msacco

Hi! This is sort of a hypothetical discussion, but thinking about the future I believe I'd want to upgrade my equipment eventually(currently have a 8" Skywatcher with EQ5 goto, and totally satisfied with it).

So I've been looking around a little bit, and I believe the max budget I'd go with would be around 4000-4500$.

For that price range the best thing I could see is 16" dob goto or a 11" SCT goto(I'm not from the US, so maybe the prices would be different to you). The main purpose of the telescope would be for visual observing I believe, but my brother recently bought a DSLR and we gave it a shot on the 8" and EQ5(which should be pretty bad), and it was kinda cool, so might thinking of having that as an option as well.

What I'm not sure of is if it's even possible to image with a dobsonian? It would make sense that a heavy camera would destroy the balance?

How difference is the 16" dob from the 11" SCT? Will I be able to see incredibly more with the 16" compared to the 11" SCT?

One more consideration is that the current setup is really heavy and messy to carry, not all that hard, but not that easy, Obviously a 16" dob would be much more complicated, and I'm not even sure it can be moved by 1 person, as for the 11" SCT, I'm not really sure, it's a bigger aperture, but much smaller generally, so it would make sense that it will be easier to carry around.

I believe that when the time comes, I would probably just search for a second hand dob/SCT and just go with it(it's not easy to find a second hand one where I live).

Would love to hear your thoughts  

Ok so I changed whatever was needed in the RA motors, aligned the mount roughly to north in my room, started 3 star alignment only roughly using stellarium, I'm pretty sure it was spot on! Of course, it's only roughly in my room, but it looked so correct according to stellarium.

I really think that was the issue! I'm so going to try it out tomorrow night.

So hopeful that it will work properly, I have my equipment for a year now, and I really almost gave up on trying to get it working...the first few months I just thought I must be doing something wrong, but then I watched so many videos, that I was so positive I'm doing everything correct, and it still didn't work and it was so frustrating.

I don't want to hail for nothing, as until it doesn't work, I can't really know that, but I'm really much more positive now and I really believe that was the issue.

Thank you so so much, and also thanks for everyone who tried to help me! It's really not obvious.

Just now, michael8554 said:

That's often like asking a car salesman to diagnose a fault on your car....... 

Only someone with intimate knowledge like Geoff would have spotted the wrong assembly, I wouldn't have. 

Michael 

Well I was actually about to go to the telescope shop on sunday, the guy there really has so much knowledge about telescopes, that I'm pretty sure that he would've been able to help me, but man if I'll actually manage to get it working on my own, I'd be so happy. (Even though a part of me wanted to go there for a small visit to see about possibly new far future telescope )

8 minutes ago, michael8554 said:

Okay, so who put that gear on back to front.? 

Looks like Geoff_L gets the cigar! 

Michael 

Well, possibly the one I bought the telescope from, even though he told me that he once had an issue and went to the telescope shop to fix it...No idea if that actually worked for him, but it would make sense that this is the issue? (I'm currently working on fixing that).

12 hours ago, Geoff_L said:

The following photos are of the DEC motor and DEC input shaft on my EQ5 Pro. As the first photo shows, the motor is fitted with two cogs, a large one and a small one. The larger of the cogs meshes with the pinion on the motor shaft and the smaller cog should mesh with the cog on the DEC input shaft (i.e. the cog shown in the second photo). It is possible to position the motor on its mounts so that the large cog on the motor meshes with the DEC input. As the large cog has approximately 1.5x the number of teeth of the smaller cog, meshing the wrong cog of the motor with the DEC input would make the DEC drive slew approx 1.5x the correct amount. HTH, Geoff

I really really really hope that's the case!!!!!!!!!!!!

It actually looks like the DEC motor is set up as should if I understood you correctly:

But the RA motors are set up like this:

Which seems like it's the error which you might have described?

Either way, one of the motors are not set up the same as the other, which would make sense to me that it's not supposed to be that way.

Can you please verify that so I can try switching that and maybe hopefully finally manage to get star alignment?????????

If that's actually the issue, man that would be so great to finally be able to experience the actual abilites of my goto.

4 hours ago, Davehux said:

I have an EQ5 and Synscan, and hav

e no issue doing a 2 star align, so at the risk of duplicating some other advice on here, here’s my 2p

1. Spend a bit of time getting your Home/Park position correct. You can do this indoors - you just need a small spirit level. I followed these instructions and got the 2axis marked up so I can always start off at the right point 

https://worcspaul.wordpress.com/2011/06/14/accurately-setting-the-“home”-or-“park”-position-on-a-skywatcher-eq5-pro-mount/

2. Download the Polar Scope Align app (it’s free) This will give you an accurate Lat/Long for your position, plus it will show you where Polaris should be, as you look through the polar scope.

