Search the Community

Has anyone any experience of using the Celestron oag with either a ZWO ASI 120MM mini or ASI 224MC as a guide camera? After a few nights of unsatisfactory guiding my 8” Edge HD with a piggy back 60mm scope I’m thinking about getting the oag. Unfortunately I can only afford the oag and not a new guide camera with a sensor large enough to make best use of the large prism. I already own the 120 mini and 224 and wondered whether they’d work. Thanks.

Hello All, Been searching the inter web for info on "how to improve tracking" during solar capture (for time lapse animations). Came across this LuSol Guide. Did a search on SGL and no hits. Any one looked at this before or even tried it? http://www.oc-lab.fr/ - Nihal

Perhaps DIYers will be interested in a low cost guiding setup for EQ2 mounts. I'm not sure if this approach has been tried before, but it's relatively straightforward to implement and is certainly low cost. In early 2016 I purchased a Meade Polaris 130 scope, complete with EQ2 mount and Economy RA (clockwork) motor drive with the intention of trying out astrophotography at a low entry cost. Very quickly the prime focus problem arose - so the scope was shortened by 40mm. With this mod 30 second exposures very not too difficult, with 60 seconds sometimes successful. Of course the problem was tracking. Rather than spend time taking lots of 30 second exposures and knowing that longer exposures were really the way forward, I decided to investigate the Economy RA Motor to see if it could be modified in some way for guiding. The answer soon became apparent - yes it could (with very simple mods) but I had no idea how well it would work. Next steps were to look for a way to guide the motor - an Orion mini guide scope and Microsoft Cinema webcam (modified of course) plus a Raspberry PI with Lin_guider were relatively painless to get going and the results were good. However, DEC drift could still cause star trails, so a bit of thought came up with the idea of using an Economy RA Motor as a DEC motor, again to be controlled by the Raspberry PI. This evening the setup was given its for test for dual axis guiding (5 min RA guiding had been successful previously). Not the best sky - very bright due to the moon and clouds appearing. Still, taking no time for polar alignment other than to point the scope slightly to one side of the pole star, a guide star was found, guiding started, guiding gain etc adjusted and a couple of images taken before the clouds got in the way. Results - no doubt as seasoned astrophotographers would expect, DEC guiding just needs a bit of correcting from time to time - the gain of Lin_guider had to be brought down to stop oscillation. RA guiding takes much more frequent corrections, again with a low gain for my setup. My aim with the mods was to see if such a low cost and basic setup could be made to guide - also at a low cost and with simple equipment/mods. On the face of things it is not too involved and I hope that it will be useful to those who don't want to jump into the expense of more mainstream equipment. It could also be a low cost learning curve into guided astrophotography for those who have already purchased a scope with EQ2 mount. Next steps for me is to find (hopefully!) some clear skies for a chance at decent imaging. Weight hasn't been added to the mount as yet - this should improve stability although the short 650mm focal length is a help when it comes to stability and guiding errors. Below is a 5 minute (bright) single image taken this evening with dual axis guiding (at 100 ASA due to the moon). The central star seems reasonably round, though coma affects other stars towards the edge of the image. I've also attached diagrams of the setup and another earlier 5 minute single image taken with RA only guiding.

I was once told in passing not to trust the OEM bubble level on equipment. It was a long time ago, and not really related to astronomical equipment. HOWEVER, it apparently applies to just about anything and ESPECIALLY astronomical equipment. Ever since I bought my new mount, I have had issues with guiding and less than spectacular results with plate solving tracking to a target. If I fiddled with it enough, it would work in a "barely acceptable" fashion. I tried everything I could think of (even some really stupid ideas). My only clue was that polar alignment with a polar scope to perfection did not lead to good polar alignment being reported properly elsewhere in the sky. PHD Guiding Assistant, for example, would always report up to 300 arcmin off for polar alignment once I left the pole. Other software that did not use the mount camera also reported similarly bad polar alignment. When I did a polar alignment with software that used the main imaging scope, rather than the polar scope, the result in PHD away from the pole was also bad. Not identical, but still very bad. For a while I considered that my mount was just a dud. The attached picture shows the problem. Prior to actually checking with a level, I had always meticulously leveled the mount with the OEM bubble level. Long story short, once I started leveling the mount with an actual working level, everything began working as advertised. It kills me to think of how many hours and imaging nights I wasted chasing such a simple problem. May this post help prevent duplication of my ineptitude in this matter.

