Jay6879

Thank you all for the tips! Batteries aren't an issue as everything will run off 12v from my car, but I hadn't thought about the slow cool down and warming back up, especially for the dslr. 

Now let's see just how brave I am tomorrow night..

24 minutes ago, ONIKKINEN said:

My EQM-35 worked as well as it ever worked down to -26c (= not that well). Balancing will be even more difficult than normally since the lubricant gets really stiff, but other than that i doubt you will break anything. Just dont try to bend the cables after the night is done, they get very stiff and you could break them.

The DSLR will work very slowly and drain batteries very quickly, expect to get maybe 30min of exposure per fully charged battery. And also, your power supply for the mount must be high quality in these temperatures. Normal "dumb" powersupplies like batteries that are unregulated will drop below 12V much faster than you'd think so a good power solution is necessary if you want to image for any length of time.

I would be using the 12v accessory in my car, dslr would be powered with a 12v to usb step-down like I always have!

Will a dslr, asiair pro or my eqm-35 pro mount be damaged by using them in such bitterly cold temperatures?! I'm itching to get back out and image!

4 hours ago, ONIKKINEN said:

I wager its somewhere just under 9kg/19lbs with every gadget/cable/guiding gear on top. I win a bit of room on the counterweight bar by mounting the OTA upside down.

 

As you can see i cannot dither in DEC with how it currently works, too much backlash and stiction. You will probably have better success with the lighter setup. The mount doesnt know anything about dithering, it just does what the guiding software tells it. Dithering in RA only is not as effective but still better than not dithering at all, especially with DSLRs.

 

If you start seeing similar issues after a dither (runaway DEC) then look into adjusting backlash and/or turning DEC dithering off if you cant get it to stay put.

19lbs! Your guiding "issues" are to be expected but the fact you can still images with that amount of weight on it is still impressive.

The last few nights I gathered 9hrs or so of data on ngc7000, I hope not dithering doesn't mess anything up, next time I'm out ill give it a go. 

2 hours ago, ONIKKINEN said:

The graph here is with 60s exposures, dithers every 3 frames (gray stripes are dithers). Ive since dropped DEC guiding as it does some wild trips to arcminute error territories for a pretty long time after a dither sometimes. Working on making one directional DEC maybe working if its at all possible.

60s is really all i need and overkill for some targets with 200mm aperture in light pollution so i don't feel the need to take longer subs, but as you can see the spikes in RA (blue) are within a couple of seconds of eachother so any exposure can be ruined. These spikes i believe are the result of mechanical flexing of the mount itself somewhere along the counterweight-RA axis. RA tries to correct, but vibrates/flexes "back" in the next exposure and PHD tries to fight a drift that is not real or consistent. I did take some 3 minute subs for a test once but had to throw them all out, any small gust of wind will knock the giant light newtonian tube off course. This was also taken quite near the meridian, where balancing is key and the biggest problem, its not quite this bad somewhere else in the sky.

That's still quite impressive that it can handle it, you've got over 15lbs loaded up right? Does the eqm dither well? It was a nightmare on the Star Adventurer so I never bothered with it.

1 hour ago, SteveNickolls said:

An iOptron Gem 28?

Cheers,

Steve

Actually no I went for the eqm-35!

4 hours ago, ONIKKINEN said:

The stiffness goes away with a bit of use. Or you could loosen up the nuts holding the axis together, its very sensitive to tiny changes which is why i believe they slightly over tighten it in the factory. I would be very happy with a guide graph like that, but then again my mount is grossly unmatched for my OTA.

Mine looks like a seismograph.

What sort of exposure lengths can you get with your setup?

46 minutes ago, ONIKKINEN said:

The stiffness goes away with a bit of use. Or you could loosen up the nuts holding the axis together, its very sensitive to tiny changes which is why i believe they slightly over tighten it in the factory. I would be very happy with a guide graph like that, but then again my mount is grossly unmatched for my OTA.

Mine looks like a seismograph.

