Very nice telescope transport system! I like the leveling handles a lot, they seem to be easier to use than mine and the wood accent makes them look great.

As far as short USB cables are concerned, I faced the same issue as you, most cables are too long, even the short one. What I ended up doing is buy USB 2 male A and B connectors (from Digikey or Mouser) so I could cut existing cables to length and solder the appropriate connector. One medium/long cable would give me 2 shorter ones. So, if you have soldering skills, you could do something similar.

Great work!

Thanks Gilles for the info. I considered this option but didn't went that path yet because soldering USB connectors scares me a little.
I have been taking a look at the connectors at RS Components and I think I will try it.
USB 2 is only 4 wires so it should be doable even with shaky hands and poor eyesight...

That really looks like a (wire) clean setup with the processor on top, here in NC I have to worry a lot about humidity so I am not sure that would work for me. My setup is mobile, from my garage down the driveway, and I built a cart with one swivel wheel in the front to steer it.



I have 3 cameras and a filter wheel (with a thin OAG) mounted on my 9.25" SCT on a CGEM mount. The main imaging camera is either my SBIG 8300M or my new ZWO ASI533 MC, I have an SX Lodestar on the OAG for guiding, and I have a ZAO ASI120MC on an Orion 9x50 scope as an e-finder. The e-finder is very convenient for plate-solving as it has a decent FOV. I am controlling the equipment with an RPI 4 running the Astroberry Server, this sits in a plastic box on the base of the cart (so it can be covered). I have a powered 7 port Anchor USB 3.0 hub to connect all the devices to the Rpi (it seems to be working well). The hub is mounted to one of the legs of the tripod and so my wires run fairly free from the leg up to the scope and then to the devices.



I run the Astroberry Server from a laptop in the garage (where it is warm and bugless!). But I do have an inexpensive Android Tablet at the scope for the tasks of focus and polar alignment. I need to see the camera output while at the scope for those tasks and the 7" tablet (with a VNC client )works well enough for that.

My next step is to make the Rpi bootable from an SSD, hopefully making the system even more responsive and have enough memory to collect images and movie clips.

thanks for looking,
Ron

Hello,

Wanted to share with you my latest PORTABLE setup, as I upgraded my C8 to C9.25, moving around with it and the HEQ5 makes me stress out. This setup includes the portable iOptron SmartEQ Pro, Williams Optics Z61, OAG, Filter wheel, and ASI183MM Pro cooled. Of course, it is totally controlled by Ekos/Indi through RPi 4. I was able to make this setup fits an airliner carry-on bag

PS: The mount tripod is custom made as I leave the original tripod in one location, and I use the other tripod in another location. Tripod is the only part that couldn't fit the carry-on bag specifications...


 
 
 
 
 
 

hello world ...



This is my new setup, focus was on no wire tangle, single 12v source and portable for holidays / night trips with a car.
Where i live in sunny (not) Sussex in England, we tend to have weather windows of 3 to 4 hrs.
So the telescope needs to be fast (f3.7) and setup / tear down needs to be quick as well.
(Take me about 30min to unpack setup and polar align and about 30min to capture flats and tear down.)

I run my entire setup off 12v and a NUC. I have a dedicated rugged thinkpad for client.
The NUC is powerful enough to run kstars and indi, for totally remote work, if needed.

iOptron GEM45 | Altair Pier
Mount and pier weigh in at 12kg, without the counterweights.
PEC and worm cycle of 400sec, very accurate guiding of 1.5
Can carry a imaging payload of up to 18kg, without counter weights

ASI 120MM | 30 x 150 Guide
Custom guide scope built into the mount head instead of iguider.
This custom setup can accurately guide up to about 1500 focal length.

TSPhoton 154 | TSComa .95 | F3.7
This fast light Newtonian, is great for short weather windows.
It weighs in at 5kg and is twice as fast as my 80ED.

ASI 294MM Pro | ASI EFW (LRGBHa) | ASI EAF
ASI all the way here, great combo that is really light.
This can capture 8k images at 2.35um or 4k images at 4.7um
What this means is i can effectively do wide field at home.
And deep field at remote locations. (Still to be tested.)

Mini PC | Quad 4GB 64GB 5G | Juice USB Harness
This little weather proof PC is actually my second one.
I started with a atom NUC, which was faster and used less juice.
However i trashed it by accident as they are not the most weather proof / power resistant.
My current one is actually built as a router, so it has exceptional wifi and power regulation.
It auto shutdown on power fluctuations.

3D printed autofocuser for my ES102.  No modifications on the telescope required, the autofocuser clamps around the base of the telescope above the drawtube. The focuser is driven by attaching the large gear wheel to the fine focus knob, by lightly clamping it down onto the knob itself with 3 screws.  No need to take the knob off and attaching it directly to the shaft. When the power to the NEM17 shortbody stepper motor is off, i.e. when the motor is not actually engaged in focusing, manual focus can be done by just turning the wheel. The main problem with the ES102 is that the drawtube is prone to slipping at high angles when a filter wheel and camera are attached.  While the motor has no problem lifting the weight, when the drawtube slips out of position the focuser has no idea how to recover.  To prevent the slippage, I installed 2 springs, one on either side, that take most of the weight of the EFW and the camera off the tube. 
  
 

I have recently upgraded my setup.

Gem 45
Edge 8HD
ZWO 294MC
ZWO 174MM Mini guide cam for Celestron OAG
Pegagus Ultimate PowerBox
RPi 4 with Stellarmate
Pegagsus Focus cube.
Dew Strips plus a heated dew shield when imaging.
Apple Airport express

All power from a single power supply providing power to the Ultimate PowerBox.
The RPi has a wired connection to an Airport Express.

I now run Kstars/ EKOS and Indi on the RPi. 

I can remove the losmandy plate on top of the scope and put it on my Esprit 100.








 

 

I envy you for your dark skies!  How far to the next major town?