EAA - A Comet, Starry Night 8 and SharpSolve

Welcome to another Electronic Assisted Astronomy session from the South Coast of the UK. It has been a little time since I last managed to get out and observe.
As usual, out the on the decking, we are using a Celestron CPC-800 telescope and Altair Astro 294c colour camera. The software is the latest version of SharpCap 4.1, AstroPlanner and for tonight Starry Night Pro 8.
In this session we are going to look at various deep-sky and solar-system objects as well as use Starry Night Pro 8 and the new in-built SharpCap feature, SharpSolve for our plate solving requirements.
Starry Night Pro 8 suffers from not being able to be controlled remotely unlike other astronomy applications such as TheSky Pro, Stellarium, CdC or AstroPlanner to name but a few. However, it is possible to “roll” your own remote plugin using the Starry Night SDK (link below). I will make the remote plugin I created available for general ridicule on GitHub when it is complete.
As well as viewing the comet 12P Pons-Brooks we are also going to use Starry Night Pro 8 to take us on a journey through the Solar System with the comet. Along the way we will look at the globular cluster M92, The open cluster NGC188 ( Caldwell 1), The Dumbbell Nebula ( M27 ) and The Ring Nebula ( M57 ).
Starry Night Plugin SDK is available here - support.simula...
The source and release code for the Starry Night 8 Plugin.
GitHub: github.com/Xio...
There is also an “award winning” TH-cam video :-) which takes you through the simple installation process and demonstrates its features using the test client.
TH-cam: • Starry Night Remote Co...
Graphics courtesy of Starry Night® Starry Night Pro 8.1 / Simulation Curriculum Corp
Have fun.
Pete

[@LLA2008]

Hey Pete,
Can you explain your telescope setup.
Specifically how your camera is connected to the scope.
Thanks

[@Xio2011]

Hi,
There is a video that goes through my setup and how the camera is attached th-cam.com/users/livemNQhbDR8HH8?si=DVPsoLs1P7xMe8go&t=192
I did redo the adapters a few months ago. Current setup is. Camera screws into a Baader Varilock 29-46 extension then into the Baader Zeiss T-2 Star Diagonal. The diagonal is then attached to a 15mm T2 extension and finally attached to the back of the SCT by a Baader T2-SCT adapter which replaced the really skinny SCT-T2 converter in the video.
I hope that helps.

[@jamesianhampton108]

Thanks again Pete for another informative video… unfortunately I’m still not set up in the Northwest following my move, due to life getting in the way ( and poor weather….) keep up the good work, I hope to get setup soon and will be in touch!

[@Xio2011]

Hi James,
I'm sorry to hear you haven't set up yet. The weather around here has not been very cooperative. I seem to be grabbing an hour here and there before the clouds roll in! And the wind seems a constant problem! Lucky that EAA is so flexible 😀. I was lucky enough to get a mono camera for Christmas, an ASI 533mm. Wow! The image builds up so quickly compared to my 294 colour camera. Good for those fainter objects that have little or no colour.
Hopefully, you will be set up and observing soon. Have fun.
Pete

[@jamesianhampton108]

Hi Pete, I have a question… as you run your CPC outside unattended, what precautions do you take to avoid cord wrap problems? I have a similar CPC scope and while I started out doing EAA I was connected locally hard wired to my laptop, I was never 100% happy that the power cable wouldn’t get snagged on something in fact it happened a couple of times. I have now followed your example and setup my scope with a piggyback mini PC - and am ready to operate fully remote from my mancave… however I worry a little about the power cable getting tangled/snagged… I have an aftermarket supple silicone rubber insulated power lead, which is zip tied to the handle on the RHS of the fork, I had considered fitting a flexible ‘arm’ to hold the cable out from the tripod… but not sure! The in built cord wrap setting seems to be a bit flaky on my scope and I’m not sure I trust it
…

[@Xio2011]

Hi James,
Your solution is infinitely superior to my "hope for the best" arrangement. My setup does not have a mini-pc, but a laptop thrown in a plastic box. You can see it below the scope (in the TH-cam thumbnails). From there, two cable tied USB cables snake up one of the CPC-800's arms. While the power connector from the box is connected to the power cable coming down the other arm.
The USB and power leads are firmly attached to the CPC-800's arms. The USB connection to the laptop is via a USB hub. The hub has a USB-C connector to the laptop. My guess is that if a data cable became snagged then the hub's USB-C connector would pop-out, without too much pressure being applied. The power cables uses a DC power jack and socket connection, which again has some chance of separating if the cable was snagged.
Setup is always the same, with the cables taking up their same positions each time and I do rotate the scope around 360 degrees in each direction to check for snags. While in operation, I keep an eye on the location of the scope. AstroPlanner has a telescope simulator built-in that shows the orientation of the scope. I don't have the cord-wrap turned on as I never let the scope rotate more than 360 degrees from its initial north facing position.
I might have been lucky, but in 4 years of remote observing the cables have never snagged. I am now crossing my fingers and touching the saw-dust on my head that I have not tempted fate :-)
The silicone rubber power lead is a great idea. My power cable does not like cold temperatures and become less far-less flexible.
Have fun.
Pete

[@jamesianhampton108]

Thanks for explaining your setup Pete, looks like I am worrying unnecessarily… I just wanted to see if you took any precautions in this regard, as I have rebuilt my rig after the move and before I finalise/tidy the wiring I wanted to see if there were any best practices to implement! I hope to be up and running soon weather permitting!

[@Xio2011]

Hi James,
That is really good news on getting your scope setup.
I may have just been lucky on the cable snag issue. Having just one cable on your mini-pc setup should be even safer than my multi-cable monstrosity :-)
One other thing I realised I do. When slewing great distances I tend to do an intermediate slew in the direction I want the scope to take to reach the final position. If I have slewed from the north through south to the east part of the sky. To get back to the northern part, I will slew to past the south first and then north. I just seem to do it automatically to stop the CPC-800 choosing its own shortest path. Have I programmed myself to stop cord-wrap?! :-)
I'm looking forward to see how your observation sessions go.
Have fun.
Pete