To be honest I don't want to rock the boat. I marked off where everything was that got me these numbers two nights in a row so hopefully going forward it can continue to be replicated. If anything pops up I'll start tweaking things!

Update

So in the end I decided to take my chances with the eqm-35 pro, I've had two nights in a row with it and I'm very impressed so far. It's well built, the alt/az adjustments, for example, are light-years better than the Star Adventurer. 

Both nights the guiding was phenomenal...

This was after two hours of guiding, the average was under 1" rms. There were a few times it peaked to 1.2"-ish but quickly corrected. Last night I felt comfortable enough to sleep while it imaged and I captured almost 5hrs worth of data, and since it plays well with the asiair pro when it was done it parked itself and shut off. 

Thus far, with the equipment I have now, this has worked out very well. One complaint is both axis are quite stiff, it can be hard to balance properly though I must be doing something right if I've got guiding numbers like that?

This isn't mine, but I'm curious as to what it all means. Should the lines ideally be 90° from each other on the cross hairs? What do the circles represent?

16 hours ago, KP82 said:

I've had my iEXOS-100 for about 10 months now. It's actually pretty well made for its price tag. The PMC8 system offers the possibility to control the mount via WiFi both direct or through ASCOM, but WiFi is never a hard requirement. It works fine just like any other mount with a usb cable (iEXOS-100 has the serial-to-usb controller built in) and a pc for imaging. The latest firmware upgrade provides more customisations.

I use mine mainly for visual. I've got all the upgrades mentioned above. It carries my 107 triplet, 50mm finder and the eyepieces in my sig without any issues. I control it with my phone through Sky Safari connected to a rpi4 running astroberry and some custom scripts (the scripts are for plate solving). I've also tried to image with it and my 72EDF.

 

It's awesome that these products like the eqm-35 and iexos are available. Not everybody wants or needs a huge setup. Could you imagine 20 years ago Celestron or Meade having their software be open source? It's a great time to be into this hobby.

6 hours ago, KP82 said:

Have you had a look at ES iEXOS-100 PMC8? With its default configuration it's a lot cheaper than the EQM35, but also much less stable (similar to a star adventurer but with DEC axis). However once you add the optional upgrade: ST2 or 3 tripod, Fine AZ adjuster, better saddle and additional counterweights, the mount matches or possibly exceeds the specs of EQM35. The cost will also then be in the same ballpark.

According to the ES staff at ESPMC-Eight Groups the iEXOS-100 uses the same stepper motors and belt driven worm gears as the bigger EXOS2 and with the necessary upgrades could carry an imaging payload of about 9.8kg.

I actually was looking into that mount, actually the upgrade one with the pmc-8. It's about $200 more but I dunno, the whole thing seemed really flaky. While I'm all for open source stuff I'm not sure I want that for my mount control software. I don't have a tablet so I wouldn't be able to use it anyways! It requires a tablet WITH an SD card for some reason?

2 hours ago, Alan64 said:

Know your Synta equatorials...

Of those, the EQ-4 is a bit rare these days, but it does exist.  Those are the basic heads coming out of China.  It is the EQ-5, however, that is the go-to chameleon.

These are the optional modes for the EQM-35...

I have no idea of what that is on the left, but note the teeny-tiny counter-weight within the mode on the right.  That's for balancing a camera, only, no telescope. 

With an EQ5-class mount, you can attach an 80mm refractor, or a 130mm f/5 Newtonian, then insert a camera into those. 

The EQM-35 is for dabbling, puttering; a little bit of this, perhaps a little bit of that, but in the end not much else I'm afraid.

I made a big mistake back in 2012, and got an EQ-3.  I now have an EQ-5, which is the "sweet spot" among equatorials, and portable in its own right.

To be fair, the EQM-35, in its full-blown equatorial mode, will allow for a small telescope with a camera inserted, like a 60mm or 72mm, at most.  Then, you can certainly try an 80mm.  You do want to keep the weights of everything in mind.  The telescope and camera combined should only weigh 50% to 60% of the mount's load-capacity.  

