malc-c

I must admit that given all the previous posts where people have reportedly receive updates I was quite sympathetic to HOUK and gave them the benefit of the doubt.... but now seeing so many broken promises this is now bordering on fraud where the site is still up and no doubt the owners will still be taking orders from customers knowing full well that they would be waiting years before they got their observatory and won't get any chance to recover their money. At least if they took paypal or credit cards there would be some for of recovery, but bank transfer is like handing cash over the counter. If anyone lives in Herts, Beds or Buck counties BBC 3 Counties have a consumer 90minutes on the JVS show between 11.00 and 12.30 weekdays... maybe that is a path they could take. Johnathon, maybe you should go into detail and share the reasons he gave you.... or was he simply misleading you? I agree.... and initially when this was being discussed this time last year everyone was cutting them some slack, but a year on it seems nothing has changed.

If you have any inclination to use a 200P for imaging then get the DS version. The larger secondary reduces the risk of artefacts such as additional pikes on stars etc (talking from experience). The 200P can act like a sail in breezy conditions, so a sturdy mount is needed if the scope is used in exposed conditions. HEQ5 copes well, especially if you can shelter the set up, EQ6 is a lot more capable. However if you are looking at a portable rig, weight will need to be a considering factor. If you opt for an HEQ5 or EQ6 you can only get these with built in motors and a synscan goto unit. HEQ5 / EQ6 mounts are not designed to be used manually. By that I am referring to the lack of any flexible manual adjustments to fine tune the positioning. They both have clutches on both axis which can be released to position the mount and then use the directional buttons on the handset to do the fine tuning. But why you would want to manually move the scope when an aligned goto system removes the need to.

Glad to hear your mount is now up and running. Strange how the driver chips had blown. Still not important now as its been fixed.

The 'problem' is that where BYEOS and APT started out as being apps to manage the control of DSLR cameras so that the gathering of exposures is automated, with BYE focusing on Canon cameras in particular, they have now been developed into a complicated and comprehensive application to handle a multitude of things, such as mount control, filter wheels, etc. If like me all you want to do is to have something that just takes pictures then really any of those applications will do the job. Both BYE and APT require a small payment to unlock and be supported, where as NINA is open source. When we had just the two, there was two camps each saying their favourite, be that BYE or APT was the best. But at the end of the day they both do the basic thing want, ie automating the taking of images, so the choice is really yours.

Star hopping..... find a bright galaxy near a naked eye bright star that you can identify. Locate the star through the scope and then adjust the scope until it's more or less on target. I would suggest starting with a wide angle eyepiece and centre the target before increasing the magnification. It also helps to have a nice dark site and moonless night because visually these won't look anything like the pictures you see in books or forums.

I can't really comment as I've not used BYE or the current version of APT to compare. My version (3.3) is donkeys years old but as I only use it to control the camera to create an imaging plan to take 20 or 30 exposures, and then do the same for the darks once the observatory is closed, and shutting the PC down after, which it does very well I've not seen any need to upgrade (if it isn't broke, no need to fix it). I think you should be Ok with your camera and NINA as the 500D uses DIGIC 4 processing so I believe control would be via the USB cable. Its only DIGIC II cameras (350D, 400D - Rebel xTI in the US) that use the serial shutter for exposures over 30 seconds. I think NINA really comes into its own when true astro cameras are used and you need additional control over filter wheels etc, or you need advance plate solving and tools to aid focusing etc. My workflow having opened up the observatory and powered up the mount is to open CdC and connect to the mount via EQMOD, select a bright start and once the slew is complete open APT and take a 20s exposure with a Bahtinov mask in place to check and adjust focus, then once focus is set, slew to the target I wish to image. I then open PHD2 and get the guiding running and then load up a plan (or create a new one) in APT and set it off. As my scope is permanently set up, polar alignment hardly needs setting, and when I do check or adjust I use the excellent tool in Sharpcap. Don't get me wrong, NINA is a very capable application. Having suggested it to a friend he now won't use anything else and NINA forms the heart of his imaging sessions. But he has a fully automated set up with a 10" RC scope on and EQ8, with focusers, filter wheels, and the dome all controlled through the PC, which is where NINA fits in nicely.

If your camera is old and uses a serial shutter release cable (Canon D300 / D400 for example) then you will be out of luck if you opt for NINA. Whilst the GUI seemed to have the provisions to handle this, it was never implemented. When I discussed this on their discord server with several of the developers who contributed to writing the program I was basically told to get a new camera. The attitude was somewhat hostile, and left me somewhat underwhelmed about the way things panned out. I'm quite happy with the equipment I have, and not in a financial to purchase a newer camera just to be able to use an application. So I continue to use APT which works perfectly well with my old camera

APT - used to be a direct competitor... I only use it for handling the imaging plan using an old Canon D400, but it's now developed into a much more integrated application.

