ETX70 for balloon tracking ??

Hi all,

And now for something completely different.

As part of my project on the prediction of seeing I have started
tracking radiosonde balloons both with radio and when conditions permit
optical. I use a standard balloon theodolite and write down the
elevation and azimuth as a function of time just as weather observers
do. Meanwhile the radio tracking obtains the Pressure,temperature and
dew point data.

I would like to automate the tracking and use a tv camera and something
like an etx70 on the roof and sending alt az commands from my cave.

I have a tv camera on the antenna mount now and it works well.
The antenna mount has a 1 degree slop and the camera FOV is about 10
degrees.

The ETX70 has plastic gears....ouch... never in my day would I consider,
well till now, such a thing.

I will need position readout to better than 0.1 degrees and so I think
it will do. I would like .01 degrees even better.

I gather I can connect RS232 to this mount and read the position as well
as command a position.

My questions a

1) Will the etx work for my app ??
2) Is there a better mount that wont cost 1 arm and two legs ?
3) Has any one written an interface for sat tracking or the like that I
might rip off ?


Thanks for reading

Dan

Visit Mike Weasner's Mighty ETX Site and post your question there.
http://www.weasner.com/etx/menu.html


--

-----
Joe S.



"Dan Mckenna" wrote in message
...
Hi all,

And now for something completely different.

As part of my project on the prediction of seeing I have started
tracking radiosonde balloons both with radio and when conditions permit
optical. I use a standard balloon theodolite and write down the
elevation and azimuth as a function of time just as weather observers
do. Meanwhile the radio tracking obtains the Pressure,temperature and
dew point data.

I would like to automate the tracking and use a tv camera and something
like an etx70 on the roof and sending alt az commands from my cave.

I have a tv camera on the antenna mount now and it works well.
The antenna mount has a 1 degree slop and the camera FOV is about 10
degrees.

The ETX70 has plastic gears....ouch... never in my day would I consider,
well till now, such a thing.

I will need position readout to better than 0.1 degrees and so I think
it will do. I would like .01 degrees even better.

I gather I can connect RS232 to this mount and read the position as well
as command a position.

My questions a

1) Will the etx work for my app ??
2) Is there a better mount that wont cost 1 arm and two legs ?
3) Has any one written an interface for sat tracking or the like that I
might rip off ?


Thanks for reading

Dan

Hi Joe,
Thanks for the site...
I did a post
dan


Joe S. wrote:
Visit Mike Weasner's Mighty ETX Site and post your question there.
http://www.weasner.com/etx/menu.html

NexStar is better, since it uses brass and aluminium gears, only the cover
is plastic, cost less than the ETX also. To the Nexstar 60, 80, 114 etc...
you can mount any OTA if you want to by small modification, vs. ETX you
stuck with the OTA it comes with.
Julius

"Dan Mckenna" wrote in message
...
Hi all,

And now for something completely different.

As part of my project on the prediction of seeing I have started
tracking radiosonde balloons both with radio and when conditions permit
optical. I use a standard balloon theodolite and write down the
elevation and azimuth as a function of time just as weather observers
do. Meanwhile the radio tracking obtains the Pressure,temperature and
dew point data.

I would like to automate the tracking and use a tv camera and something
like an etx70 on the roof and sending alt az commands from my cave.

I have a tv camera on the antenna mount now and it works well.
The antenna mount has a 1 degree slop and the camera FOV is about 10
degrees.

The ETX70 has plastic gears....ouch... never in my day would I consider,
well till now, such a thing.

I will need position readout to better than 0.1 degrees and so I think
it will do. I would like .01 degrees even better.

I gather I can connect RS232 to this mount and read the position as well
as command a position.

My questions a

1) Will the etx work for my app ??
2) Is there a better mount that wont cost 1 arm and two legs ?
3) Has any one written an interface for sat tracking or the like that I
might rip off ?


Thanks for reading

Dan

I would like to automate the tracking and use a tv camera and something
like an etx70 on the roof and sending alt az commands from my cave.

Well, I think they are about $130 refurbished on the Meade EBay website so you
could just give it a try. Optics ought to be good enough to track a ballon...
At $130 you could run 2 of em so when the gears let go (maybe never) you would
not lose any data.

jon

jon

Thank you for the info.
The nexstar has a longer focal length than I need and so I
would like just the mount. I looked at a few sites and don't see the
option on mount only. I guess I could piggyback my cctv camera and lens.

I think money is better spent on the nexstar as it does have metal gears.

dan



szaki wrote:
NexStar is better, since it uses brass and aluminium gears, only the cover
is plastic, cost less than the ETX also. To the Nexstar 60, 80, 114 etc...
you can mount any OTA if you want to by small modification, vs. ETX you
stuck with the OTA it comes with.
Julius

"Dan Mckenna" wrote in message
...

Dan,
The metal gears story is bull. If you want to find out what people are using
goto motors for, visit the Roboscopes Yahoo group. The Meade DS motors are
very inexpensive , plastic gears, and are powering up to very large dobs ,
and I mean real large. If you want some flexibility, I'd say get the mount
and scope that you need for the job and then add goto with a set of Meade DS
motors. You may get these motors for the unbelievably low price of $9.95/ea
from Bill Vorce of Telescope Warehouse, selling them on Ebay as scopehed ,
or from Russel Optics , for something like $45 for a set of 2 + hand
controller . Just about any mount has been motorized with these, be it altaz
or equatorial, small or large, from the Apogee HD to 30"+ dobs.
Anyway, the etx-70 has many flaws but goto and tracking work amazingly well.
I had a number of these and they all performed well.


best regards,
matt tudor

p.s. the small nexstars had some firmware bugs that made tracking unreliable
.. They also didn't have flash based firmware upgrades, you need to send them
back to Celestron to be upgraded for bug fixes.


Dan Mckenna wrote in message ...
Thank you for the info.
The nexstar has a longer focal length than I need and so I
would like just the mount. I looked at a few sites and don't see the
option on mount only. I guess I could piggyback my cctv camera and lens.

I think money is better spent on the nexstar as it does have metal gears.

dan



szaki wrote:
NexStar is better, since it uses brass and aluminium gears, only the
cover
is plastic, cost less than the ETX also. To the Nexstar 60, 80, 114
etc...
you can mount any OTA if you want to by small modification, vs. ETX you
stuck with the OTA it comes with.
Julius

"Dan Mckenna" wrote in message
...