Legion Of Andromeda

sorry thats my poor terminolgy, i meant the equatorial. ....after sorting out the meshing. it started badly see pic below, but i'm currently getting 0.9 in poor seeing looking east and i havent recalibrated with the lowered the guiding rate yet because there are clouds due south now

sorry, i meant 75 degree altitude, (50 degs in dec) so the scope is nearly vertical for m51 and 101, when i calibrate its usually towards the ecliptic / meridian, ...where do i change the guide correction speed?.... i will swap the camera over.... ive tried longer exposure times to no avail However , since i made this post , i checked the belts which were both tight, but the gear meshing was loose...now waiting for some clear skies to test

I bought a second hand cem40 two months ago in very good condition, aparrently it was checked over / serviced by Altair prior to sale when i first started using it, i was getting 0.8 total RMS, which is fine for a GT81 but it has got steadily worse since then.... between 1.5 and 2 with a random erratic histogram I'm using phd2 dev3 with multistar guiding the scope , mount and tripod is very tight and stable as i can get it No cable drag, all of it is through the mount (2 CABLES) 3d balance is spot on , and the axes are very free-moving i run phd2 calibration every four sessions or so I run the Guiding assistant every time, using its suggestions and i'm using predictive pec algorithm..other algos make little or no difference framerate is anything between 1 and 3 seconds pec playback is 'off' in the mount settings ipolar is bang-on, but goes out very slightly after a slew i dont use my scope if its windy most of my imaging is at 75 degrees +++ lately (maybe thats an issue) my guidescope is WO 50 x 200 and well focused my guide camera is a ZWO mm120 my backlash seems almost non existant, ive set it up during the day and slewed back and forth on a distant object with no delay / backlash....that i can tell of what can i do myself to try / check to improve matters? my CW is towards the end of the bar, do i add another one and shift them both up? whilst i'm reducing inertia, i'm adding mass, so not sure if that helps? is the CEM40 prone to flexure / wobbles? can i improve my backlash? i'm happy to make the necessary adjustments, but lack the documents. is my guidecam / scope any good? what is odd, is that the reported backlash varies tremendously each time i run the Guiding assistant any other ideas would be greatly appreciated

righto, i recently purchased a second hand Ioptron CEM40 mount, it works fine as a standalone mount but has never used in conjunction with the ascom platform. I have experience with ascom in conjunction with ATP and more recently, NINA for connectiing my cameras, focuser and my previous Skywatcher mount However, i hit a brick wall with the cem40. i have a feeling that i need to update the firmware on the mount and the handset,,before setting up the drivers in ascom? any guidance on best practice, cables, additional drivers, pitfalls to avoid, matching software to hardware would be appreciated. The official source of help is a little inconsistant in detail and reliability, so i could do with comments from those that have been down this road and come out the other side Thanks in advance

PHD version is 2.6.9 dev3 (with multistar guiding)

Under ; Equipment ~ Guider i have PHD2 selected, the others are synchronised PHD2 (experimental), Direct Guider and Lacerta... maybe i should try the experimental option Also,; Options ~Equipment ~ Guider settings. this all looks normal to me with the correct filepath and server port being 4400

i recently migrated from APT to NINA and it's mostly fine except how it relates to phd2. The first two times i fired up NINA it launched phd2 guiding in the first instance, before i had a chance to set up anything else, the trouble with that, is that it grabbed my main camera and allocated it to guiding, not my 120mm So, I switched something off in NINA (cant remember what) which allowed me to install my main camera, focuser and mount...which means i then have to start and run phd manually afterwards, but NINA can't start and stop phd in relation to meridian flips, sequencing, slewing and probably some other stuff. So, how do i get NINA to control phd automatically? am i missing a magic button?

hi there, i have been using PHD2 and APT for nearly 2 years now . i currently have a WO GT81 / ZWO OSC scope on a Skywatcher EQ5 goto mount with a 50mm WO guidescope / ZWO 120mm camera..... All running and guiding very well for a long time with a surprisingly flat histogram for a cheap gear-driven mount via ASCOM on my win10 laptop. However, i recently set up the same softwares and the same PHD2 settings on my PC from inside the house and connected to my rig hub via an active USB cable with no major issues...for a few sessions until last night.... The guiding was very jagged...not drifting off completely, just all over the place.. i restarted EVERYTHING, many times. polar alignment, star alignment, goto was spot-on! plate solving was working etc. So i am going to share my settings to get some feed back to check for any major over-sights or suggestion for improvements. BTW one thing i do remember is that my main scope and guide scope are close but not totally in-line...how important is this?... also, could a flakey serial to usb cable between the handset and the hub affect the commands?.. sorry about no screen shots from the session.

Prior to installing the Arduino, i took a couple of single, unstacked test shots last night using my old D7000 with a 50mm lens, one at 2 mins , the other at 3 mins. Now i have rewired it for the Arduino i can house the electronics in a far smaller box and after that i need to figure out some kind of alt sub-base rather than tilting the top part of my mount

how does this and the sketch you provided earlier apply to my aforementioned setup?. I assumed you had a nema17 hooked up to a Tb6600 (optimised for current and resolution) and an UNO?, plus, your sketch makes no mention of pul, dir and ena which is why i haven't touched it yet. I now have it all running perfectly and quietly in a smaller box than before on a very basic code.

thats an interesting approach to overcoming the tangent error of a straight rod, as long as your coding reflects the maths involved with a rod moving at an increased rate of accelleration to keep the door rotating at a constant rate. The easy driver is nice and compact but i prefer the TB6600 for quick and sturdy connections... adding a reverse switch would be handy for me

ok, I disassembled the old circuit with the variable / manual pulse controller and reassembled with my UNO connected to dir/2 and pul/3 pins and their grounds of course, but no ena? as per most of the sketches and the simplest one not only moved in the right direction but i easily changed the delays from 1000 to 1180 to get the rpm needed for round stars, in this case 0.97 rpm. Apart form your sketch bearing no resemblance to the others, and assuming 13 is pul, i couldn't see any reference to a dir pin. The tb6600 microstep driver has ena, dir and pul

This current post is very different and more specific to my needs and my way of doing research is to collate various sources, including your own, which will all differ in terms of schematics, level of detail, alternative hardware, external links etc ..from which i will form an informed plan with confidence. Most of which has so far referred to the UNO with sketches varying in functionality ...whereas you did say your sketch was intended for the NANO which is probably not an issue, but the concept of using millis is certainly worth investigation.... I have the UNO and 6 sketches including your own but i'm still waiting for the connectors.... early days...the only thing i have done so far is to play with the pin13 LED...I'l let you know how i get on though.

Ok, i have a fairly accurate stepper motor driven barn door tracker. consisting of a NEMA17 stepper motor, a tb6600 driver and a variable pulse generator. I wish to replace the pulse generator with an Arduino uno but i need some guidance and pointers to a schematic and a sketch that works for this setup and only needing to change the speed in the code . the previous post for the finished project here.. thanks in advance

i completely disassembled, gave it a lick of paint and reassembled today