Jezphil

Hi Andrew. The problem seemed to be there intermittently before the clock change so maybe not, but I am looking into it as it suddenly stopped altogether after the clock change.

Hi. That was the exact issue I was having in the lead up to this and is possibly connected in some way. SGP plate-solved after the slew, but then wouldn't centre. Each time it plate solved for centring it failed to move and the error remained more or less constant.

I would be massively grateful if anyone could help me with this. I’ve read through forums but can’t find anything that helps… I have been using EQASCOM with SGP and an HEQ5 mount for a few months now and all as been working fine. With no changes to any settings, I am suddenly getting an error message after a plate solve: ‘error: could not sync to telescope’. This began with the telescope plate solving and syncing in the park position, then slewing to its target, then plate solving but not centring properly, with the error figure barely changing on each solve for centring. Now it won’t even do the initial solve and sync, giving me the message: ‘could not sync the telescope'. Strangely if I change ‘sync behaviour’ to ‘none’ (a setting I never normally use) the telescope will solve and sync in the park position telling me ‘successfully solved the current frame’ and ‘the telescope has been synchronised’. But then when it slews off in the wrong direction, even the complete opposite. With the setting at ’sync’ it won’t even give me the solve and sync in park position. Not sure whether that sheds light on a possible solution, but I'm just mentioning it in case! The nudge function on the control panel does more the scope, so there does appear to be a connection between SGP and the scope. The telescope is connected successfully in ‘connect equipment’ in SGP. Port settings are correct - EQMOD is detecting the correct port and this is shown in EQMOD’’s Toolbox>driver settings and also in Windows Device Manager as the same port. When I pull up EQASCOM TOOLBOX, ‘setup’ has a button reading ‘ASCOM connect’. I have tried clicking on this so it reads ‘ASCOM disconnect’ but it makes no difference. I have never clicked on this before when the system has been working fine. Thank you in advance for any suggestions!

Ah! That's it! The exact same shape at the wider apertures. Thank you for this. Thanks also to Vlaiv for cracking this one - I will stop down. Much appreciated.

I've been taking wide field views of The Milky Way with a Canon EOS Ra camera and two lenses (Canon 15-35 and 24-105) set at anything from 15mm to around 30mm. I'm using a SkyWatcher Star Adventurer, carefully polar aligned, for tracking at anything from 45" to 2' exposure. The aperture is usually quite wide, up to f/2.8. ISO between 400 and 800. Whatever variations I have been using, I am getting strange artefacts on the outer, larger stars. I've blown some up in the image here. What's causing this? It's driving me crazy. Whatever the settings, I can't seem to get rid of them. Artefacts.tif

Thank you Michael - that looks like it is the issue. Much appreciated.

I have set up EQMOD with Sequence Generator Pro and an HEQ5 mount. Up until now, in the PHD2 settings, under ‘connect equipment’ I have always entered ‘on camera’ and this has worked fine. Now, have switched to EQMOD ASCOM and SGP I have changed that entry to ‘EQMOD HEQ5/6 (ASCOM)’ and this worked fine and connected. I then calibrated PHD2 and did this with a star just above the celestial horizon. For calibration I’ve always used a calibration step of (ms) 2000 with this telescope/camera and it has worked fine giving me about 15 steps. This time, after making the above switch to EQMOD/ASCOM, the steps were way too small - it went beyond 50 steps and then the software gave up. It tried this on different stars so it wasn’t a hot pixel issue. I had to change the rate up to 10,000 to get big enough steps. Then it calibrated very slowly (lots of long ‘looping’ signs), but got there in 11 steps. Then it guided fine. Pixel scale and focal length are all entered correctly by BTW. So my question is this: Isn’t 10,000 a massive number to enter there? Why so big? And should I be doing that, or have I missed something? Does it matter? And, actually, why would it do this when switched to EQMOD/ASCOM? Just to add a further query please… now it has been calibrated with EQMOD, using a suitable star near the celestial horizon , I am assuming I don’t need to do this every time now like I used to? Or do the other calibration process that goes through the Guiding Assistant? PHD2 should now know where the telescope is pointing in the sky and account for it right? Thanks in advance.

Thanks. It won't slew even at slower rates and I don't think it will track. The issue was happening intermittently and I actually had the mount upgraded by Dark Frame Ltd with high end parts (even though it is only a year old). I thought this would eradicate the issue, but that hasn't worked. It's baffling. Just checked the motherboard connections and they are all good.

Thaks Thanks for your help. When it refused to slew last night I was using power from a Primalucelabs Eagle 4 hub on the mount (which gives out slightly more than 12v). I wondered the same thing, whether it was a power issue, so I then grabbed the mount's original power adapter and lead and plugged that into the mount. Still the same problem. So I don't think it is the power. The payload is carefully balanced and I don't think that is the issue either. It's baffling this one. Makes sense that the mount doesn't know about the bolts. I was hoping that was the issue as it would be the easiest fix - I would just have to tighten the bolts properly. Strange that it is so intermittent. It's working very happily indoors this morning.

Occasionally my HEQ5 Pro will not slew - either to automatically its target, or anywhere using the direction arrows on the hand controller. Or if I remove the hand controller (I don't generally use it) it can't slew with the EQMOD software directional control arrows or slew by instruction from my Sequence Generator Pro software. 'Slewing' appears on the (hand controller or laptop) screen, so it is is being directed to slew, but won't. Most times it is perfectly fine. Last night it refused to slew. When I went to take the mount off the tripod I noticed I hadn't tightened the T-bolts securely. In fact they were so lose, the mount could rock a couple of millimetres or so in declination (this is not backlash but due to loose T-bolts). Not good for various stability reasons of course. But could this also explain my mount refusing to slew? Was there too much give in the set-up due to loose T-bolts and so it couldn't slew? The bolts are tightened this morning (with no give at all) and it is slewing fine.