If you reside within or near a heavily light-polluted location, you might want to rethink your strategy.  Then, dare I up the ante and suggest a Sky-Watcher HEQ5(in white)/Orion "Sirius"(in black)?  Those are basic EQ-5 heads, incognito, as well, and enhanced.

Well my telescope is only 61mm and with all equipment is around 7lbs so I guess I'm within the weight boundary with this scope eh. The only other scope I could imagine picking up would be a Mak 90 to get in closer to planets or dso's. Turns out Skywatcher says it can handle up to a 127 Mak...

But beyond weight limits and portability is cost. It's like $500 more for the next step up from the ewm that I'm just not willing to spend right now. That's why I was curious if there was anything else in the same price range that would rival the eqm.

Regardless, that's a fascinating picture showing all the different eq mounts. Didn't realize there were so many!

23 minutes ago, Alan64 said:

This is the go-to EQ-3...

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/equatorial-astronomy-mounts/skywatcher-eq3-pro-synscan-goto.html

This is the go-to EQ-5...

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/equatorial-astronomy-mounts/skywatcher-eq5-pro-synscan-goto.html

But then, if you really want the smaller one.

There are the EQ-3 and EQ-5 mount-heads, but they come in different colours and styles, but still only two sizes of heads.

The Celestron AVX is an EQ-5, just as the Orion "Sirius", and just as my non-goto Meade LX70.  They are all made in the same factory overseas, and by Synta.  You can blame Synta for the confusion.

What the hell synta. This is ridiculous. So not only are there all sorts of rebranded models, the name changes based on country?

https://telescopescanada.ca/products/sky-watcher-eqm-35-mount-s30500?variant=32811968331856

This is the one I'm looking at. Apparently the "M" stands for modular. It can be turned into a star tracker as well.

27 minutes ago, Alan64 said:

I'd bypass that one.  An EQ5-class doesn't weigh that much more, but it will carry considerably more.  This one is (CAD)$966.99 as I type...

https://www.telescope.com/Orion/Orion-SkyView-Pro-Equatorial-GoTo-Telescope-Mount/rc/2160/p/24709.uts

If you don't get that one, and go with the one you're asking about, you'll always wonder how the other one might've been.  

You can do some serious imaging with that one.

Huh, that looks like a rebranded eqm-35 though. Even the specs are basically identical!

Did you mistake the mount I was inquiring about for something else? 

26 minutes ago, ONIKKINEN said:

Double the payload? No. Payload of 10kg is false advertising and only applies to visual use, and even then it is not a good idea.

Ask yourself what you want to do with the mount: Carry a camera, small refractor, medium to large focal length telescope?

Rule out everything but the camera and small (fl less than 500mm) refractors if you want to remain relatively frustration free.

I am imaging with a technically within payload limits telescope and i throw away somewhere between 50-100% of my 60s guided subs. Most of the issues are not fixable due to the bearingless bushing design. The DEC axis is unfixable and you will almost certainly have to guide in one direction or not at all in DEC.

I would argue that the EQM35 is more expensive than for example an HEQ5 since you will probably want to upgrade soon after anyway and getting rid of the mount is not guaranteed for a good price.

If i could go back in time i would pay more for a better mount.

I get what you're saying, I just meant double the payload capacity of the Star Adventurer on paper, 11lbs vs 22lbs, though I don't plan on getting near the maximum no. I have a new Zenithstar 61ii (360mm) that I've barely used and there seems to be a huge amount of objects I can image before I decide to move on to something else. And even then I'd have to be careful because it needs to be as portable as possible. Right now all the equipment I use adds up to around 7lbs.

I will read up about the heq5, weight and cos, thanks for the suggestion. 

What are the issues with the dec axis you are talking about?

It's around $980 here in Canada, is there anything out there that surpasses it in the same price range?