Hi Star Gazers. I hope someone may be able to help me. For my full setup see end of post. After some successful tests of guiding in the last month as I progress toward doing DSO imaging, it has just gone pear-shaped. I have been using Ekos internal guiding, pulse not ST4 using a QHY5L II camera. In the past week the guiding process cannot keep within 2.5" for more than a minute, and within a couple it can be 40" out - RA is the main the problem. It does not always happen – just mostly. In desperation, to avoid moving the guide camera, etc to another PC, I started using PHD2 on the Pi itself (after ‘disconnecting’ the camera from Kstars and ‘connecting’ to PHD2). It works OK and the results are quite good - same INDI server, same guide scope, camera, mount - literally just changing from Ekos to Pi-based PHD2 within minutes solved the problem. When I set guiding on Ekos the next night, it again failed. I leave the mount connected to Ekos, but obviously not the camera. I have tried another camera (ASI385) and using ST4 – no better. I have checked that cables are not snagged, clutches are tight, and scopes are balanced and secure. Polar alignment is within 60” each time (as shown by Ekos Legacy PA function). Obviously I can continue to use PHD2 on the Pi, but I would prefer the Ekos internal guiding system for unattended imaging (eventually!). I attach a snip of the guiding screen when I had another try last night. Hope all this is clear.... Setup: HEQ5 Pro mount (10 months old) Serial/usb adapter INDI server running on Pi 4 8GB under Astroberry. QHY 5L II guide camera. Cheap 50mm finder scope as guide scope. Kstars 3.3.4 desktop under W10 remotely Ethernet connections to all Mount (as Eqmod) and guide camera on INDI running on the Pi .

Hi I've set my scope up on it's pier in my ROR observatory, done a few drift aligns and started to take some images. I've noticed a 'quite' regular dip in my DEC line on several nights. Would anyone be able to have a quick scan of my log and offer any insight? Could it be backlash? Could it be something with each rotation of the gears? Faulty tooth? It is quite regular, although not always, and always in the same direction. It doesn't seem to be adversely affecting imaging yet, but I've not tried anything too taxing. Thanks Joe PHD2_GuideLog_2018-09-23_200940.txt

Hi, I'm new to this whole auto guiding thing so bare with me! So I have a iOptron SkyGuider Pro with a WO Zenithstar 61 and recently bought a ZWO ASI120MM Mini and guide scope to have a go at auto guiding. I followed tutorials online step by step (installing drivers, and changing the settings in PHD etc.) and managed to connect the camera and mount in PHD, start looping exposures and select a star. But when I start the calibration, it counts to 'west step 61' and comes up with "RA Calibration Failed: star did not move enough" I have tried reinstalling all drivers/software, using a different laptop and solutions other people have found do not help. Guide scope is focused and it's not trying to track a hot pixel. The star is supposed to move up and down as the mount moves during the calibration although nothing happens. So this makes me think there is something wrong with the mount or the ST4 cable from the camera to the mount. Cable securely clicks into both ends. I have heard the term "backlash" with mounts and not sure if this could be the cause? Not sure what this means or if this is possible with a star tracker? I can't seem to manually control the mount in PHD although I'm not sure what I'm doing. I can however, manually press the buttons on the mount itself and it moves fine. I've attached pictures of my setup along with the 'Guide Log' that people often ask for - PHD2_GuideLog_2021-08-23_225305.txt (Also, the total weight on the mount is 4.7kg and the max payload is 5kg for imaging so this should be fine?) Any Ideas? Let me know if you guys need anything else. Thanks, Dean Setup: iOptron Skyguider Pro WO Zenithstar 61 ii Guide Camera: ZWO ASI120MM Mini Guide Scope: 32mm F4 (focal length - 125mm)

