StevieDvd

The connection number I believe. It should be a low number for new connections and a high number as last resort/default.

Sorry mate I went in like a corporate and registered complete ownership of the milky-way - no sub-letting allowed for small allotments like stars or planets 🙂

OK good thing is the hard-wired connection wins on start- up, if that's not there then it will attempt to use any new wi-fi settings. But if that does not wok it defaults back to its own hotspot. So use the hard-wired connection and astroberry.local to connect then: Right-click wireless icon on the taskbar Select Edit connections Double-click Wireless connection Enter your network name in SSID field Go to Wi-Fi Security tab Enter your network password in Password field Remove ethernet cable Reboot That should be it. My AB is configured so I can't repeat a new installation to be 100% sure nothings changed in the above. My setup is customised and updated.

I think the original poster would have been a little suprised if they had just bought a 200P reflector to go on the original mount as the difference between 130 & 200 does not seem that much, but unpacked it's quite a change in hardware size & weight.🙂

Wireless & wired devices can access each other on the same network. You can also use an ethernet cable on the AB at boot time, it will use the ethernet connection first. That may make it easier to setup the wireless connection to your router.

If you have changed your wifi to your home server then you can connect via a browser using http://astroberry.local/desktop/ from the same network. There you can setup everything that is going to be used mount, cameras etc without them being connected - ready for when you connect the hardware and do the first start of the live connection. Power switch off of the Pi needs either an in-line on/off switch on the power cable lead, pulling the power lead from the Pi or turning off where the psu is plugged in. You should not cut the power without doing a shutdown of the Astroberry via it's desktop.

I'm so glad my missus had the sense to buy me some land on Mars instead.

Hi Sluke321, I think there are some crossed wires in the above replies. Peter is correct that the alt/Az mount/tripod on the Starsense explorer 130DX would not be suitable for an 8" reflector. But I think AlexK is referring to mounting the 'starsense phone mount' which lets you use the guiding app, and he is correct as there have been a lot of these fitted to other systems - though there may be a need for a customised bracket to suit the new scope it's going on. There is a long thread about using the Starsense phone mount (and code to register it) here on SGL.

Yes it's in the manual Page 35 attached a copy for you. SynScan_HandControl_web191112v3_2_.pdf

The syncan handset does have a PA correction that uses goto's and gets you to visually centre the target using the bolts, done as an interative proces bit by bit to get a better alignment. And of course the PA utilities such as Polemaster, Sharpcap PA and others do that based on a live view using those bolts. Does that help?

I can think of a few reasons for the change. Some owners have been asking if the AAP can be used as the goto and/or guiding but use a different camera (non ZWO) for imaging. And if the new owners have been having issues with the platesolving it may prevent them from getting images captured. If I were ZWO I would have made this optional so may be you can re-activate it.

Next thing you can do to practise and make setup outside quicker, still indoors when it's cloudy is.... Get the scope/camera setup balanced. Guiding needs the setup to be fairly well balanced. If you put the scope, imaging camera and guide on the mount and carefully release the clutches you will find it drops down one end. A bit like a seesaw you move the scope in the saddle until you have a balance that can be moved easily but does not drop down fast. Once that is done you do the next axis this time you are balancing the scopes at one end and the weights at the other end of the 'seesaw'. This is so the motors are not stressed in any rotation direction. Once you have this sorted you can use tape or felt tips to mark the dovetail and weights positions (not mandatory if you don't want to mark your gear). So when you setup again you have a rough balance point. Even so a quick check each session to make sure it's still balanced is needed.

Setting up home position see here Make sure you enter date (us format MM/DD not DD/MM) and time correct, note we are GMT at the moment so no to DST. Download Stellarium, Kstars or Cartes du Ciel (or something similar) then you can have a play indoors getting the setup approximately correct. Power up the mount pointing roughly north, start at home position at select a target from what you've seen in Stellarium. Use the handset to goto that atrget and check it's pointing the right way 🙂 No need to load any scopes or cameras. You could also get a phone app which would roughly point at where the target should be instead of the star chart programs above.

You can polar align without a vew of Polaris, it justs limits the methods since as a lot of the easier ones use a view with polaris. Essentially if you can plate solve a few images or 'eye solve' this will give the tool where your current mount axis is pointing for it to work out the adjustment you need to correct it. 1. Your handset routine has a PA correction option. That uses the 'eye solve' and uses an iterative process of it telling you to centre the goto selection it makes. 2. Some software tools can do the calculations and don't use a Polaris view. I believe APT has one and there is one in Ekos (Linux) to name a couple.

