malc-c

No expert, but how good was the polar alignment ? To be honest drift whilst using a video camera shouldn't be a problem as you typically stack the individual frames, and the registration of each frame is handled by the stacking software.

There's a balance between safety and inconveniencing others who are there for the same reasons. If its a public spot and there is no official start party then you are under no obligations to turn headlights off when entering any carpark etc. You might want to use the side lights if your night vision is adapted enough, but turning lights off completely whilst driving is technically against the law and can result in an non-endorsable fine of £50. If its an organised event and you can't get there to set up in daylight, then cover any interior lights or footwell lights with red film, or turn them off altogether. Use dim side lights when entering the site or car park, and when setting up use red light torches, which should be turned off once you are up and running as even red light that is intensely bright can be an annoyance.

As the above poster states, you need a Coma Corrector, such as this one £160 is the going rate. These give you focus across the full frame.

My HEQ5 was purchased second hand in 2011 and is still (other than a few rust spots on the weights as it's in an observatory) like new and runs fine. As "noodles" has stated, I've had some lemons when buying new !

No, you can't use a goto system on any mount. The external goto systems such as synscan are designed to be used with specific mounts. For example you can get a Skywatcher EQ3 and EQ5 mounts. They look the same, just one is slightly smaller than the other, and both can be upgraded to a full goto system, but you need to purchase either a synscan unit for an EQ3 or an EQ5 as the internal firmware is different as the gearing of the mounts are different. Also you couldn't take an EQ3 synscan unit and fit it to a Celestron mount, or a mead mount. If you can provide details of the mount you have purchase (make and model) then we can advise if a goto system exists and if so point you in the right direction. The reason we say that, is because some brands of mount are infact the same mount form the main manufacture, so things can on occasion fit.

To give you some idea, the PC in my observatory is a dinosaur. It's a tower case, based around an E5700 dual core pentium running at 3Ghz. It has a 500GB system drive and a 2Tb data drive and 8GB of old DDR3 ram. It runs windows 10, it connects to my HEQ5 mount via an EQDIR cable and EQMOD / CdC handles the telescope control just fine. I use a Canon d400 as my main DSO imaging camera, controlled via APT. Guiding is performed using a MK1 QHY5 camera and PHD2. - The PC has also been used for planetary work, using Sharpcap to capture the video from a very basic webcam. Processing that video is where the machine struggled, taking 20 minutes to stack an standard HD format video of just a few minutes duration. If a dedicated astro video camera is used and the file sizes are larger. The best thin to do though is as others have suggested. Try your existing laptop with the gear you have and see how it performs. It may do the job, but the time taken may be unbearably slow, or it may fall over and fail completely... you won't know until you try it

Personally, for planetary work where you are capturing video this machine is very borderline, more so as you then need to process the video files to strip and stack the frames and process the end result. But you don't need to spend a fortune on some over priced dedicated "astro" computer. An older generation i5 or i7, with 4 or better still 8gb of ram can be had form e-bay or any computer repair shop that deals in old business machines. I picked up a small compact HP8200 i5, with 500gb drive, 8gb RAM and stacks of USB ports for £60 which included a licenced copy of windows 10. I replaced the mechanical drive for a n SSD for £30 and the machine is very capable. A similar spec machine should be very capable of catering for your needs.

Using an EQDIR cable (not to be confused with a USB to SERIAL) cable is what you need to connect a computer to an EQ6 - Like This I've not used one, but the Asiair is basically a computer so should be no different

If they are both on the same network then just share a drive, either on your computer and create a mapped drive on the mini PC or vice versa. Or if you have a NAS drive just save the files to that and you can then access them form the main PC when the mini PC is off line - That's what I do

It was commented that undertaking a star alignment, regardless of the set up being mobile or fixed in an observatory was old school and now obsolete, but I have to agree with Olly. I've never plate solved other then when using Sharpcap to align the mount. Having alignment points in EQMOD means for me that any goto in the visible area of sky from the observatory results in the target being in the field of view of the camera. My set up is basic - a 400D canon DSLR on the main scope, a QHY5 on the finder and I use CdC to select the target, EQMOD to drive the mount, APT just to run the sequence to take the images, and PHD2 for guiding....but it works, and I can be up and running taking subs within 20 minutes of opening the observatory. When it was set up, ten year ago, this was fairly much the norm. These days, so many applications have evolved to overlap others (NINA / APT etc) and cater for the newer trends that often they introduce just one more step to go wrong, and take longer to debug any issues as often they all now tend to overlap and do the same functions as others.

