Terrible night imaging.

[Keiran]

Well its been a while since i have been out with the scope, (SGL was the last time). The nights are much warmer but its not dark till gone 10

I finally got set up last night, and by 11 i was imaging... Work at 530am I took 3x3min subs of M64 and set it off to guide for another 15.

I lost the guide star and got it guiding again, but i think i just pressed resume... Mistake... all 15 subs were rubbish it looked like a star trail pic.

My Synguider seems to have problems keeping a guide star while guiding. now im not sure if this is because of the wind last night or the settings on the HEQ5 or Synguider were wrong.

Could somebody give me a little guidance please.

Keiran

[shaunster]

Apart from getting rid of the synguider?

All your nights of imaging are ruined by that thing, it never works!!!

Keep at it mate

[BlueAstra]

How good is your polar alignment? If it's too far off the guider won't be able to compensate.

[Keiran]

pretty good.

[ollypenrice]

We are a long way away but neither visiting G11 nor resident Tak EM200 could hold their respective TEC 140s on course. You are not alone...

Synguiders are copping it on the forum at the moment. I have never seen one so, like Manuel, I know nothing.

Olly

[Keiran]

Thanks olly

[Psychobilly]

There will always be nights like that...

Synguiders are copping it on the forum at the moment. I have never seen one so, like Manuel, I know nothing.

Olly

Isn't it strange that a piece of Kit that had rave reviews in both of the Main UK Astro Mags (SAN and AN) now seems to be "copping it"...

I posted in another thread that Skywatcher have released Motor Controller firmware updates for all of their Guideable EQ mounts with "claims" of addressing guider issues...

http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-discussion/140941-quite-few-skywatcher-mc-firmware-updates.html

I bought the Synguider for use with the portable widefield setup based around an EQ3-Pro... it was an Early Synguider and and Early EQ3 Pro and I could never get the mount to guide properly... although to be fair the mount wouldn't guide using PHD with a DSI and Shoestring GPUSSB setup either... Skywatcher have been aware of the problem for almost a year less if you ignore the period when they wouldn't believe it existed..

The initial fix didnt work and apparently made things worse... so still waiting for a working setup...

Ho hum...

Peter...

[Keiran]

Its rather annoying, as i dont get enough time out with the scope, to get everything working.... So i am not sure if its the way i am using it out whether its the guider itself.

Most of the time i can get in excess of 3 mins unguided, and usually about 5mins.

What do you do with the 'agressiveness' setting? and what about the quise speed on the mount?

I need to wait for a weekend to get some proper time out with it.

Peter, im unsure that i want to update it yet just incase its the way i am using it and the update makes things worse. But thanks for the link.

[philming]

My guiding rates on my CG5-GT are set to 50 both. I divide agressiveness by half, cause i read here that was what i was supposed to do for best results. Unfortunately, I didnt have much time out to test more...

[Luke]

This may not be your problem but I was finding that my guide cam kept losing the guide star. I would usually assume it was wind (or I sometimes blame the cat!) but it was losing the star so much the other night that I sat out with it for a while and there were no gusts at all and it still kept losing the star.

In my case it looks like I hadn't balanced the scope properly, I pulled a weight down and then it was as good as gold. I think I had gotten a bit complacent about balancing the scope, thinking, thereabouts will do.

Would be interested if anyone else has had guide stars lost due to scope not balanced well enough.

[Keiran]

Thanks Phil.

Luke, thats interesting, i will have to make sure that it is balanced properly.

TBH, i didnt really check that the other night. Atleast not properly.