I have a Star Adventurer 2i currently, the eqm-35 would double the carrying capacity and add go-to. At the very least the extra automation would increase efficiency quite a bit. No longer would I be manually finding objects, let alone the bonus of having a motorized declination axis. I'd love go for something larger but my setup needs to be as portable as can be. Typically I'm driving out somewhere to image so I setup and tear down every single time. It's a bit concerning to be looking at a goto mount like this at this price range, I instantly think crappy performance, but I've read some people having good experiences with them. The fact that it's described as an "imaging platform" is certainly enticing.

So lay it on me. Is there a better mount in this price range? Would it perform better with guiding than the Star Adventurer? Does it work well with the asiair pro?

6 hours ago, The Lazy Astronomer said:

As long as there are at least 8 stars in common between all frames, DSS can rotate them around to match them up no problem. Be aware you will very likely have to crop the stacked image where the different frame orientations don't line up. 

Well, dss detects hundreds of stars when I go to stack so I should be fine then eh. I appreciate the help.

I've started to shoot the north america nebula but it's quite high up in the sky already and because I have a Star Adventurer there is no proper meridian flip. Eventually the gear will crash into the tripod and I'm not sure how the mount would handle such a thing but I don't intend to find out! I'd like to set it up and just run while I sleep.

As it stands my dslr is rotated 90° left, so it's essentially on its side, and starts off fairly far to the west side of rotation. If I flip everything around so the telescope/camera are starting almost upside down (where it could easily run all night without crashing into anything)  I'm afraid the framing won't match. I've got a few nights worth of data where my camera orientation is one way, and I'm worried if I pre meridian flip they wouldn't line up.

How would DSS handle this?

So something was wrong, what it was I'm not sure. So I go and check the mount and...nothing. There is no noise at all out of the motors. The mount has stopped! Why though? Battery voltage on the mount shows nearly full power. Balancing was good, cords weren't snagging as they'd been taken care of. I didn't understand why it stopped.

So I started searching around on the internet to see what's up, I googled "star adventurer mount suddenly stops tracking" and after pouring through a bunch of random results I come across a post asking essentially the same question. 

The answer boggled my mind. Turns out when you use Star Adventurer 2i in APP mode, whatever settings are in the app AUTOMATICALLY GET APPLIED TO THE OTHER MODES ON THE DIAL. So if you use the built in intervolemeter in the app and use say, 10 exposures at 2 minutes each (for a total runtime of 20 minutes) once the routine is finished the mount shuts off.

I had used the Star Adventurer app for the super fast slew speed in the mount controls, though I couldn't remember if I had used the intervolemeter portion after getting the Asiair Pro. Regardless, this had to be the reason why right? Right?! A wave of excitement washed over me with he fury of a thousand sun's.

I performed a factory reset on the Star Adventurer and set about tracking again.

Here is the first image and plate solve at the start of the post factory resetted Stwr Adventurer..

I won't bother posting every five minute intervals, I'll skip right to the end..

This is nearly 45 minutes of tracking! It didn't deviate beyond 10" the whole time. By this time I was feeling quite satisfied that I had possibly figured this out so I started guiding..

There was thin layer of high altitude happening but it was still tracking good. And here is another screenshot of the tracking around a half hour later...

It was putting up better numbers than when it started, and these numbers here were well within reason to allow 5+ minute exposures at 360mm of focal length (inhad done this before).

At this point I was burnt out and packed everything up.

So to sum up, The Star Adventurer 2i will copy all of it's settings used in the app onto the modes on the dial. For some reason. I'm not sure why. And as far as I could this "feature" isn't documented anywhere in the manual for some reason. I feel like I want to scream this from a mountain top, or have a stickied thread of something because this nonsense wasted so much time. So much frustration.

I'm sitting at about a 95% confidence level that this issue has been sorted out. I think the other 5% is residual ptsd from weeks of failure and dejection. I won't feel completely satisfied until I can image again (Sunday it looks like) and can manage to get multiple hours worth with no issue. Stay tuned though, this may not be over! (oh God I hope it is). I'll check back in here after my next proper imaging session to tell how it went.

