michael8554

A level mount is important for Alt/Az. "Calibrate" your separate spirit level. Put it on any roughly vertical surface, and then on a roughly horizontal surface, note bubble position, reverse the level, if not the same position then in future "split the difference" Measure in several planes on the mount, not the scope or tripod: On the vertical white surfaces. On the horizontal black top surface. Adjust with tripod. Then shouldn't change if you rotate the mount 90 degrees in Az. Michael

Sounds like you are trying to guide without understanding how to set up PHD2. Read the How To and Help guides in the Help menu. Try these for starters: https://openphdguiding.org/phd2-best-practices/ https://openphdguiding.org/man/Basic_use.htm Michael

Looks like it came off the same Chinese production line as the Meade, Celestron, Antares etc FRs Michael

Tie a long rope to the south leg of your tripod. Take your phone and the rope south, and push a stick into the ground when the rope is tight and to the true south of the tripod. Eyeball the tripod to point to the stick with the Az adjustment centred, or sight along the OTA. Michael

Just to cover what's already been said. Your scope uses the Autostar II handset, it's just buttons, the "computer" is in the mount. LX90 and ETX range use the Autostar 497 handset, the "computer" is in the handset. They are not interchangeable. With a Meade #507 (not the #505) cable between a PC and the RS232 port on the mount, you can use a Virtual Handset without the need for the Autostar II handset at startup. You can find a Virtual Handset in Meade's free Autostar Suite Software. And in Andrew Johannsen's MyScope software. And eleswhere if you Google. I use ScopeBoss for iOS on an iPhone (or iPad) for the wireless experience, needs a WiFi RS232 dongle in the mount's RS232 port. So much better than the wired Autostar II handset, and Meade's own (discontinued) wireless Autostar II handset. If you get as far as Guiding the scope, use the ASCOM "Meade Autostar/Audiostar Project (October 2019)" driver, which is an ongoing update of all the old Meade drivers on the AQSCOM site. Michael

Post a PHD2 GuideLog that includes your attempts at Calibrating. You'll find them in the PHD2 folder on your PC Not the DebugLog Michael

Gary, you can get an accurate true north using the sun's shadow at Local Noon on the day - not the same as noon on your watch. A planetarium will show when the sun is crossing the meridian, or use a calculator prog: https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/solcalc/ While zoomed out on the world map, move the red pointer to NZ, zoom in and plonk it on Christchurch. It's at 12:25:55 today. Michael

Some people give their mounts pet-names, and probably cuddle them at night...... 'd love to get you on a slow boat (from) China All to myself, all alone Get you and keep you in my arms evermore

After a few sessions everything on the mount will have loosened up, like the old-fashioned car engine "running in". Michael

From what I've read, the sensors have border pixels called Registration Areas that are used for black level, noise reduction etc purposes. Some softwares use the larger figure, others use the smaller figure, which can lead to problems when you try to add two software results. Use the Plate Solve FL. Michael

Hi Alan Can you expand on that? To me it seems counter-intuitive to say focusing is easier on a 3inch screen than on a 12inch or more Laptop screen ? Michael

The mount's Dec is working, but has 3 seconds of backlash. SOP before Cal is to pulse north until the star moves a lot, to remove any Dec Backlash. Probably In your case PHD2 made lots of north Cal moves, but no north movement was detected, because it was only taking up backlash. Michael

I'd say no. 6 Volts is too low to be a safety issue. Is that a Regulated Power Supply that always supplies 6 Volts ? You don't want an Unregulated Power Supply that could give too may volts for the controller, despite being on the 6V setting ? Michael

The solid red led on the mount suggests the power supply is okay, but I can't explain the blinking on the handset. First check, is the mount tracking okay at Sidereal Rate ? Michael

EQ8 owner will hopefully say whether that figure is average, or needs adjusting, or sending back ! With good PA (3.8arcmins is fine), the mount will hardly need any Dec guiding. So look which way the Dec is drifting at 3.8arcmins, balance to keep Dec on that side of the line, and maybe increase the MinMo a bit from recommended, to keep your Dec guide error about the same as your best RA error. Equals round stars.

Got it now. The orbit is inclined 41.5 to the equator, so highest Lat reached will only be 41.5, and UK starts at about 50. Michael

Rising floor - much better idea than wobbly telescopic piers. Lots of lovely knobs to twiddle on the bottom end. World's largest camera ? I suppose they're talking about the camera AND lens, cos the camera was only average early 1900's plate camera size. Michael

Covert COVID package for Trump Tower........ 😆 Is that true ? ISS is 51.6 and regularly comes over our house ? Michael

For English speakers: "Soup to nuts" is an American English idiom that conveys the meaning of "from beginning to end", derived from the description of a full course dinner. 😆 😆 Michael

Simple answer: The same star with your 400mm scope and with your 2000mm scope, the star in the 2000mm scope will be 2000/400 = 5 times larger ? I know all stars are point objects to our measly little scopes, but optics come into it too. Michael

That's very unusual for a Meade 0.63 Reducer, did you have the correct spacing to the FR ? Was it an ACF LX ? The 4/3rds cameras only have about 20mm flange to sensor spacing, so there's plenty of room to put any OAG in the remaining 85mm or so to the FR. The ASI 120MM was definitely not sensitive enough for my similar SCT OAG setup, I went for a large pixel Lodestar. In my experience, imaging is only viable for a permanent Polar Aligned rig, as setting up and aligning is so time-consuming. Michael

Once you'd focused the main camera you were free to make a tiny slew to put the pylon on the prism ? But you got there with the roof. So accurately focus a star on the main camera, then focus the guidecam without touching the main camera focus, looking for lowest HFD on the PHD2 Star Profile window. Lock everything down, and I expect you know that once you have the main camera focussed, the guidecam will always be focused too. Michael

I expect you're used to having Mail, Spotify, Word etc, all running at the same time on your PC/laptop ? With astro it's the same. You will have SharpCap, PHD2, maybe a Planetarium etc, all happily running at the same time. Michael

Your DNG Light doesn't look too bad star-wise. I put your DNG Light into DSS and at 3% it found 26 stars, and it Registered. Did all of the Lights get Registered ? You might have to un-tick those with low scores. Michael

I was missing out some of the fine detail. Whatever your imaging scope FL, if that image scale is about the usual 1arcsec/pixel, I'd say that 6.44arcsec/pixel is too much. If it was 2arcsec/pixel, which might be considered undersampling, the ratio is about right. But this is probably going to open the usual arguments about image scale, and about guide ratios. Michael