Hi all again. Well, first clear skies last night for a while and the conditions were great and I loved being outside for 7 hours and still managed to achieve….. nothing..! Well, not strictly true so I will give you a summary and I would really appreciate your help again as I do not know what steps to take next. Here goes….
- EQ6R Pro mount is located on a sturdy and level base (my patio). I have imputed the time, date and Co-ordinates correctly.
- SW120 EDDS Pro scope is attached to the mount.
- Canon 600D DSLR is attached at the end of my telescope.
- Dedicated laptop is attached to my mount using the USB A/B connector.
- Guidescope - ZWO120mm. Connected with cable from camera to laptop
- telescope and mount, I believe, are in the home position I.e weights down and telescope pointing up and the mount and scope aligned.
- used the Bahtinov mask on my scope/canon camera and managed to get a bright star focused after a couple of test shots.
……all good so far (I think)….
I have installed many programs including NINA / ASTAP / ASCOM / Prolific USB drivers / GS Server. My laptop now sees my telescope and my guide camera and I can control them from my laptop. Before I have connected all the programs, I believe I have successfully manually Polar aligned using the mount polar alignment reticle and my phone tells my where Polaris should be in this reticle.
This is when i have the issues and maybe I am missing a step..? If I then, for example, use the laptop to send the mount to a known star, it sends the mount to a completely different part of the sky from where the stars are. I have also tried this using the handset with the same results - the mounts just moves to an area nowhere near the star..!!
I have no idea where to go next. Although I love being outside, it is demoralising when the mount doesn’t seem to know where to go. I appreciate this is a learning curve but could there be an issue with the mount or is there something I have overlooked..?
I am resilient and will persevere however long I takes..!
Thanks