Hi - many thanks for this. I really appreciate the advice - it's been very frustrating. I finally went for the option of clearing out all the software - ASCOM drivers, EQMOD, SGP - then reloading everything and this did the trick. During a brief break in the clouds I went into the back garden last night and tested it - to my amazement it all worked perfectly after a few minutes figuring out I had to unpark the scope in both EQMOD and SGP. It felt like alchemy. I know this is basic amateur technology, but to this tech-dunce it felt like a big step forward to plate solve and use SGP's other features like dithering. The Syn-Scan handset and finderscope were redundant. I only started this hobby a year ago and kept the software very basic with ATIK Artemis, the usual handset three-star aligning and some terrible cable management that is now improved with wifi and on board computer hub. Just need those clouds to go now.

Thank you so much for your help. I managed to get the connection working by changing the COM port numbers and finally got EQMOD working and a connection to the telescope mount. That felt like a big step forward after hours of figuring out what to do. But then I tried to open Sequence Generator Pro and it will not open. It had been working fine previously except all that remained was getting the telescope connection working which is now done. I have reinstalled SGP but this didn't solve the issue. I am baffled by this.

Thank you everyone. I managed to clear the ports and EQMOD is now working. Weirdly, SGP now won't open even after reinstalling!

Trying to connect my Primaluce Eagle 4 to my SkyWatcher HEQ5 Pro mount with EQMOD ASCOM. Hopefully this will explain how things are going wrong and can anyone help please?… My Skywatcher HEQ5 mount is connected to a Primaluce Labs Eagle4 by a cable which goes from the mount (from the connection that the handset would normally go into) and leads into what I have determined to be USB Serial Port COM36. However my problem is this: I can’t connect EQMOD to COM36 because the digits under the binocular logo in ‘EQMOD Set Up’ only go up to 16. If I then try to alter the port COM number in device manager, under advanced port settings, ‘in use’ is noted next to all the COM port numbers up to 35, so I can’t change the port number below 36. This is the same when I disconnect all devices. If I try to change the port number to a low number that is ‘in use’ I get a warning message telling me the COM name is ‘in use’ and that duplicating names will screw up the system. Would really appreciate some advice on this as it is driving me crazy. Thanks in advance!

Hello I am having difficulty connecting a SkyWatcher HEQ5 Pro telescope mount to a Primalucelabs Eagle 4 control unit using ASCOM and EQMOD in order to use astrophotography Sequence Generator Pro software. I’ve tried everything - enthusiast forums, manufacturer forums, YouTube tutorials. It won’t work. I would be happy to pay someone by the hour to supervise a solution to this, perhaps via Zoom? Does anyone know of any software consultants/experts that provide this kind of service? Are there freelance software experts who do this sort of thing?

Help! This is driving me crazy. I have set up Sequence generator Pro with a Primalucelabs Eagle 4. I have an HEQ5 mount and I can’t get SGP to connect with the mount. I have installed EQMOD HEQ5/6 but that is asking me for a port number. In the Eagle 4, ports tell me the ‘serial port’ is COM34 but in ‘driver set up’ the ports only go up to 16. I am stuck at this point. Also, how does the Eagle 4 communicate with the mount? Should there be a cable from Eagle 4 to the mount? Or handset?

Basic question here but I can't solve it... I know how to set up sequences in SGP and set them running. However, I want to set the CCD camera looping one or two second images and not saving them so I can check framing and Bhatinov mask focusing. I can't figure out how to do this without setting up a sequence, but there must be a way surely? What am I missing please? Thanks in advance.

I just started using a Primalucelabs Eagle4 unit. At last the plates of spaghetti spewing out from the back of my rig are under control. One question though... Is it possible to switch from one power source (after battery is almost dead) to another (full battery) without shutting down the unit, losing power and having to reboot? I'm thinking not 🤔. But you guys are super clever with technical stuff so just maybe?...

I am using Tracer 12v lithium batteries for my Kendrick dew heaters, one after the other. These give me around four hours of power and aren’t hugely reliable. Kendrick have told me most people use car batteries for this. What are people here using? This is other than a direct power source from the mains of course, so I’m asking about when you are out in the field. Thanks in advance.

Thanks. Enjoyed watching that. Looks like a great location.

Yes. Some possibilities there but tricky to find ones open in winter.

Mostly I'm tackling south London's Bortle 8 light pollution to capture images and happy doing that. However... say there's a couple of long clear nights on the horizon and I want to find a dark site in the south of England which I can book up at short notice (given the unreliability of longer term weather forecasts). Could be a clamping pod in a field with power to recharge batteries. Could be an astrophotographer-friendly B&B in the middle of nowhere where I can drive to with my ever increasing boxes of kit. And suggestions?

Have been using Atik Artemis software for a while with no issues. Tried it with a new ESW 2.2 filter wheel last night and it seemed fine at first, but then the filter wheel widow and exposure settings window would not open. Tried re-downloading the software but same issue. Has anyone else experienced this? Tried without he filter wheel and the exposures window still won't open. Baffling.

Thanks Olly 👍

Thanks 👍