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RicRob65

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  1. Thanks for your input, We decided to try abandoning the starsense (and it's ASCOM driver) and try the EQMOD route instead. This has resulted in an instant improvement and guiding out of the box to better than 1 arc second without all the constant pushing in RA.
  2. Unfortunately Michael the file(s) are not available. It wasn't as clear as I would like last night, but I did try again. I set the guide rate to 0.75 on the Starsense handset, and changed the value in PHD2 accordingly. I tried several attempts at calibrating. Sometimes there were very few steps and I got a warning from PHD2 telling me that and what to do. None of the suggestions worked for me. Usually there would be small West steps but each East step was many times larger as though the mount was being pushed in that direction but only when PHD2 has control of it (tracking without PHD2 is quite good but I want better for Astrophotography). It may have been because it wasn't brilliantly clear last night, but often after just 2 or 3 of these large East steps, the star would become lost. Like I said before, I will be uploading a log when it becomes possible. Here is a screen shot of what happened the other night starting with when the guiding assistant was on. The mount is generally behaving in RA but as soon as the guiding was applied, it seemed to be constantly drifting east and required west pulses from PHD2 causing much less stable overall tracking.
  3. Thanks for the replies so far. A couple of you have been asking for logs. Your looking into them will be very much appreciated. When I get the next clear night and have worked out how to post the log, I will do so.
  4. That's for your repky knobby. Yes. I did check all those things and tried different aggression settings. Those changes only made little difference compared to the variations seen when guiding is enabled. I probably should have mentioned that Dec is more or less O.K. it's only in RA that I get these large errors.
  5. Hi, Sorry I expect this is a newbe error but I can't seem to find anything on it. I'm using C11 with a guidescope (QHY5II camera) on an NEQ6 with Starsense hand controller and ASCOM Celestron driver. For some reason, whenever I start guiding, the graph shows the mount as drifting rapidly east in RA with constant pulses needed to correct it. Calibration seems more or less ok (bit of RA backlash). Perhaps more significant is when I start the guiding assistant (and pulsing stops), the graph shows a vast improvement. It's almost as though the mount either stops sidereal tracking when it's being guided by PHD2 or even is trying to guide east rather than west but is OK when PHD2 is not guiding. Polar alignment is pretty reasonable using Polemaster.
  6. After much time spent on looking at why platesolving wasn't working, I discovered that by directly loading the image into Platesolve2, it did get solved - it was when I got APT to use Platesolve2 that it did not work. It appeared as if APT passed values to Platesolve2 that where different to what is in the FITS file header (focal length/field of view?). The image was taken using a focal length of 2800mm and my ZWO camera which gave a field of view of about 9' x 6'. The last OTA/camera I used on APT had a focal length of 227mm (a finderscope) and this is what appeared in the Camera tab on APT. When I changed it to 2800 plate solving working via APT. It is almost as if APT passed the focal length of the last camera it used to Platesolve2 rather than what is in the FITS file header. Has anyone else had this issue?
  7. Thanks for the reply M40. I don't use EQMOD - Can you use it with Starsense for Skywatcher? I didn't think you could so I use the Ascom Celestron driver instead. I probably should have said that when it gets it wrong, Stellarium is way off where the scope is actaully pointing to. e.g. it can show the telescope below the horizon when in fact it is pointing to the celestial pole.
  8. Thanks for the reply starwatcher2001. Stellarium is running on a Windows 10 desktop in the Observatory warm room and it's data/time etc. are correct as is the location. I also wondered about the cable but I have tried more than 1 new cable. When it gets it right, it does seem to behave itself. I don't think the clutches were slipping, but I couldn't entirely rule that out.
  9. I am using a C11 on a NEQ6 mount. The polar alignment has been done using Polemaster and the telescope aligned using Starsense for Skywatcher - checking first that the telescope has picked up the correct date, time and location from my GPS. I have tried Starsense auto align as well as the manual align methods. When I subsequently connect the telescope to Stellarium, the software shows the mount as pointing in a completely different position to what it actually is. I have found that if I shutdown Stellarium, restart it and reconnect my telescope, Stellarium will sometimes show the telescope as pointing where it actually is, but it can take a few attempts of going round that cycle before that happens (I don't do anything on the mount between attempts). I am quite sure I have the latest Stellarium and Starsense software. Has anybody else experienced this and/or know how to fix it?
  10. Thanks. I've been looking at platesolve in APT as an alternative. Not managed to get it working yet though.
  11. Well, I use Polemaster so I think I'm alright there? I'm pretty sure it's just that my expectations were too high for the Starsense accuracy. I assumed that if you calibrate on a particular star then it would go back to exactly the position of that star next time you select it.
  12. Thank you for the replies. If I understand correctly what is being said, then an accuracy of about 11 minutes of arc is what has been experienced. My sensor (ZWO ASI178MC) seems to give me a field of view of little more than 9 minutes which suggests I was hoping for greater accuracy than Starwatcher2001 is experirencing. To answer Shimrod's question, I tried the calibration twice. 1st using ASCOM to move the star in the centre (I only used APT to view the image), then because the star wasn't on target after re-runnng the alignment procedure, I tried again using the hand controller but got the same result. Haven't tried using CPWI yet. I guess my expectations were a bit too high. Thanks again
  13. First an apology... Being a bit new to SGL I wasn't sure which was the best forum to put this question on - there seems nothing specific to Starsense or alignment. Twice last night after using Starsense Auto align using APT to ensure the star I selected (Sirius) was in the centre of my cameras view. I then used Menu->Starsense->Calibrate using the procedures to coarse then fine align to centre the star (finishing up with up and right as per the instructions). Starsense 'solved' the new postion and then asked for it's alignment procedure to be done again. After doing this, I asked Starsense to go back to Sirius. It was quite a way off the target not even in the sensors view. I am using a small sensor (ZWOASI178MC) on a C11 - so a very narrow field of view. Has anyone else had this problem and solved it or am I asking too much of it? Thanks
  14. Thanks for the replies. I can't see on the firmware release page where the issue I am asking about has been mentioned however, when I used the review alignment references option, there were 6 entries so I assume the ones I added have been saved.
  15. On a previous SGL post, in reply to someones question about doing a camera calibration more than once, I believe someone suggested that Starsense only keeps any additional alignment references that you add for the current session. Does anyone know if that is the case even when you subsequently 'Wake up' the device after you 'Hibernate' it and the end of the previous star gazing session?
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