I just wanted to thank everyone who replied here for tagging along during this saga. You've been very helpful and have filled in my gaps of knowledge. I'm going to keep trying to learn more on how to read these graphs beyond the basics, though it still feels foreign to me! I appreciate all the info that has been provided here, even on the periphery. Stuff like tips on balancing or cord management. I've learned a lot.

19 hours ago, JSeaman said:

Hey no problem, we've all been there. The night you accept you're going to spend the whole time solving the problem it tends to go away Just be methodical and you'll figure it

I have been methodical for weeks! And finally...finally I think I got it..

5 hours ago, wimvb said:

One thing occurred to me: during the second longer run (19 minutes), when the guide graph just wanders off, does the mount stop moving there? I'm not at my computer, so I can't check. But you should be able to calculate a tracking rate.

Rate (arcsecs/sec) = pixels/sec × pixel scale (arcsecs/pixel). If this equals or is close to 15 arcsecs/sec, it means that the mount stopped moving.

Well sir, it appears we have both come to the same assumption here about the mount turning off. Are you ready for this? I apologize for the length of this and the images but I do believe I figured it out.

Buckle up for this nonsense....

So last night I packed up the laptop and all my gear. My plan was to first let the mount run untracked and see what would come of it so I set all my gear up exactly like I do down to even the section of sky where I have been trying to point the telescope for weeks. Trying to remove as many variables as possible and keep it consistent.

So I triple polar aligned again and took my first preview image and plate solved it. Every five minutes after that I took another image and plate solved it again to compare coordinates and see the difference. Image overload incoming

Here is my first exposure taken 

I won't post every image after five minutes as it's redundant, just know that the deviation in coordinates was less than 10", well within "acceptable" periodic error and certainly not enough to cause a star to get lost and fail the guiding. Here is the next exposure just over ten minutes later, don't pay much mind to the time I took the image at roughly five minute intervals!

Declination has creeped up 18" and I'm honestly not sure if this is terrible or not (any insight would be helpful!) but I wasn't too bothered by it as I knew Dec was affected by polar alignment, the RA performance is what I was after.  Essentially it would jostle back and forth 9" or 10"

Something very interesting starts to happen 15 to 20 minutes since the tracking started..

It has suddenly deviated over 2m! At this point I'm like omg here we go, something is wrong with the mount. It'll need repairs or whatever. But I kept tracking and took a plate solve after another five minutes..

Oh boy..and after another five minutes here is my final test exposure and plate solve..

By this point it's obvious something catastrophic has occurred. But I didn't know what, all I knew was the tracking has now deviated well over 10m. This would certainly cause guiding to fail and the star to be lost.

I'll continue in the next post....

1 hour ago, wimvb said:

I had a look at your guide log. The good news is: you're getting good at polar alignment. The bad news: the log doesn't give any new insights. The mount has a large periodic error (at least 50 arcseconds peak to peak), but that guides out very well. As you wrote, after some 10 - 15 minutes the mount just wanders off, and guide pulses have no further effect. My first thought when I saw the graph was; perhaps something is gradually working its way free, but because the pattern repeats with the next guide period, you would have to fasten whatever that was, and you'd know it. I also briefly thought that dew might have something to do with it. But the same goes here; because it repeats, the dew would have to be away for a while.

Next time out, you could try letting the guide assistant run for some 20 minutes, just to check if the mount veers off again. Other than that, I'm out of ideas. But, if you have the possibility, take an image of your gear and post it here. Maybe that will turn up something.

Oh boy, this all doesn't sound very promising at all!

No dew though, I have some dew heater strips. I haven't gone outside yet, its not quite dark and some clouds have moved in. Hoping they clear but this is my setup...

Don't mind the taped but of extra weight, I've since changed the setup to something more elegant (kjnda) that allows much better balance, and obviously cords haven't been tidied up yet in the pic but that's essentially it.

