alan potts

9 minutes ago, alacant said:

We'll gladly look after it for you. I mean, you wouldn't want it to fall off 😉 ...

But seriously, I reckon it'd do the same shot in less than half the time. It would make an interesting experiment.

Cheers

With my pointing problems of late, I'm not sure I can find it again, I would like to take a panel next to is tonight and maybe another next to that getting this region of clouds around there and stack them as mosaic, may be nice, right overhead now and that mean very nice guiding.

As for the 071, all in good time, I don't have an IR/UV filter due to a misunderstanding, I have a 1,25 inch but that's useless on this camera.

Alan

Sorry to hear that, I know what it's like losing things like caps, Lost the cap for the 24mm Pan, looked everywhere, it was on another eyepiece with the cap for that eyepiece inside. However this must dramatically affect the value of the scope, I offer you a tenner😀.

Alan

40 minutes ago, Nigella Bryant said:

I don't know how this will go tonight. Light pollution is quite bad but I'll be imaging south on the coast into the horizon over the Atlantic. I've also not used my Az-GTI in eq mode and I've no means to guide except with just the mount running. I'm attaching my sigma 170-500mm telephoto lens with my modded Canon 1000d camera. I particularly want to image the lagoon and trifid nebulae. 

Good luck, past their best now but still doable from here and I am a bit north of you maybe 6-7 degrees.

Alan

The star right at the bottom of shot is really red and I don't feel I have over saturated the image.

Alan

18 minutes ago, stash_old said:

I never did tick the box - it was set automatically - honest 🙂

Remember "slowly slowly catchy monkey" - I always follow this and never have problems - That nose is growing again - lol.

Hope it (or anything else) works !

I had a play for 10 mins last night after I had enough and unchecked this tag on encoders, it found every star smack middle full length of Cygnus, I know this is not far. Then think I selected Mirach and there was nothing. However having just checked the spelling so as to not come across as totally thick, I am far from sure I selected Mirach now as it is clear orange on the chart and the star I picked was white and smaller, so it could be working, will check later. Great when you can say that, only the 27th clear day this month.

Alan

1 hour ago, Adreneline said:

Very nice result Alan. You can now add open cluster IC4996 to your list of imaged targets! - and 36Cyg.

Thanks for sharing.

Adrian

Even though I had no idea these were there I feel with a bit more data, (2-3hrs) and another capture next to this of the same and mosaiced there is a decent image to be had.

Alan

1 hour ago, StarDodger said:

The annoying blip every 7-8 mins, is probably the length of the worm cycle in your mount and so some periodic error training on the mount may help..

Hammer time then 😀. I am not sure it was as it was on the Dec, maybe flopping back and forth, needs to be a bit more camera heavy, it actually did it a couple of times in RA but I think that was me. I keep looking at PPEC and PEC must have a go at it sometime soon.

Alan

Alan

Very good indeed for one sub, were you using you scope at 805mm if so I may try it myself soon. At the moment I am having problems pointing so finding it may be difficult.

Alan

After a mass of disappointing nights caused by Me and IT, which we know stands for incredible tedious, I took some shots missing the target by a fair bit but still got something of an image to post that may have been overlooked by more experienced imagers.

This is 20x 4 minutes subs with the Canon 40D, minus one sub which 3 planes flew across, 3 I ask you. Shortened F/L with the reducer at something like 638mm and F5.7 I think. Guiding was superb at .35 of a second most of the time with an annoying blip every 7-8 minutes which hasn't seemed to affect the subs.

So this is very near Sadr, which I cropped out due to it's size.

As always rip into it with tips of how to get better, and don't say use the 071 which I have put on the shelf for when I am pointing correctly again, hopefully soon.

Alan

I had one of these and never used it, sold to a member on here, he never did tell me how it performed, sort after a few years back and difficult to get hands on.

Alan

5 hours ago, michael8554 said:

Dave's screenshot of EQMOD is terrifying, I'd never cope - has anyone ever mastered all that?

Soooo complicated! 

Is that really what you have to use with these mounts?

Glad I've got a Meade LX, almost switch on and go. 

Michael 

In some respect I am fairly pleased you do find it terrifying, at least it isn't me, I actually am not frightened by this, don't know what 50% of it does but not not frightened. One would think things could be somewhat easier though. Maybe Stash-Old has hit the jackpot, I ticked a box about two weeks back to see what is would do, thought it would help guiding as it is in a section where such delights as PPEC sit and that means better guiding, so ticked it. Lets see no un-ticked if this was the problems. Someone said it would be something simple, me again, he was right.