Well sadly it seems that this time the board won. I received a PM from Gerard and it turns out he doesn't live too far away from me, so I rescheduled a couple of things and he brought the mount to me. I made him a cuppa and set to removing the PCB with a view of replacing the PICs on the board. Having programmed and verified two new 16F886's I set to with a cutting disk to remove the old PICs from the board. I then hit the first problem. Like someone else reported the PICs had been glued to the PCB and took some heat from a heatgun and some persuasion to remove the bodies from the board, but they came off without damaging the tracks (as far as I can tell). The legs were removed, board cleaned and prepped and the new PICs soldered in place. They were then cleaned and the motors and daughter board connected and power applied. The handset reported no response both axis still ! - OK lets replace the diode and test again...this time we got no response RA/Alt axis, so this confirmed that the diode was working (I swapped it around to double check and got no response both axis, swapped it back and back to one axis). I reflowed the PICs to make sure the joints were solid, which they were, and still no joy. I confirmed that there was continuity between the TX/RX pins and the connector, and between the serial port pins on both chips - all good. I confirmed that both PICs were receiving 5v which was the case, and we tested the handset on my HEQ5 to rule that out of the picture. So something else is causing the PIC that handles the RA motor not to run. By this time I was running out of ideas, and Gerard needed to get back home so we bagged up the screws and parts and left Gerard to look at getting a replacement board, which will more than likely be the ARM based revision. Gerard was a real gent, and covered me for the parts I used and for my time and effort, which was very generous of him I was very disappointed not to get a fix on this board, but without any specialist equipment to check the timings etc and running out of time we had no choice but to put this down as a no fix 😞

Power off the mount and remove the power lead and handset lead from the daughter board There are two screws underneath that hold the cover and daughter board in place. Remove them and allow the assembly to hang loose Remove the six small screws securing the cover plate that fits over the motors (you have done this already) Remove the five screws that secure the curved cover plate (you have done this already) The connectors are now accessible. Carefully pry the plugs out of the sockets so the board is free from connections. If you wish you can mark one of the stepper motor socket and corresponding plug to aid refitting later Slacken off the allen bolts securing the motors and remove the belts. Continue to remove the four allen bolts securing each motor until the motors are free. Carefully remove the motors from the mount Carefully remove the daughterboard assembly, easing the cables through the mount until it come free You now have access to the two securing screws that secure the mainboard in the mount. Remove them taking care to watch for any spacer or insulation washers that may be fitted to the underneath of the board The mainboard can now be extracted through either opening Follow these steps in reverse to refit the board and motors. The Rowan belt drive installation instructions here have some excellent images to help with the refitting of the belt drive and with steps 3-8 above. Obviously the part of the instructions relating to gear removal is not applicable in this case Hope that helps

D3 is a diode that is used in the communications circuit. A 1n4148 signal diode should do the trick. If surface mount devices are a problem just bodge it with a through hole variant

As does the HEQ5. And I agree, you have to factor in the weights of all the adapters, USB cables, any filters etc.

My suggestion... save for an HEQ5 I based this on personal experience. In a nutshell I purchased an Explorer 200P / EQ5 goto scope. I was disappointed with the results I got when visual observing from a town location, so stuck my toe into imaging used a canon DSLR. The mount struggled with the load, and that was without the additional weight of a guidescope. In 2011 I built my observatory, and whilst doing so a secondhand HEQ5 came up in the SGL classifieds. Also included in the listing was an ST80 / QHY5 combo used for guiding. The price was good, but it was almost 400 miles away, however the deal was done and I drove from Hertfordshire to Sunderland and back in a day to bring the equipment home. The 200P / ST80 combo was within the limits for the HEQ5, but the 200P acted like a sail outside the constraints of the observatory, making imaging a challenge. Protected from the wind in the observatory the combo performed well enough for my experience. The HEQ5 fits in between the portability of the EQ5 and the precision of the EQ6. The gearing means better tracking and tighter guiding than the EQ5, and if you opt for the belt modified version the PE and guiding is a lot tighter. For Polar Alignment I used SharpCap. You need the pro version for £12 subscription to access this tool. Having centred a bright star in the guide scope and in the main scope and then use the tool to PA you can get a very precise result. Having said that, there are loads of posts on this subject on the forum as it one of the most common topics. Sit down with a coffee and search / browse the forum for previous conversations. There are people who have had excellent results with EQ3 mounts, and there are those who suggest better mounts than the HEQ5... it all depends on your budget and to what level you want to reach. A friend of mine started much the same way as me. Purchased an HEQ5 and DSLR, but now has an observatory containing an EQ8 and a StellaLyra 10" Ritchey-Chretien scope and a camera that cost more than I paid for an 8 year old Volvo V70 ! - There is always an upgrade path 🙄 👍

A bit of googling and whilst it doesn't state windows 10 as a supportive OS, it does state XP through to Win7, so would have thought Win10 would still support it. I did find out that the port on the camera is USB 2.0 (480 Mbit/sec), which should be compatible with the USB ports on the PCs mainboard.

