Mr niall

Hello all as there are more than a few of us with the Skywatcher Star Adventurer I thought I’d summarise my experience of going to the dark side (then coming back again!) of updating to the “advanced firmware” on the star adventurer. This doesn’t pretend to be a user guide of “how to” merely a summary of my experience for those that may be interested in going down this route. Unlike the very cool star adventurer mini (SAM) which has WiFi, it’s bigger brother relies on the user to make all their choices on a big spinny dial and a set of buttons on the back. Therefore the amount of options available to the user is, relatively limited. Now I would suggest that this matters more to wide field and short focal length time lapse photographers than traditional astrophotographers who just need a stable tracking mount of any kind(!) but what the both models do offer is direct DSLR control. It seems skywatcher have addressed what may or may not be the shortcomings in the SA mount be releasing a new firmware that allows much more user control over, particularly, DSLR control with user customisable options like shutter speed, exposure length, and number of exposures on offer - all controllable through the mount directly. additionally there are two new modes, the Astro time lapse and the long exposure time lapse which I won’t go into here but there’s loads of info online if you are interested. As someone keen to extract as much value from a piece of equipment as possible (and similarly a good Scot that would much rather not fork out for an intervalometer if they didn’t have to ?) the increased range of functionality seemed massively appealing. Upgrading is as simple as downloading the firmware - you do this through your PC via the skywatcher motor controller program (which is a bit of a pain to find) but it’s all simple enough. You also have to print, cut out and install a new control selector dial as all your options have now changed which is quite fun in a Blue Peter type of way... So... what’s it like to use? In a word.... stressful! Your SA is now a much more versatile beast, but my experience of trying both long exposures, time lapse and astrophotography with it was an absolute nightmare! You see - because the SA has no actual interface, controlling all inputs is done using the slew buttons on the back. Ingeniously they light up and flash to denote which selection you have chosen. And you use them in conjunction with the N/Timleapse/S toggle switch. To give an example - to set the length of an exposure for traditional Astro photography you turn the dial to EXP, then, slide your toggle to N on the back. Using the left and right slew buttons to adjust, you are now controlling the “hundreds of seconds” eg 100,200,300 seconds that your exposure length will be. And the way you know what you’ve selected is by looking at how many times the slew buttons lights flash, 3 for 300 seconds 7 for 700 seconds - you get the idea. you then switch the N/Timelapse/S selector to Timelapse - now you are controlling 10s of seconds on the same fashion, and by switching to S you are controlling seconds - so in this way you can set your exposure time from anything from 0 to 999 seconds. Once this is done you switch to star ⭐️ mode, plug in your camera and, in theory, away you go! And this effectively is how all user inputs are selected - it really is an ingenious solution and a clever way to extract a lot more Usability from the unit. But in my opinion, it’s pushed the envelope way too far. Because many of the user customisable options are in different formats, maybe degrees movement, or hours and minutes, some of them you have to switch on, some you have to switch off. Some delete themselves every time you switch the mount off, some conflict with each other or do nothing in certain modes and so on. If you are trying a Timelapse for example, where you have to customise several fields it gets very stressful very quickly, additionally when your camera doesn’t do what you want it to do, it can take quite a long time to figure out where you’ve gone wrong. You basically have to go through every setting and count the flashes or lack of flashes thereof. Because there’s no “ok” or “confirm” button I often find myself thinking “is that it? Has it done it? Is that right?” And a classic mistake I made was often leaving the selector on S when I’d finished my selections and the mount would then fac course spin the wrong way.... ? I found it difficult to set up a shoot without a very careful and close consultation with the instruction manual, which in fairness is better than most skywatcher stuff, but still rather confusing at times. The advanced firmware is so unbelievelably ingenious and clever that I wanted to love it, I really did. And I still marvel at how they managed to get it all together and working. But ultimately every time I used it I could feel the first twinges of annoyance and frustration setting in at the horrifically difficult to use interface and in the end gave up and went back to the original firmware. In my case I think the expression “the grass is greener” has never been more true - I was excited about the added functionality that the advanced firmware offered but in reality when I’d downloaded the standard firmware and reacquainted myself with it I found it was more than good enough. (But it does mean forking out a tenner for an intervalometer ?) Niall

Very nice, what a monster!

Looks a bit flimsy, maybe stick a couple of marshmallows on the counterweight bar to be on the safe side? I’d consider concreting those legs down too

Yes actually - the tube is 3.65kg which in theory was fine for the azgti but found a little bit of wobble at anything above 150x. Tried balancing everything perfectly and weighing the tripod it was just never quite right. Not a big deal though - to be honest it was more like one of those things that wasn’t an issue until someone pointed it out! But it was mainly for my son and it was just a tad too advanced for him too. Mentioned it to FLO and they agreed to an exchange which was damned decent of them!

Ooh - not sure I’ve added my two pence on here yet. Here’s my Opticstar ar90s gold. 90mm achromat, 800mm f8.8 all metal, 1:10 focuser. No longer on the AZGTI though, need to pick up an EQ2 orAZ5 head from somewhere! Cracking scope!

Missed that! Grr I need to write these in my diary!

amazing! One of the best things I’ve ever watched, even managed to get Mrs Niall interested! That’s one to tell the grandkids about!

Brilliant, finally caught one!

Right! This time. coverage 15 mins before launch on here; https://spaceflightnow.com/2018/01/30/falcon-9-govsat-1-mission-status-center/

Right! This time!

Yep, missed another one..!

You got a link?

Slip is possible I will double check but I don’t think so... is there a way you can tell which way is the “right way round” on initial setup?

Hello all, Well I’ll pre empty this by saying I’m probably an idiot but... I’m having the funniest problem with my AZ GTi WiFi. Every time I set it up I seem to manage to do it upside down. So whenever I choose two star alignment I’ll centre on a bright star - for example beetleguese and then have a go at Polaris. So the scope kind of guesses where Polaris is but is ok on az but is a good 20-30 degrees too low on alt. When I adjust it manually and it says the alignment has been successful but the got is then miles out! Miles and miles! So when I try North Star alignment the mount tells me to North and level the scope and the new it’ll try to find beetleguese, but it ends up pointing to somewhere in New Zealand! It always takes me about twenty minutes of twizzling and twirling and rotating to get it to spin the right way! And I’ve done that every single time I’ve set it up! Anybody know of a quick way to tell which way round everything should be when you set it up? And any ideas why the brightest star alignment is so far out? Could it be because it’s upside down? Scope is levelled and everything. many thanks

Just bought one - arrived today, can’t believe how compact it I should compared to my eq3! Not had a chance to fire it up yet but similarly have some basic AP goals.

Yes I’m watching, I’ve got loads of bicarbonate of soda and vinegar and a small balloon on standby for them if they can’t get it going again. I mean it’s not rocket sc......

some info here: https://sattrackcam.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/what-is-nrol-47-and-in-what-orbit-will.html

Yep I’m done. I always thought of the space race as an amazing time to be alive but it must have been super boring in real time...

Has anyone checked this is really real and not some dreadful hoax? Like 9 hours of us watching a photo of a rocket with some photoshopped steam coming off it?

What’s all that churning and bubbling? You call that a radar? No sir, we call it - Mr Coffee!

It’s like waiting at the dentist....

You bet! Watching now (although it’s just sitting there at the mo) go go go!

haha brilliant. well spotted!

Am I missing something I cant see the attachment? Is it my computer? It sounds great I want I want I want I want!

That’s fab - I always thought it was Ursa Minor too!