Trevor-Austin

They are organising a replacement mirror, which I’m happy with.

I deliberately used 70%, rather than pure, as that was recommended in the articles I could find but yes I understand your point.

Ah indeed, that does make sense! Although I was pretty careful with getting it only on the mirror, and when I say careful I mean like an old granny careful 😅

Well I did with the odd mark but we agreed to carry on with it. but I’ve just sent them the pictures about the secondary falling off and I’m sure they’ll sort it somehow, just wondering if it’s a common thing.

I purchased a brand new 130PDS from Rother valley a couple of months ago. Although I’ve been using telescopes for 20+ years it’s my first new one, had older LX200s and 90s, etc. so quite excited:) in first light it seemed great until the very centre of the secondary dewed up like a fingerprint. Very odd looking mark. it had gone by the next day but basically every time it got cold this centre mark would appear, although the rest of the mirror was fine. on the advice of Rother valley I cleaned it and also added a few shield to heat the tube and a heated dew shield and the backyard universe secondary cover. Seemed to get some pictures I was very happy with after that. obviously not had much use since with such awful weather. But yesterday was clearish but I just couldn’t seem to get it collimated. And then the clouds came in so I gave up. today I put it out, wasn’t to collimated and couldn’t get a reflection. Then looked into my Focuser Andy he secondary was missing. It had fallen off, and sitting on the mirror mask on the primary. has anybody ever had this before? Seems crazy on a new scope, and also the stick pad quite clearly was only making partial contact on the mirror, roughly coinciding with the weird mark I’d seen from new.

Yes it was all good thank you. although I’ve only set mine to 1000 slew speed. The singing noise it did at start of slew was really weird at 2000.

Hi, hoping another user of the EQStarEQ5 can confirm if my settings are correct. I’ve just installed a 2nd hand one on my EQ5 and it’s showing: gearing of 576 % current 80% ra movement reversed. Thanks

It doesn’t have the usb, it’s a 2010 Rev 1 box. it has a handset port and a n auto guider port. but bizarrely works fine if I power the handset with usb it is fully functional from the handset and the control box runs the Mount for tracking and slewing from the handset or pc connected to the handset. there must be a voltage converter chip blown in the e control box as it works 100% except for powering the handset.

I have what I was told was an EQ5 Mount upgraded to an EQ5 pro. all been working great for several months. However tonight it powered on the handset then locked up, I powered it down and the handset won’t come back on. the handset will power up from the USB cable, even firmware updated it just in case. the control box is an MC002 Rev I 2010, but does have Synscan EQ5 written on it. no jumper on JP1 and no JP2. I’ve tried 2 different power supplies and there’s 12v to the board and the on/off switch definitely works (checked continuity) is the board dead or the handset most likely? I’ve tried a straight through RJ45 patch cable so it isn’t the cable. I can’t test the control box independently as it doesn’t have a direct usb port only via the handset which won’t power. Any help greatly appreciated. edit: just got even stranger, if I power the control box on, nothing obvious happens. However if I then plug the USB cable in, it powers on and initialises and the Mount works perfectly.

So I made myself a very solid latitude bar 2" steel, andcreated q new site with the correct settings.setup with handles upwards as advised for the LX90 and first time alignment worked perfectlt, at last So now I have just one issue left, and this is down to me. How do you ensure that your OTA is pointing exactly 90 degrees to the forks.latitude and azimuth adjustment is simple.buy I get it all looking 100% spin the OTA as and polaris flies off sideways. The diwc on the fork is useless, it's been moved. Is it just hours of trial and error then set the fork indicator or is their an easier way.........

Very similar to mine except I have a bubble level instead of a compass and I am missing items 4,5 & 6 from fig 3. Or item 4 from fig 1, plus the latitude control is also missing, that's easy to work without but the fine azimuth control is impossible, the OTA is barely held anyway by the adjustment knobs without that bar to support it and in addition supporting the whole weight of the scope while looking through the eyepiece while trying to make mm adjustments and tighten down is close to impossible I am trying to make one from drilled/threaded aluminium bar and some epoxy weld.

Thank you, so I guess I have the basic wedge, missing that bar, I'm going to add it as trying to adjust without it is impossible, basically you have to loosen off then support the whole scope with your arms while looking through the eyepiece then tighten, any small adjustment is impossible. The alt adjustment is fine, just undo the support a little bit and move left and right so I'll just leave that. I have checked the scope model, and don't forget it's perfect in alt/az checked the mount 100 times:) and haven't tried a 2 star alignment, but then if it can't find a star from the easy or 1 star I don't suppose it would be any differnt. Any chance you could try a 1 star or easy and let me know what happen. Your home position sounds identical to mine, scope pointing directly up at Polaris, where are the handles and finder on your scope then? On the top aiming at you or pointing at the ground like the LX200s have to do in the Northern hemisphere (I think)

