SSG Caldwell

Having an issue with Sequence Generator Pro and End of Sequence Park. For some reason that I have as yet to figure out, when SGP sends the park command to the mount via EQMOD at the End of Sequence, the mount parks itself pointing South at 42 degrees altitude instead of North 42 degrees (NCP my location). EQMOD flashes mount is parked, if I simply click the unpark button and immediately click the button to park, the mount slews to the North and parks pointing correctly at NCP. When EQMOD is used in conjunction with Carte Du Ceil alone to control the mount, it Parks itself pointing to NCP without problem. SGP does not have any problems accurately slewing to targets. I have checked user defined location in SGP and it is correct, Epoch settings are the same across CDC and EQMOD platforms. Made sure EQMOD set to Dialog not Append on Sync. This issue may have been going on for some time since I babysit the rig and until recently always aborted the End of Sequence action to park and manually parked the mount. I am now trying to achieve greater automation and this came to light. I know that SGP simply sends a park command to EQMOD and EQMOD should do the rest not SGP, but EQMOD seems to be working correctly. My mount is a Skywatcher NEQ6 Pro, I am running the current EQMOD platform, ASCOM driver for mount and SGP. Any insight would be most appreciated

Hi Curious about how well Astroart’s native guiding software performs vs PHD2? I currently use Sequence Generator Pro along with PHD2. I love SGP but PHD2 and I have had many issues. Was thinking about trying an all in one solution like Astroart 7 which includes its own guider but would like to hear from those who use it as to how well it works before I jump ship. Thanks Bill

Hello All I have been involved in AP for about 3 years. During that time, I have used DSLRs exclusively, mostly for wide field imaging. Recently I ordered and received a QHY183 Color camera. Thing is I have no idea how to connect it to my WO Redcat 51.I had originally believed it would be intuitively obvious but it’s not at least to me. I did read the manual and the adapter document from QHY but was more confused by them than helped. However, from what I did understand I believe the back focus is18mm +- 0.5mm. I was hoping that someone with this particular combination of a WO Redcat and QHY183 could share with me what adapter(s) I need to connect them (product links would be helpful). Thanks for any help. Bill

Thanks for the response. I had heard that Prism 11 was coming out at years end so you're probably correct about the cessation in development of V10. Still I find it strange that T7i(800D) is not supported, its been out quite a while. I left a message at the Hyperion Forum 8 days ago and only received a single response from a user. Unfortunately the answer was not particularly helpful. I also left a similar message on Cloudy Nights Forum which received many views but zero responses. Probable as a result of the rarity of Prism use in the US. I left the message here because I felt that there might be more Prism users in Europe. Best regards Bill

Hi Downloaded Prism 10 recently and was impressed with its documented capabilities. I currently use another popular acquisition program which works great, but was interested in trying out an “all in one” software package. Used Prism for the first time several nights ago with mixed results. All my equipment connected fine, scope slews accurately, camera connected and was IDed as a Canon T7i, was able to focus and plate solve. However, when it came time to take an image sequence, I had issues. My cameras dial was set to M but I did not change the exposure menu setting to Bulb, Prism let me know that you cannot expose greater than 30 seconds on manual, that was my “bad”, I know better. Changed the menu setting to bulb, still got the message about not being able to expose greater than 30 seconds on manual. Ok, disconnected camera, reconnect camera with camera menu in bulb mode, same message. Restarted program, power cycled camera, ensured camera in bulb mode, reconnected camera, same message. At this point I manually depressed the shutter button it open I held for 60 seconds and released it, shutter closed so definitely in bulb mode. Nothing I seemed to do could get the program to recognize that the camera was in bulb mode. Oh well, started imaging at 30 second just to try out things. Set number of exposures at 100, Prism stopped at 39 stating it was downloading an image, after 5 minutes I gave up and aborted the sequence (this was problematic too) restarted the image run made it to 22 this time, same thing. I gave up trying to image. Also had a lot of problems using the calibration options Prism provides, bias was OK but flats and darks were an issue. I connect my wife's T5 and all was well. My suspicion is that Prism 10 does not support the Canon DIGIC 7 used in the T7i. I hope someone has a suggestion I would like to try Prism again. I think it has great potential. (equipment used: Skywatcher NEQ6 Pro, RedCat 51,Canon T7i, SW: Prism 10.4.3.522 running on a Windows 10 Laptop) Best Regards Bill