Search the Community

Hi Astronomers, This post is mostly for owners for the QHY268M coldmos astro camera, possibly other QHY cameras, particularly the newer models, BUT might help other if it has a similar protection measure. I noticed that my QHY268M camera had a big problem in cooling the sensor than keeping the temperature at the set point. I set the camera to cool to -10C (from an ambient of 17C) and it took a very long time, about 15 minutes, to reach -10C, cooling power was sitting solid at 100%. BUT as soon as I started exposing (Dark frames during this night), the temperature started to rise... cooling still at 100% I stopped the exposures, but the temperature did not resume to cool... I stopped and restarted software controlled cooling and still the temperature did not drop... it didn't drop until I did a power cycle of the camera, but the behaviour of the camera was the same. I use APT 3.99.1 for my imaging control, BUT I want to say at this point that APT was NOT the problem. I tried the same procedure in QHY's EZCam with exactly the same results, except when I connected the camera I got a dialogue message ”Camera may not be able to reach the maximum cooling power”... I did suspect the PSU, the QHY supplied 12V 6A unit, and it might contribute to the problem but this PSU delivers enough power to run the QHY268M cooling at 30C below ambience. This QHY camera has a Under Voltage Lock Out (UVLO) protection which will stop or limit cooling when this condition is set in the camera. This condition is set when the PSU voltage drops below 11V. The solution to this is to reset the UVLO condition is in the latest version of the EZCap software, under the "Adventage Menu" (I'm sure that was meant to be "Advanced" but what do I know... there you can check the UVLO status and reset the UVLO status by clicking on the "Reset Flash Code" within the EZcap_QT app shown below: When I did it, the "Sensor UVLO Status" still reports the same value of 1, as it did before the reset, but the ”Camera may not be able to reach the maximum cooling power” dialog message did not show up when connecting the camera to EZcap, which was displayed every time I connected the camera to the program before the reset. So something has effectively been reset or changed. After the reset, the camera cooled to -10C in about 5 minutes, sustained the temperature at -10C during my darks exposures and this was with 63% cooling power, in an ambient environment which was 1.5C warmer than before. Now for the reason of my camera's UVLO. The action that (I think) triggered my UVLO condition was that I changed the temperature cooling steps to 6C (from the default 3C) in the cooling setting in APT Cooling Aid, hoping to cool the camera faster, but this just made the cooling power go straight to 100%, drawing power from the PSU too fast, causing the voltage to drop below 11V momentarily... Since I reverted back to 3C steps, the cooling power increases steadily, the temperature is reached in a few minutes and I never had the cooling issue since. QHY268M Camera UVLO Codes: The QHY programming documentation defined the following UVLO status codes: 0 = init 1 = good 2 = checkErr 3 = monitorErr 8 = good 9 = powerChipErr Hopefully this will help someone with this problem and they wont have to waste possible months waiting for a camera replacement thinking that its faulty when it might not be... I had to write this because I did see someone with this problem on the QHY's own forum and their response was "I can replace it for you..." totally unnecessary.... Clear Skies, Mariusz

Hello there, My synscan V3 handset is having issues in the goto settings, for example, it may be over 10 degrees out in azimuth and a few degrees out by altitude. For troubleshooting purposes and to save you from asking unnecessary questions, I have tried different locations and made comparisons, I have also tested multiple different targets. My location, date and time are also correct and to make sure, I have tried different variables to see if there is a difference but there is not, the handset is still out. I should also let you know that the difference between the real value and H.C. Value is not fixed and does vary. Help would be greatly appreciated as this has really puzzled me. I have updated the firmware and went to older versions - same issue. I have searched for this topic on the likes of YouTube and other forums and cannot find some information. Fingers crossed one of you can help me with this. Thank you, Cai

Hi guys, it's my first post here, so Hello! My synscan goto upgrade started to act like in this video of mine SynScan GOTO Skipping after being disassembled for few weeks in the closet. There were no such problems before. When it slews at rates above x3 everything is fine and smooth but as soon as it starts tracking at x3, it skips steps or something like that. My setup is eq3-2 on alu and SW 150/750 with Canon 700D attached. Thanks in advance for any clues or ideas!

Hi Guys, this is my first post so would like to say what a great resource this has been over the years. Any problem I've ever had the answer has been here. Until now. Just wondering is anyone else having a problem with horizontal banding on the Atik Horizon. My high gain subs have terrible lines across them which is made worse by stacking. The lines are also present in low gain subs when stacked. See attached pic of 1 300s high gain image. Hopefully it's just my camera and not a feature of the product. I realise this can be a CMOS issue but surely Atik haven't released a product with this problem? Certainly not at this price?

