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Showing results for tags 'mesu'.
Found 13 results
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Hello guys, Which tripod would you recommend for a Mesu 200? I'm considering the two below options: Losmandy folding HD tripod or Altair Starbase I'm looking for maximum stability for my mobile setup, and of course it doesn't harm if it is quick to set up and looks great. Also the Berlebach Planet comes to mind, but I prefer a metal tripod. Clear skies, Heine Wieben -
Hopefully about to join the legion of the many very happy Mesu 200 owners but would like to ask a few questions if possible. Can the software that the Mesu mount uses be controlled by a Mac rather than a PC? What software comes out of the box for controlling the Mesu mount is it user friendly and are there other alternatives? As a warm room won't be possible due to space restrictions what is the possible maximum length a USB cable can be wired between the mount and the controlling computer? Reason I am asking is that the conservatory will be close to the observatory and the option is, once I get the Atik Infinity to control everything from indoors (especially in the cold weather)? Again rather ask questions now rather than find out things after the whole set up is built. As always thanks for the input people, really appreciate it.
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Well I think I was the first gig on Lucas Mesu's UK tour. He was doing a round robin to see the UK customers who'd been unfortunate enough to get mounts with a dodgy batch of RA motor/encoders. It was really nice to get to chat about the mount with the designer. He was clearly frustrated with the situation, but still just as enthusiastic about the merits of his design, and logic would certainly support this type of friction drive. He was keen to explain that there will always be some level of 'ripple' on the PE, as the pin/rollers can never be completely perfect, but I took a couple of tracking plots first, and the was an obvious step change in performance from the old RA motor. It's early days, but it certainly looks promising. The only ripple I can see has an amplitude just under 0.5 arcsecs in 20s (42s full pin rotation period). I'm new to off axis guiding, and still tweaking settings in PHD, plus the seeing wasn't great last night and there was a gusty wind. In spite of this, I got a half decent shot of NGC891. This is a sum of 10x15 min Atik 460 unbinned Lum subs, at about 1150mm (RC8 + CCDT67 at just under max spacing). Lodestar OAG'd with 2s guide subs via PHD. I know the stars aren't ultra round, and I have some field tilt/curve, but it's not a bad start. Happy to see PGC9101 in the lower left, first time I've caught this in any kind of detail. Shame I'm going away over the new moon - doh! More soon, Jack
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Guys and Gals - Really hoping for some help from the imaging gurus and mount doctors here. Lucas has been helping me with my Mesu 200, which arrived with what I believe was an out of spec RA servo/encoder. It's one of the latest versions with magnetic motor encoders rather than optical. Historically, mag encoders have never been as accurate as optical (although they are normally more reliable), and typically they're not well suited to being on the end of an electromagnetic servomotor, but he re-assured me that no-one else had reported problems. My initial tracking graphs (PHD into PECPrep, 400mm ST80 into QHY5) revealed a 'fast' periodic error, going from around +2 to -2 arcsecs every 21 seconds (this is twice the fundamental motor rotation period). Not what I hoped for. Here it is again with a little Low Pass filtering: Now Lucas sent me one of the original optical encoders, which I have fitted and I believe it has resolved this fault. Here is the new raw tracking plot: I do still see a repeating PE, but it now has a 42s period, which makes more sense. It is also pretty small, in the region of 0.7 arc seconds pk-pk, but it is definitely a repetitive mechanical product. Here it is again with the same Low Pass filtering: Most of you will probably say, "Well, the seeing will be worse than that, so why worry". And I agree to a point, but I would sooner just suffer the seeing, if possible, than the seeing combined with a PE which repeats every 42s. I will be guiding anyway of course. Also, everyone who reviews the Mesu mentions that it only has a very small and very slow tracking error, with it going gently from -2 to +2 in around 300+ seconds. Even the tracking curve on the Mesu website shows this: If my mount is the 'norm', why doesn't the Mesu PE plot show a 0.7 arc second ripple superimposed on the curve? When Bisque and AP quote PE's of 7 arcsec or 3 arcsec, do they also have this faster ripple superimposed on top (I mean faster PE components - I know any real world