3. Don’t forget the date format on the Synscan is mm/dd/yyyy

4. Make sure your mount is level before starting a polar align. Use a compass to make sure the leg marked N is pointing reasonably accurately north.

5. Make sure it’s actually Polaris you are aligning to - yes I know! Do your align at twilight when Polaris is not surrounded by neighbours, then come back later.

6. Use an app like StarMap 3D to identify your alignment stars, if your not absolutely sure. Use a medium powered eyepiece. No Barlow.

7. Choose 2 Star align and it will usually pick a really obvious first star - Arcturus at the moment. It should get close to it, but centre it using the handset, so it knows how far off it was.

8. Let it choose the second star and use StarMap to confirm it’s actually visible from your position. It will get pretty close, but will need another tweak with the hand set to centre.

9. Doing this, I’ve never had anything other than Alignment Successful come up.

Sorry if this all sounds a bit basic, but it’s normally the really obvious things that we forget to do 🙂

Hope this helps, and you get yourself sorted

 

 

 

 

Thanks, but I don't think a human error is the case here. Well, at least not an 'average' human error, as setting up the motors incorrectly is also a human error, at least not mine...

52 minutes ago, michael8554 said:

If you now suspect the gearing is wrong, the 360 degree indoor test I suggested you do ages ago will test that theory........ 

If the mount returns to the same RA reading or thereabouts, then 360 degrees of movement in the motor's and gears has translated to the correct number of encoder ticks, so the gearing is correct. 

Michael 

So it would make sense on the upper comments, when rotating the RA 360 degrees it doesn't seem to get to the same numbers, it would make sense according to the above discussion.

Really hope that this is actually the issue, thanks!

14 minutes ago, Merlin66 said:

Sorry, based on the discussions I assumed this may have been of assistance.

 

No need to sorry, more information is always great, really appreciate that

7 hours ago, Geoff_L said:

1.5x suggests to me (at least for the DEC drive) that you might have the wrong cog meshed with the cog on the DEC driveshaft. The smaller of the two cogs on the motor shaft should mesh with the cog on the DEC driveshaft. I've not had cause to strip the RA motor drive and so can't say whether the same applies to the RA drive. HTH, Geoff

I'm sorry, but can you elaborate more on that? I couldn't really understand what should I do

6 hours ago, happy-kat said:

Is it not at side real rate but set to Moon speed tracking on the handset.

Nope.

2 hours ago, Merlin66 said:

With 1/2/3 star alignment....

let’s assume your PA is as good as you can achieve.

the start position is “Home” position - scope pointing towards the pole, counterweights down.

if the slew to the first star is “off” then as per discussions above you have two options:

1. Unlock the axes and manually recentre the target star.

2. Use the handcontroller to re-Centre the target star.

what’s the difference??

#1 the mount motors have been driven (energized) for a series of pulses the number of pulses in each axis based on the gear ratio and the calculated difference (RA and Dec) between the home position and the target star. Obviously if the home position is 100% correct and the gear ratio is 100% and the calculation model is 100% the target star will be exactly in the Centre of the FOV. It’s typically assumed any error is due to an error in the Home position setting. Moving the mount manually doesn’t add/ subtract any pulses. This then infers that the pulse count used to move the scope was correct; the next move to the second alignment star with then continue to use the original internal model (ie the gear ratio/ pulses per degree). If the second star is found central to the FOV, then it would probably confirm the packing position was indeed incorrect. If there’s still an issue with the second star, manual correction should not be used.....

#2 making the first star correction using the handcontroller will add/ subtract motor pulses. This correction will then be used by the internal model to change the pulse per degree rate. The model will assume the initial Park position was 100% correct. If the second star is off Centre, using the handcontroller to correct will once again add/ subtract pulses and “ up date” the internal pulse/ degree rate......

It’s anticipated that these rate (pulses/ degree) changes will result in an improvement in subsequent GOTO accuracy.

In a real world, a combination of both methods may be used.

So much for theory.......

I have a permanent well PA aligned mount in the observatory and use EQMod to Park and Unpark the mount (so there should be no error in Park position) and I still find the first alignment star is still repeatability “off” by a degree or so, always in the same direction. Using the manual/ handcontroller correction improves the immediate GOTO, but at start-up the next session still shows the same initial error.

I honestly don’t know why........

Not being rude of anything, but it doesn't sound related to the issue I'm having right?