I have an EQ5 telescope mount which i use for astrophotography. I have modified it with a motorised RA axis using a bipolar stepper motor - my thread for the build is here . I want to expand the mount's tracking ability by motorising the DEC axis and using a guide scope/camera. I generally use the mount in fairly remote locations so would like to use a raspberry Pi for portability. I understand that I'll need to use a Raspberry Pi Camera Module for the guide camera. The capability I want is: 1. guide the mount along RA and DEC axes using a guide star as feedback 2. track the mount using the RA axis only, and if possible continuously take 20-30 second exposures on the guide camera (this functionality is optional, but would assist in polar alignment of the mount) I don't want any GOTO capability. I am very new to RPi and need some help: - do I need to write code for this, or is there existing programming available for what I want to do? - is it possible to avoid the use of screens (in the field)? My preferred option would be to flick a switch to start and stop the guiding, with another switch for alignment mode (or something simple like this). - do I need to use any particular stepper motors/drivers for raspberry Pi? I'm using a bipolar stepper motor running quarter steps, with an A4988 stepper driver - is the RPi 3 Model B+ the unit I should buy? Thanks

Hi All, just thought i would show the results of a little project. I have been guiding with my Orion Mini Fifty with great success using a ED80 F7.5 scope to image through. recently though i wanted to get a little closer to some of the objects coming up in the summer sky. M13, M3, M33, M27, Cygnus wall, m101, wizard nebula... etc etc the list goes on. I will be trying with my 2x barlow giving a focal length of 1200. Which should be OK guiding with my mini fifty, but i wanted to try and match the pixel ratio a bit better to see if it helped, BUT i cannot get focus on the mini fifty when i use a 2x barlow on that... i can screw the barlow lens directly to the end of my QHY5ii_L mono but the focus point puts the camera about 1mm out of the back of the tube. TOO CLOSE to use a barlow as an extension tube because of the internal shoulder.... hmm dilemma. Now i am a product designer so to the drawing board i went....well to Sketchup anyway. Money is always tight so an aluminium turned part was out, but a rigid plastic 3d printed part was on the cards. And as luck would have it, my work bought a new SLA 3D printer (Form2) from form labs) capable of printing to 25 micron resolution. I thought Christmas had come early! attached are images of the final part attached to the rear part of the Mini Fifty, ready to be screwed in place. Not sure how i managed it but i got the tolerances right first time....and measuring the rear part with a ruler. fitting diameter to slide over the rear part of the min fifty = 42.25 diameter. fitting for the camera (1.25") = 32.5 diameter. as you may have noticed i will need to add 3 x M3 threaded inserts to the back end of this to clamp the QHY securely in. i can post images after this is done. if anyone wants this model i can provide it. None of the internal/external detail is needed really, but this was to see what the Form2 could do. And i can say ........it is amazing. (for everything but closed cavity printing. clear skies everyone.

I'm starting to worry about my mount I've got a quite significant wiggle in the RA axis when the mount is powered off in it's parked position (clutches locked of course). Before I embark on a full strip down following Atrobaby's guide I thought it would be worth asking if anyone had suggestions for a less drastic investigation / fix? I'm not sure how recently this issue has come up, I've only just become aware of it after an equipment upgrade. I've just replaced my guiding setup of a 50mm finder coupled with an SPC900 webcam, to a Celestron 70mm TravelScope with a Touptek Mono guider. When I made this change my guiding went to hell, with a crazy amount of oscillation on the RA axis, which is what led to to start looking for flexure etc. and thus I found the RA axis slop... Now I understand that my new guiding setup has a much tighter FOV, and therefore will make the guiding errors look more pronounced than I am used to with the finder guider setup, but still I'm getting graphs with massive errors and corrections, sometime 2-3 pixels worth of motion. The DEC axis looks ok, but RA is all over the place, and I wonder if it's down to this wiggle? I've tried adjusting the balance so that the mount is at least always working on one direction, but that didn't appear to help much last night. So can anyone offer me some advice? Thanks in advance

