Ouroboros

Sounds like a normal fun night out doing some astronomy to me! Isn't that the point - to do battle with the technology? 🙂

Lovely image that of one of my favourite objects.

No worries! 🙂 I won't! It's only because I'm working with a Mac and want to avoid running Windows as a virtual machine on it. Microsoft are dropping support of Windows 7 soon and I don't fancy the upheaval and expense of buying a new dedicated Windows laptop or trying to install new Windows as a virtual machine on my Mac. Anyway that's a different story. Personally I don't find KStars/EKOS/INDI as intuitive or as well supported for newbies as EQMOD. But maybe that's just me being thick. Anyway, all that's for another thread. Good luck and clear skies.

Surprisingly it isn't. First off you don't have to use it if using the handset that comes with the mount. But EQMOD provides a relatively easy and free way IMO to control a mount using a Windows computer. Once set up I found it isn't necessary to use the EQMOD control panel much anyway. The left most panel is like the handset controls, and all the right hand panels can be closed down. I always used Cartes du Ciels planetarium software to point and sync the scope while EQMOD works unseen underneath. There are lots of clear YouTube videos on using EQMOD too.

Good news! Now you can get on with some imaging. And congrats to Stash for suggesting what turned out to be the solution. You've now got me wondering how my encoders are set in EQMOD. What's the default? (Although the question is somewhat academic as I'm in the process of trying out controlling everything using KStars/EKOS/INDI from my MacBook).

Sorry if I've misunderstood your problem but I quite often find when I first start to align the telescope/mount to an alignment star that I cannot see the star in the eyepiece or by camera. Have you simply tried to eyeball how far out the pointing is? Look along the telescope tube or through the finder scope. If it's only just off I'd adjust the mount using the manual adjust in the planetarium application until the star comes into view, centre up and then sync to the star. If it's way off I suggest checking you've input the right latitude and longitude and time. Have you remembered we're in daylight saving? I made both mistakes only recently when setting up new planetarium software.

I soldiered on here in Cornwall despite more or less clouded out skies. I'm setting up my Mac with KStars/EKOS/INDI. Tonight was the second night testing it for real with the mount, DSLR and guide camera. Mixed success. I'll have some questions for tomorrow if anyone is a KStars user. Not now though. Too tired. What I did manage to do was to succesfully plate solve for the first time. Amazingly I couldn't see by eye the stars the telescope was pointing At. They were completely misted out. But the guide camera picked them out, gave an image that the software plate solved. I'm impressed by that.

I'd like to be. The kit is set up ready to roll. But cloud. I've spent the whole month so far down here in Cornwall and there have been two not very clear nights. It's so frustrating!!!!! If it's not showing any promise by 10:00 I'm going to go out, cover up and give up for today. Much of the rest of the country looks fairly clear from the satellite images.

Lovely report. Funny too. You were lucky. The cloud rolled in here about 5pm after beautifully warm day with clear skies.

They are, but as mentioned OSC (usually) refers to a dedicated astro-imaging camera with cooling. I like the self-containedness of my DSLR. I can use it with or without a computer. I can focus it at the telescope. I don't have to provide it with external power. It's well behaved. I'm very familiar with it. It's got a nice big sensor. I can use it for general photography, and I already owned it before getting into this mad game. 🙂 I'm sure I don't need to spell out the various advantages of DSLRs. Pity they're noisier than OSC cameras. PS Oh, and because there's always this ongoing debate about OSC or Mono I am permanently in an indeterminate quantum state of indecisiveness between the two cameras ..... so I do nothing. 🙂

What you describe here is one reason why I have never ventured beyond DSLR imaging. I have to set up on each occasion and only get a handful of good imaging sessions a year. However, if I had a permanent set up I'd have no hesitation in going for mono. What is odd is that I've never quite managed to persuade myself to go for OSC either. Maybe I just prefer the familiarity of using my trusty DSLR.

Yes. It had the feel that it was made for a non-British audience. Even Jim AK had been told to up his normally enthusiastic manner I thought to one of overly gushing enthusiasm on steroids.

Persoanlly I found the upbeat American-style of presentation extremely irritating. Pity really because for me it spoiled what was interesting content, some of which I didn't know.

In my pre-polar scope days I normally set up as you describe and then eyeball up through the mount's RA axis tube, whilst adjusting elevation and latitude, until Polaris was more or less centred. That gets the mount polar aligned to a bit less than 1° of the celestial pole.

Thanks for that. At least I now understand what this sort of astro gizmo will do for the imaging astronomer. Pretty impressed that he picked up his whole rig and carried it outside too. We don't see him polar align and plate solve his target in the video, which presumably he did to get the decent guiding.

OK. Good luck and have fun with your scope. 🙂

Georgeous images. I prefer the more subtle blue in the first one. On my iPad and to my eye the blue in the second image is a tad too strong.

If you're only planning to use the scope for general observing the Moon, Sun and stars I would say you don't need a polar scope. A polar scope is used to obtain good alignment with the earth's axis in order to do long exposure astrophotography. The finder scope is used literally to aid finding the objects you're interested in. It helps because it is of lower magnification than the main scope so allows you to see a wider area of the sky. It's lined up with your main scope so by centring the object up in the finder scope, you should see it when you look through the main scope. I used a mount similar to yours, in fact I've still got it, for some while without a polar scope just for observing. It was fine. I bought one eventually to do some astrophotography. PS there are ways to use a finder scope and camera to polar align, but that's a separate story. Edit: sorry, I'm repeating what Ron posted.

Yes. Good point. I'd tried that already with my iPad using an alternative to VNC called Duet. I don't have wireless network at the scope, but Duet allows wired screen mirroring between an iPad/phone and a Mac. It works but that mount control popup is a bit, well, clunky. A game pad is definitely more responsive. I think maybe I've got to reconsider how I work and pursue different avenues. Thanks so much for taking the time to help. 🙂

Having posted this question on the INDI forum the short and simple answer appears to be that joystick support is limited to Linux only. I'll have to find another way to control the scope at the mount. I am am a bit surprised at this. Joypad support is an integral part of ASCOM EQMOD on Windows. It seems such a simple requirement.

I've just seen this this morning and will try it later. Thanks for your help.

Yeah, tried that. I got "command not found". Do I have to be in the appropriate directory or something?

Thanks I guess it's just the way I'm used to work with ASCOM EQMOD in Windows and Cartes du Ciel. My laptop is in a warm room 5m from the scope. So if I'm aligning the mount visually during set up I need to be at the eyepiece. Similarly if I am doing visual astronomy I use the planetarium to send the telescope to the object of interest. But at the eyepiece I want to scan around the target etc. There is reason in my madness. 🙂 I can see that if you just do imaging, or if your PC is right next to your telescope, that you don't need a separate way to control the mount at the telescope. I tried Terminal. No idea if this is what you meant me to do but I typed in ~ indiserver indi_joystick and got back: -bash: ~$: command not found. Sorry, I'm very unfamiliar with a Mac other than just running apps.

... And I have KStars Ver 3.2.2 Build 2019-05-12 The most recent version in your link is Ver 3.3.3 I can't imagine something as basic as a joystick driver would have only just been added. Nevertheless it has made me wonder how do you update KStars. I can't find an obvious Update option. So how are updates achieved? PS I only ask this question after much googling as they seem so basic.

Sorry, this is probably a really stupid question, but where do I find the command line dialogue box? Is this in the KStars application somewhere or are you referring to commands run on the Terminal app on Mac?