malc-c

I know its not much consolation, but it seems these wi-fi enables mounts and dongles are a PITA. There are so many threads where people are having issues connecting or making hot spots despite following all the resetting procedures. Heck we even had one guy driving his mount half a mile down the road so it was well away from other networks. I'm old school... I have a cat5 cable running between the observatory PC and the switch in the house. This could still be done if you don't have an observatory, either placing the end of the cable in a bag with one of those silicon bags in with it to absorb dampness, or hard wire to an external weather proof socket and then use a 2m / 3m network cable to the mount. Networking a windows 7 PC to another windows 7 PC, or a windows 10 PC to windows 10 PC (has to be any other versions than HOME ) is normally straight forward, but networking a windows 7 to windows 10 can sometimes prove problematical due to the tighter security in windows 10. Anyway, that's my 2p worth... probably not worth much as it may not help, but in the time spent trying to resolve the wifi issue you could have run a length of cat 5 cable

It would seem the motor has been pulled to tight to the mount, causing the gears to mis-align. They should all be in the same plane - The two lines in the image below need to be parallel. Assuming the motor kit was for this mount then there should be no reason for them to get so misaligned, but inserting a couple of spacers / washers between the mount and the motor to permit the gears to be squared up may be needed

A starting point might be astro-baby's website There are complete stripdown articles which might help

So 24 hours after providing you with a tracking number to confirm postage the item was delivered - I would say that's very good service wouldn't you, especially as we are just a week away form Christmas, and with yet another wave of Covid affecting all businesses. Have fun with your new toy

Unless you intend to stack and process large RAW files on the machine then the spec required to simply control the mount and operate USB cameras doesn't need to an all singing and dancing affair. I have an old PC that runs CDC, PHD2, EQMOD and APT. It's based around a 2.5Ghz Pentium dual Core processor circa 2010, with 4GB of old DDR 3 memory, a 500GB mechanical hard drive. The old motherboard has a serial port, stacks of USB2 ports, and whilst originally ran windows 7, now comfortably runs windows 10 without issue. I can remote into it from the comfort of the lounge and it handles the gathering of data (mostly) without problems. These days you can pick up 3rd / 4th gen i3 and i5 based ex business machines with 4Gb ram and a 500 GB hdd with windows installed for £50 - £80. - I needed a PC for the study and picked up an HP8200 small form factor PC, i5 with 8GB DDR3 ram, 500GB hard drive (later used as a data drive and fitted a cheap 250GB SSD for the OS) with a licenced copy of windows 7 pro for just £59 from a local computer shop. Granted its not as compact as a NUC PC, but would make a fine machine for use with a scope

It might help if you told us where you live. That way if anyone within reasonable distance to you can replace the power connector can offer assistance.

You seldom see finder guiders offered for sale in the SGL classifieds... so you could be waiting a long time !

The thing is its a week before Christmas and all delivery services are stretched. Other than special delivery or £20 for a TNT / UPS next day, things can take three or more days longer than normal. Not wishing to offend the OP, but you'll just have to be patient... if 356 have given you a tracking number then its being processed. It may be that it's been picked, packed and ready for despatch, but not yet collected by Royal mail. Have you tried calling them to find out why the tracking number fails and give you confirmation of what stage your order is at. If it turns out it's not left the building then it's your prerogative to cancel and order from FLO who are still showing 2 in stock In hindsight maybe ordering form FLO would have been better, but at the time they were showing no stock. It just so happened that stock had arrived but had not been booked in and the surplus after covering back orders placed on the website the following day. Sometimes life throws us these curve balls.

These days if you are going to do imaging with a mount guiding goes hand in hand with that process. The norm is to use a second scope, which can be a 9 x 50 finder or a dedicated guidescope, and a mono camera typically adding £220 example here, but this adds weight to the rig and the EQ3 pro is rated at 5Kg payload for imaging, and the ST102 comes in around the 3kg mark, so your choice of camera at around 130g means this combo would be well within the capacity of the mount. If you intend to run the scope via software on a PC of some description then I would seriously consider ditching the handset and connecting the mount direct to the computer via a LYNX EQDIR cable - around £35. You then use EQMOD or GSServer as the interface for ASCOM compliant applications such as NINA and an / or Astronomy planetarium applications to select the targets. Having a direct connection makes things simple and saves having to have one more possible communication issue. Having to place the handset into PCDIRECT mode, which makes the handset redundant, the handset effectively becomes the EQDIR cable !

Prinz Astral was Dixons "own brand". In reality they all came out of the same factory that made the cheaper Tasco scopes that would often appear in Argos or Grattons catalogues. The one difference being that Prinz Astral scopes were more for enthusiasts rather than the casual user (apart form the 4T and 11TR reflectors Tasco offered), and for the day and price points performed well. But don't be fooled by the high magnification from such a short focal length... cheap poor quality barlows were needed to get near that and the image was really bad. The one in the listing does appear to be in good order, and you would be supporting a worth while charity, even if the scope wasn't purchased for practical use, it's worth having as a piece of historical nostalgia if you have the space.

Steve, this is one of the problems with typing on a forum - you got me all wrong.... I was jesting with you... suggesting you worked the night shift ...