I mean, my issue is not really about being a little bit off position, is being completely off position looking at the ground

On 20/06/2019 at 09:49, Geoff_L said:

FWIW, I'm not convinced about a 'wall charger' rather than a proper power supply. A 12v battery connected to both the mount and a charger should be OK. That said, you now have me wondering whether the AGM battery is good -- they wear out eventually. Do you have another 12v power source to try? Have you tried alignment with the mount unloaded (i.e. without any equipment on the mount except, perhaps, something to use for sighting [such as a rule or other straight edge]). With that, you should be able to sight along the straight edge accurately enough to check whether the alignment is way off with the mount as lightly stressed as possible and hence determine whether load/balance is a factor.

As I wrote, I can't find the info I used but the thread I created when I had my issues is at https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/286642-sw-eq5-pro-synscan-dec-motor-which-cog/ You could also try searching for "EQ5 Pro Synscan tuning"

HTH, Geoff

So I went out recently with someone who has fairly wide experience with telescopes etc(around 20 years). We tried getting it to work but we still didn't manage.

Up until now I thought I might be doing something wrong, but it seems like possibly there's really an issue.

We tried using his power supply, and also tried using his synscan controller even though I'm not really sure that's supposed to work(he has HEQ5), we also connected it to the PC and tried adjusting the gear ratios from here: http://eq-mod.sourceforge.net/prerequisites.html

That still didn't work though, it seems like it slews too much for a reason, about 1.5x what it should really slew.

So after this, I believe I'll go next week to the telescopes shop with my mount and ask them for help

I've searched a bit for what you said about the tuning, but not exactly sure that's the case, I've seen the following video for example:

It would make sense to me that motors tuning should help with fairly small error corrections, but if my scope slews 1.5x I believe that shouldn't be the case?

Might be wrong tho, I'll try watching it later on when I have some time.

So after eliminating any user errors, any more ideas I can try meanwhile before I go to the telescopes shop?

Thanks again to all!

7 hours ago, JOC said:

When I have the issue with my motors I find it is predominately the vertical up down movement that is affect.  Horizontal it usually gets correct amd often I find the star in question by just swinging the tube through the vertical axis by hand.   Downwards is usually OK too, providing it doesn't get too carried away.  It's upwards that I tend to have most issues with, therefore I do believe it is possible to go from position North level around and up and get it wrong because upwards movement has not been succesful, but still be able to return to point zero esp. If requires a downwards movement.  Are you able tell if if it gets one or both axis positions wrong?  If it is motor issue I sometimes find things can be assisted to get started by a light push in the correct direction.  It's a rooky error, but I have also ended up with the telescope pointed at the ground when I have incorrectly picked targets that aren't current 'up'. 

Another point could be software you are using to identify stars that should be there.   I use Stellarium and that is somewhat prone to forgetting where it is, what date it is and what time it is locally and thus I have often picked things to view on the stellarium screen that just aren't there!  And have got them muddled up with just what IS in the sky

I'm actually not really sure I understood what you said, what is the cause for what you described?

Also, yes I am using stellarium, but also using another app to verify, I can fairly easily detect when it doesn't really point to the correct star.

6 hours ago, Moonshed said:

Seems very odd. Usually when having serious problems achieving star alignment it’s either down to wrong location data or using the wrong time or not allowing for summer/winter time changes. A friend of mine just starting spent ages trying to solve the problem before realising he had entered the Lat and Long data incorrectly, even starting off mixing up being east or west of the Greenwich meridian. You though appear certain you have done everything right. How do you do your polar alignment? You mention that after you have done it you set up the weights and tube. This seems to me to be an odd way of doing it, why not completely set up the whole lot, scope and weights and everything else you will be using, and then do your polar alignment? That way you will not run the risk of moving the mount away from polar alignment when you add the rest of the gear. Also try using the handset for all the stars, including the first, I have never released the clutches and moved the tube manually for the first star, seems a waste of time as it will not know where it is aimed at after starting from the parked/home position and makes that first star alignment rather pointless. After doing my PA, I use a Polemaster for photographic accuracy, I only use two star alignment as with my system that allows me to name the two stars I wish to use so I can select a good spread across the sky and both away from Polaris for better accuracy. I find that with both stars the mount will move close enough so that the star will definitely be visible in the eyepiece but will need a little adjustment using the handset to get it precisely centered. 

Anyway, keep trying and check everything, I am sure you will sort it out eventually and find it was something easy to fix. Good luck.

Well I remember seeing a tutorial about polar alignment, and that it's recommended to do it before putting the tube etc. But last time I went out I actually did it after setting the tube, so don't think it was related.

When I do polar align is I move the mount until I see polaris in the polar scope(of course I make sure that the polar scope is aligned correctly to the date and time), then I level the mount and start my polar alignment using the lat and long screws until it's on the target.