I wonder if anyone else has had issues like this? I've tried searching but it's such a broad subject to be searching. It may not be on the level of these crazy mounts and telescopes I see but it still was a half decent chunk of dough you know? Kinda crappy that it's such a pain.

Well hopefully it clears out soon so I can run the guide assistant.

32 minutes ago, JSeaman said:

No sorry 450mm guide scope and PHD2 not a StarAdventurer

Good luck tonight, hopefully you can narrow things down further. The guide assistant is definitely a great place to start and will tell you what it finds, just ping up a screenshot

I think the 20 minute drift will be interesting too

You'd have to have some pretty sever imperfections. Try slewing the mount a long way on highest speed and see whether it is smooth

I'll check back tomorrow with whatever new data I can acquire then! As it stands I haven't hit a wall yet, there are still leads to follow so I'm not feeling completely done. There is hope yet! Almost as much as I just want to start imaging I want to find out what could possibly be the cause of this. Considering it happens in PHD2 and the Asiair Pro it kinda suggests that software isn't the issue. 

Ah well, let's see what happens tonight eh. Thanks for helping me out here!

25 minutes ago, JSeaman said:

I'd definitely be inclined to do the guide assistant, it can reveal a multitude of issues

Pulse size change might make it react to the point it can catch it but there's an underlying issue to find

Yes, 8000 is quite big but fair enough

Cool, so if it's well balanced you will be able to nudge it around in RA and DEC and it will stay put - worth checking you can do that in a few places. Even the weight of cables can make a difference but the issue you have feels like something larger!

Yes your focal length will be a factor but I was at <1" with 450mm 

So does the motor start driving the scope when it runs away?

I'd definitely be inclined to give it 20 minutes running by itself and see what happens. You can potentially do that when it's cloudy too as long as you can measure the movement somehow

The star loss looks like a symptom, the mount moves so the star goes but the RA runaway happens first and the SNR of the star is good right up until then

You were able to get sub 1" at 450mm on a Star Adventurer? That's awesome, something to look forward to then eh. I had set it to 8000ms as that's what I had read is a good match for the 120mm guide scope I have?

Tonight looks stellar so I should be able to continue this saga, if I do the guiding assistant will there be a log I could upload here? I did a quick Google search and it looks quite complex. But I will give it a shot. I'll also let the Star Adventurer run on its own for 20 minutes or so and take screenshots of the Asiair to show any drifting, which I suspect there will be SOME considering the periodic error of these mounts.

As for when the scope runs away yeah, if j remember correctly I could hear the motor going. I just can't remember if I heard the motor continuously humming away or if it was jn pulses or what.

When you say this..

Quote

The star loss looks like a symptom, the mount moves so the star goes but the RA runaway happens first and the SNR of the star is good right up until then

Could the RA runaway be due to the gears having huge manufacturing imperfections or something? Like I said before, I was able to use this thing just fine unguided and guided for quite some time before this issue popped up so I never gave it much thought.

13 minutes ago, JSeaman said:

Have you run the guide assistant? Did you increase the pulse size?

 

I can see massive spikes which the mount is recovering from then it fails at the end:

 

Have you checked your balance in the orientation the scope is on this target? With clutches off does it stay in position?

Guiding of +/- 5 arc seconds I wouldn't be able to image at all, that gives blobby stars for sure

If you sit next to the mount when it goes wrong can you hear the motor driving?

Have you tried leaving it without PHD to see if you get runaway?

I didn't get a chance to run the guide assistant last night as clouds came in, same with changing the pulse size. I planned on doing one run with everything default then another matching the pulse size I set for calibration on the Asiair Pro (8000ms). That is the pulse size you're are taking about correct?

When I balance I point it in the general direction I'll be imaging, and it stayed in position yes.

Maybe I'm ok with +/-5" cause the scope is only 360mm? Like I showed with the images I posted the other day, it still seems to be within a workable parameter.

The whole time I was sitting there babysitting the setup and yeah I could hear the motors whirring away. 

