Hendrik - Nordic Light

In the last few weeks / months I have worked hard to improve the tracking. In finally bought a WO 50mm / 200mm Guide scope with the ASI290mm guide camera. I pair this with the WO ZS81 APP and the ASI294MM Pro. I am guiding with the ASIAIR Pro and get easily 7 minutes exposures without any tracking error. The Guiding RMS error is on avg. 0.65". After the full moon I will guide with 10 minutes with Ha.

Thanks Malc. I am getting the HEQ-5 tracking 4 minutes without guiding. 60%-70% of the frames are good. However, I have decided to invest in guiding in order to get longer exposures.

Thanks Main Sequence. Tuned...you mean Rowan Belt Mod? I am testing to see how far I can push this mount. Once I know its limits I know the boundaries of which I can operate in. I want to make sure I do not solely rely on technology and software 🙂 it is always good to be able to understand the basics, so all there after will be bonus!

Thank you White Dwarf and Main Sequence. I did a few tests with the HEQ5 PRO tracker. I have let it run on different tracking speeds like Lunar, Solar.... and back to sidereal speed. Checked whether there was a backlash. Rechecked all parameters. Nothing else. Last night I got tracked exposures of 210s without too many problems. 20% of the images were rubbish or not really useable. This all in unguided. Tonight I will try to track 4 5 minutes exposures and see how it goes.

Hey Malcom, White Dwarf, Thank you for the answers. The Andromeda test was inside the house to see whether the mount was tracking. It seemed it tracked 🙂 Last night I performed another test on M42 and NGC2264. I got good polar alignment. ( I checked it again after I returned home the mount after around 3 hours of shooting and Polaris was on the spot where it should be at that time. So that is all ok. I balanced the mount for the home position etc. All levelled. I did a two star alignment. Sirius and Mirfak. When mount slew to Sirius, Sirius was a bit out of the middle. I centred it. Then the mount slew to Mirfak. Mirfak was spot on in the middle of the eyepiece. I selected M42 as the first test. (Olympus EM1 Mark II and WO Redcat 51) - 60s are ok. 90s gets blurry images - 120 / 150 / 180 not worth considering (I get 3min with my Skywatcher star adventurer) - I moved the to the Christmas Tree cluster. From the 40 images I took at 120s - Only 40% of the images are usable. There was no wind. I have no idea why I can't get longer exposures on this mount. Tomorrow it seems to be clear again. I will do the bright star test to see whether it drifts out of the centre.

OK. I did two tests so far. One with tracking the Andromeda Galaxy for an hour and one with the distance method. Let's start with the distance method. Centre from the mount to the wall 3200mm. I marked the start and the finish. Distance travelled on the wall 65mm Andromeda test. Started with 98°57 5' and 64° 22 5' Finished with 118° 43 6' and 73° 21 1' So the question is...what could be the problem. it seems in case of the Andromeda test that the mount tracks too fast?

OK. I did two tests so far. One with tracking the Andromeda Galaxy for an hour and one with the distance method. Let's start with the distance method. Centre from the mount to the wall 3200mm. I marked the start and the finish. Distance travelled on the wall 65mm Andromeda test. Started with 98°57 5' and 64° 22 5' Finished with 118° 43 6' and 73° 21 1' So the question is...what could be the problem. it seems in case of the Andromeda test that the mount tracks too fast?

Thanks guys, I will have a look at the suggestions. Friday seems to be clear again! Full Moon...but hey you still can test a few things!

Hi Fred, were you able to solve your issue? I am having the same issue. Can't find out why this happening. Coordinates, time, date etc. are correct. Tracking on Sidereal speed. All looks fine...but no tracking.