test using star to track will show random seeing noise too)? Does anyone's Mesu 200 produce a PE curve which, without massive low pass filtering, looks like their graph on the website? If Olly or Yves see this - does your mount do this? Does it produce those fantastic images anyway? Can anyone tell me if I'm going mad? Not many folk seem to post raw PE curves, some have a huge amount of filtering applied, which makes it hard to know what to expect. Or tolerate. I know Lucas will replace my mount if I ask him - he has been great throughout, but he gives me the impression that they will all have some level of this 42-second Periodic Error. On a mechanical level, this makes sense, but I did a huge amount of research before I bought this mount, and no-one mentioned a 42s PE. If you made it this far - thanks for reading! Any advice appreciated. Jack -
This is a thread to provide my thoughts on the mount, my journey to first light and finally how it performs. The mount will be the last purchase for a while (it cost 4,400 so a fair bit) and hopefully a good one. The mount came in a wooden case but was obviously shaken around a bit in the trip down from the UK, I don´t think anyone paid attention to the this way up notices! The packaging looks to have protected it perfectly even if it had moved around a bit. The mount appears surprisingly small but this maybe because I have put it straight into the Garage so there is no reference to compare it against. Tomorrow I will place the EQ6 head next to it for comparison. The construction and appearance is very "Industrial" looking and workman like. I have seen many comments saying it won´t win any beauty contests but I quite like it. The bolts for adjusting Polar Alignment look wonderfull and give the impression that they should be accurate and easy to use (I´ll confirm this once I have tried them). The cables are the one area that could perhaps be critisised with the connectors for the motors exposed to the elements and the cables routed outside the mount in some sheathing. Having said that the cables are securely tied down either side of the connectors stopping any movement, and placed on the motor so that they are held against the casing, so I don´t think they will cause any problems. The cabling would best be described as workman like and functional but I think it will work well. I have bought the mount with no losmandy adaptor so will be adding one on. I have figured out I can bodge one onto the faceplate here:- Just by adding an adaptor plate between my ADM losmandy from the EQ6 I have and the Mesu. (2 holes required in my adaptor) To attach it to my pier I have got lucky in that I made the EQ6 adaptor too big. The bolts are 23cm apart i.e. you can fit a circle with a diameter of 23cm in the center of the plate and the mesu base is?? 20 cm diameter! So in theory I can just turn my EQ6 plate upside down and drill one hole. The one hole is required so that I can fit a bolt through which will then be attached to the horizontal Polar Alignment adjuster as seen in the following:- The only thing that is of slight concern is I don´t think the Ascom driver for this mounts controller can Park the mount. I don´t want to do an alignment everytime I start up as I am running an automated Observatory. This is one area where I am going to have to find out some trick to keep alignment. I believe a firmware change maybe in the pipeline to allow parking the mount but I´ll check. Tomorrow, depending on kids and family, I aim to at least remove the EQ6 and adaptor plate and try to drill the Adaptor hole. Sunday I will aim to try to sort out the Losmandy. Looking forward to using it but quite scared in case it doesn´t live up to expectations....it´l be fine! Neil C
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I recently received my MESU 200 mount and as the weekend was such clear skies, even with the moon being bright, I had to setup and test the new toy. In the past, using my NEQ6 mount, I would do as most do and start up SGPro, Check with Astrobin for a DSO and add to SGP settings, then off I would go. In this case, M51. SGP would slew to an area where it expected the DSO and take a image, plate solve and then adjust and start imaging. I removed the NEQ6 mount and installed the MESU 200. I turn on the SiTech controller and no matter what I do I cannot get SGP to plate solve in the usual manner. It fails. Yet, if I do a Frame and Focus, then Plate Solve the image collected it shows the Success Icon but again, no matter which button I press of leave alone, it does not appear to Sync with the controller and will not move towards imaging. I have reverted to old school and using Cartes du Ciel to direct the scope to where I want to image and then PHD2 to track. I know I am missing something but cannot find it or see it anywhere. How can I get SGP's plate solve and SciTech to sync? Thanks in advance.
