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Everything posted by TiffsAndAstro
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tonight i will take another photo of my mel maz and some 1 3 and 5 mins exposures. what i meant by bang on is that doing the polar align in synscan app, i was easily able to center the chosen star as asked with alt and then az. and if i did another star it would find it almost perfectly and i could again center it as asked via the app and the alt az bolts. will jkust test 1 and 3 mins as advised on here.
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It does ty astromuni. It's also what I think I was managing to do. I was doing further polar alignments in conjunction with the alt/az bolts and synscap app. I posted my mel maz and now vaguely understand what they're for, but not the meaning of the values as I have no context. If clear tonight will follow your steps exactly and do 1 3 and 5 min subs to test.
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I do read them and massively appreciate their time and effort. however theres seems to be conflicting ideas at least to a noob like me and stuff that doesnt even seem to apply to my mount. For example I seem to be being told to line up Polaris in the scope via slt/az bolts and ra now and both can't be the correct approach to a noob like me. Bare in mind a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. For me I mean.
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ty so much for this malcom, but, like the video you reference its confusing me few questions: 1 - i screw the mount onto the 3/8 inch thread on the tripod. "The two Azimuth adjustment bolts should be open enough to fit the spike on the tripod between them" - my tripod doesnt have a spike. 2 - the manual contains nothing about setting up the polar scope. i have watched videos on general alignment but don't want to try to use that on my mount. as a test, if i center polaris in the cross hairs and rotate ra, polaris seems to stay centered. 3 home position - watching a video now from AstroFarsography. pretty sure i've never done this part - will find a spirit level for tonight after i watch the rest of the video. 4 "Slacken of the RA lock and rotate the mount until the bubble or markings on the polar scope is in the same "hour" of Polaris is in its rotation around the NCP and then lock off the RA axix" i think is the main bit of my confusion. the bubble that appeared on the video you linked does not appear on my polar scope. At this point as polaris should be on the middle ring at 12 oclock, i rotate the ra until polaris is in the postion shown by synscan app? bit lost here with the next part, sorry "Use the Az bolts and Latitude bolts to place Polaris on the ring and in the bubble / markings (as shown in that video I linked to)" as if i rotate ra so polaris is in the correct position i wouldn't need to adjust alt/az bolts? also a ra setting circle mentioned in the home position video i found doesn't seem to exist on my sw gti. also there seems no dec setting circle as in the video too. ive tried googling ones for my sw gti mount but very few about and none in detail 5 "This is a very simplified routine... but the main area where you are going wrong is that you are performing multiple polar alignments when they are not needed - It's a one off procedure done before any observing session" i was expecting a polar alignnment done via the app/alt/az bolts would refine my polar alignment further.
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i saw a post elsewhere about the hand controller and PA with another sw mount. it looks to me that the synscan app is trying to replicate the features of the hand controller. if so, repeated PA on different stars is supposed to improve on the PA accuracy. i will give what you say a go next chance i get. PA through scope. 2 star alignment in app PA in app (but using alt az bolts as needed) 2 star alignment in app and i'm good to go? one other thing - there are what looks like two larger alt locking bolts on the mount. should these be loose during the process and then righted up afterwards, or ? the user guide literally doesn't seem to mention what they even are lol.
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So last night I polar aligned through scope. Did 2 star alignment (mount found both within pixels of center of screen) Did a pa via synscan app could center star as directed using alt and az bolts. Did another pa near my target. Got curving trailing stars on 5 minute sub. So either my pa is still [removed word], my tripod is [removed word] in a 5 min cycling type of way my mount is broken or....? IMG_8307.CR2
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yeah one minute seems ok but i must have a major issue somewhere. my polar alignments were repeatedly bang on in synscan. ill post some images as soon as i get a chance. here is an example sub from the 500second test. Does the arc shape they make suggest any one thing more than another? IMG_8307.CR2
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so after doing a second pa i looked in information: id=2'28.5' ch=00.0' np=00.0' mel=00.1' maz=06.4 tilt=03,8' is that good or bad? anyone with a good link expaining mel and maz would be fantastic i did a test shot at 500mm crop sensor at 300sec and trails about 10 times width of stars doing some 60 sec ones instead
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in a perfect world, i'd agree with you, but my budget went on the mount, hence the cheap lens. i had a look at the lens and a couple of videos and it doesn't look like something i'd want to mess with. there is a very slight rattle somewhere, but the front lens feels pretty solid. ill have a go with my 200mm f3.5 see if that is any less bad as soon as its not cloudy