Hello all, So I routinely have issues with guiding. Last night, I was getting some solid sub exposures of 5 minutes on the Flaming Star Nebula. When it got to about 15-20minutes of the meridian, I began getting trails on my stars. Then after the flip, I was still getting trails despite PHD reporting all's well. I moved over to the Horsehead Nebula and tried 5 minutes there, and it behaved itself. Then I tested it on the Jellyfish Nebula and it also behaved (just about - minor trails). But it just did not want to dig it with the Flaming Star Nebula, which was practically near the zenith (about 2:30am 30/11/19). I tried recalibrating PHD (I use Pulseguide so the scope knew where it was). I then also recalibrated PHD at Alnitak so it was near the celestial equator (as the PHD best practices recommend). I even checked my Polar Alignment (done with a Polemaster), which was fine. I couldn't find anything wrong. The guide scope was slightly off alignment with the main OTA, but that wasn't making any differences before the Meridian. I did find the helical focuser of the Starwave 50mm guide scope I was using to have some movement in it again when I manipulated the guide camera. So that's something I need to look into. But before I start throwing money at this issue, I see the terms "flexure" and "differential flexure" coming up. Can anyone shed light on what this means please? I tried manipulating the OTA in its tube rings, that didn't yield any movement either. The piggyback scope is secure, the g/scope is secure in its rings as well, there's no movement in the OTA focus rack and the cameras are secure in their tubes. I do have my guide rings quite far back on the body of the telescope to assist with fitting the guide scope piggyback. Video of g/scope play: Flaming Star Nebula. 5 minute sub, post Meridian Flip, about 2:50am (30/11/19). Note the plate solve compass in the top left. Drift appears to be in S/W direction. Position of tube rings (they're now at the focus end). I think I am leaning towards needing to move my tube rings (once I remember to get the tools from work). Equipment: (brand new) Skywatcher EQ6-R Pro, SW Evostar Pro 80ED, Altair 0.8x R/F, Canon 600D, Altair Starwave 50mm Guide Scope, Altair AR130 Mono Guide Cam.

Hello, I hope I'm posting this in the right section. I have a guiding query I hope people here may be able to help me with. I have just purchased a Skywatcher EQ5 mount (without GoTo) and also the Skywatcher Enhanced Dual Axis Handset For EQ5 in order to be able to guide (this has yet to arrive so I haven't been able to look at it closely). I was wondering if anyone here has worked with this setup and particularly if there is anything else I need to get in order to make it work. From what I can tell the Skywatcher Enhanced Dual Axis Handset comes with the two motors and has an ST-4 interface for an Auto-Guider. So far so good, but I can't see how it communicates with the laptop to make guiding corrections dictated by the software (I use PHD for guiding). My guiding camera is the ZWO ASI120C and the guidescope is the Orion 50mm mini guidescope. There must surely be a cable that goes from the USB port to the handset but I can't see any mention of one, or indeed if something like that is required. Looking at other setups and examining the PHD settings, I've seen mention of something called a GPUSB guide port interface adapter which plugs directly into a USB port on the computer. Using an RJ-12 cable, the adapter connects to the guide port of the telescope mount (or in this case the Enhanced Dual Axis Handset hopefully). I'm assuming I'll need something like this. On my old setup a cable goes from the USB port of my laptop and is converted to a plug that goes into the bottom of the Celestron handset and is controlled wth the ASCOM Celestron Telescope driver, while the guide camera (ZWO ASI120C) connects to the mount. While I can see how the guide camera connects to the Enhanced Dual Axis Handset on what will be the new setup, I can't see any USB cable or converter that goes into the new handset, nor can I see any mention of the need for one, which strikes me as odd. Looking at the PHD settings and also at other setups online, I saw mention of something called a GPUSB guide port interface adapter which plugs directly into a USB port on the computer. Using an RJ-12 cable, the adapter connects to the guide port of the telescope mount (or in this case the Enhanced Dual Axis Handset...hopefully). I'm assuming I must need something like this and that the Enhanced Dual Axis Handset accepts one (or an ASCOM equivalent - I didn't see Skywatcher listed in the PHD driver options). I hope this makes some sort of sense. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Hi The longest frames i seem to be able to capture using my Atik 414ex and PHD2 are about 2 minutes. Any longer than that and i start to get egg shaped stars. PHD is making corrections, but i can't understand why i can't get to subs of at least 5 minutes. I'm not sure if its a limitation of the scope (6SE, with f/6.3 FR), limitation of the guide camera (orion magnificent mini, 50mm scope), poor polar alignment or poor worm gear. Would PEC training help improve my sub length? Or is it settings in PHD to experiment with? I look at the logs, but it's all just numbers to me. I can provide logs if that would help? Any suggestions appreciated. Thanks Joe