I'll keep trying. I'm extremely positive that it's probably an easy fix, as I learned everything by myself through youtube tutorials, even though I am pretty confident about most things I'm doing, but there must be something I'm missing, I'm just not sure what

13 hours ago, michael8554 said:

1.   It would be useful to know where the scope is pointing to after the first slew to Antares. 

If you go to the home position and set the Dec and RA setting circles to zero,you can then report where the mount is pointing to after the slew. 

For instance, it slewed 80 degrees down in Dec, and 8 hours anticlockwise in RA (viewed from the north end of the mount). 

This will give a real measure of the error, "30 to 40cms" is meaningless. 

2.   The alignment seems correct after correcting the initial error in slewing to Antares. 

But after you switch off and repeat, the error is back again. 

Did you have to set date and time again.? 

Then despite your protestations, you are setting location, date, or time incorrectly. 

Michael 

 

Setting the wrong information in the synscan is something I'll probably never do, I'm following on the information with the synscan app writing it exactly as it is(up to the exact same second in the date).

I'll need to try that, but I'm not really sure when I'll have enough time for that.

13 hours ago, JOC said:

Well in some cases they are socking great big lumps of glass and metal and weight of larger ones can 'considerable'!  Stick that some distance from a fulcrum and its influence on tube balance can be significant esp. if your 'sticktion' quotient is not huge.  In addition folks can add all sorts of other bits to tube ends like dew protectors which add to balance issues.  I don't have the same type of scope as you and maybe your motors are better than mine, but I DO notice balance issues and motor drive issues when I load mine too much at one end and then ask it to drive.  Balance can be such an issue that I have seen reports on SGL of folks adding magnetic weights to Dob tube ends to maintain the balance.  Now when I callibrate I only do it with scope in its 'naked' as shipped state with really light EP in place, often the one it was shipped with.

I also agree with comment above, check the Synscan settings, they don't automatically update and you do need to reset them each time/day you switch it on.

Well even though the 200p is considered fairly heavy for the EQ5, I'm not really using any other fancy equipment, and the eyepieces are really only a few grams.

My telescope wasn't balanced at all though. The thing is, if my set up is not balanced for example, if I'm currently aiming at a correct location and the synscan knows it, then when I slew to something else the position is off, but when I slew it back to the same first position it is on the correct position, if it was due to the balance, it would make sense that it wouldn't have been slewing back to that same first position, but it does. That what my logic tells me, what do you think?

11 hours ago, Erling G-P said:

If there's doubt whether lack of balance combined with potential heavy eyepicece might affect the alignment, then why not just balance the scope with the eyepiece used, before doing the alignment ?

Have you asked the seller about this problem ? Maybe it's something he (she?) has encountered and perhaps knows the explanation for.

Well usually when I'm out I do make sure everything is balanced of course, I've asked but he said that it worked well for him.

10 hours ago, Geoff_L said:

That said, something's awry if you notice a significant voltage drop when using a 75Ah AGM battery to power the mount. Even on full speed, the current draw should be minimal. FWIW, I have an EQ5 Pro mount carrying a Skywatcher Explorer 150PDS with a piggy-backed Orion ST80 complete with a DSLR imaging camera and Bresser eyepiece camera that I power with a 17Ah car jump-start pack that also provides power for my laptop and a powered USB hub without issue. I suspect that your mount is greatly unbalanced, something mechanical is binding or you have one or more electrical issues (e.g. bad connection, defective connection cable, etc.)

Have you checked the mount balance (both in RA and DEC)? Does the mount rotate freely when unclutched?

Is the error repeatable (i.e. does the mount always slew to the same, erroneous position when you slew to the first alignment star)? The cable between the control box (the one that clips to the mount, not the handset) and the RA unit and the one between the RA and DEC units are interchangeable. So, if the error is repeatable, try swapping the cables (with the power disconnected) to see if the mount slews to the same position when you slew to the first alignment star. If the mount still slews to the same (repeatable) position, the issue is probably not with the cables. However, if the position changes to a new, repeatable one, you probably have a defective cable.

FWIW, when I got my EQ5 new, the DEC drive unit wasn't correctly aligned with the corresponding input shaft on the mount and skipped the occasional gear tooth. I had to adjust the position of the DEC unit to get the mount to slew accurately. I can't find the guide I used to help sort my mount out, but there the information is out there if you search. HTH, Geoff

I've talked with many people who have quite a lot of knowledge about electricity, and they all said that it would make sense as AGM battery voltage is fairly low generally, and since slewing with full speed on 2 motors when the battery is not full cause slight voltage drop, it sometimes reached the point where one motor stopped.