Hi. I’m quite new to astronomy and a GEM . Bought a second hand CG5 without proper knowledge of what I should have been looking for. I think that I have a problem with Dec axis travel. I’ll try to explain but please bare with me if I’m not making total sense. RA axis travel in both directions is good ( in smoothness and speed ).So is the Dec axis travel going clockwise, but anti-clockwise, the motor is slow and sounds laboured. I’ve replaced the motor in case it was that ,but the problem persists. Also when I release the direction button, the motor continues to slew for 2 or 3 seconds. Has anyone had a similar problem or has anyone any ideas how I can fix this? Thanks in advance

Ok, so this is a really annoying bug / problem that I have with my setup: From time to time, in non regular intervals the image my guiding cam (ZWO ASI120) send seems to get flipped / mirrored or looks like it's from a completely different patch of sky. When I'm paying attention to the guide images I can clearly see that the image seems to be flipped in some way. It only happens for 1 frame PHD send a warning ( No star found / Star lost Mass changed) and after that everything is fine again. My gear is all connected to a single USB3 Hub which then runs via powered USB3 cable to my Pc. I'm not binning and have the noise reduction off (though PHD might got hickups while processing) but it still happens. Sometimes there are minutes between two events sometimes it happens 5 times in a row. It also seems like it's only happening during guiding, I haven't seen it happen during calibration yet... I'm completely clueless what's happening or how to get rid of it, any help / idea is greatly appreciated.

I am trying to understand why the declination position reported by my new EQ8 - Synscan 4 hand controller keeps changing. After starting my aligned scope from Park the declination reported by the hand set ( Utilities/Show Position/ "Dec/Ra" ) slowly increases ( around 7" / minute when I first measured it ). However, the rotation angle of the declination/altitude axis of the mount ( Utilities/Show Position/ "Ax1/Ax2" ) is reported as being constant ( as one would expect if the mount is not receiving an instruction to move ). That is, it would appear that the motor is not running and the encoders on the shaft are not detecting any rotation of the mount's altitude axis however the Sysnscan reports that the Celestial declination is slowly changing. Does anyone know if this is a bug or a feature? It did occur to me that maybe the Synscan is trying to compensate for the declination drift that would result from the Polar Alignment error as stored in the controller after alignment. To test this, I adjusted the Polar Alignment to try to reduce the error and see if it changed the drift rate. The initial results do not support this - after much tweaking of the alignment, and with an indicated polar alignment error of less than 15" in either axis, the rate of drift changed but was still around 5" / minute ( whereas it should be << 1 with so small a Polar Alignment error ). Has anyone else noticed this slow change in declination reported by the mount/Synscan when the mount is tracking in RA? ----- EQ8 MC Firmware version: 2.11.04 Synscan HW version: 4.16 Synscan firmware version: 4.39.04

Hi guys, This is my first post in here and apologies if someone has asked this question already but I have searched the forum for this answer and couldn't find one. So the problem I have with my mount is that there is a few seconds lag (1-2 seconds) to control input on both RA and DEC axis when I switch the control input to the opposite direction. It happens when I use both the Skywatcher Dual Axis Motor drive kit or even the manual precise controls. There is a slight "give" in the mount when I move it by hand from side to side. It just seems sloppy, like there's too much room between the moving parts inside the mount itself. My questions: Is this "give" normal? Can I fix it? Thanks for reading

My AVX mount is having some issues, and I'm currently working with my retailer to resolve them. I'm curious though if anyone else is aware of similar issues to what I'm seeing? Sometimes during a long slew, the mount "hiccups" as the slew gets momentarily interrupted then continues, with some inaccuracies in slews after this occurs. After a higher-speed slew, the mount starts making ticking noises, that match when the worm spur gear appears to repeatedly jerk as the drive is being taken up for normal tracking - as if the worm is sticking somehow. The motor spur gear has maybe 2-3mm of lateral rocking movement (in the same plane as the gear) seen as drive is reversed. Difficulties with contact over the handset serial port with the current (early Jan '16) firmware revisions on the mount and handset. I have video of these behaviours, but as I'm working with the retailer I won't post them up until after we've worked it out with the UK supplier. I'm interested to see if my issues are one-off and confined to my particular example or fairly typical of this mount as a whole. I'm just hoping that I won't have to exchange another time, or to have to swap to a completely different manufacturer. Note that I'm currently quite happy with how my retailer is dealing with the situation which is why I've no need to name that retailer at the moment, but I'm becoming unhappy at how slow the Celestron upstream supplier is proving at the moment. (I'm trying to use the mount for video astronomy, for video astronomy for outreach, and for the first steps into basic guided astrophotography. These issues make it more difficult to achieve these..)