Steve, So did you receive a shipment in the small hours of the morning then? - When searching suppliers for Ian late last night I checked your site which stated 4-6 day lead time, but then it would seem you e-mailed Ian at 2am to say you had stock... (website now showing 2 off available). Since when did FLO make their staff work 24/7 shifts 😧

Two instances of EQMOD open ??????

Have a read of this thread It details the process of taking the BIN file, converting it HEX, removing the code protection bit, and saving as a new HEX file to burn to a replacement PIC (assuming the motor board uses PIC micros such as the 16F886). To be honest, trying something like a firmware update over a wireless connection was risky. You should always use a physical connection to save bricking the board.

Fingers crossed their website is also up to date. I've always found most of the major retailers easy to deal with even when it comes to refunds etc. It's a competitive market, as they are all selling the same products from the same wholesalers, so the one area that they need to excel on is the customer service experience, and it's in their best interest to make sure you are satisfied and will come back again, even if the transaction wasn't as smooth as everyone liked. We all know FLO do well in this area (they need to do so being sponsors of the forum), but equally RVO do well in this area too, so I'm sure your refund will be processed promptly so you are not out of pocket too long

FLO are showing 4-6 days. Tring Astro are showing no stocks, Harpers Photographic are showing as "Due mid December", but at the moment are also out of stock. 365Astronomy have three in stock according to their website. Likewise The widescreen centre are showing 3 in stock and Microglobe are showing stock. Might be worth purchasing ahead from one of the suppliers that have stock rather than wait for the refund to hit your bank account. You have no idea how many back orders FLO / RVO /Tring etc may have

John, I think the OP was looking for the enhanced drive not synscan.

Given the current situation it's not unheard of for stock to change quickly. They may have had one in stock when you made the original call, and then someone purchased it moments after... Happened to me just this morning with an item from Argos. It was shown as in stock at my local store on their website, but when I turned up this morning all stock was sold. Moral of that... should have purchased it online at the time ! But didn't you say FLO were out of stock anyway ? - That's why you called RVO ?

Looking at the PHD2 graph, with a decent PA I would expect that. DEC, until the end is fairly flat, but RA is tracing back and forth, Any deviation in DEC is so slight that all it produces is slightly wide trails. If PA was off and DEC was also Moving back and forth then the mount has the potential of tracking a figure 8 pattern resulting in dumbbell stars... at least thats how I interpret things... I could be wrong ??

Well the replacement secondary (larger than the stock 200P) came from Orion Optics and was fully coated (unlike both offerings form OVL (Skywatcher). And seeing that the OP has an Orion Optics VX8 would assume that his secondary is fully coated. If it is then this would suggest to me that having ruled out an unsilvered mirror, then collimation is the issue, including bent or mis-aligned spider veins. If the scope is fairly new it might be worth the OP contacting the retailer (or if purchased direct - Orion Optics) for advice and what options there are to return the scope for inspection and repair if found faulty.

Be prepared to be disappointed with the end results., and to do a lot of faffing around with clamps and brackets. Experiment by pointing the scope at the moon when its at any phase other than full, and then try and take an image hand held. It will be known as eyepiece projection as there is no means to attach the phone to the mount without having an eyepiece focus the image. If that works and you are happy with the result then look for a bracket that can hold a folding phone... sometimes having the latest mobile technology makes other things harder !

Welcome to the forum, Now this may sound harsh, but the forum has a search function, and with a little ground work I'm sure you'll come across the answers to most of your questions. Polar alignment can be done in a variety of ways, from using the built in polar scope in the mount, through to plate solving (which does need a computer and software). Software to control the mount can be downloaded from the manufactures website, and there are stacks of youtube videos on how to connect a celestron mount to a PC should you find the written instructions complicated. These days you don't need a full blown laptop to control a mount. Anything from a Raspberry Pi through to a dedicated astronomy PC box or NUC PC can be used, and you have a choice of Windows / ASCOM or Linux / INDI platforms. So grab yourself a coffee (or beer) and either brows through the forum sections or use the search function which hopefully will help answer some of the basics

Not saying its related, but 8 years ago I had a similar issue of an addition spike with my 200P. Tried everything in terms of adjustments, and must have collimated the scope 30+ times. In the end it was proven to be unsilvered flats on the minor axis of he secondary mirror - it was documented in this long thread here

Have to agree with the above comments, the solder joints need more work. As Alan has mentioned, you should also tin the wires first, ie strip back the insulation and twist the inner conductors so they become tight and straight, apply the solder iron to the exposed copper wires and add solder so it fills the wires to form a solid core, but not too much solder so it blobs. Then trim the tinned conductors so its just long enough to cover the pad where its been soldered to, this way there is less exposure of the conductor to accidently make contact with other parts of the PCB. Soldering, like welding is really an art, and needs to be done correctly other wise the joints can fail and then you have live wires floating around. Other than that, well done on the moddification

I always thought PE was more sinusoidal - Looking at graphs produced by EQMOD tools I would have thought that stiction would be more random as the CoG and mass shifts over the course of time. ?? - (just a hunch - no real expert in these things)