Hello. I have an unusual problem with my AZ-EQ6. I decided that I wanted to try pulse guiding rather than ST4, to get rid of a cable. I use MaxIm for all my controls, capture, guiding, pointing etc. and I use the EQMod ASCOM scope driver. My initial pulse guiding efforts worked ok, the mount would move and guide etc, no worries. I was not pleased with the pulse guiding results after some fluffing around so I moved back to ST4 and this seems to be where my issues started. Now, whether I choose ST4 or pulse guiding, my mount will no longer calibrate in the Y axis (Dec, I believe), or for that matter, guide. I have tried the move commands from inside MaxIm guide tab and X responds to a 10 pixel move but not Y. I tested with both PHD 1 & 2 with the same results. If it were a hardware issue, as in the mount has a Dec problem, would I be able unable to operate the mount with the hand controller or on screen motion buttons, both of which slew the mount fine? I could understand if the guide port were malfunctioning that ST4 would possibly have an issue but not when the mount slews as directed, so pulse guiding should work. Could it simply be that my EQMod driver has got confused and needs to be re-set, or am I looking down the barrel of sending my mount back to the dealer? Does any of this make sense? Thoughts and feedback most welcome.

Dear all, please can you help out a beginner to the software PHD2. I am attempting to guide an ED80 scope on an EQ5 Synscan mount with an ASI 120MC camera on a 9x50 finderscope. I have connected an ST4 cable from the mount to the camera and I can see that the mount does converse with the camera and corrections are given succesfully. The problem I having is seen at the end of the calibration step. I keep getting an orthagonality error which is always massive - usually around 50-60 degrees when it should be less than 10. If I accept the calibration then guiding performance is absolute rubbish. I have on one of the 5 occasions I have tried to guide managed to get a calibration where the orthagonality error value was about 20 and the guiding performance was pretty good leading to 8minute subs. I ensure that my polar alignment is as good as possible and I can't see any obvious scope balancing problems. Please suggest remedies or can it be only due to poor scope balance? thanks in advance

Hi All, Apologies for what may seem like a stupid question, but if have a QSI 683 WSG which has a built in OAG which i use for guiding all the time. I want to try imaging some comets but i'm guessing this is not possible with a OAG. I do have a 60mm guide scope, but wasn't sure if differential flex would come into play as my main scope is around 1.2m F/L Any help or recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Rich.

Hi All, I'd really appreciate some advice on my new imaging setup. To date most of my imaging has been with an Altair ED80 triplet but I have recently invested in a 10" skywatcher Quattro to use with my Atik 383L as I'm really interested in imaging galaxies. My mount is an NEQ6 and my imaging train is a 383L, Atik EFW, and a SW Aplanatic coma corrector (with spacing adaptors to set the CC at 55mm from the CCD). I took some test subs last night (a stretched 300s Lum sub is shown below) but I appear to be getting egg shape stars round the outer edge of the image. My question is, are the stars a result of poor collimation, incorrect spacing of the Coma Corrector, poor guiding or a combination of these. I suspect it may be mostly down to collimation as I have never owned a Newtonian before and have been really struggling collimating this scope despite reading almost every collimation thread/tutorial on here. I know some of the more experienced imagers on here will be able to tell what the problem is just by looking at the attached image. Any feedback or advice is really appreciated. Thanks dec

I am preparing for guiding and have the ST80 with ASI120MM camera. I want to connect this to Lin_guider running on a Raspberry Pi, and use StarsPi as a user interface/client. At the moment I have connected the camera to the RPi and I can see the connection on the client in my android device. But it says that the camera is off line. That's where I am stuck. Does anyone know how to continue from here, i.e. get the camera recognised by the app?? Any help appreciated.

I've picked up a second hand Lightrack II recently, so was keen to test it. My plan was to use the guiding assistant in PHD to get a graph of the tracking performance, but initially the mount wouldn't move. After a search, I had to modify the guiding cable that came with the mount, as it was wired up 'the other way' to the one required for QHY5L. After that it calibrated fine and could run the test. Below is a 22min graph of the unguided performance, while it's not within the 2" peak-to-peak quoted, it's still pretty good. Next I've tried it with a canon 300mm lens (unguided again), the picture is a crop of a 10min exposure, slightly eggy, but again pretty happy with that.

