gajjer

Hey, the way I look at it is; without the bad. there would be no reference to what 'good' is. It does seem that there are times when everything seems to go wrong at the same time. It will come right though. cheers gaj

Hi Han, yes I spotted that, I will keep that in mind. When I first got involved with microprocessors back in 1973 I would have been up for writing my own driver for whatever interface I encountered. But these days I can't even find the right files to load! Software has drifted away from me so rapidly. Cheers gajl

Dohhh. Thank you so much. cheers gaj

Following my surprising success with Carte du Ciel, ( well so far anyway ), I tried to install CCDCiel. I went to the Sourceforge site and downloaded CCDciel from this page https://sourceforge.net/projects/ccdciel/. When installed I couldn't find an exe, just a CCDciel folder with a 'data' folder in it. I feel I am doing something really stupid. Or not doing something moderately clever. Could someone point me at an idiots guide please? cheers gaj

Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Can't wait to get out and try again. Unfortunately I am going on holiday for a week. Rats! Gaj

Stah old Thanks. I'm sure it's in the documentation somewhere but so far I have found it very hard work. Gaj

Thanks. I'm not alone at least! Gaj

Finally I get round to using EQMOD and Carte du Ciel. I have never used either before. I was really chuffed when I got to point at a target and the scope went off and found it. Small adjustment then Sync and off to another target and repeat. With the moon out last night I wasn't able to image the target I wanted to but I was happy having a little slew around. Later I changed to a different scope ( different focal length ) and repeated the targets and Sync. Then when I slewed to one target, the concentric circles slewed to the target as did the scope, then right at the end the circles jumped up from the selected target ( I would say it jumped a distance about the diameter of the concentric circles ). Tried again and it did the same thing. Baffled! Now, there are several possibilities I can see. One target required a meridian flip. I was looking mainly round that area. Did changing the scope cause a problem, trying to resolve two lots of sync. Was I right to save settings on shutdown? If I use a different scope next time does it start from scratch on alignment? So: 1: What is the likely cause of the jump? 2: How do you scrub previous alignment if you change scopes 3: Does the alignment get saved for the next session. I have a fixed pier, but remove the scope and pack away after each session. Hope someone can help. gaj

Hi Dave I'm like you. Start simple and grow as you feel you have a grip on things. I see you have had a lot of suggestions. My money is still with the messages not getting through. If I were you, having spent that amount, I would stand back and look again at the situation. We get precious few nights that we can do this stuff, you don't want to be wasting good nights cursing at your set-up. Buy yourself a Lynx Astro FTDI EQDIR USB Adapter as suggested right at the beginning of the thread. It will be £34 well spent. Hope you get this sorted, you'll love it when you do. cheers gaj

When I first started guiding I had issues with the on camera guide connections. In the end I gave up and bought a Hitecastro USB guider. It worked for me. I just wanted to take pictures not become an IT expert. Hope you get this sorted. Have faith! cheers gaj

Hi Alan it sounds to me like the mount isn't responding to the calibration commands. Its not clear to me what guiding software you are using and what is the interface between the computer running the guide software and the mount. Perhaps a little more information on what set-up you have, would help. cheers gaj

Is this related to the week number roll over ( WNRO ) with the satellites. I know it affected my satnav. Google satnav WNRO. The last time this happened was 1999. The rollover was due to happen on 6th April. HTH Gaj

Hi. My first question would be: does it track correctly? I wonder if the 'banging noise' is the stepper missing a step which might indicate binding. Perhaps meshing is too tight. Just a thought gaj

Have a look at Astro Baby's website. She does a really good description of a strip down. I think she recommended lithium grease which I got from a bicycle shop. HTH cheers gaj

The mounts accuracy doesn't need to be good. You can be a long way off level, it's the polar alignment that is really important. I wouldn't bother messing with it. It wont improve your viewing. cheers gaj