Avoid these 3 Mistakes! Filter Wheel Installation Tips

[@warrencraddock3775]

Whenever you're not actively working on a piece of the imaging train, just put it inside a plastic Ziploc bag. This pretty much eliminates dust settling on anything. The plain ol' Ziploc bag is better than any dust cap or cover. When you use the blower, hold the equipment upside down, away from your table, and blow the air *up* into it. You want the dislodged dust to fall down, out of the equipment, and not allow it to settle on anything below. If you blow sideways or down, you might just scatter the dust elsewhere inside the equipment.

[@TexasEngineerScotty]

Good video. Quick adder: make sure the gloves you use are powder free. The nitrile type are sometimes available as "powdered" and nitrile is my preferred material.

[@amp2amp800]

Nice Video astro chap. Am I riight to say that you took the tilt plate off? Is that the recommended approach? I'm asking because I switched my standard tilt plate for a 'free offer' rear side adjustable tilt plate (that came with my ASI 2600MC DUO as an early pre-ordering bonus). I'm wondering if I made a wrong turn there, and that this decision has impacted my back-focus? Doubts arose when I discovered that the darkening rings blocked two of the neccessary mounting screws and needed to be punched through. I figured filter drawer (20mm) = EFW (20mm) so I did a straight swap and didn't re-measure. Still waiting for clear skies for a test run.

[@thatastrochap]

Thanks for watching! Yes, that’s right I took the tilt plate off and attached the camera directly to the filter wheel. I’ve only been able to use the new setup a handful of times as the weather here has been beyond awful for literally months now! As to whether it’s the best approach I’m really not certain. For me it works nicely from what I can tell so far. It also seems to be a very common setup based on the diagrams ZWO publish for achieving back focus. If you introduce a tilt plate you may need to adjust the number of spacers you use though. Worth checking out this page. At the very bottom it shows diagrams of several different setups that might help you: www.zwoastro.com/product/asi2600/ Good luck with your astro journey & clear skies!

[@amp2amp800]

@@thatastrochap Thanks! It seems to be fine with or without the tilt plate then. Everything checked out here very nicely, but I think I'll take it apart and carefully clean the camera window again. Clear skies!

[@spex357]

The weather in the South West has been crap as well. Geo engineering according to my Allsky camera is being sprayed above the normal cloud layer and it leaves a Tupperware lid layer for later on.

[@thatastrochap]

Hopefully things will improve soon and we can all get back to imaging again! Thanks for your comment & clear skies!

[@RichardRay-s2s]

Don't use electrical tape, use gaffers tape. No residue, very black. Used by movie makers great stuff

[@thatastrochap]

Great tip!