StevieDvd

A good image in daylight and you can have a shandy & bag of crsips as well.

If you have an eyepiece and a diagonal (plus a tripod/mount would be even better), then have a look at a distant object in daylight. Another indicator of the view not being ruined is the use of bahtinov masks for focusing, yes it reduces the light intake but still gives you views of stars to aid in focusing.

Sad to hear that, but from experience with FLO they will bend over backwards to help, pre and post purchase they value their clients.

As I previously mentioned I believe the Celestron ED80 has a M90x1 thread, and Rob Dog has also mentioned that too. So I had a look to see if the agenastro adapter had any specs that would confirm that. Doing so I found this useful threads page which if you scan for Celestron shows: Telescope Tube M90x1.0 Smaller GSO RC/Cassegrain telescopes, Celestron 80ED and 100ED scopes (discontinued versions) So the adapter for a Baader Steeltrack would be RT-Adapter M90x1 Diamond Steeltrack® (Skywatcher) # 2957283 HTH Steve

Sorry it was to try the USB A-B cable on your setup, there are different mount options and either the Skywatcher or EQMod are the ones to try. The eqmod cable will need to use the EQMOD driver, but the USB printer cable may work with the Skywatcher driver (not the eqmod).

Did you try both the skywatcher and eqmod options with the a-b cable and the 115200 baud rate? If the eq3 is fairly new there is an issue in the ZWO Asiair being a bit tardy with the RPI updates with the latest usb drivers.

Difficult to see from the above but if you have a small USB port, like a printer port, then you may be able to use a simple USB printer cable to connect (baud rate 115200), but a proper eqmod cable connected to the handset port (not the handset itself) should work (baud rate 9600).

If the balance is almost there you could move the rear scope ring closer to the front one, before spending on anything.

Visually saw a nice long streak Saturday morning around 3am and several bursts, so stayed up late again this morning but only 2 shorts streaks between the cloud breaks.

Because the ST80 is focuser-end heavy, especially when loaded, and has such a short tube to attach to it's difficult to balance in the clamp. A longer dovetail will give you a little more adjustment, but as you have discovered it will be limited by the orientation of the focuser. Adding dfferent scope rings will have the same limitations. You could try a longer dovetail and see if you can add some weight to it, on the opposite end to the focuser, to help. Option 4 mentioned by Tiny Clanger replaces the balance method and would work, as you are balancing the entire scope against a set of weights instead on the scope itself. It would also let you have the focuser controls as you'd like.

From what you've said above the same lead/laptop combination should work on both mounts. The HEQ5 is purely an eq type whereas the AZ EQ6 can be eq and Az, so that begs the question what software you are using to connect and if there is a different mount option to detect the mode of the AZ EQ6. Other than that does the lead click in nicely in the handset port on both mounts? Check for fluff etc.

The main point to pickup and mentioned in the link above (I missed that at first) is: "After adjusting the screws, be sure to return the star to the center of the field of view by adjusting the position of the telescope. " Surprising what a difference that made on a star test.

Sorry, as far as I recall a cheshire is not really the tool for an sct, a star test is more appropriate.

Yes that cable can be used for an eqmod setup and plugs into the socket the handset is currently plugged into. The Lynx cables are good quality. However, some of the newer Skywatcher mounts now have their own USB ports so you can use a USB printer cable directly, wold work the same as an eqmod but cheaper and uses a faster baud rate (not sure how much that helps). The only downside if you have the port is that the eqmod cable, like the handset cable, will click in place. The USB cable can come out a lot more easily. If you have a USB printer cable, just connect it to the mount (powered on of course) and your PC and check that a com port is added to your devices. Old eqmod connections use 9600 baud and the on mount USB tends to be 115200 baud. Oh, and find a nice drawer for the handset to live and welcome to SGL. Steve

Speedy recovery to Steve from Steve (me).

The USB cable is a standard printer type (Male USB A to Male USB B), and power cables are likely to be 2.1mm at both end - these are easily available. The power feed cable is the tricky one it looks like a customised one using green phoenix connectors, you's need to know the connections for this to get the + & - terminals right. Best bet get brother in law to search for the power cable, unlike the other cables it's fairly unique so he probably won't have used it elsewhere. Other than that try FLO or Modern Astronomy.

I early retired last year so have the time, especially with the current weather. And to be honest I think you will only need a fixed or replacement focuser and from what I've read collimation of the ED80 is robust and can be tweaked at the focuser end. PM me you name & mobile number if your Ok with that, I'll need to add you to my contacts list as uknown numbers are automatically blocked.

How far are you from Stevenage. I'm not an expert in this but can probably help with some of the basics. To start with see the link below. That looks a little like your problem, if it's the focuser on yours that's the issue we can try one of my spares (both from an Evostar DS80) - if that fixes it then you can order a new focuser or I can let you have one of mine cheap (£25 for the used one or £45 for the 'as new' one). Or we may be able to fix yours, having good ones to compare with, Will have a read up on checking the collimation on refractors as it's been a while since I've checked mine, though have never had to change them. I've got some collimation tools left-over from having an SCT which may help. This would be done in my garage as the missus is a bit wary due to covid and people in the, and we can both wear masks if you prefer. And to be clear there won't be any costs involved I'm not looking to start a repair service or anything like that. I'd be happy enough if you left with a zero cost solution. If you'd rather get professional help or have a go yourself I won't be offended 🙂 Steve

I believe with Win32 you need to format the sdcard before writing to it. I use a program called Rufus to write my images to sd-card, tends to work more reliably for me. If you know your way around Disk Manager in Windows you can see what's been left on the sd-card, possibly a small linux partition.

Your mention of the left/right keys being was hint that the firmware was for the right-hand setup. Do those keys now work as expected and it just needs us to solve why the scope is pointing down instead of up? Is this a new AZGTi or used and do you know what firmware version is loaded, should be an option in the Synscan app to see this. And do you get asked if the mount is in AltAz or EQ mode? And I guess we'd need to know if you plan to use the EQ mode option as well. What can also confuse matters is how you setup, the mount has a dual encoders which means if you have it switched on and you move it around manually it still remembers the positional information. So start North & level before switching on. There are many AZGTI users here on SGL so let's hope we can get you sorted asap.

It would appear from the files available that there is a version for standard AltAz operation and another allowing both EQ mode & Right-hand. And firmware updates being a bit of a pain based on threads here on SGL.

With the original sd card in the AAP it should start up and connect, or possible do an update. I've not used the website to enter a serial number but have been prompted for the license and used a picture of the QR code when asked. Did you back up the card before using it as that boot folder looks very bare compared with mine. Can you connect and use the AAP via the app with both the original & backup cards?

Have you tried starting the AAP? It should prompt for a license and let you scan the QR code on your phone camera or select an image of it in your album. Then it will write a file to the sd-card so that process is not repeated next time you boot, presumably they check the license file on startup to ensure the correct PI board is being used.

There are 2 firmware versions. One for the scope on the left-hand, the other for the scope on the right-hand. In your picture of N and L you have the scope on the left, try it with the scope on the right but still pointing North. Have you just updated the firmware or is this the first time you have tried the setup?

This seems very similar to a problem raised last week where the poster said the co-ordinates were wrong. He had updated the firmware. What seemed to fix his problem was to flip the DST setting from Y to No and back again and do a power cycle. See the thread here Worth a try I think as it's so similar.