Craig a

This is going to be a simple fix it usually is, without setting my gear up and running through the steps your doing I’m just guessing 😂

5 minutes ago, Likwid said:

If I frame, and reload the image so it is centered in the framing screen and then hit slew and center, it will "successfully" plate solve. When I look at the image it took to plate solve, my target is half off the frame. For example, last night I wanted to do a 2 frame mosaic of NGC 6960 and NGC 6992. I had it perfectly framed and angled in the framing screen, but in the plate solving image, NGC 6992 was in the top right of the screen, and only half of it was showing. I verified the coordinates in the bottom left were changing with me moving the window around as well.

Do you use eq mod? Do the dates, times, lat and longitude you are at match in both programs if they don’t that could cause an issue too

again just throwing some suggestions out there 

I use one on my 10 inch Newtonian and seems to ok but even at low brightness it’s still too bright so I put sheets of a3 paper on it  to dim it down some more 

2 minutes ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

TBH that was my first thoughts, especially as NINA wil first slew to where it thinks the target should be and then enable tracking (not sure if it enables guiding or not) but even tracking alone should not show any trailing with 10 seconds unless PA was way off.

Steve

That could be part of the issue I.e polar alignment unless the mount isnt tracking for some reason 

Could be slight star trailing throwing it off with 10 sec subs but that’s just a guess 

Don’t think it really matters about optical quality of glass for a mirror as the optical part is the shiny aluminium, what does matter for a mirror is it’s thermal quality and how smooth they grind the glass out for the Ali coating 

I managed to to source some stainless springs, 2mm wire thickness and hopefully the correct diameter and length 😃

From what I understand is Pyrex has less chance or distorting with changes in temperature and is less dense than bk7 so bk7 holds heat for longer meaning a longer cool down when taken outside 

Collimation springs on skywatcher Newtonians are known to be not of the best quality and as a result don’t hold collimation well, I know this to be true as my own said scope doesn’t hold Collimation well, i collimated mine last week and even though I’ve not used it since collimation has changed when I looked yesterday, it’s not the first time it’s happened either. Quite a few people have upgraded their springs to stiffer ones but added 3 extra passive springs on the locking screws aswell and reports are much better of the holding collimation, I think this will be something more true with a bigger heavier mirror like I have.

I’m thinking of upgrading the collimation springs on my 10 inch skywatcher Quattro but have no idea what springs I need to do the job, can anyone point me I the right direction please I’d appreciate it very much 

Absolutely superb Peter deep is an understatement 

That deep feild SMACS 0723 is simply unbelievable, wonder how much it would cost to coat my 10 inch mirror in 24ct gold 😂

Hey it is possible to have tradesman hands and not have wrecked skin, I’m a builder but wear thin gloves,cement and plaster destroys my skin, finger meathod all the way, finger tips are very sensitive so you want to feel for dirt, Carnt do that with cotton wool 

I’ve always used the finger method with 1 drop of dish soap, always comes up sparkling 

That’s a relief, was starting to wonder if I would have to record a pec curve each imaging run, the next clear night I’m going to have a go at recording one, does the curve automatically get saved and loaded each time I fire up eqmod? 

Hi Michael, after  doing some digging online the neq6 Carnt have a permanent periodic error correction installed into its motors but can have a pec curve recorded and saved in eq mod but the mount must be parked or it gets lost, now does this mean after it’s parked and powered down I Carnt disengage the cluches for whatever reason?  

That’s A decent image, maybe abit too heavy for the heq5 but it looks like it coped with it, one thing I would do though is change that green vixen bar for a losmandy plate, I too own the Quattro 250 but the carbon fibre version, not sure why skywatcher don’t supply a bigger newt with a losmandy bar a vixen just doesn’t cut it in my opinion. Also I fitted an extra tube ring next to the focuser, that does two things, abit of extra weight top end meaning you can slide the tube down the two main rings spreading the weight more equally instead of having almost half the tube unsupported and it helps stiffen the tube around the focuser reducing any flex from the weight of the camera, f4 is very unforgiving to any flex in the system, I’m not criticising you in any way just giving you some pointers to help improve the scope and get it performing something close to spec, another tip if you can is go down the OAG route for guiding a big Newtonian really shouldn’t use a separate guidescope there’s too much flex in that too, I battled funny stars for ages but phd saying all was good, changed to OAG and it was fixed, too much differential flexure between the guidescope and main scope was the cause 

Im Thinking of doing a permanent periodic error correction on my neq6 in eqmod so can this be done in daytime ie capturing the worm cycles then applying them to the motors? Also when the ppec is applied to the mount can I still loosen the clutches for balancing or other work or will I then loose the ppec? 
I’ve also read that that it needs to be done when the scope is being guided? 

9 hours ago, pipnina said:

It is a guidescope so I suppose there is the potential for flexture.

I am using this scope https://www.firstlightoptics.com/finders/astro-essentials-50mm-guidescope-finderscope.html  In the default shoe of the main scope. It seems to work fine on some occasions and not so on others however. I've tried to get it affixed as tightly as is reasonable. On my last iris nebula attempt I was averaging a 0.35 second RMS, last night i was averaging about 0.8 on the same target.

The difference in rms could be different seeing conditions between the two nights but I’m a firm believer that an OAG is a must for a Newtonian, I ditched the guidescope a while ago on my 10 inch f4 and went for the zwo OAG, I’ve never looked back, more of a pain to setup but once it’s done no more flexure to worry about 

One of the best wide shots I’ve ever seen taken from the uk, absolutely stonking image 

Thanks for your reply’s, that’s exactly what I was wanting to do and know if it would work before I went and purchased a longer eq dir cable to reach from the mount to the 533 usb hub, that’s put my mind at ease and will go ahead and order one, along with a good quality 3m usb3 cable for the cam to laptop connection thanks all much appreciated 

Thanks for your reply but I don’t use a filter wheel that was just an example that the on camera hub does take commands to control a filter wheel if I did have one, all I would be connecting is the guide cam and eq dir cable    

I’ve messaged flo with the same question and await their reply 

34 minutes ago, PeterCPC said:

OK. Try it then and see if it works.

That’s the thing I Carnt try it as the eq dir cable I have is too short and I would need a longer one, the scope is permanently setup outside and I don’t want to disassemble the cable management now if it wouldn’t work 

Ok, the usb hub on the scope has the usb3 from the main cam plugged into it and the eq dir plugged into it then that hub is connected to the laptop