Mike M

On 05/10/2022 at 04:28, newbie alert said:

I've got a cem 60 which has been awesome..assumed the 70 to be the same if not better...

When I got mine the 70 had just been released but couldn't see where the extra £600 was for 10lb extra payload and in black...

Yeah I had ordered the CEM60 as well as I had heard such good things about it.  Unfortunately the CEM70 had replaced it right when I ordered so had to get it (what a mistake that turned out to be!) 

It's been a few weeks now since I got the P75 and it's been going really well - took a little bit to get my head around the onstep software but got it mostly nutted out now.  Never was able to get details like this with the old CEM70 thanks to the oscillations or jitters https://www.astrobin.com/g5yeuc/

Cheers, Mike

3 hours ago, newbie alert said:

But your cem70 was easily capable of that.. 

 

my CEM70 was a piece of crap.  It was constantly having hardware issues - bearing play, worm issues, dec/ra board issues.  When it worked it was great.  When it didn't work which was more often than not, it was extremely frustrating.  Not to mention how buggy the iOptron commander was, it would constantly crash.  The last time I had the mount repaired I sold it and used the money to pay for the Trident  Go onto the CN forums about the "CEM70 has arrived".. 95 pages there and most of it is bad experiences

Cheers, Mike

12 hours ago, newbie alert said:

You're not guiding for planetary imaging are you Mike?

Really no need as stars move differently to planets ( planets are in the equatorial plane) hence why you have sidereal, lunar, solar tracking rates

I was guiding on one of Jupiters moons for a test with PhD to make sure everything was all happy I haven't polar aligned or even done a 1/2/3 star alignment at all - there is no starmap set on my mount at the moment.  

Bit of a story behind my mount - UPS absolutely TRASHED my mount for delivery to Australia, palleted box fell apart, counterweights fell out, mount got molested.. and after all that, it's running and tracking perfectly.  This thing literally fell off the back of a truck and took it in its stride! Mark is getting a replacement mount to me via the Australian distributor Sidereal Trading in a few weeks.  The 2nd counterweight doesn't even go onto the shaft properly because the hole for the counterweight shaft has been squished, that's how hard it fell! So yeah no deep space astro for me till my replacement due to not enough weights - can't use my heavy ZWO ASI2600MC

Cheers, Mike

The only gotyas that I have found with the mount is getting used to the Onstep software.  Here in Australia, our longitude is East - so when you have to put that into the Onstep config for your lat/lon, you have to put it in as -148.  Same with the local timezon - instead of +10, you put in -10.  Apart from that it's solid.  Tracking is very nice - I had 0.63" in PhD2 last night and one guy has even managed 0.39" at 2000mm! crazy.. 

Cheers, Mike

Yep, it may have been a bit of a rocky start for JTW, however Mark has redeemed himself and has been listening to feedback of his customers.  I cannot fault his service now for JTW - hats off for producing such a solid mount! 

Here's some more planetary from last night at F20 with my 12" Skywatcher Quattro

Jupiter: https://www.astrobin.com/mnn9ek/
Saturn: https://www.astrobin.com/h44fee/

Cheers, Mike

Well my mount arrived and I've finally got my head around the Onstep software, the mount is an absolute beast!! did a bit of planetary last night and it is rock solid tracking at 6 metres of focal length for Jupiter.  My first bit of astro in over a year https://www.astrobin.com/7wtngz/

On 27/07/2022 at 07:18, newbie alert said:

Are you confident on that Mike?

Note the date on the first thread..

Yeah the first reviews are starting to appear now.  Peter from Roboscopes has just posted a review and it looks pretty promising so far:

Day 1 initial tests:
https://groups.io/g/jtw-astronomy-users/message/67

Day 2 further tweaking
https://groups.io/g/jtw-astronomy-users/message/72

Cheers, Mike

People are starting to receive their Trident P75 mounts now as production ramps up - mine will be shipping by mid next month.

Cheers, Mike

On 17/03/2021 at 02:44, newbie alert said:

As far as I know the first one was delivered about 2-3 weeks ago, and judging on the silence I wouldn't expect there's anymore out there..

I wouldn't entertain it personally... friend is still awaiting on his, and several other paid in full customers ..

Are you telling me your friend has been waiting since 2019 for his mount?! I made full payment back in September last year for a mount (I'm in Australia) - seeing these replies is not filling me with much hope

Cheers, Mike

Hi all, finally finished the image - here's the results of the upgrade, everything looks good and the mount is behaving perfectly.  Can't complain with how it's all looking now  - https://www.astrobin.com/full/2ttqs5/0/?real=&mod=

Here's a preview so far of my current target, this is 58x300s luminance at gain 0, -10c.. we had a decent breeze last night and the mount performed perfectly! 100% crop with no darks or flats at all, just a quick stretch with curves and levels.  

So I had still been fighting with the mount since the upgrade so tonight pulled it apart again and found that 14 of the 16 screws that secure the 4 tension Springs were completely loose. I didn't even think to check them from the factory and there was nothing in the instructions about checking them.. here's a pic showing one spring undone about 3 threads. Guiding now is great and the Ra is Rock solid.

Cheers, Mike

6 hours ago, mbalkham said:

You've got to change your scale to 4" or even 2"! Looks super smooth though. I think the weight on mine is pushing me to look at a mount upgrade. Better start saving the $$$!

Yeah I think because my F5 is so long and heavy, it's still floating the worm spring a bit even with the zero backlash worm mod.. I'm definitely not meant to be carrying a 10" that's for sure.  I'll make it slightly east heavy tonight and try 2-4 seconds again - with it 2-4 seconds before the guide star was leaving trails sometimes still.  With 1 second it was counteracting the oscillations. 1.9 Arcseconds of seeing tonight should help too compared to 4 last night. 