That's interesting.. But does that still apply with PayPal as they are not actually selling anything, they are acting like a bank, and just processing a transaction. I'm no expert though so you could be correct. Its different when purchasing goods form a retailer who then steer customers to the manufacture after a 12 month warrant period... which is wrong as your contract is with the retailer and their contract is with the distributor (or direct with the manufacture if they are large enough). Paypal do offer a buyer protection scheme Seeing that this case has already gone to court and a judgement made, I would suspect PP would be quite supportive and want to get involved ?

Before Rowan made the belt drive commercially available I messed about modifying my HEQ5 to belt drive over a decade ago. The problem was there were no off the shelf pulleys that could maintain the stock ratio the gearing has so that it could be used with the handset. My experiments with different ratios also highlighted a problem with commercially available pulleys, in that the smaller ones are press fitted in two parts an due to the small diameter would separate. Dave over at Rowan overcame these two issues by CNC's the two pulleys. The smaller one being machined as a one piece pulley, and as far as I know there has never been any reports of this small pulley failing. As others have said, just unscrew the cover plate and check that the belts are intact and the tension wheels are doing their job in keeping the belt engaged. If they are then go back to basics and remove all the connections to the computer, connect the handset and with it set to speed 9 test the mount in all direction by pressing the direction keys on the handset. Provided the handset doesn't display any "no response XXX axis" message, and the mount moves then this would prove there is no fault with the mount and the issue lays with the links between the Computer / mount and the software initiating the slew commands. Now as you use a Linux platform I'm not best to offer advice on how to test, but I would start with confirming the driver (presumably something like a modified EQMOD) can talk to the mount via whatever EQDIER cable you use and then add next level of software control

You could try dropping the originator of the mod a PM, however his last activity on the forum was August 2020, so you may not get a reply. It could be that this project just won't work on a modern 64bit operating system, having to run old 32bit software and unsupported hardware ?

Considering the years that have passed since we were all messing about hacking web cams and given there are now cheap affordable CMOS cameras available, I was amazed to see YesYes's website still running with a detailed guide on how to modify these old webcams is still up and available here If this is the one you followed and are 100% sure the wiring and mods to the PCBs are correct and checked the settings Alun has linked to, then the reason the thing crashes could be driver related as there are no windows 10 drivers, or that you are running old software on a modern Windows 10 platform. You have to remember that what you are doing was all the rage some 10-15 years ago, and technically you are using obsolete modified hardware on modern computer running a totally different operating system (windows 10 doesn't have the same kernel that was at the heart of XP / windows 7).

I think the problem may be that this mod is no longer supported in recent versions of shapcap. You need version 3.0 or earlier Archived downloads here

I think your comments are valid, but the OP made no mention of EEVA, and even stated that post processing would be done on a more capable PC. For simply controlling equipment, and data gathering a lot of the recommendations above will still suit the task, including an old dual core Pentium - If you wanted to do EEVA or stack and process the data gathered at the time of gathering data then I agree a much more capable machine is required, and agree with your comments regarding newer processors outclassing older processors of a higher order. This then brings into question the dilemma of having two machines, or putting all your eggs in one basket and get a machine that is capable of doing it all. If so then I would suggest that any machine that is 18 months or newer would be a future proof option. In a few months time AMD will be releasing their new range of processors that have been spec's to run at 5Ghz on all cores... making them the ideal processor for anything that needs the umph such as video / cgi rendering and image processing....

That's part of the issue - HOUK only took (take?) payments via bank transfer or paypal. Most of the affected (there are more ) people placed deposits via bank transfer as they don't have or use PayPal. If they had used Paypal, and it was linked to a credit card then yes they could possibly have some form of redress under the credit consumer act and get their deposits back. Sadly AFAIK this isn't the case here, and court action has been the only form of action.