It didn't happen much, but when you have everything set up and one motor stops for a split second, the whole alignment screws up, so I just got this to make sure it never happens.

Anyhow, as I said before, I also used a wall charger, which I don't think should be related in any way.

When I was out I checked that everything is balanced, when made the test in my room the telescope wasn't balanced.

I will try what you said with changing the cables, and also about the DEC drive unit, what can I search in google to be more specific?

Thanks

7 hours ago, JOC said:

Given your location, i.e.considerably South of many of us I wonder where your scope was shipped from.  Is there any difference in the Synscan software when they are programmed with the intent to view Southern hemisphere objects.  Could it be something like using a scope set up for and shipped from  the southern hemisphere in the Northern hemisphere.  It sounds in places like it is 180 degrees out.  I have seen almost the same issue when I've done something daft with the lat/long setup maybe misding leading zeros or forgetting minus signs or E/W designations.  OK he S. Hemisphere idea is only me thinking outside the box, I have no idea how these things work in reality, but someone on SGL will know.

Regarding the weight issue.  OK I know I have a complerely different system, but the difference in weight of just one  large EP is sufficient to pull my tube completely down to the ground, not just be a few cm out.   I wonder if your setup has sufficient 'sticktion' in the system or if something is slipping that shouldn't be.

As far as I know it's a telescope+mount that has been bought in from the country I live, and I don't really think it should matter since you can change it to either E/N/S/W I guess, but maybe..

As for the eyepiece, that would be shocking for me really, how can a weight of a different eyepiece do that? 

14 minutes ago, Cornelius Varley said:

What is the specification of the convertor ? Have you tried using the battery direct at the standard voltage ?

I had an issue with the voltage dropping when slewing on full speed 2 motors, and I've also seen many others which it happened to them, so I did this.

But it also happens when using wall plug, so I really don't think that's related.

11 hours ago, happy-kat said:

What are you using to power your mount?

I have a fairly new(less than a year) 75 AH AGM deep cycle battery, I'm also using a step up converter to have the voltage remain steady on 13V, I don't think that's the issue

7 hours ago, Cornelius Varley said:

Start from the home position and allow the mount to slew automatically to where it believes the first star is and then release the clutches, if necessary, to get the telescope closer to the star.

Does the mount have a metal disc on the side ? Does it say EQ5 or EQ5 Pro ? Did the previous owner have problems with the mount ?

So I just tried something now, let me know what do you guys think, I did it in my room.

I've set the mount approximately to the CNP, and setting my mount to home position, I've tured on the synscan and set up all the details as should, then began the 1-star alignment.

I've let it slew to Antares and then when it finished(completely off staring at the ground), I've manually set it approximately on Antares and then finished the alignment. I've then set it to jupiter and it looks like it went correctly to jupiter, then set it back to Antares and it also seemed to work properly.

The next think I've tried is setting it back to the home position, but here it actually wen't completely off. I've manually set it to the home position and turned off the mount.

Then I turned it on again and tried again 1-star alignment to Antares, once again it went completely off.

A few things to note:

I did it in my room, it was not suppose to be very accurate, but I was able to approximately see where it behaves as expected and when it doesn't.

The mount was not balaced, but from what I understand, telescope balance shouldn't cause such differences(talking about differences of 30-40 cm, and not slight difference which would make sense by an unbalanced telescope).

I'm really confused by the results, if the telescope correctly knows I'm looking at Antares or jupiter, why does the home position is being so off?

Doesn't really make sense to me.

7 hours ago, JOC said:

That's a good call, there have lots of reports on SGL of people resolving problems with a better power supply.  For the auto Dob I use a massive car jump-start pack (18Amphr), but I've also got a mains adaptor just to be sure and I use that when I can.

See above reply

6 hours ago, dph1nm said:

Some simple tests: after the 'successful' 3-star align get the mount to GOTO to the same stars you have used for alignment (using the named star option in the hand-controller). Does this work? If not, just do a 1-star align and  repeat the test (i.e. GOTO the named star you have just used for the alignment). In this case mount should (hardly) move and the star should remain in the eyepiece. If it does, then randomly move the mount off to some other part of the sky (with the hand-controller buttons) and repeat. Does it go back to the alignment star?

NIgelM

Once again, I'm completely confused by the results.

I've tried to 1-star align with Antares, it seems to be working only for the same sky direction of Antares, for example, jupiter, saturn, Albali and Altair all seemed to be pretty much in the correct direction.

On the other hand for example, Arcrutus, Vega, Alioth were pretty much completely off, some were aiming almost at the ground, some were just not really in the correct direction, when I slew back to Antares, it seemed to be at the 'correct' position again.