Cheers

1 hour ago, mbalkham said:

On your tilt question someone told me about the CCD inspector function in ASTAP. It looks at FWHM values across the frame and gives a value for tilt (and it plate solves really quickly). Might help you out. Plus it's free!

Yeah I purchased CCD Inspector a few years back but only used it a handful of times.  What happened recently for my tilt though is I didn't have the brass compression ring in my moonlite focuser, so put it in and looks like my MPCC MKIII Coma Corrector doesn't sit squarely in the tube now. The MPCC's are renowned for not sitting nicely in the focuser tube. 

Cheers, Mike

1 hour ago, mbalkham said:

Nice work Mike. I'll have another play with mine at some point. I tried last night but we had fog/low cloud so I gave up after a few hours. Feels like it should be better. What was your guiding looking like?

Thanks mate! I was only getting a total of around 1" total because seeing was a whopping 4 arc seconds! Crazy.. tonight should be a lot better though. Here's my graph, I think I need to tweak phd's settings still because it's still oscillating a bit. I gotta remember too that I'm carrying a 1250mm scope which is still way too heavy for the neq6 Pro.

Cheers, Mike

Hi all here's an update - this is a 5 min luminance sub at 0 gain showing perfect circles. The only thing I have to fix now is sensor tilt, but looking good!

Cheers, Mike

16 hours ago, bottletopburly said:

Take @1parsec aka mr Rowan astronomy , advice  email him with your problem I’m sure he will be able to help and advise accordingly.

I ended up re adjusting the grub screws again, it seems a bit better now and not as easy to push with my finger so will give it another run tonight. I think I just gotta keep adjusting it until I get it 

Cheers, Mike

Got the first clear night in 2 weeks and just went to try it out - got a 4km/hr breeze and I'm not impressed, it's moving all over the place by around 10 pixels every time the breeze happens.  I could easily image with up to a 15km/hr breeze before hand, is there some more adjustments I need to do? I can't even take a 5s autofocus frame without it smearing the stars.  When there's no breeze at all it's perfect. My scope is in an observatory and only the top is sticking out as it's near the Meridian my target.  

Cheers, Mike

23 hours ago, mbalkham said:

I've had another go with it since the re-adjustment but didnt see much improvement (around 0.9"RMS). Polar Alignment was a little off and afterwards I found that I didnt tighten the counterweight arm locking nut (oops!). Hoping to get down towards 0.5-0.6"RMS with a little tinkering, good PA, balance and seeing! Rubbish weather for the foreseable so not much chance to try again.

Still waiting for this upgrade https://www.teleskop-express.de/shop/product_info.php/language/en/info/p3025_Counter-weight-bar-for-EQ6--chrome-plated--with-5-kgs-counter-weight.html to arrive (at least 4 weks away). That will stop me from leaving the locking nut undone!

Oh nice! something I might have to look at - the biggest issue I find with my counterweight bar is that because I use 4x5kg weights, the 4 grub screws are literally gouging out the soft aluminium from the weight and I am constantly doing them back up every few weeks.. We're finally due for clear skies Monday next week so will be able to get some imaging in then - I think tax time I might look at getting that counterweight bar if you have good success with it.

Cheers, Mike

Hi all, has anyone had any clear skies to use their modded mount yet? If so how have you found it?

Cheers, Mike

19 hours ago, 1parsec said:

Hello All,

The movement in the video is completely normal and as expected.  That's the springs allowing the worm to move in and out of mesh.
However the adjustment screws should be adjusted to make this movement much less.
The amount of spring movement needed should be just enough to accommodate the eccentricity of the wheel gear.
The eccentricity of the wheel gear is usually no more then 0.2mm . So the adjustment screws (labelled B, last page in the instructions) should limit the direction of movement shown in the video to this sort of range. 
If any one needs further help or advice setting the ZB assembly, drop me an e-mail. E-mail address on our website.

Yeah when I did a complete 360 slew on the RA I could not see a single bit of movement with the worm block.  I have the 2 adjustment screws set to half a turn and when I gently rock it back and forth it comes back to its home position perfectly.  

Cheers, Mike

I just finished adjusting mine and everything is looking perfect.  It definitely sounds a bit quieter than before as well.  All new super lube on the gears, balanced perfectly and the DEC has next to no backlash.  Now all I need is some clear weather! I don't think we'll be getting anything anytime soon though.  

Here's a vid I uploaded to my page of it in operation - https://www.facebook.com/mackaystorms/videos/700962433812505/

Cheers, Mike

Here's my setup.

Cheers, Mike

11 minutes ago, mbalkham said:

I'm using a ZWO 290MM Mini on and Orion ST80 (400mm fl). I've played with a range of guide exposure lenghts from 1-5s but it doesnt seem to make much difference.

Imaging at 1250mm on and Orion Optics UK CT10 (10" f5) and with ASI071MC Pro. Resolution of 0.824"/pix so hoping to guide at less than that (half ideally right?).

Pic before latest mount mod and with old guidecam.

Ok cool, yeah I went away from the short tube because I was getting horrible differential flexure, even with the Losmandy Dovetail and rings.  Temp drops where I'm at (-21s latitude in the Tropics) during winter can start out at 17c and quickly drop to single digits.  Your setup is almost the same as mine with the 10" F5 @ 1250mm except I'm GSO.  My image scale is a bit higher at 0.63" with the ASI1600MM Pro so some nights I have horrible stars if seeing is bad.  I'd be looking at the ZWO thin OAG as you'll be saving weight plus not have to worry about differential flexure.

Cheers, Mike

This was last week's guiding in a seeing of 3