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Dear All, I'm seeking the opinions of those who have used a Mesu 200 in ServoCat and SiTech guises... I'm preparing to send my mount back to Lucas Mesu, to fix some occasionally odd dec motor behaviour I've been experiencing. It's a ServoCat / ArgoNavis version, and I've been very happy with that setup - I can be up and running with a 1 star alignment in minutes, and I don't need a PC for goto and visual operation. Now, since it's all the mount I'll ever need, and it's going all the way back to the Netherlands, I'm wondering whether I should take advantage of this and upgrade it to a SiTech controller while it's with Lucas. I'm aware of the main (?) differences between the two setups - no park, plate solve, meridian flip, only basic pointing model on the ServoCat/AN setup. I've also read Neil C's (@ncjunk) very useful thread following his own upgrade to the SiTech. Clearly the SiTech is a much more sophisticated system. BUT... I've recently discovered the marvel that is Sequence Generator Pro, and suddenly, I've got much more functionality with the Servocat system - there's a really effective plate solver which always puts the target in the middle of the frame; a meridian flip routine that uses calculated slew manoeuvres to get around the lack of a built-in flip routine, and the ability to automate the imaging of multiple targets in a session. In fact the only major element that seems to be missing, is "Park" - SGP can stop the tracking so the mount isn't driven to its limit, but it can't park in a specific orientation. I don't own a fully automatic observatory - my ROR needs to be closed manually, and if I change that it'll probably be to a dome, so full park isn't really something I need. Lucas has informed me that the SiTech upgrade is about €1210 - so not an insignificant sum, and on balance, I'm thinking that sticking with the Servocat / AN system is the right decision. Opinions gratefully received - am I missing something? Thanks Nigel
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Still in the planning stage for my new mount. At the moment my NEQ6 Pro spends most of its time in the garden with a tarp over it. I have decided that my new mount, when it arrives, will live in a ROR shed. The location of said shed will be where the NEQ6 is now ( see avatar ) at the bottom of the garden. I have managed to get the go ahead for a 10' x 8' shed with a gazebo type posts to aid the roll off roof. My thoughts are, how small could I make this shed as the scope will be mainly used for AP? It will be on a 10" diameter self made Peir. Any positive advice welcome. -
Hello, I hijacked a post from this thread: How are you guiding without dec corrections? Is this under algorithms in PHD2? I know you use the Argo Navis controller and the SiTech has a freeze declination function. I'm trying to PA the Mesu and haven't had much luck with the Polemaster. I had the routine with the Polemaster spot on with it's PA procedure and it was off by 7 arcminutes in PHD2's drift alignment. I'm going to use your procedure without the Dec corrections to see if I can get better results. I did get a better alignment with the drift align in PHD2 and the guiding assistant didn't recommend any PA corrections but my guide graph was horrible. Thanks. Mike Like this
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Hello all, The performance of the Mesu200 is unquestionable excellent, and I'm very happy with the performance I get from mine with a 10" Quattro riding on top. It performs very well handling a pixelresolution of 0.94" (camera resolution not the RMS which is much better of course). Planning for a future permanent setup under excellent seeing, I wonder if there are any users who has experience regarding the upper limit of the Mesu200 for photographic use. It's tempting to try with a large newton astrograph, but wonder how it would handle a weight close to 60 kg and 0.5" pixel resolution. Common sense tells me to aim for less and not go beyond 40 Kg/1600 mm focal length. Any thoughts? Br Heine
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After a few months waiting for this astro jewel piece of equipment the Mesu 200 arrived a few weeks ago. From then on I designed the new adhoc designed pier. I haven't started calibratring everything yet. The following days I will do so. Right now very excited with the new setup!
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Good morning, I am doing a bit of research on this mount in order to make a decission on my "mount upgrading". I have been using a tunned Neq6 pro II for a couple of years and now I want to upgrade to a premium mount for better accuracy, tracking, PE, payload, etc. What are your thoughs on it? Some questions: Is it esy to be fully computer controlled? Has it got a multiple star alignment procedure? I don't see Polaris. What about the GOTO precission? Anybody knows the arcmin precission? I am also looking for picture with the exact dimensions in order to know how I will deal with it in my observatory. Thanks in advance for your help, Aleix
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Well, it has been so long since I posted anything........I just had to. Rushed capture, severe lack of processing skill (why is every time like the first time? - try to learn again what you thought you'd grasped when you last did this 3 months ago....) But here's my take on M82. 10x120s Lum, 10x180s R/G/B. 5x900s Ha. Alll bodged together in PI and photoshop. The Ha is really stretched, and it was taken with quite a lot of moon about (any excuse!) But you can see what it is at least. I know I should be doing better, but I'm busy renovating a house (with a nice dark garden - can't wait).