I also tried to 3-star align with Antares, Vega and Arcrutus. But again, after the first star align with Antares(which seemed to be working with the above stars I've mentioned), I went to Arcrutus and that was really off. I've set it pretty much on the direction and then went to Vega. That was also off and I set it correctly.

After finishing the 3-star align it says that the alignment might be poor(not sure if that's because it makes sense due to the fact that it was only approximate, or something really was off), but then when I tried to get back to Antares, it was off again.

Any ideas? :[

Thanks!

7 hours ago, Mark Raishbrook said:

Yes, that's what meant. He did a polar align (dovetail aligned E/W so you can use the polar scope), then put the telescope on the mount but left it in the E/W position when using the hand controller. That wouldn't explain it being pointed down at the ground, though.

There are two other possible solutions in an SGL thread from 2009 (see below). The first only applies if you installed your own GoTo kit on a non-GoTo mount and connected the RA and Dec cables the wrong way round. The second is possibly the most likely cause: a software issue.  You may have the latest driver, but that doesn't mean the driver software is properly installed. It may not have downloaded correctly (data loss) and/or the memory section it's living in may be damaged. If a few bytes of code are corrupt or missing, the handset may appear to function properly but could get messed up when certain functions are run.

 

I don't think it can be the case for me as well, as I'm not using the home position to star align since I can simply move to the first star manually, so I wouldn't expect it to be accurate on first align.

I actually bought my mount and scope second hand, pretty sure he bought the mount with the GOTO.

As for a software issue, well that first happened to me when I got it, so then I thought about updating the firmware because of that, and it had the same result, so I'm not really sure if that's a firmware issue, but could still be a software issue somehow.

I'll try getting in touch with someone that might be able to help me with that.

7 hours ago, Pullock said:

I've also had issues with my Synscan but the Alt/Az version and I'll just describe what seems to have worked for me. I also had issues where it seemed like it would work for 10 minutes and then start slewing in the wrong direction like it had the hemisphere confused. Forgive me if any of this has been said but first thing I did was factory reset the handset. this made no difference, next step was I updated the firmware on the handset this seemed to have partially solved the issues.

There was still something a little off and as I don't have an official power supply and being reluctant to buy one, I tried a few different ones I had ensuring they were tip positive and found one which outputs 12.2V consistently. Since then, albeit only used a few times due to the weather it has been working absolutely fine. I can't see anywhere you've stated what power supply you use but forgive me if I missed it as I've experienced some very erratic behaviour with incorrect power supplies. Hopefully this may help and I hope you solve it soon!

The issue with that, is that in my case it's completely off, which is not something I belive balancing or anything similar could cause at that level.

4 minutes ago, Geoff_L said:

I wonder whether the OP has made the same error as I did. I entered the date as 'dd/mm/yyyy' rather than rather than the illogical 'mm/dd/yyyy' US format that Synscan requires. I was lucky that the mount slewed to an area that had no bright stars when I accepted its offer of Vega and so I knew something was awry. On checking with Stellarium, Vega was just below the horizon at the time. However, if had been a bright star in the EP, I'd probably have assumed that was Vega, aligned with that and possibly ended up with a situation similar to the OP.

Unfortunately that's not the case 😕

I set up everything exactly as displayed to me in the 'synscaninit' app, and also making sure that everything actually matches, my synscan is not even getting to the point of slewing near a star, so even thought it's fairly easy to detect most stars by their color, I'm not even getting a wrong star to begin with

3 hours ago, happy-kat said:

You are having problems, in the process of elimination I would do an alignment with just the 25mm.

Well I've already done that in the past, it didn't really help. I do understand that we need to try difference things, but this doesn't make much sense to me

Thanks anyway!

2 hours ago, JOC said:

Possibly, but only if you are 100% certain which star it is in the sky that you think you should be landing on - this was also a big issue of mine.  I didn't know the sky well enough to be 100% certain which named star on the electronic handset was the star in the sky.  In particular I had a real problem with Polaris - it isn't as bright as I ever expected it to be and neither is it a 100% dead straight line off of the plough.  It is, however, a double star, but it isn't as clear a double as some are, but this can help on a clear night to know you are on it.  It is also in a direction I have light pollution with and to begin with I was never 100% sure which star it was to align on.  This never helped with my alignment issues.   If the telescope hasn't slewed properly, but gets pretty close to a fairly bright star, perhaps there is a tendency to think that was the star it was aiming at and to then settle and therefore 'educate' the scope that it is on the correct location when it might not be.  So it is really important that you know without error which start the telescope is aiming for.  Taking out a mobile phone with the Stellarium app. on can help, because as you select a star on the computer you can then use Stellarium on your mobile phone to confirm where it is in the sky and therefore when you correct the telescope to the first selected location you can be quite certain you have the star correct.