Hello all, I have had a real problem with my AZ EQ6 GT: I have found that the MOUNT guide rate in RA is 1/3 the guide rate in DEC. EQMOD is set to 0.9 in both axis?? This seems to have happened when I tried guiding with AA& instead of the normal PHD2? Is there a mount direct command to alter the RA guide rate. Bit like the mount commands to dim the polar scope and set park position. You know one of these serial commands the no one ever uses?? All the best John

Hi all PHD2 seems to be playing up again and Iost a clear night again Everything appeared to be fine and after polar aligning (separate camera to guide scope) I set up a new sequence. That started up and focused, plate solved and then guiding started but after a few seconds of perfect looking guiding the RA and Dec went off the scale massively ending up with a PHD error along the lines of "PHD2 is unable to make sufficient corrections in RA, check for cable snags, redo calibration...." Images obviously come out trailed. I have an RDP connection to the laptop at the mount so after happening a few times I went to check for snags etc but it all seemed fine. I set up the sequence again at the mount and the same thing happened. Restarting the apps, power cycling the kit and choosing different targets all resulted in the same issue so I packed it all away. It was also the same if I used PHD2 via NINA or if I just started PHD2 on its own and tried guiding separately. I'm using an AZ-EQ6 with a WO guide scope and 120mm if it's relevant. I checked everything was tight and have not looked at any logs yet but does anyone have any bright ideas what might be happening please? Thanks in advance...

I was wondering, is there an alternative to the ATTH3010 declination unit one could use with the Astrotrac? Counterweight is important, because I'd use a 90/600 APO.

PHD2 has been popping up in various places on this forum, with many if,buts and maybe's. So last night while I was waiting for the clouds to clear, I downloaded and installed it. (I was a bit annoyed at the additional stuff that you needed to install, but hey, if it works it works.) So plugged everything in and started it up. Some of my WOW moments: - The equipment profiles that seem to be pre-tuned. (So plug and play!) - Auto tuning of your camera dialogue and the new darks works great, stars where bright and the background black ... out the box. - The new / updated graphing and the star profiles are very cool. (Still need to learn what all the new stuff means!) - Seems more stable and less resource intensive / laggy. Although when I woke up this morning, it had frozen and so had EQMOD. Was this because it got confused when the clouds rolled in? (The clouds rolled in at about 2am, so managed 3hrs data, all tight 5 min subs at 900 FL, with a 600D and a Finderguider 200FL.) Looking back at last night I have some question for the veterans. 99% of my nudges kept me within 0.5 target on the star profile. I had 1 in a hundred that pushed out, but always below 1. My Dec was buttery smooth, almost no movement at all a flat line, sometimes just below the line and other times just above. My RA was more hacksaw blade, with higher peaks (EQMOD) than what I got with PHD1. How should I tame the yo-yo effect so that it if a flatter line? (EQMOD is set to 0.5 RA and 0.9 DEC, min pulse is smallest at 20) (Avg size RA Oscillation between was 0.2 and 0.3, but some times up at 0.5) Anyway just a big thumbs up to the DEVs and really everybody should give a go, it is super cool.

