Update for season 2014-2015

There has been quiet times in the BBubble observatory... So here's a short review of what has happened!


Let's go back to August! Darkness was arriving after the Summer and I put everything ready; focuser, camera, mount control box and so on. Powered everyhting up and suddenly the mount started to move in RA-axis faster than it has ever done before (because of the 1,5m scope I've limited the slew speed to 5 deg/sec)... WTF!!!!!!! Ok, power off to prevent any damages. Checked the cabling and tried again with the same result, great.....


Contacted the mount's manufacturer who wanted me to sent the mount so he can fix it. We agreed that I would try to find the failed part because it would be much easier to send and fix that than the whole mount. After dozens of emails and measurements with oscilloscope we find the broken RA-axis encoder. Another part which "has never failed before"...


Manufacturer promised to send me a new one after he gets it. After a week he mailed that the one he got has a broken cover. So we agreed that I'll send mine and he switches that cover to the broken one. And finally after 1,5 months I got my Mesu2 working again. And then the clouds came...


Ok, normal Finnish winter. More than 2 months of cloudiness. Finally some clear skies in December so I could make another polar alignment to my mount (I accidently moved the mount during repair). Done!!


Then collimation and check the straighness of the optical path, Done with less than 1" error. And then more clouds...


Few days later I wondered that my computer in the observatory was offline. The hard disc drive has failed... Ok, easy to change and lost only 30hrs of calibration data. But needed to install every driver again.


In the middle of Janury few moments of clear skies again. Vcurves for the Focusmax and adjusting autoguider settings in the MaximDL.


Next night perfect weather with 0% moon. Started all remotely to and watched how CCDCommander begun its script. Everything connected, dome slaved, mount slewed to focus star, plate solve and recenter and then focus run. Started ok but then reported that on the "wrong side of V-curve"... Focuser reported to be near Home-position when I stopped the script. Moved focuser back to starting position and took a few second image. WTF!!!


There was only donuts in the screen, no stars... Great!! Later that night I drove to the observatory an found my PDF focuser jammed to its outmost position. Closed everything and went to sleep.


So now I'm waiting istructions from the FLI how to repair the PDF. There's propably only a loose screw in the motor drive sprocket but the focuser needs to be opened to tighten it.