Well I can say that I'm relatively familiar enough with what I'm looking for, and also using apps such as stellarium makes it pretty easy to locate what star I'm looking at.

1 hour ago, Mark Raishbrook said:

The problem/solution was this: 

You know the scope dove tail on the mount has to be at right angles to the actual mount so you can see through the polar scope to do your polar alignment . Well, on one occasion I forgot to return it to the proper position after attaching the scope and before using the hand set. I got a result similar to that which you have described.

Does that make sense?

I guess not, but what I might've understood from this is:

You have your telescope set up in the home position, then you perform polar align, and before he got it back to the home position he started using the synscan?

10 hours ago, happy-kat said:

I would do the entire alignment process with just the 25mm eyepiece.

And only IF that works introduce trailing the alignment process with fins tuning alignment on the second and third star using a 10mm eyepiece.

A barlow and/or the 3.6 is I feel asking too much.

But once again, what difference should it make?

9 hours ago, Erling G-P said:

Have you tried doing a factory reset ?

It solved a similar issue for me, when my HEQ5 would suddenly point in completely hopeless directions, no matter how many times I did the alignments.  The factory setting option is available through the setup menu.  You'll have to input your location data etc. again afterwards.

As I wrote before, yes I have

9 hours ago, Ronclarke said:

A factory reset sounds like the best course of action.. I use a 20mm EP but do have an old 12mm EP with cross hairs if I need it!

Good luck

Ron

Doesn't work unfortunately.

2 hours ago, Ledge1962 said:

Nobody nearby that can swap handsets to cancel out a faulty one?

I had similar issues with the XX14g, but it turned out to be the balance. I had is so well balanced that the slop in the gears was the issue. I made it front heavy and problem was gone.

Not really...but I can try.

2 hours ago, Nigella Bryant said:

The WiFi suggestion was mearly to see if a goto could be performed in the bedroom with you seeing it track to the alignment star on skysafari. You may have a malfunction on the handset. 

Yeah of course, it's just not something that's going to happen anytime soon

Any other suggestions? Thanks.

8 minutes ago, Phil Fargaze said:

Apart from any other problems you might be having, I was a little bit worried that you are using a 2x Barlow and  3.6mm eyepiece for alignment because the field of view would be very small. When I do alignment I normally use a 25mm eyepiece  on it`s own to give a decent field of view to allow for any discrepancies 

But should it actually make a difference? Good or bad is one thing, bad being completely off doesn't seem to be related to it isn't it?

Also, if I center an object using small eyepiece, my sense is saying that if I'll switch back to 25mm for example, it should still be dead center.

For example:

Isn't that the case?

2 minutes ago, Paul M said:

I'm baffled then! There is no indoor method of testing actual star alignment.  Once the 1st star is accepted the mount should just move the prescribed angular distances to the next object unless that object. Synscan drives the motors until the encoders arrive at the correct spot, so unless that object is in entirely the wrong place...., which makes me think of issues with your location and or time data. That was my motivation for getting the GPS mouse, remove a layer of potential errors on my part!

Well I'm really lost, as I watched many many tutorials and wrote every small step that might be relevant. I made sure that date/location/everything else is set properly, and still..it doesn't work. I'm probably making a stupid mistake, but where 😕

4 minutes ago, Paul M said:

I continue to struggle to understand how the Home Position can have any meaning on a mount that has not actually been parked there from a known position, i.e. already fully aligned when parked.

But anyway, my method seems to upset a few people and here it is  

My mount is stored away after every use and often gets disturbed so I don't use the home position.

1. plonk the mount and tripod out on the grass roughly aligned towards Polaris. Look through the polar finder. Get Polaris somewhere within the etched hour angle circle. Anywhere within does me fine. Mount the scope/counterweights and re-check that Polaris is within the finder circle, anywhere within

2. power up the mount, I have the GPS mouse which plugs into the handset and inputs time and location info automatically...Soooo lazy

3. select 3 star alignment and choose a nice easy star as first alignment star. Wait for the drives to stop.  It's rarely anywhere near the object but Synscan thinks it is so make it so! Undo the clutches and manually move the scope to get the object in the eyepiece , tighten the clutches and use the handset to center (use the handset all the way if you like, but don't undo the clutches in that case!). The mount now has a fix on the sky. 

4. select the second alignment star and the scope should now land quite near if not very close, it might just need the handset to center the object. Accept that.