Bill, to quote TimK's reply to your post on Cloudy nights According to EQMOD prerequisites website the EQ6R-Pro does indeed have 180 teeth on the RA worm gear, giving 479.6894 seconds. Hope that helps

The main reason is as the above poster states. The motor board has been replaced with one of the newer revisions which is ARM processor based compared to the older PIC 16F886 based micro controllers. Version 2.04 is for older PIC based boards, 3.x.xx is for newer HEQ5's - The two are not interchangeable

That's both interesting and sad news. Interesting in that the site is still up and one would expect possibly taking enquiries or orders, and sad that it make it look even more suspicious. I think it was mentioned further back that looking on Google there appeared to be no listing on the name plates at the entrance to the industrial park, but then there is no way to know when the images were taken. I would have thought that those processing any warrants would have done the usual searches under companies house as I would have thought that if Gareth Thomas was running a business there would be filings for tax / vat purposes. If that has drawn a blank then I would have thought that the courts would be able to locate an address from HMRC as I'm guessing he would have drawn a salary or made NI contributions? Anyway, sorry to hear this is still dragging out, and hope that you get some good news in the future and manage to get your money back and be able to put this behind you.

Hi Andy, The advantage of EQMOD is that you can add multiple sync points which improves the accuracy of gotos. I have the advantage of a fixed installation in an observatory so I can be up and imaging in 10-15 minutes as a result. However this is of no real advantage in a mobile set up which is moved between sessions so it is better if all previous align points are cleared from EQMOD. I would then chose a star in the North, one in the west and one in the east, forming a triangle that has the chosen target within the triangle formed by these three points. Once you get each align point centred, select the option to sync ( I used CdC but there will be a similar right click and sync option in Stellarium) which creates a record in EQMOD (effectively doing the same three star alignment as done with a handset). Having done this, EQMOD should be able to calculate any error in polar alignment when applying a slew to a target in that triangle and place the target in the field of view of a wide field eyepiece or camera. If you have plate solved to do your PA then the accuracy should be even greater.

My observations, and I don't mean any offence here. I think the electronics are fine. The initial issues have been a combination of the following: You performed the tuning of the mount, and by your own omission have stated that you are not an experienced engineer and as such the mount is way off the expected 5 minute unguided claims made by commercial tuning companies or those with more experience. It may seem a simple design, but even with higher precision bearings installed it still takes a lot of tweaking to get the optimum gear meshing, and end float of the worm etc. It would seem the rebuild of the mount hasn't actually made that much of a difference. Polar alignment for 5 minute unguided needs to be bang on. Initially your polar scope was in need of finer calibration. However, given the design of the polar scope it is not possible (IMO) to get this accuracy, even after it is calibrated to the best of your ability. Plate solving or similar methods that use cameras attached to the mount would give better polar alignment. Your attempts to tune the mount better, and recalibrate the polar scope have improved the performance to a degree (ignoring your other camera issues) and you have managed to get some workable results. Personally I think guiding is the key to any form of astro photography. It can make a poorly performing mount track tightly and give excellent results

A mount should not be making ticking sounds when tracking. You get a high frequency noise caused by the pulse width modulation through the stepper motors, but it doesn't tick.

Remove the cover over the gear train (or belt drive if fitted) and either place a mark on the motor gear, or stick a pointer of some description (cocktail stick) on it. Un-park the scope and set it to Sidereal tracking. Does the mark or pointer move? If the pointer moves, remove the handset and connect the computer via the EQDIR cable. Power up and unpark the mount and set EQMOD to sidereal tracking.... does the pointer move ? Assuming that in both cases the pointer moves then this confirms the electronics are fine and the issue is mechanical. With the scope powered off, and the clutches locked firmly can you move the mount in RA by push/pulling the weight bar ? Is there any fee play? Repeat this process with the DEC - is there any free play or backlash ? Other than that I'm at a loss.

So the mount doesn't track when the EQDIR cable is removed and the handset used in its place. The fact the gotos are off as well could suggest that the issue is with the clutches slipping, and the fact the mount has been dismantled and tuned would suggest that the issue is more mechanical than related to the electronics. Especially as you get the same results when driving the mount from the handset and a laptop using EQMOD. I believe EQMOD starts tracking at whichever rate is set after a slew by default so doesn't need enabling. Can't comment on the handset setting as I did away with the handset 10 years ago when I set my HEQ5 up in the observatory. Did you have the hypertune done by a company or did you do it yourself ? - if it was "professionally" done then i would be contacting the company who undertook the tuning as a stock HEQ5 should give you round stars with a 30 second exposure when decently polar aligned.