Your last question I don't think I've done lately, beyond leaving the tracker running while I am focusing, or while I'm calibrating the guiding. The last time it would've ran like that was before I got the guide camera setup and I don't recall any major drifting issues at all.

As for the graph up there, those two big spikes are strange, but like you said it recovers. Not sure what would've caused that, then randomly off to the right "star lost".

Ugh.

6 hours ago, wimvb said:

I use SD formatter. I'm not at my computer right now, but I believe it's an older version of this

https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter/

I can check tonight, when I'm home again. Btw, if the card works in the asiair,  it's not corrupted or damaged. And it shouldn't be the cause why the log file wasn't saved.  But definitely try to replace it.

Any sudden movements, noise or sound, star hopping on screen, etc. At one time, my guiding misbehaved whenever I moved around the rig I was babysitting. Vibrations moved through the ground when I got too close to the mount. I moved the rig from the patio to the lawn, where I drove fence anchors into the ground for the tripod to sit on. I also made sure never to step close to a tripod leg.

Don't assume anything when troubleshooting, work methodically and keep an open eye to details. When the error occurs, you should see the guide star suddenly move on screen.

I ended up using the new flash card.

So I managed to get a bit of time out there before clouds rolled in. PHD2 was working very well, sub 2" for the most part. Test exposures looked good. The ten minute mark rolled around and the numbers were still great, I was ecstatic. Yet sure enough a few minutes later the numbers blasted off into the hundreds. Ugh. I having this burning fascination in me to image, especially after it working out so well earlier in the spring. I'm feeling quite dejected at this point, not sure where to go from here.

This is the log

PHD2_GuideLog_2021-07-22_203634.txt

I've been reading up on how to properly interpret the log files, and I think I have a basic understanding but I really appreciate all the tips and opinions here trying to figure this out. I'd be completely lost! With more experience these things won't be so foreign to me.

So to recap..

I've got new cords

I've gotten better with cord management, no snags 

Fine tuned balance 

Double and triple polar align

Asiair Pro and PHD2 both showing similar patterns with the issue

When the guiding works, it works fantastically. The issue is why the guiding doesn't consistently work like it did in the past where I'd have it running all night and just sleep. Instead it fails at fairly repeatable intervals. All of my gear sits in a foam lined Nanuk case so I don't think anything is damaged.

I'm feeling utterly dejected with this all. Watching the summer roll on by, all those sweet objects won't be there much longer!

So at this point it HAS to be something mechanical right? Could the worm mesh adjustment screw being too tight or too loose cause this? That's my next step I guess, sit outside with an Allen key and adjust on the fly or something. I dunno, not sure where to go to from here. I hope that log file I posted has some info that could be gleamed from it.

Thanks again everyone for the interest in helping me with this nightmare!

5 hours ago, JSeaman said:

Do you have a log file?

Still drifting a lot in Dec?

Did you increase the pulse size?

Although you don't need ASCOM for the mount you still need a driver for the camera (ASCOM or otherwise)

I dont have a log file of the latest (last night's) session as it didn't save one for some reason. The SD card holding the os was bent and damaged and had a bunch of errors when I tried to format it so I'm assuming that is the reason why it didn't save a log. 

It didn't seem to be drifting in DEC lime it was before, the two pics above of a 5 and 10 minute exposure show half decent dec. I polar aligned three times 😬

I'm not sure how to increase pulse size in Asiair Pro. Is that the same as the "aggressiveness" setting?

4 hours ago, Scooot said:

Just an idea but I wonder if your polar alignment is moving when you move the scope to the target. I used to have this problem sometimes. 
Are the altitude adjustment screws on the star adventurer very loose, if so the mount could be moving a tad in RA when you move the scope? . And I realise it doesn’t guide in dec, but if I over tightened the dec lever on the little mount it would also move that slightly. 

I actually have that altitude adjustment screws zingin tight at all times, but it still allows some very stiff movement in altitude. That lock screw is so horribly designed. So much slop.