malc-c

Archie, thanks for the input, and I'll have a rumage to see if I can locate one of the logic chips, if not I'll order some form RS. I've contacted the owner who sent me the board and handset and he said he has never had the mount working. The scope came in this state from the original owner, and is circa 15 years old. Either the handset has been very well looked after, or its relatively new as there is hardly a mark on it ! I've opened up the handset to see if there is any means to identify the version... and it's thrown me a curve ball ! Now I know Synta own Celestron, but from googling images of handsets it would seem that all the Celestron synscan handsets have the celestron branding above the LCD screen. This handset is plain other then the word Synscan underneath the LCD suggesting it is a Skywatcher handset. Yet other images for a V4 SW handset also show the same Celestron board inside, unless these handsets are standard and can be programmed with either SW firmware or Celestron firmware I'm really confused ?

One thing that has often popped up on the EQMOD user group is that more than one instances of EQASCOM get launched by various applications, and (more applicable to windows 10) with differing levels of privileges, such as administrator rather than user. That's strange that you get two line entries as well. With my FTDI based EQDIR cable I just get a single port listed in DM

The thing that is confusing me is there is an entry for a USB serial convertor and a USB Serial port, and the top set of images relate to the converter. Most EQDIR cables just show up as a USB serial port with a single line entry in device manager. You could always google the hardware ID (go to the details tab and select hardware ID from the drop down list, then copy and search for the character string. It should list FTDI's site as the main entry and you could try downloading one of the 232TL 5v Drivers and see if that resolves the issue.

Some suggestions for you, assuming that the EQDIR adapter has installed correctly with the right driver (which chipset is displayed under device manager ?) With the EQDIR cable connected directly to the laptop connect it to the mount. Check in device manager that the port is set to the default 9600 baud, 8, no parity. Open up the EQASCOM toolbox from the EQMOD programs folder. Try clicking on the register button to set the driver in association with ASCOM platform. Click on the Driver set up button and in the EQASCOM window select the port that the EQDIR cable is using, followed by OK. Now click the ASCOM connect button, hopefully EQMOD will launch without complaining. If this works, then power down the laptop, disconnect the EQDIR cable from the laptop and then place the active USB cable between the EQDIR cable and the laptop and repeat the above. If this works then it proves the active cable is OK. Powerdown and repeat, but this time install the hub. Again power up and repeat the above. If you get this far and you can still control the mount using the NSWE buttons (with the steps set to 4) then it would prove your hardware set up is OK. To identify if Stellarium is the issue, download and install CdC ( Cartes du Ciel ). Set up the location data based on where in the world you are. Open up the telescope settings and select ASCOM, and then close. Then select Telescope control box and click the select button. In the telescope chooser, select the mount and click OK. Then click on the "connect" button which should then bring up EQMOD and connect to the scope. You can then test by right clicking on a target, select telescope and slew. All being well the scope will start to move to the position of the target. Obviously at this point you've proved all the hardware and a software application that uses the ASCOM platform to communicate the the mount. So this just leaves Stellarium as being the issue. Now I haven't used this application in years, and then you had to download and install a 3rd party plugin to get it to talk to the SW mount via ASCOM and it was flakey back then. So I'm not best to advise how to set this application up and test.

Performed surgery on my 400d a few years back... removed all filters. It's a bit daunting at first, but if you take your time and be careful it's fairly straight forward.

When connecting a DSLR to the 200P you normally remove the lens and use just the body of the camera, so all the questions about self-centering adaptors are irrelevant in this respect as they are not required. You basically attache the T-ring to the thread of the focuser and then the body of the camera to the T-mount. This in effects turns the 200P into a 1000mm f5 telephoto lens. With regards to filters, again as you are connecting the camera body direct to the scope a normal moon filter designed to screw into a 1.25" eyepiece won't be of any used (other than for visual use when you remove the camera body). You control contrast via the exposure (to a degree) and make any corrections for brightness in post processing (such as photoshop or GIMP). There are however projection eyepieces that are in essence an eyepiece, draw tube and T mount in one https://www.365astronomy.com/1.25-40mm-DigiScoping-Camera-Adapter-Projection-and-PhotoEyepiece.html. I've never used one, so can't comment on how well they perform and the type of image you'll get. Regarding the 2" to 1.25" adapter, have a search for self centreing adapters - Antares produce a nice unit. These work by expanding their sides when you twist the ring at the top, clamping both the 1.25" eyepiece centrally and theadapter centrally in the focuser. But this would only be required for visual observing, attaching a CCdD camera that resemble normal eyepieces, and collimating devices, and not required if you use the direct DSLR connection method

