s best focus. Typically you’re talking about a reflector telescope which employs 2 mirrors of different geometrical configurations that are spaced apart varying distances inside of the optical tube. These mirrors have to be aligned in such a way as to enable all of the light to arrive at a single point.

What is unique about the Tak 180 ED?:

Tak 180 ED

The Tak 180ED employs a hyperbolic primary mirror, a flat secondary mirror and a doublet “corrector lens” to produce a wide flat field corrected for coma and spherical aberration. The focal length is extremely short, only 500mm (F 2.8) for a mirror 7 inches in diameter! This makes it more challenging to focus and collimate as the depth of field is extremely short. The secondary is offset from the primary center to enable more illumination of the field. It differs from the classic Newtonian telescope in that the primary of the newtonian is parabolic, not hyperbolic, rendering the field sizes smaller typically for similar aperture.

Why is there such a mystique behind collimating these telescopes?: I’m not sure about there being a “mystique” other than many “tales” that are out on the web regarding how difficult many people have found it. No question you do have to pay attention to details but that is no different than many other things we do in this hobby.

Was there anything different about your telescope that came into play during the collimating process?: Actually there was. I acquired this telescope from a friend who had the stock focuser removed and replaced with an extremely heavy duty focuser designed by Paul Van Slyke. Unfortunately these are no longer made but lucky for me I do have one on this scope and it is built like a tank. I was very concerned about even touching it for fear of causing some misalignment problem but clearly he demonstrated how his focuser did not alter the steps required for collimation. The corrector lens was on there pretty firmly and I did have to remove it carefully with a strap wrench but it was actually fairly easy to do.

Was there any special equipment, laser collimators or other tools you had to acquire?: That was actually the biggest surprise to me. Perhaps this was unique for the 180 but luckily my friend saved all of the collimation tools provided by Takahashi for this scope and I did not need anything other than an open 17mm wrench for the primary screws.

The items above were included and this diagram in the instruction manual shows the precise order of assembly. The “collimating tube” has a cross hair made of fine nylon threads at 90 degrees to each other that you tape down into slots in the tube. The eyepiece is a pinhole with a side port.

Corrector lens is simply unscrewed from the focuser. I used a strap wrench which was pretty simple. Not a ton of force was required

The lens is carefully removed.

Collimation tools are then assembled as in the diagram above and the assembly is screwed into the the focuser

 

Did you get any assistance from anyone during this process?: That is really the most important thing when doing anything for the first time and with any uncertainty, ALWAYS get help from someone more experienced. I contacted Texas Nautical Takahashi or “land sea and sky” like everyone else who has a question about their Tak scope in the US. There is a fellow named Fred who is the expert in these matters and has been there for years, but unfortunately he was out of the office. I spoke to one of his colleagues who basically told me to read the manual and follow the directions! So that’s exactly what I did! I found the manual to be really well written and directions easy to follow.

So how did this go down once you were told to “read the directions”?: Actually a very interesting thing I discovered before that happened occurred when I tried to collimate it by only adjusting the the secondary with the CCD inspector software, assuming collimation was close. This is my “goto” method for collimation which I have done for a variety of scopes and been successful over the past several years. What I realized was that even after the software seemed to indicate good collimation it didn’t look right. The secondary was offset as expected but the area surrounding the secondary was not concentric. I knew then that it wasn’t right.

By all accounts a collimation error of 3.7 arc sec is excellent. However if you look carefully you can see that distance “A” is shorter than “B” which is not right

After that I realized that I had to start from the beginning, reading the directions. When I assembled the collimation tools and screwed that in to the focuser I could see right away that the collimation was off. There is a dot on the secondary and a circle on the primary to assist you in making your adjustments. I really don’t have anything else special to report about the specifics other than I followed the directions, starting with adjusting the secondary to the focuser which involved both tilting the secondary and rotating it gradually until the spot was lined up, and then adjusting the primary to the secondary.

This is the initial view after I tried using CCD inspector, unsuccessfully, looking through the collimation set up. It’s WAY off! “A” is the spot on the secondary. “B” is the cross hair in the collimation tube. “C” is the circle on the primary

 

Can you provide any tips or any other important things you learned besides “read the directions”?: Yes certainly. I don’t mean to oversimplify things but honestly it really boiled down to exactly that. Here are a few tips you might find useful:

1. The directions: you may or may not have access to these especially if purchasing the scope used so please feel free to download the pdf file here
2. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel as it were. Ask an expert in the field.
3. Don’t be afraid to remove the corrector! It just screws on to the focuser!
4.  CCD inspector is a very valuable tool for collimation but I believe you need to be cautious relying on it exclusively for fast optical setups like this.
5. I recommend using a flat panel or other light box set up for aligning the secondary with the telescope mounted and horizontal to the ground. It was fairly easy to make the collimation adjustments while looking in the eyepiece and adjusting the secondary. It is really just trial and error. Small adjustments either rotating the secondary or turning the “push” screws. A “push” screw is just a screw that pushes against the secondary or primary cell to tilt it. I did not have to adjust the axial position of the secondary front to back at all.
6. The primary collimation screws are pretty coarse and difficult to separate and work on each one individually. I did not have the wrench provided by Tak so the one I used was perhaps fatter. You will need a 17mm open wrench and a screwdriver. There are 3 components. At the base is the locking nut and furthest back is the locking screw. The middle screw is what tilts the mirror. You have to loosen everything and then I found that turning the middle screw by hand was the most effective. Again you really have to trial and error it to see what works. Once it is lined up I tightened the locking nut by hand and a little more with the 17mm open wrench but then was VERY careful about tightening the back locking screw with the screwdriver because a couple of times I did that the middle screw was turned and threw the collimation off.
   

   3 components to the primary collimation screws. “A” is the locking nut. “C” is the locking screw and “B” is your push screw. The locking nut and locking screw have to be loosened first, then adjust the push screw to tilt the mirror. After you’re done lock the nut and screw

7. Once the secondary is aligned, put the scope vertical pointing to the sky and do the primary collimation in that position.

Ok. So can we see any results of what you did?: Of course, we’re all waiting for that! I confirmed the visual appearance to be correct based on the manual diagram, then tested the alignment on the Omega Centauri cluster. I believe you will agree that collimation is very good now!

Looks pretty spot on to me! Notice now the distances “A” and “B” are the same. The secondary is offset by design as described above. Compare to the initial view earlier in this post

 

This is the result with CCDI before redoing collimation from the beginning. Note the oblong stars on the left

Nearly the same star field in the same region after collimation was completed! Much improved star images throughout.

 

Omega Centauri before complete collimation. Notice the misshapen stars to the left of the image and it appears to be “soft” overall.

 

Omega Centauri after collimation is complete! I think you can agree it is a sharper image with very good stars corner to corner!

 

Any final comments about the process?: Listen to the experts. In this case they said read and follow the directions and use the tools provided, which obviously worked! Don’t be afraid to remove parts from your scope if they need to be. Most importantly, don’t believe the horror stories that are out there 🙂

Thanks for reading!

Dr Dave