Honda generators are the bees knees if you have the money.
I got my Chinese one for a tenth of the money a Honda would cost, but I would go with a Honda if I knew I had a spell of multi-day outages coming and absolutely couldn’t be without power.
Top petrol generator tips:
I bought a 1280Wh LiFePO4 12.8V battery on Ali Express on offer at €140. It even came with a charger. The HDPS cage it was shipped in fit exactly into a metal reinforced box I had. Added an IP68 aviation socket and I have a luggable power supply that will keep all my astro stuff going for a good long time. I plan on finding darker skies in the hills above me away from settlements and setting up overnight.
OH always preferred Honda to Briggs & Stratton gennys but as you say, an expensive outlay
That’s a lot of power for astro kit! But i guess you can use it for other things.
My smaller Ecoflow seems to have sufficient oomph for my rig, although i haven’t yet run it for a really long session.
Hoping to get out there with the scope tomorrow evening as the first clear night in Sud-Angleterre for ages is forecast!
My rig probably takes a lot more than yours. The peltier cooler on my camera takes 3A@12V on it’s own and I have a Pi4 with SSD along with an auto focuser, tracking scope and camera and two dew heaters. It all adds up. I could have just got away with half of that probably but it was only about €30 cheaper.
Ah it’s heating up your Pi that’s the problem. Bring sandwiches next time. 
I see what you mean!
I have just invested in a ZWO ASI585MC Air cooled camera that has a built-in guide sensor and includes an ASI controller, plus a ZWO EAF autofocuser, so I am hoping that will help me actually get proper polar alignment and sharp stars, which I have found difficult in my light-polluted location when doing it manually!
(Guildford is directly north of me so its orange glow mucks up my view of Polaris). The ASI thing can apparently does polar alignment via plate-solving, it doesn’t have to see Polaris, which sounds like excellent wizardry.
So I may find my baby Ecoflow is not up to the job and I have to break out the bigger beastie!
Briggs & Stratton quality isn’t what it once was.
Be careful to buy Honda equipment from establish local Honda dealers as I’ve seen a very convincing Chinese fake of a Honda engined power washer.
That’s a very good camera. And it basically has the ZWO Asiair built in to control both cameras and do the tracking and capture and store the images. It’s a very neat package. If I was you, and you’re in polluted skies, I would look at getting a decent 2" anti pollution filter with a filter drawer if it doesn’t fit into your existing setup. Have you looked at the cameras field of view in Stellarium ? It’s really handy and lets you know exactly what you will see. I’m looking at a new camera as well, probably a 2600MC Pro, but I’ll have to persuade OH.
I bought the systeme centrale portable - 8kWh. Whilst I bought Fossibot, which I would not recommend, the portable lithium ion phosphate batteries are very useful. I live in the Pyrenees so we get outages: however, plugging in these batteries during the horaires creuses for use during the day on white or red days saves quite a bit. I have a halogen oven and I roast chicken thighs, potatoes, veg in 30 minutes and 700 Watts on the battery!! I use them for my bedroom oil filled radiator, laptop, washing machine (rapide wash), halogen oven - most items except hot water and main lighting. I would suggest these over a petrol or diesel generator as they are more versatile and cheaper if charged in off peak hours. Try Bluetti or Ecoflow.
Mine powers my 3 freezers and fridge - it is a 2kWh Fossibot with a 2.4kW inverter. I have 2 x 2kWh and 1 x 4kWh. The 2 small ones are downstairs and the 4kWh is upstairs for heating, laptop, lighting, kettle. The 2 x 2kWh - halogen oven, washing machine, freezers, fridge, kettle and ad hoc microwave. :)
Mine are Fossibot, not the best. Bluetti or Ecoflow are more reliable and slightly more expensive.
Yes that was the attraction - less spaghetti than separate items and hopefully it will “just work”. Glad to hear it has your approval - the YouTube astro crowd seem to rate it as a good beginner’s camera rig.
Thank you yes - I have considered that but at this point have enough new kit to get to grips with! I think I can swap out one of the spacer tubes for a filter holder.
Yes I have - it’s a bit tight with the Askar 71F as the 585 camera sensor is small, but I have also bought a 0.75x Askar reducer so with that I should be able to get (say) 95% of the Andromeda Galaxy in the FOV, like this:.
There’s always the option of getting a scope with shorter focal length in the future, or maybe try my old Canon 135mm F2 lens.
A really good starter for you, rather than andromeda, is the East Veil Nebula. Here is the FOV with your setup, including the 0.75 reducer.
It’s a good target to start with because it’s so bright and colourful and should work well. you could rotate the setup by about 30 degrees to do Andromeda and get most of it in, or you could use it as an opportunity to try to do a mosaic image.
question not about generators but connectd to electrics. I had a phone call, not indesirable marked, from a Mme LeBlanc saying she was promoting, oganising? a subvention at 1e like the isolation scheme consisiting of a photovoltaique panel connected to a cuve of water next to my air/ eau chauffage and I presume connected somehow to the house hot water! This must be a scam. Has anyone heard of this? and who do I contact to find out? I think she is most irregular and I’m not about to be fooled. My sweet electrician said “attention, conneries!” and i believe him
It’s real scheme.
Of course, it might well be installed by the French equivalent of Bodgeit & Scarper as a number of folks have experienced with solar power systems installation.