Glad to see it was taken in the same spirit it was typed. We will, as you can see, help where we can. Give us a nudge with a few more details and see how we excel at answering. Though, don't expect everyone to have the same silly sense of humour as me 😜 Steve

Paramount MEII Robotic Telescope Mount - https://www.firstlightoptics.com/paramount-brand/paramount-meii-robotic-telescope-mount.html £21,559

I guess so many people are now doing PA without using a polarscope that it's hard to find how to align it, I know I just searched but I did find this https://www.myastroscience.com/polarscopecalibration The aim is to be able to rotate the mount and keep the centre cross hair centred on the target (aerial, chimney - don;t recommend pigeons they move). Yes you will need a camera to use Sharpcap PA - either in the telescope or you can use the guide scope. The camera does not need to be central like the polarscope, just needs to be firmly attached. See https://www.sharpcap.co.uk/sharpcap/features/polar-alignment Do your reading whilst it's cloudy 🙂

If you are going the astrophotography route then it's likely you will use a computer to run the process so can use that to Polar Align (PA) too. If you are going to use a PC then Sharpcap has this included with it's Pro version (£10 a year) well worth a look at the website first and it's a very useful tool for imaging as well. If you intend to use Astroberry, Stellarmate or ASIAir then they all have a software option for Polar Alignment. And as you mentioned there is a process in the Syncan handset to PA essentially takes you to a star and asks you to centralise the star using the Altitude and Azimuth adjusters of your mount. The process gets repeated a few times until you are happy with the accuracy of the PA and that the goto actions move and centralise your chosen targets. PA is important as it affects goto accuracy and guiding - but you should soon get the hang of whatever method you prefer. I tend to think of the star alignment process as a way of telling the mount how to correct any flaws in the goto accuracy and have not done this for quite a while as I rely more on platesolving (and I have a fixed per setup). Platesolving is where the view from your camera is used by software to calculate where your mount is pointing, and what you are looking at. Software can be told to synch the mounts co-ordinates of the view with the platesolves co-ordinates (which are usually better). For example you could have perfect PA and start your session with the mount in it's home position, you tell the software that you are starting in the home position but since this may be done by you moving the mount around after mounting the scope, camera etc it's likely to be slightly off (the home position) PA is still perfect. Now when the software is told to goto a target it moves the mount and thinks it is looking at your target dead centre but it's slightly off. You platesolve and synch and now your software is more accurate, the next goto should be central. Most of us have a home position (start or park position) usually the weights are down pointing North and the scope vertical. To a certain extent this is now less important when platesolving. I can turn on my mount move to a target and platesolve it, sych and for that session the software and mount agree - if I ask it to goto home it should return to home correctly. When you start on the guiding experience platesolving can assist that too. A platesolve & synch before each guiding session can improve accuracy of the mount, after all guiding is a simply an accuracy adjustment done a lot more frequently. I hope that helps a little but feel free to ask questions we all try to help when we can.

If you are going to rely on your polarscope for PA then you must get it aligned properly first. Easier in daylight using a distant target, lampost or tv aerial etc. Once this set the rest is gets a lot simpler.

So an in house mains powered device. Is that because you don't want to use the ASIAir (AAP) remotely? THe weak link in the chain is the small wifi aerial on the AAP on the Raspberry Pi circuit board, which is worsened by it being inside a metal case. This is OK if the AAP is used as the wifi host and everything else is nearby, the intended remote usage. But for a home location where disyance and walls come into play the AAP is a bit wifi deaf! For portable and away from home there are a lot who use a TPLink device (such as TP-Link AC750/TL-WR902AC) to create a hotspot for their phone/ipad and ASIair to connect to. It can also be used as an extender, which may be able to be sited near your AAP and pick up your home wifi too.

Most will have varying options including one to use it wireless in & out. Hard to advise without knowing the extender make and your usage needs. Basically they can either: use an incoming wifi signal, amplify it and use the same SSID (wifi name) network port can then be used like an extension to the router for non wifi devices use network cable, create the same SSID (wifi name) use an incoming wifi signal, amplify it and use a new SSID (wifi name) network port can then be used like an extension to the router for non wifi devices use network cable, create a new SSID (wifi name) without any network feed wired or wireless create a new wifi network Depends on the requirements you have which suit you the best.

If you are using or expecting to use an ASIAir Pro (AAP) at any time it may pay to lean towards the ZWO EAF, also if you needed to sell later then it would add AAP users to the potential buyers.

I think if you create the astroberry sdcard on your PC and place it in the RPi4 with a network cable connected, you can then connect to it using astroberry.local in yor PC web browser and can then set it up to be wireless.

Oh and Pi4 has micro-hdmi display ports https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-4-model-b/specifications/

The problem could be due to the format of the fields being used in the function and the target cells - are both set to numeric? In my quick test I have used =IF(LENB(D7)<1,"",D7) which seems to work as I think you needed, but you don't use the double quotes i.e =IF(LENB(D7)<1,,D7) then I get the #NAME? problem too.