Dew Heater Controller in Fork-Arm Modification for CPC

I have been wanting to get active dew control for a while, especially after multiple nights with a dripping scope and having to use my blow dryer to clear the corrector plate so I could continue imaging. I saw on the Cloudy Nights Forum a while back that someone had put their dew controller into their fork arm and thought this was a great idea, it would cut down on wires and things velcro-ed to the scope in the field. I finally got in my Dew-Not dew controller and after ensuring it worked I decided to go about performing the modification.

First, a trip to Radio Shack! Here are the parts I had to get:
-Size M coaxial DC power plug (part #274-1569)
-Size M coaxial DC panel mount power jack (part #274-1563)
-4 RCA jacks
-4 Shielded phono jacks (panel mount) (part #274-0346)

You will also need a Dew-Not dew controller, a solder gun and solder as well as a set of alan wrenches and a small flat-head & phillips screw driver. A Dremel sanding tool (or sand paper), and a Drill. Small wooden or plastic dowels are helpful to keep the circuit panel in place but not a necessity.

Next you need to disassemble your Dew-Not controller and take out the circuit board, use your small flat-head screwdriver to take off the adjustor knobs - keep them handy for later :

Now take off the panel for your fork arm with the handle with the Alan-wrench set. There are two screws on the handle and four on the inside corners of the fork-arm. The cover will come off easily. 

Next you will need to drill the appropriate holes in the fork arm cover. Use the circuit board to determine exactly where. You will need 2 for the temperature knobs and 3 for the lights. Don't make them too big else it will allow movement in the board which could pull wires loose.  After you have the circuit board able to fit in the cover you can determine where to drill the holes for the power plug and the RCA jacks. I found with the circuit board, space was tight so the RCA jacks are on the sides rather than the front face, and my power jack is to the right of the temperature knobs. Once you decide where, drill those holes and attach the appropriate jacks. 

Next I decided to cut the wooden dowels to help keep the circuit board stable on the left side (looking from the inside) ... the right side will be held by the temp. knobs. I put the circuit board in and decided how long to cut them then used the small silver circuit board screws that were used in the Dew-Not box to put the dowels on the board. At the same time I used the Dremel sanding tool to sand the ridge down on the cover so that the RCA jacks wouldnt raise up the circuit board. 

(the wooden dowels are on the bottom edge)

Now its time to solder! Put the circuit board in place and affix the temp. knobs so it will hold in place and then solder on your RCA wires and your power wires.

Before you attach it back to the scope, test it out. I used my Starizona power pack to make sure it worked as I havent attached the Size M coaxial power plug to the wire yet. Once you are sure all the connections work, attach your fork-arm cover back to the scope and you are done!!!

For the power plug, just solder on the wires onto the Size M coaxial power plug and you are done. I found the included power wire was a bit short so I am going to run back to RS and get a longer wire for the power to avoid cord wrap, but other than that, my Dew-Heater Fork-Arm mod is complete!!! Hey, if I can do it all by myself without ever having soldered anything before, anyone can!!!

Finally the clouds clear

After endless rain and clouds for weeks, we have finally gotten some nice evenings. I was able to get to a semi-dark spot but still within a reasonable driving distance this past weekend and did a little imaging while socializing with the other astronomers there. Its not super dark, but better than my back yard. I am still waiting on my new ccd so I just hooked up my Nikon D40 to my CPC 800 and had a go at NGC 2403.

For 30 sec subs I was pretty happy with it. I still get alot of color blotching from the chip in my D40, but once I can get over the frustration of that I got to processing my stack of 249 subs. a heavy hand on the saturation allowed me to pull out some decent color from the arms, but nothing like I would get if I were on an equatorial mount. Same with the detail in the galaxy's arms, but all in all, not a bad result.

I am looking forward to my new camera getting in and getting back out to some more serious imaging. I have plenty of time to learn the new camera before our trip to Big Bend where I will finally get some seriously dark skies for the first time since our Yosemite trip. 

Updates . . .

nothing but clouds and rain here still, and thanks to the NE "snowmageddon" my new ATIK camera hasnt been shipped to me since they are snowed out of their building . . . sigh . . .

The good news is that I have finally had the chance to play with the action set some more. There are a few minor updates as well as two new actions to add to the next release (hopefully I will have more than that soon).

I am also working on a proper website for not only the actions, but my other photography, etc. . . more on that later.

If you have any ideas you want to throw my way for actions for the update let me know! I am always open to suggestions.

Orion Nebula Mosaic completion

This was a month's worth of work thanks to clouds. Ended up being a 5 panel mosaic of M42 and my final image with my Meade DSI II Pro (it is getting traded in for a better CCD)

Each panel is roughly 340 x 30sec images (80xL, 60xR,G,B) for a collective total of just over 14 hours of data in 30 sec. snippets. Each channel stacked in Nebulosity then brought over to Photoshop where I used "Annie's Astro Actions" to process it (used the "Channel Process", "Make DSO Stand Out", and "Create Mosaic - 6 panel" , other than that I just used some slight levels to balance the colors between panels.

There are areas that could stand more data (top right and bottom left), but thanks to weeks of clouds with only a day or two of clear in between massive rain storms I ran out of time and my camera sold so this is it.

Overall, I am quite happy with the result, especially considering it was all with 30s subs and I havent been at this all that long.

Back to astronomy ... or not

After creating my action set (thanks to a few weeks of clouds) I was hoping to get back out to observing and imaging, but apparently the weatherman didnt agree and I got about 2 nights worth of clear skies before I have had another week of solid clouds and no end in sight. I got about half way done with a mosaic of M42 with my Meade DSI II Pro and Orion EON 80ED I am doing and now that is on hold again pending some more clear skies.

I am still deciding what other processes I do with my photos that I could create actions for so since the astronomy forecast is solid white I think I am going to pull out my hard drive and reprocess some of my earlier images.

If you have any ideas for me - please feel free to shoot me an email or comment to this blog post. I am always open to ideas!!!

Meanwhile - the promotional pricing has ended - the regular price of $12 is now active (includes free updates). I have gotten a few questions if I am going to release a Photoshop Elements version. Right now I am not actively working on one (as I dont have Elements), some of the actions DO work, though not all. The current release of Annie's Astro Actions works with all full versions of Photoshop.