And damn, last night was a complete write off, I've just contacted Opticstar who were very helpful and going to look into it for me. This is my current situation, I can't try again as my wedge for some reason doesn't have the azimuth control so I have to hold the scope undo the screws and move it while trying to look at the eyepiece then do them up without moving it, nigh on impossible I found last night, so I am going to make the Azimuth fine control and add it before trying again. My telescope is approximately 10-13 years old and is an 8" LX90. I have added the LNT device to it and a patched firmware from a business called Starpatch(.ca) so my firmware is labelled 43GG. What the patch does is allow the telescope to believe it has GPS added. It's quite complicated but works fantastically in ALT/AZ mode. I have been using the patch for 6 months plus, with zero issues. However I tried to mount the telescope on a Meade Equatorial Wedge over the last few days for longer astro photography with the plans to add a guider, however I cannot get it even close to working. The method I am attempting to use is the following; Set the telescope to level Add the wedge and ensure it is pointing close to due North Set the Azimuth plate to approximately correct (mine is 52 degrees 32 minutes) Mount the telescope with the forks and finder pointing directly down and the OTA pointing directly towards Polaris Turn the telescope on (tried it with it on before alignment too) Choose 1 star alignment I then get asked to get Polaris dead centre using the wedge controls as the scope slews round a little to expose the eyepiece, all seems simple and works fine. Then it tries to slew to a star for me to align to, at no point does it EVER slew anywhere near to where the named star actually is. I have tried to manually sync without an alignment, that was also a similar abysmal failure. I have tried this maybe 30 times and it never gets better. Normally the chosen star is well below the horizon and often as much as 120+ degrees pointing in the wrong direction. I have checked, the mount setting is polar, the location, time and date is correct, including disconnecting the GPS and LNT module and entering manually, deleting the manual site I had setup, taking it back to ALT/AZ mode again (all perfect) Things I might be doing wrong; Am I using the LX200 method wrongly and is that different from an LX90 method? I notice that if I hold my mode button to check drive positioning they are never at 90 degrees and zero as the LX200 guys are in Polar home. I am going to try with the official meade firmware instead of the patched firmware I am going to try a full handset reset, in the past that has fixed non working tonight's best tour and a couple of other things. I could loosen the clutches and set the home position readout to the same as is set on the LX200s by running the motors disconnected until I get the correct readings.

I've finally sorted it. everything is perfect in alt az and the battery pack I use is a 13500ah that also runs my PC last over half a day running the PC and the scope:) However I use starpatch for gps.on my handset it all looked good when it gets the GPS reading, but after about 20 attempts at polar alignment I noticed that the time was jumping ahead exactly 7 Hours even though gps showed fine. Disconnected the GPS and the lnt and set the time manually looked a little better but not good but at least time was correct. Then I deleted the site I had created for my location, rebooted with lnt and gps connected and the time stayed correct. Must be a bug in starpatch somehow with my custom location and only in polar mode. As soon as I deleted my custom site, actually modified Birmingham , it all works as expected. And luckily tonight looks really clear so a full test in a couple of hours. Why I didn't get the problem in alt az my mode I have no idea.

So that is the OTA pointing due south, at 0 degrees? and forks parallel to the ground and pointing north? I like cables mines as bad especially with the mini PC attached to the Forks and the battery pack on the opposite fork.

I would appreciate that yes please. Especially as mine doesn't have the azimuth bar for fine adjustment or anything missing either, just not there. Ah, dst forgot that, is that a setup setting? It just confused me auto selecting out if view stars. I am only testing in daylight but it should know that? But dst I forgot!!! When you say controls towards north the lx90 controls are in the fork arm, not the base, so shouldn't the forks be parallel to ground? If needs be I can try the south at 0 too. Couldn't be any worse, lol. Just to confirm again though, polar home setting scope powered on or off?

So do you not do any of the autostar alignments? I have noticed if I do it like this then if I press the mode button for a few seconds then the readings are not at 90degs and 0 but any random numbers, or do I need to turn it off and back on again after setting polar home so they reset? Just to be certain, at polar home the ota should be pointing at eight angles to the base and wedge directly at polaris and the handles and finder aiming towards the ground. Time and date is from gps using starpatch plus I also have the lnt module added. In alt as it all works perfectly, so I'm sure it's my understanding:) Is there a reason from that position that 1 star align points below the horizon for the alignment star?

So I have an LX90 fork mounted with Meade wedge. Setting the wedge correctly and setting polar home so Polaris is at the center of thecwyepiece with handles and finder painting down. 1 star align with Polaris seems fine, then slews to several stars below the horizon. I can't find any instructions, my manual is useless.a wedge is available follow instructions, but there aren't any. All of the decent videos are for lx200 and use the method I've tried, but it just doesn't work. I don't want to drift align, for now, I just want a simple enough alignment as meade expected, but I can't make it work . What am I missing? Any help very much appreciated. The instructions on the 497 are also useless. Adjust the RA within 180 degrees of the hard stops, well of course I have no hard stops. So should I set to polar home before turning on? Then turn on and align? Please save my remaining hair.