I can confirm that there are issues with connecting via serial to the Nexstar+ handset on the AVX mount with the latest firmware . I'm currently trying to guarantee the behaviour process I'm seeing but it's intermittent and that is annoying when trying to troubleshoot. I'm having problems in getting repeatability of the issues being seen, but this is the most consistent behaviour I'm getting. The behaviour I'm seeing is: With everything powered off, I connect up the cables between my SkyFi and the handset. I put the handset in the cradle so it doesn't move. I've previously modified the cradle to allow the serial cable free access to the handset port when connected. I power up the SkyFi, and I confirm I have connection to my wifi router. I power on the mount and awaken from hibernation, entering the date and time (without moving the handset from the cradle), and the mount sits at the standard prompt on the screen, and the mount has started tracking. Trying to connect via SkySafari 4 on my tablet, I get an error that I can make the wifi connection but not to the mount itself. Touching nothing else I gently tap the "2" button to get to the Stars menu, then I hit "back" and exit out of that submenu back to the main prompt. Attempting to connect again on the tablet, I immediately get the telescope connection and it appears stable for the rest of the session. It's not likely to cabling, as I've exchanged out all of the SkyFi to serial cabling, and I'm seeing computer serial port difficulties as well. If it were cabling it would not just start working each time at the same point when I've exited the submenu.It really does look as though the handset doesn't communicate on the handset serial port until submenus have been entered and exited from. As an aside, when the mount is pointing exactly at 90 degrees declination, it actually reports itself on the serial port as being at 0 degrees declination. Interesting way of avoiding the RA singularity at that point. My mount's firmware levels are current as of January 10th at least.

Hi, After returning to imaging after a long break I have been having a problem using Firecapture with my QHY5LIIc camera. The captures keep coming out with a 'hatch' pattern over them like you are looking through a cloth. The below image is a crop of a Luna image which has been enlarged 400x to clearly show the pattern although it is clear enough on the original image I wasn't sure how it would appear after uploading. Does anyone know what causes this artefact and how I can stop it from happening in the future?

I have a problem with my iOptron ZEQ25GT mount. When switching it on the mount the Go2Nova 8408 Hand Controller does not start nor does is there a beeping noise. However the red light top of the mount does come on and the Polar alignment scope reticle also displays it's red light, so it would seem that mount circuit board has power. Is there any suggestions as to how to diagnose and troubleshoot the issue? I have tried re-seating the ribbon cable in the controller connecting the controller circuit board to the LCD display but had no luck. The real issue is that I am not able to determine which component has failed.

Hi all, Tonight I was attempting to image Saturn, but eventually Saturn faded away sidewise and I was unable to follow the planet in the RA axis. I then noticed that the box of the DEC motor was hitting the RA knob and wouldn't let it move any further! This basically ruined my image session (the seeing was the best ever, so crispy and detailed regardless of the moon, the roofs and the LP!) but I was stuck in a pretty narrow balcony and wasn't easy to try anything else. Is throwing away the DEC drive a good work around? I really hope to get another clear night to image Saturn before she sinks in the horizon for a good while! Thanks in advance for any tip! Clear Skies Riky

Hi all, I captured around 4000 frames in liveview mode while shooting at the Moon, with Camera / 2xBarlow / Telescope. Then cropped them in PIPP and created an AVI file to export after to Registax. The video file, even after cropped and centered, is not very stable (i guess because it was windy?), u can see the Moon is misplaced in a few frames, but nothing really serious, in my guessing. So, when i pass it to Registax 6, i do the normal process that i already did for saturn and for full lunar disc, (Align, choose a decent amount of align points, limit to 95% quality or best frames, etc). Thing is, the final result is something really odd, with the Moon not even entering the final pic. Somewhere along the alignment points process there is a problem that i dont have the knowledge to solve, and you can see the green lines of alignment going way out of the picture for some reason. I only had time to printscreen one shot before coming to work, and looks like this: Some alignment details were, as i remember: default minimum number of pix between alignment points - 30 from edge - 20 chose around 100 alignment points automatically (in some cases, there was one in a black area, but i tried right clicking in order to delete it,but it wouldnt do anything) So, i wonder if i could get any help from you guys! Would be much appreciated. Thanks, Rui

Dear Stargazers Community, Due to a series of unfortunate circumstances, my HEQ5 was stuck in a wet/damp garage for a lengthy period. Today I was able to salvage it. Initially I had some issues getting the motors going, but I was able to do it - despite the mount being very wet - with water actually in the power port. After a while it stopped tracking, and emitted a constant whine. I noticed the Syntrek handset was flashing - ALL keys. Nothing I pressed did anything. The LED on the actual mount was consistent. After a series of removing and reinserting the power/handset I was able to get it working again. Shortly after it failed again. This time I could not get it to work. I brought the head inside and dismantled it to see inside. The compartment with the board in looked dry, so I removed the front port panel and checked there. A small amount of water, which I dried. I put the whole thing back together to no effect. I left it for about 5 minutes, then retried and now it works again. I've just left it on and tracking now. Since I don't seem to be able to find anything online about flashing LEDs on the handset, I have not been able to confirm what the problem actually is (although it does sound water damage likely). Anyone familiar with this, heard from someone else, or just any tips about keeping it running? I'm worried it might just give up completely. It is possible to replace the board in this situation, and if so, how much do they cost? Thanks for reading.