I don't expect any replies - think I'm just braindumping for the mental wellbeing aspect of a frustrating night. --- Having been ill through the week, Saturday found me feeling well enough to get outside and see if I could hook some things together and try to get FirstLight through some of my recent purchases. I've been using my Star Adventurer mini-rig [SA non-wifi, Canon 200D (unmodified), >30yr old Tamron 200mm f3.5] but knew things were going to be very different, and was keen to get going. So the kit was all lined up: > Laptop (Win10), Raspberry Pi4 with Astroberry > EQ6-R Pro > SW 80ED-DS Pro (Kit), SVBony SV106 190mm/50mm Guide Scope > ZWO ASI 224MC, Canon 200D, SVBony SV205, 7TC ASI 120MC clone > USB GPS Dongle (G72 G-Mouse Glonass Beidou GNSS) for location and mains power for all via various PSUs with enough USB cables to circle the planet --- Didn't take too long to get both Win10 (ASCOM) or Astroberry (INDI) talking to the mount and progress was being made - RA/DEC all seemed fine so onto the cameras. Found a distant object and SharpCap gave me images for all three USB devices once I had the SVBony as a Windows WebCam (RESULT!) and the same through INDI on the Astroberry, all three displayed images when enabling Streaming. Settled on EQ6-R, SW 80ED, ASI224MC for imaging, SV106/SV205 for guiding That's it (I thought!) and I broke down the rig and moved it to the lawn - I say lawn, more like a mossy bank but serves the purpose - and wait until dusk where a simple Polar Align and I'll be grabbing images of M51 Whirlpool in no time ............... (I must cut the lawn, even if just to get rid of the blue from spray-painting a new table a couple of weekends ago) (please ignore the middle dew heater, was there to remind me to put it on the guide scope later) --- PA on the Star Adventurer, 30mins (5mins for the alignment, 5mins for remembering which phone app has a PA Clock and the obligatory 20mins to find the flamin' polar illuminator!) - this has been giving me consistent 5min exposures with no trailing. PA on the EQ6-R is 'interesting' - I have a QHY PoleMaster but am waiting on the adapter from FLO (stock issues) so it was SharpCap alignment. Wait for it to get dark enough, then get focus, then wait for platesolving in a "change exposure, gain, star threshold, black threshold, platesolve again" loop for over an hour. Woohoo, plate solved ..... oh, rotate around RA ..... and perform the same operation again ..... ARGHHH! Over two hours later (probably more like 3hrs+) I've got polar alignment to within 12 seconds (wishing I'd screengrabbed that now). I really don't like the adjustment mechanism, the thread pitch is far too high for minute adjustments of alignment! --- And onto guiding ........................ or maybe not. PHD2, Nothing through it at all .... then remembered I'd not refocused the guide scope, then it was taking the Darks library. Still nothing. Opened the SV205 via SharpCap and got focus, switched back to PHD2, still nothing ...... hmm, is this just an unsupported camera (windows 'webcam'). So switched out for the 120MC copy - Amazon 7TC special. Repeated the SharpCap for focus, then PHD2 Darks library and BOOM I have stars showing up in PHD2 - RESULT ...... I'll leave it at that for a moment and try looking at something, see what I get from the 224MC main camera and what PHD2 gives me in the guide scope. So onto the next 'learning opportunity' - target selection --- Erm, how do I select a target for goto with just two camera apps .... aha, Stellarium No Telescope selected, easy - it went something like this: "Open Stellarium, select telescope, select ASCOM ... there we go ... nope, it won't connect ... restart everything (twice) ... redo settings (twice) ... check ASCOM diagnostics (all passed) ... quick google search, aha I'm not the only one, you have to select the scope within the options pane ... what options pane .... oh, scroll down ..." And I now have Stellarium control of the scope - again a RESULT - it's taking time but I think I'm making progress here .... hmm, it's getting bloody cold, wow, it's midnight! --- So I now have an in focus 224MC, an in focus guide scope and control over the mount, here we go ... I'll be stacking images in the morning and making millions from selling prints online NOPE! Easy targets for testing were below the horizon (basically M42) so I'll just pick Vega and make sure slewing works, imaging works and can see how guiding works. Nothing, no bright star at all - okay, bigger target - the moon. Again nothing, no bright screen - so switched out the camera for a 26mm LER EP and a diagonal and manually aligned the moon - then, and here comes stupid, refocused (!) for the moon. --- Stellarium wasn't syncing with the mount - I was 'off' on any selected target and by a lot Quick google search and I'm no the only one - no sync points on my clean build so wasn't that, but use of the GPS dongle for location and TIME might be the problem. --- And at this point it as 2:30am - prime viewing time last night with the moon disappearing in the West behind me - the garden slopes due-West to due-East so I only get Partial-North>East>Partial-South viewing. Time to give up, have a small glass of Red and look for more things to buy on SGL/Astro B&S. --- Today - well I had to break everything down to get it into the garage (too heavy to carry as one with current health) - I'll try to get the ASCOM/GPS element sorted out and maybe this evening try some targeting/lunar rate tracking so see if that major element is resolved. And, if you've made it this far, please accept this for your perseverance, you've earned it.