Well it looks like this is one board that is just not repairable. When the owner received the board back it still displayed the "both axis not present" message, so I persuaded him to send the board back to me and include the handset so I could test the repair. Well this was received today and I've spent best part of the day having fun trying to resolve this boards problems. The first thing to do was to power up the board using a Meanwell 12v PSU and see if anything was getting warm, which proved negative, so then it was out with the test meter. I checked that 5v was getting to the two microcontrollers, which it was, so that was a good sign that the regulator was still OK. I then spent a few moments tracing out the connections between the handset port and the two TX and RX lines, which wasn't straightforward as it would seem due to the way the two serial ports are connected to the same pins, plus the board is multi layered so sometimes a component would connect to a via that didn't connect to a trace on the top or bottom of the board which makes things difficult. Anyway, after several hours of testing, tracing and remaining a few jumper wires I would still get the same error message on the handset. Not having the schematic, or service manual (assuming it may exist) really meant I was just having "educated" guesses as to possible things to try. In the end I bit the bullet and cut the old PICs off the board and removed the legs, being as careful as I could not to damage any additional pads. Only one broke, but that was easy to add a link to after the replacement PIC had been soldered back in place. Two new PICs were programmed with the Dobsonian firmware code, verified and then soldered back into place. Connections were tested to make sure that each leg that had traces (I had taken photos before) made contact with the VIA or component where required, and then powered on the board and checked the voltages on each pin matched the ones I had noted down before the PICs were removed. Pleased to say the were the same, so this would suggest that the soldering was good. But plugging the handset in gave the same message. I'm still going to try a few things... but my gut feeling is that whatever the previous owner did to this mount when they tried to repair it (presumably then selling it as it no longer worked) has done more damage than just blowing the original PICs. Stay tuned....

The problem is that people often see images like this one of Mars, taken by a fellow Letchworth and District AS member, Simon Kidd and then want to get the same but then get shocked at the cost of the equipment needed Look back through similar posts where people want to get into imaging and you will see that most recommended setups are four figures minimum... It's normally something like a 200P or 4" apro on an HEQ5 or EQ6, guide scopes with dedicated guide cameras, and fully computer controlled to automate the process, and that's before adding the cost of a camera. Granted people have managed to get acceptable results form lower spec equipment, but often its after a lot of fuffing around. More often the results are disappointing because of the limitations of the equipment used. The reason an HEQ5 costs almost a grand is due to the greater precision over the EQ5, the greater load capacity and the fact that it's designed for imaging use. The bottom line is that if you want to get decent results without the hassle then you have to invest in decent capable equipment. And yes I'm speaking from experience. I purchased a 200P on a goto EQ5, with a view to bolting on a DSLR camera to do some imaging. It soon became clear that its tracking was not precise enough even with good polar alignment, and a guide scope would be needed. But the mount was already on its weight limit....so I purchased an HEQ5 with an ST80 and GHY5... even second hand I still lost money compared to buying the HEQ5 / 200P in the first place, even after selling the EQ5. Inspired by the images Simon gets with his 14" scope I tried stacking barlows to get the high magnification, and even on Jupiter which is a lot larger than Mars, the results were very disappointing... it proved that my rig wasn't set up to get seriously details planetary images. It does however get me nice images of DSO's A decent camera lens fitted to one of the new £350 tracking heads such as the Star Adventure (provided the combined weight doesn't exceed the payload capacity will also give you some nice wide field views of constellations and bright DSO's. You won't get much in the way of planetary images other than the moon and the sun (with decent solar filters). Anyway... Not really sure why I've just spent another 30 minutes typing up this post.... considering you've made your mind up....and most of what I've suggested is probably not what you were hoping to pay. Good luck with whatever you choose to do, but as the Dragons say " I'm out !"

