wellsi

22 hours ago, noah4x4 said:

.......shots to a central station. But what if I had the same loss of control with my OTA? Let me expand on that...

Sky Portal (off-line) once told me; having correctly set its time/date & location in my Android device; that the Andromeda Galaxy was one of 'Tonight's Best'. My HC time/date/ location was set correctly too. But when I tried to GoTo using the HC it rightly warned me "will exceed slew limits". I am hence nervous about attempting this equivalent GoTo when under solely Android control. How can an object be in both "Tonight's Best" and yet "beyond slew limits'?  

Frankly, there is probably zero concern about any of the above, and one hopes the Android (like the HC) would similarly warn about exceeding slew limitation too. But the fact that it won't reliably determine 'location'' from the Android even when its GPS is live doesn't inspire me with confidence. Indeed  I wonder how reliable Sky Portal is as regards any objects very close to the artificial horizon, which is depicted on my Android screen as a mountainous background (errr....what mountains in Essex!!!!)?  Maybe I am being over cautious, but I don't want to risk watching a monster 1lb Televue EP smash into my mount and damage my OTA.

........

Evening again

Well, I'm writing this after all day in glorious clear sunshine, but now waiting for the clouds and slight rain that appeared at 9.15 to clear up

Couple of points.  Understand your concern on wild slewing. I'm never more than a few feet from the scope now.  That said, I had another perfect night of viewing last night; telescope never once lost control in 90 minutes.

Your tablet may have 'haptic feedback' switched off.  My directional arrows do give me feedback when I touch them.

As for 'tonight's best', I think this is a one-size fits all list, that depending on your location may include objects that are still below the horizon.  I always check the altitude and rise time before I click on them.  Objects may not rising until later in the night.

And I have adjusted the main tube so it can point up to the zenith without the eye piece touching the base.  I did this after the app was trying to turn my scope upside down before the GPS on the handset had been set.  So as the eyepiece cannot hit the base, so I can relax a little more.  Obviously this set up means the front of the OTA would hit the base if it slewed down, but as the OTA should never go below the horizon, you can move quickly to stop this if it starts to do that.

Finally, the horizon on the app is one of three 'views'.  It defaults to Ularu (aka Ayers Rock in Oz); the other two options are a city scape or the top of Mouna Kea in Hawaii.  Unbelievably, the mountains, buildings or the observatories on all three views actually block the view and names of low-level stars.  They actually wrote the app so their fake horizon views take priority over the stars, and have no option to have a simple flat horizon.  So if you have perfect horizon views, but they have a picture of a building or a mountain, you can't see the star or goto it.  So I'll say it again, how stupid are the developers that wrote this app? 

Righto; of to hunt clear skies. Will report back in a few days / weeks, but for now the wifi is working fine. 

Happy Transitting tomorrow

Ian

Well fella, after setting the location in the Handset Control, using the tablet worked first time!!!  I cannot believe the setup ignores the GPS from the tablet when aligning via tablet wifi!  How stupid can the developers of this system be???? And when you're paying 1.5 grand on a top end scope, you expect a manual that actually tells you the right instructions.... 

But now it's working fine.  And I have just had a great evening playing with the Skyportal app controlling the scope perfectly.  Access Point mode worked fine all night. 

Have to say, I think you should have another go using the Skyportal app.  It's way more than a star chart, and you don't have to go scrolling through the handset menus finding stars!  Just browse the skies, or better still, browse the 'best of tonight'.  Press info, press the audio button and have the narration talk you through the star's properties and of course, just tap GoTo and you're looking at it.  It's like being back at the Planetarium   

Thanks again for the heads up; hopefully this thread will help out any other unfortunates going through the same issues.

Cheers

Ian

9 hours ago, noah4x4 said:

Been there too with my Evo 8 and its Starsense. Frustrating to resolve such issues between too few clear nights. But fortunately I also have an SE4 with Starsense, so I have eventually worked it out (I think); and  I now get 100% accuracy with  both telescopes.

Your problems probably relate to one (or all) of time/date; location;  and calibration.

....

 

Hi Noah

Thanks so much for this. You have suffered precisely the same issues as myself.  I only read this reply this morning (Friday) after yet another night of completely confused alignment last night, this time with a new install of the Skyportal Programme on my new mobile phone. 

This morning (before I read your post!) I went through all the menu options on the HC and noted just what you'd mentioned!  The instruction manual is not aligned with the options on the handset; it never prompts you for location and I had to go looking.  I was set to California and I figured that whatever was supposed to be happening via the tablet's GPS, it wasn't.  So I've set that location to London for now.

I have got the wifi sorted though; I now use 'Access Point' control and it works flawlessly through my home wifi network; this has removed all interference as it's the only network that was present.  If you have another go at that, simply connect your tablet to the scope wifi but do not select 'connect' or 'connect and align'.  You only need to be connected to the scope wifi.

Go into the settings, communications setting. Before you change setting, you must enter the 'configure access point' button, set your home network's name (SSID) and the home network password.  Tick 'DHCP client' to let the home router set the IP address of the scope automatically for you.  Then press 'send to telescope' (can't remember the precise words).  Only then can you amend to 'Access Point' from 'Use Direct Control'.  

Remember to flick the micro switch below AUX 2 into the down position, then switch on your scope inside the house if possible to let it get a good lock on the home router's network.  Then open SkyPortal with your tablet on the home network and select 'connect'. and see if the direction arrows control the scope. If they do, you're set.

Anyway, tonight should be another warm clear night. We'll see how tonight goes!

Cheers,

Ian

3 minutes ago, cloudsweeper said:

 

Can't you remove/disable the StarSense and just use the app?  (I thought StarSense was just an alignment aid, so is not needed if you do that with SkyPortal.)

Doug.

Well, I only just got the starsense!   When it works, it works absolutely perfectly; it zooms around by itself for 2 minutes and then you have perfect alignment.  It makes you far more inclined to move the scope around the garden if you have obstacles, as it realigns so easily.

But it's a massive drawback to not be able to use the skyportal app. And the skyportal app should work fine with starsense....

Hello all

My Skyportal App seems completely unable to work properly with my Evo 8. starsense  If I try and align via starsense via the handset, it works perfectly.  But that is no use if I want to use the Skyportal App; you have to align via the Skyportal App if you want to use the app.  That in itself seems daft that the app can't simply accept that the telescope is aligned via the handset.

Unfortunately trying to align via the app results in the scope spinning round and round, or turning upside-down.  It's completely confused.  If it does manage 3 out of 3 alignments, it finally announces 'alignment failure - error too large, please try again'.

Yesterday and today I tried over 10 times, with persistent failure.  But the moment I tried the handset, it worked perfectly, first time.

So I know the app is the fault here.  The tablet has the right date and location. The Android app is version 1.5.6.

Does anyone have any suggestions I can try?

Much appreciated

Ian