USB-C is quickly becoming the industry standard for communication between components in astrophotography rigs. Several brands have moved towards USB-C for cameras as well as focusers.
USB-C has a number of advantages that are particularly suited to astrophotography, including faster data flow, and smaller plug size. But probably the greatest advantage is that USB-C can take more current in the same cable as the data flow. Now, many of your components only need one cable rather than two.
However, this also brings a risk. While USB traditionally supplies 5 Volts, some new components use USB-C to provide higher voltages. This photo is my own rig, and you’ll notice I have a MeLE minicomputer on the refractor. It’s powered through a USB-C cable and needs 12 Volts. This is hugely convenient because there is 12V on the rig for all the other components and I can just pick up power from the Pegasus Powerbox Advanced night to the computer.
But you can see where I’m going with this, can’t you?
The MeLE comes with a power supply that gives me 12V to a USB-C plug. If I have a component like a focuser or filter wheel that has needs 5V from USB-C cable I have to be absolutely sure that I’m using the right power supply and giving the component the right voltage.
So far, we don’t know of anyone who has unwittingly blown up something expensive by giving it the wrong power, but please be careful!
Sampling rates can make your stars good or blocky, especially if you zoom in. It all depends on a few factors like your focal length, the size of the pixels in your sensor, how good the atmospheric conditions are, and even how good your guiding is. This article shows how to get a combination of telescope and camera that will give you nice smooth stars under a range of conditions.
This is an instalment of a tutorial series on how to slave a dome. In this part we look at connecting the dome control software to the dome and mount through the ASCOM Hub. Depending on the connections you can perform the slaving calculations in the dome control software or the ASCOM Hub.
In this second part of the dome slaving series, we discuss connecting your observatory control program directly to the dome and the mount using ASCOM drivers. This is the simplest we to set it up, and allows you to use the observatory control program to do the slaving calculations.