5. select 3rd star. This should land virtually central in the eyepiece. Use handset to fine tune. Accept that and Synscan should (hopefully) congratulate you on successful alignment

I don't level the mount, no need with EQ mounts. I don't bother with Hour Angle, Synscan is very robust and for visual use HA is not needed. My polar alignment is exceptionally rough but Synscan is very robust and for visual use is very forgiving of Polar Alignment. 

I think I've only ever had one failed Synscan alignment and that was after trying to rotate the scope in the tube rings so I could get to the eyepiece during the process. 

Of course, you can refine the process and add whatever steps you so wish as your observing progresses. You'll be building on experience by then rather than foundering in over complexity. 

Final note; don't undo the clutches and move the scope manually once the 1st star is aligned; thereafter make all adjustments and movements via the handset.

Thanks for the detailed reply, unfortunately I'm doing all of that and more I believe.

I do perform an accurate polar alignment(spot on, or dot on in this case), I do 3 star align using 2x barlow and 3.6mm eyepiece(which from what I understand is incredibly not necessary), I also do exactly as you say, I only unclutch to the first star align and then the clutches remain locked.

The thing is after selecting the first star, the second star is way off, and so is the third star.

I really can't figure what I'm doing wrong. I've watched dozens of tutorials, read dozens of related articles, and still I can't seem to get it working.

The most annoying thing is that I actually have to go star gazing just to try that and fail. It's not like I'm not having fun with just manual(using the synscan still) gazing, but I just think I can achieve much more.

I'll ask again, does anyone have an idea how can I test my GOTO in my room?

1 minute ago, michael8554 said:

No, I don't, merely hinting you have enough suggestions already without complicating the issue with WiFi. 

Michael 

Totally agree

19 minutes ago, michael8554 said:

Not sure how adding WiFi is going to solve the alignment problem......? 

Michael 

Well, it doesn't. Do you have any ideas?

17 minutes ago, Ronclarke said:

Ok, but I will still use the handset as I have always done..😀

Nothing beats a winning recipe

I don't think that should be an issue in my case though. Any other recommendations maybe?

2 minutes ago, Nigella Bryant said:

I guess you could use a polar align app on a phone or tablet then do a star align. Using skysafari pro6 if your mount has WiFi. If you use a WiFi adapter and skysafari you can see your scope slew to your align star on your phone or tablet. Skysafari pro6 is half price till 18th June I think around £5. WiFi adapter around £20 

Since I live in Israel and I believe I don't have such accessories available, I'll need to buy online, and since I'm from Israel, the only reasonable places are aliexpress/amazon/ebay and such.

Do you think this would do the job:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/ScanFi-SynScan-WiFi-adapter-for-wireless-control-of-SkyWatcher-ORION-telescopes/112714355611?hash=item1a3e4c939b:g:jIAAAOSwd5lckky0

It's pretty much way higher than £20 😕 Is there a cheaper way of doing that? Maybe making one somehow?

1 hour ago, Cornelius Varley said:

"Parking" the mount using the menu option in the handset returns it to the home position. 

Your coordinates should be approximately 034 47E , 32 06N (Tel Aviv) , time zone +2.00

Oh, I see. Never actually heard of this option

1 hour ago, alan potts said:

Park the mount mean the scope slews to point at the Northern, in your case pole, then the normal thing is to turn off, mines parked in it now. If you do this and for whatever reason it does not point to the pole there is something very wrong. The other thing you can do is select different stars on the Align I again had a bit of an issue with this.

I'll try that, thanks.

59 minutes ago, Nigella Bryant said:

I alway's park my mount in home position when finished and unpark and then align, usually two star alignment is enough to put the object in the field of view. 

Are you properly polar aligned? 

I believe I am properly polar aligned. I've also heard that for observations accurate polar align is not as important, at least not in a way that should make it so off. Even though I'm fairly sure I am aligned well.

Does anyone have an idea on how can I try star align inside my room? I have EQ5 with SW 200p, which is not incredibly big but it does take time and efforts to disassemble and assemble. I probably won't have the chance to actuall go out soon with my telescope, so maybe trying it somehow in my room would be great.

Thanks!

1 hour ago, Cornelius Varley said:

A factory reset might clear some erroneous data in the handset or try a 1 star alignment, unlock the clutches and centre on the star, retighten the clutches accept the alignment and then park the mount. Switch off and release the clutches and return the mount to the correct home position.

What does "park the mount" means? And what actual difference should this make? I believe I tried something also identical but with no help 😕

1 hour ago, alan potts said:

Ensure the coordinates of where you are are correct, this caught me out once, they actually reversed themselves some how, I'm sure it was not me. Also check time is correct.

Unfortunately I made sure of it 200 times.