Alan

2 hours ago, stash_old said:

Alan,

as I also use AZEQ6 if you look at the screen ASCOM EQMOD (The first one) as a fellow AZEQ6 user you might have some extra bits in the development  testing area (right hand side of screen)- does it show something about  Disable Encoder (haven't got mine loaded so using my memory).

It wouldn't be set to "enable encoder" would it.

If it does and AFTER you have tried all other suggestions and they have failed (hopefully not) then make sure this is set to "Disable Encoder" - this caused me some problems with my AZEQ6 but was not like your experiences! Another long shot 🙂

I have a feeling I pressed that a while back, I can check. Pointing is terrible, never found one of the 3 points I have put in and missed the next one by miles. But guiding is tops

Syncéd on Vega, Altair and Saturn, I know the latter moves but it would matter for just tonight, asked to slew to Deneb, not far from Vega, agreed, missed bu further than the FOV of my SW finder which I had centred on Saturn.

Right lets have a look at the encoders.

BTW all those J2000 setting reset thereself to what they were.

Alan

2 minutes ago, newbie alert said:

Ok, it's always out on the first slew on a fresh star alignment.. as you're on a fixed mount are you hibernating saving  the star alignment or re doing it everytime?

 

No it was saved and still is and nothing has been adjusted, this is what is so annoying, it was working with these setting very well for as long as Antares has been in the sky, it's data is still in the save, unless I remove them all on purpose but then they just came back next time, I have tried that too. As for removing points I don't know how, they just keep coming back.

I set up 6 points about two months back and they just worked, pretty much everywhere, now they don't, time for the hammer I think.

Alan

2 hours ago, stash_old said:

One other factor that caused me a lot of problems was - balance of the OTA's. If you get this wrong , i did, Cdc or Apt, will try and go to the correct coordinates (assuming everything with Lat/Long,Date/Time and Epoch is ok) but will do the following (well it did with me 🙂 )

1. Slew either short or long of the correct place.

2. Slew to the correct place but then "move", after "settling", away from the object desired.

3. In some positions it would not slew anywhere near and refuse to slew to the correct point.

After rebalancing this removed 99% of these problems (nothing is perfect in Astro LOL ).

Good luck with your "return to basics" it would seem the best route if that was all working before the change to a dual rig.

 

It is balanced a tiny bit rising side heavy, this I am told helps guiding as the AZ EQ 6 works better like this, results sugeest this is correct based on what I see.

It doesn't do any of the things you suggest, wide of the correct place in a lets see how much we can annoy Alan mode.

Alan

Very nice image in every way, these two here really do look like there names.

Alan

I intend to buy another 70mmish scope and it will be from FLO. This will be before Oct 31st as I do not wish to incur a possible import duty as a result of political changes, no comments on this point please.

I have in mind the WO 73mm ED doublet and the SW 72mm ED doublet, with just 10mm F/L between them they are much the same speed and FOV.

The SW is 276 pounds and the WO is 549, a very simple question, is the William Optic worth the extra?

Alan

That too is a very nice image and more in line with those posted by others, I liked the first image because it was so wide field, a different take on it so to speak. It is a target I want to image though I will have to do it in two positions to get it all in at 640mm, that is if my mount ever slews to somewhere near it, has a mind of it's own at the moment.

Alan

1 hour ago, michael8554 said:

Nearly there Alan. 

Synch on Dubhe if it's near your target, don't go back to Polaris to see if it's there. 

It wasn't, so what, who cares, why does it matter so much to you ?

Targets near Dubhe will be in your DSLR FOV when you try a goto. 

Get on with imaging  !!!! 

Michael 

Polaris being there don't matter I just sort of thought it would be a half decent check. I don't understand why when the PA is good and a few weeks back I slewed to Antares night after night and it was there more or less in the middle, now it's more likely to be near Spica. If anything the PA was not as good then, I've been tuning it, in Polar Drift and Drift, it was not perfect in Drift but is was very close ,1.5arc mins I think, that's nothing for guide to correct.

19 minutes ago, newbie alert said:

How do you confirm with a polar scope, if you can see it's out then surely you can correct it?

Polar scope method is classed as a rough polar alignment

Are you on a fixed mount or a setup and tear down?

Polar alignment and star alignment are different kettles of fish..if pointing is out then redo your star alignment but don't do as someone else does and redo the polar alignment and wonder why the star alignment is out so re entering with the clutches off!!

Apologies if I come across as brash..not intended..