Well that's your prerogative. You don't have to take people's advice, and often it's a case of trying things for yourself and then learn from your own experience. If it works, and you don't mind being restricted to the limitations discussed here then that's fine. Personally I would find having to stay up until 4am because that is when a target passes the window, and then only being able to get a couple of hours worth of data before it's no longer in view, or waiting until February to image at more social hours would frustrate me.

Welcome, There is no one scope fits all due to the differences between visual observing and astro-imaging, and the requirements for viewing / imaging planets or faint deep sky objects such as nebula. To view the planets in a fair resolution you need both aperture (ie large diameter) and long focal length (the distance from the lens or mirror that the image is formed. For faint objects you need more aperture and a shorter focal length Taking pictures of planets is typically done using video cameras and then stacking the individual frames to produce a still. So the mount isn't that critical. An alt/az mount like that shown in geoffs post is fine. Taking images of faint objects requires longer single exposures, so the mount has to track the target and not have it rotate in the field of view, so an equatorial mount is needed. In order to take the weight of the scope and any additional guidescopes a larger mount is needed, and thus the price increases Both mounts have advantages and disadvantages.... If your goal is to take images of the planets then something like the scope in Geoffs post would tick a lot of your boxes.

Irrespective of your personal views on Musk, and how he became the second wealthiest person in the world, without him being the driving force behind SpaceX we would still be so far behind in space exploration and still reliant on 40 year old Russian technology to take crews to the ISS. He proved his concept of a highly reusable rocket, with the majority of Falcon 9 boosters being launched between four and six times, thus reducing the costs for companies seeking to get payloads into to orbit. By placing the Dragon capsule on top of it, SpaceX has given the USA (and any other country for that matter given the commercial operation of SpaceX ) manned space flight capability once more. If he and SpaceX were not around and it was down to NASA or the ESA... any chance of getting astronauts back into space, let alone to the Moon and Mars would still be pipe dreams. This coming weekend sees (hopefully) the 15KM "hop" of Starship SN8.... they have another seven prototypes in production..... and with his drive I'm sure his goal of landing a human on Mars by the mid 2020's will probably happen.

There have been a lot of suggestions and comments on your proposal to start imaging from a bedroom skylight. You don't mention why you want to stay in the room and image rather than set the scope up in your garden which would remove a lot of the restrictions and disadvantages using it in the room has. Here's my 2p worth Regardless of how old the house is and how well insulated it is you will still have thermal issues as the roof calls down, or warmer air than outside escapes through the skylight. You will never be able to stabilize the air as there could still be a 12-18c difference between the room temp and the outside air. You may not notice this if you used the scope for visual use, but imaging, it would be very obvious Alignment of the mount. Whist it has been mentioned, the lack of finding Polaris could make guiding / tracking difficult, but also most goto mounts will need two or three alignment stars that you will not be able to find as they will be obscured by the roof. Movement / Vibration. Your bedroom floor will flex when you move around. In imaging even a small amount of movement will ruin the results. This is why when constructing an observatory people use a 1cu mtr block of concrete separated from the floor to support the pier. I know some people image from downstairs rooms, but most houses have a solid concrete floor so vibrations are less of a problem. Canon DSLRs are a good starting point for imaging. The 450D has live view which would be useful. I still image with and old 400D (fully modified) and quite happy with the results I get, even from a town location. EQ3 mount - For imaging the mount is more important than the scope IMO. A 150PDS, with a guidescope, and camera will be pushing the EQ3 to its limit for imaging. An EQ5 with the 150PDS would be more suitable in my opinion, as the combined weight of cameras, scope etc would be within the load capacity of the EQ5. IF you can afford an HEQ5 you would benefit from better precision, and it would cope with additional equipment added to the rig if you needed to. Remote operation - One thing to consider is setting the scope up in your garden, and then using a means of controlling it from your bedroom. This could be through a small laptop running EQMOD, imaging software and guiding software at the mount which you then remote desktop into from a PC in your bedroom. Or if the scope is within 5 metres of the house, run long powered USB cables between the scope and the PC. Anyway, that's my take on things.... at the end of the day we can all makes suggestions, but it's down to you what you do, what budget you have etc