So when you connect the canon camera the hardware isn't detected, yet you have proven the leads via a different PC..... maybe a fresh install of windows, and then the canon camera driver and get the two talking first before installing the other astronomy apps might be a way forward to confirm that there is no hardware conflict

On the older boards the choke / inductor is used as part of the buck convertor / power supply. The steppers run at circa 35v which is generated through the switching regulator and associated components from the 12-14v supply. I've yet to have a play with the newer version board but would also speculate that the same voltages are generated to power the motors

Doesn't really answer my question, apart from being informed that the shed PC is an old AMD based machine, and spec is relevant. Obviously the issue is either software / driver related as the camera works on other machines (presumably newer) but not on the one in the shed. I doubt that it really applies, but it could be that the camera isn't supported by the chipset on the shed PCs motherboard, as the camera may be newer and need USB 2.xx or 3, and the ports on the mainboard are USB 1.0 or 2.0 (straws and clutching come to mind !). What operating system are you running on the shed PC? - It would save people writing detailed posts telling you have to clear out ports in device manager only to then find out you are running a flavour of Linux.

I missed the comment about a leaf. This could just be picked out with the power off - or use something non-conductive. No need to buy special non-static tweezers . The leaf shouldn't make any difference to the board not responding... The good news is that the board fitted is the older type based around 2 x 16F886 microcontrollers and thus I can program and replace the two faulty ones. I'll drop you details via a personal message of what's needed. It will involve the removal of the steppers to access the two screws that secure the main board in the mount.

A brief description of how you are set up would help. Reading your post I get the impression that you have a PC in the shed that I'm guessing is connected to the mount, guide camera and your 6D. This has a wi-fi card / module which is on the same network as your other computers, and you possibly want to have an RDC into the shed PC so you can do the imaging sessions from the comfort of your lounge ? - I base this on the comment regarding an ethernet cable. What are the specs of the PC used in the shed? Are you using any USB hubs, active or passive ?

Its a choke / inductor. It basically replaces the large component L42 on the old board

How old is the HEQ5? - If it's still within its warranty period then I would suggest contacting the retailer. If its a few year old then chances are it will be the older PIC based boards as the new revision that uses ARM processors have only been fitted in the past 18-24 months. Accessing the board isn't difficult Remove the 6 screws from the plastic plate covering the two stepper motors (the L shaped panel with two circular mounds) This gives access to the screws that secure the curved panel that has the polarscope hole - Remove the curved panel This gives you access to the connectors on the HEQ5 If the board looks like the one shown in the image then the PIC Microcontrollers are on the underneath. You should be able to see them without removing the board - they are two IC's that are about 1" long, one in the centre the other to the left, at the rear of the board. For comparison here is an image of the new board on the left and an old board on the right. If you can see the large copper coil then you have a new ARM based board which requires a certain type of programmer that only serious hobbyist would have. If you don't see that large copper coil, and can see components on the underside of the board as mentioned then you have an old board that can be repaired. Let us know what you find and then we can see what action we can take.

IMO - If it's more than 3m then ideally an active cable should be used - Glad to hear you've found the fault

Sorry, I was mislead by the sequence of images.... If the handset displays the "No Response XX / YY axis" then it means that when the handset queries the mount to obtain the firmware version and thus ID the mount the motorboard is not responding, or more exact the microcontroller isn't responding. Now depending on the version of mainboard fitted this can be fixed, but requires some tools that not everyone will have, such as a PIC programmer. Details on how to repair a blown motor board can be found in this thread I've read back through this thread and can't see any mention of what model of mount is used here. If the OP can advise and if possible post a picture of the sysnscan unit or, in the case of an HEQ5 a picture of the motor board to help identify the version of mainboard used. If the board has one or two 16F866 PICs then this can be repaired as detailed in the linked post.

Excellent, pleased to hear last night was productive. I can't help you with the problem with Backyard EOS as I use APT to run my imaging plans. You could always try using APT https://astrophotography.app/ (might be worth uninstalling BEOS first) and see if that is more stable.

Also noticed that the pop up error message is GSServer and not an EQMOD window If you are not using GSServer then I would suggest you uninstall it from the computer