 

Quite simple, I used many times polar drift to check PA, then drift align, it was very close but not perfect, after I check the polar scope and within a tad it was where it should be, my polar scope is at least in the right place. Last night I confirmed with the polar scope purely to see if I had knocked the mount when messing about, I hadn't.

This is fixed at the moment in an observatory. I know about polar and star alignment and have done it hundreds of times but don't understand why it is so far out with first slew, after a few weeks back it was bang in the same place every night, at the time I slewed to Antares as I was imaging over that way. With in a fraction the mount hasn't moved and neither has anything else as far a I can see and now it's rubbish, this is what we are trying sort why.

Alan

2 hours ago, Laurin Dave said:

Hi Alan

Another thought(s).. which I may already have said and which you probably have done...  Try clearing down all the previous EQMOD alignment points before starting alignment and make sure that they aren't being saved on park or loaded on unpark.  When I was using EQMOD I  didn't save alignment points and did a fresh alignment on a nearby star (same side of meridian as target) then slewed to the target.  Another thing to do would be to try with the Synscan handset.

Dave

Already done that, next I'm trying standing in a bucket. Don't want to go back to the handset, that was rubbish most of the time but I probably didn't have good PA then as it was not fixed in the observatory.

Alan

Me to James,

Other week, thought I would add to M15, slewed to it as the dam scope worked then, centred it and set 3 mins, enough I feel for a glob. Plane, Satellite, another, good frame , Plane, gave up and moved to another target.

Alan

1 hour ago, michael8554 said:

One approach is to accept that some problems are inexplicable, so find a workaround instead.

With my permanent setup, the first Goto to a known star after switching on puts the star in the centre of the finder about 50% of the time, the rest it's somewhere in the FOV. 

Alan's error may be larger, the reasons for the error could be many, and become irrelevant once you've centred the star and Synched. 

Centreing in the finder puts the star in the DSLR viewfinder FOV. 

Then centre in the DSLR and Sync. 

The imaging scope is now accurately polar aligned AND star aligned with an area of the sky that includes your target. 

That's it, never mind if your scope is possibly twisted 10 degrees on the mount, it's pointing correctly and you're good to go. 

That's with a DSLR, I imagine getting the star visable on a small chip camera to be more  challenging. 

I certainly couldn't manage without a finderscope Alan, and it sounds like your other ways to find objects are frustrating you. 

Michael 

 

Basically what you outline here is what I have done for a good while now. I have bolted a finder scope to the side of the rig and taken the duel scope arrangement off, and put the Canon back on.

Right this was last night after I attempted to point the scope somewhere near Polaris, and I was careful not to ruin PA

Slewed to Dubhe, not far I would say, it didn't find it, I found it, centred it accurately and synced

 Slewed back to polaris, not even in the FOV.

After this gave up with a idea of going back to how it was and again checking every setting.

Lets see what happens tonight, I know the AZ EQ6 is not a 10 micron mount or similar but it was giving, pleasing to me results and now isn't.

Thanks for the replies,

Alan

56 minutes ago, newbie alert said:

Think technology has made people forget the basics... PA and star alignment really isn't all that difficult..

I tend to agree to a point, my PA is good, 1 arc Minute, confirmed with the polar scope, assuming that is correct on the AZ EQ6, so lets assume that OK. A few weeks back when I slewed to anything it place the Object/Star in the field, sometimes even in the middle. I am fully aware how to star align with or without hand set, it is just now for what ever reason, it's a long way out. when you slew to Saturn and it ends up close to Jupiter the wheels have come off somewhere.

Alan

41 minutes ago, Ouroboros said:

Sorry if I've misunderstood your problem but I quite often find when I first start to align the telescope/mount to an alignment star that I cannot see the star in the eyepiece or by camera.  Have you simply tried to eyeball how far out the pointing is? Look along the telescope tube or through the finder  scope. If it's only just off I'd adjust the mount using the manual adjust in the planetarium application until the star comes into view, centre up and then sync to the star.  If it's way off I suggest checking you've input the right latitude and longitude and time. Have you remembered we're in daylight saving?  I made both mistakes only recently when setting up new planetarium software. 

I feel I have all these covered and am aware from years of visual work that it can be some way off at first, but it shouldn't be as far out as it is with the EQdir system I am using with very good PA (1arc min)

Alan

16 minutes ago, alacant said:

Hi Is the -computer/software- time set correctly and in sync?

Cheers and good luck. It's usually something really simple.

I am fairly sure it is, I have never touched it, but will check, as you say it will be something simple, me probably. Really fed up 5 nights down the drain.

Alan