Ya see that is why folk have their gear permanently set up in observatories.... you can dodge the clouds..... take a couple of subs, close, wait for the sky to clear, open, take a few more subs, close up again when the clouds roll back in... keeps you fit as well - who needs a gym with the british weather and an interest in astronomy

Hi Richard, As others have pointed out there is no need to polar align your telescope as it doesn't have an equatorial mount. Your telescope has what is know as an ALT/AZ, or altitude / azimuth mount. It works by raising the scope vertically and rotating it horizontally. To keep a target in the field of view you need to make very small adjustments in both directions due to the Earth's rotation. Equatorial mounts are in effect ALT/AZ mounts, but with the AZ axis tilted to the latitude of the observer and pointed at the North Celestial Pole. This arrangement means only one adjustment in azimuth (known as Right Ascension - RA on an equatorial mount) is required to track an object. And before you ask, no it would not really be possible or worthwhile to modify your mount to convert it into a fork type equatorial mount.

Not the first scope I used, but my first scope I purchased. A Vixen 4" fluorite refractor on a driven mount... This was a friends photo, taken on timed exposure hence the ghosting or weird head to body positions ! - If I recall correctly this was circa 1987/88 at a society star party in Stevenage - I've circled me and my scope Between '83 and '87 I worked for Tasco, and the first scope I used was a borrowed 11TR, which gave me my first image of Saturn.... still remember the excitement, 21 years old and still ran in to my parents to drag them out and take a look - just like a child would

Vlaiv, I'm no expert, but did spend a year trying to resolve an extra diffraction spike on my 200P a few years back. The one thing that is really confusing is the angle of the spikes. I've taken the OPs image, cropped and deasurated it, then inverted so it's easier to see. Normally when something gets in the path you either have additional spikes, or one set gets blurred , but they still remain at 90 degrees to each other. Here we can see that the horizontal ones are angled in relation to the vertical ones. This to me could be that the secondary is off axis to the primary, secondary is rotated, which might cause interference with the light cone, or the spider is bent. If this were me, I would remove all the correctors etc and go back to basics with collimation, having first checked the spider is centering the secondary in the OTA and that the spider vanes are at 90 degrees to each other and that they are flat and not twisted. Then re-do the collimation, and perform a star test (use a really bright star like Vega). Check focus and then take an exposure without any correctors, filters or OAG in place to see if the diffraction spikes are as they should be. If they are then its a case of adding one bit of equipment at a time (filter, then OAG) and repeating the test to see if the issue comes back again. If it does then you know what the cause is and that might dictated any course of action to resolve it.

Hi Steve, A quick google and both are switch mode supplies https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/asr-ss-30 Spec for the SS30 * Short circuit and over-voltage protection* Automatic over-temperature shutdown* Output current rated at continuous service* Dual backlit meters on the SS-25M, SS-30M and SS-50M models* Precision regulation of output voltage* Most are designed to house specific LMR radios* Fully EMI filtered* Internal fuse access* Switchable 120/220V input voltage (auto-select with power cord change)

Ahh I just searched for "gift voucher" on their site and it only listed the one for a fiver !

A quick google and they seem to be listed on EU ebay sites... but no real reviews or wide spread use. If you need a replacement handset then best to stick with a Skywatcher one suitable for your mount

Welcome to SGL, I'm going to throw a spanner in the works here, if your husband in into photography and has some decent lenses, then why not get him a mount that is designed to take a camera and lens and track the night sky objects. Something like this https://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/skywatcher-star-adventurer-astro-imaging-mount.html £205, takes a 5kg payload and is currently in stock (although I would call to confirm) Or there's a this package for £239 https://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/skywatcher-star-adventurer-mini-wifi-pro-pack.html Slightly less payload, but has lots of extras. Granted he won't be able to do any observing in the same way as a conventional telescope, but it would give him another branch in his photography and produce some excellent wide field images of the night sky. As others have mentioned, £200 won't really get a telescope that ticks all the boxes. It will get a scope that will give him (you?) acceptable results for visual but not suitable should he wish to combine his photography with astronomy. Entry level telescopes and mounts that are used for imaging really start around the £1000 mark. But they are often large and bulky which then adds another drawback. The idea of a gift voucher is great as it will give him an amount to put towards something that he wants, However it would seem that FLO only have £5 vouchers listed on their site (come on FLO !!) which would be impractical to get and use ! Rother Valley optics are also another excellent retailer, and they do have vouchers of higher value £100 vouchers can be had here https://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/rvo-100-gift-voucher.html

You need to attach a better image rather than a cropped section. But based on what you have uploaded, collimation, bent secondary veins, or a combination of both

13.8v is fine for running an HEQ5. There would be no need to open it and start messing with the internals. Both would have ample amperage to run the mount, camera and dew heaters. The only concern would be to prevent moisture getting inside them as they are not IP rated for external use. You could however place them inside a shed or from the house and run the low voltage supply out to the mount.

ASCOM is like a "driver" that can be accessed by various applications on the computer. So your imaging software can access it, as can PHD2 (and EQMOD for that matter if you use that to control the mount). It doesn't need an internet connection to function.

Been using Hotech for years. Its self centering fitting and precision makes it well worth the investment. Most of the cheap collimators from e-bay and the like are not worth the money.

You totally missed the point of my post. No worries... The point I was trying to make was that as far as SW mounts are concerned they are at the lower end of the scale, hence the comparison with a mass produced watch... The do the job, but being made to a price point lack the quality parts or assembled to a lower standard than a more expensive product (hence the comparison to a rolex which I guess in this hobby could be a Takahashi mount). It is not that you won't be able to get an image similar to the one you saw with the £40000 set up, but it may not as detailed and sharp, and may have to do more with your setup due to the limitations of the equipment. Now if you feel that your budget mount (when compared to those next in the astronomy evolutionary tree) has not been made to the standard you expect, and wish to complain then that's your prerogative. If it is within warranty then you could demand that the mount be repaired or replaced through the dealership. However they could equally say that by opening the mount up you have invalidated any warranty and walk away.... and to be honest they are well within their rights to do so. It may well be that there are loads of SW mounts that are poorly finished in the same way, with swarf inside them... and I dare say that if everyone complained on mass once the voice was loud enough something may get done... but (and the point I was trying to explain) is that SW are so distant from their end user they don't give a flying fig. As far as they are concerned who is going to know if the inside of the mount is free of swarf or not, most people don't open their mounts for fear of voiding the warranty. I don't think it's costing thing, as the time it would take for someone to either blast the casing with an airline, or (if automated) code the CCM machine to tip the swarf out would be small. The dealers don't have all the power.. that's what I was explaining. The dealer deals with the importers / distributor / wholesaler - they then deal with the manufacture (Synta) who are manufacturing SW and Celestron scopes in their thousands each week... Your contract when you purchase the scope is with the dealer / retailer. If they can't resolve any issue you have, then they report it to the distributor. If they received similar complaints from lots of dealers then they may feed that back to the manufacture, who may take action. The problem is that if the distributor seem to be constantly upsetting the apple cart they can have their exclusivity removed and the manufacturer will appoint a new distributor.... so you find the distributors don't want to complain. How do I know this... through personal experience I had with my 200P ATA, which in the end left me out of pocket, and the relationship between the retailer I purchased the scope from and the Distributor / Importer very soured. At the time several other people with the same issue came forward but neither the Distributor or SW were interested in trying to resolve this for all customers without cost. I've no advice for you.... you've highlighted an issue on a public forum, and complained to the dealer, but unless they get the support from the importer then there is little they can do other than replace the package, which might be just as bad. Or your equipment may well be one in 10,000 that slipped through the QC ? There's a guy in the UK that supertunes these mounts by the way. From the factory you can expect an HEQ5 / EQ6 to have 20-30 arc seconds of error unguided. They tune the mount and guarantee sub 1 arc second accuracy. They replace all the bearings, use specialist lubricants and precision machined gear sets, and for an additional cost do a belt mod at the same time. But the cost is between £300 and £550 plus 2 or 3 way shipping. That then puts the cost of the EQ6 at around £1600, but its still half the price of an EQ8 and probably has more precision ?https://www.darkframeoptics.com/ Whatever path you follow I wish you well....