Confused about EQMOD & Autoguiding

[Haggis]

Hi Everybody,

I'm Gerard from the Netherlands. I'm fairly new to astronomy. Years ago I owned a simple Meade 114mm Newton and enjoyed looking at things in the sky but was never really serious about it because my equipment didn't allow it. Now, years later, I'm finally hoping to do some astrophotography. I have bought a used EQ6 mount and a nice GSO 8" F4 Newton. I have an EQMOD USB to serial cable and last night I hooked it up to my laptop to give it a shot.

2 n00b questions :

I use Stellarium and Stellariumscope to "talk" to the mount. Everything worked nice. I got the "connected" message and with a rough polar alignment I could start the alignment procedure. This is where EQMOD constantly started crashing and giving me a "not responding". If I waited too long before reconnecting to Stellariumscope, the alignment star would drift away and I could start all over again. After a couple of tries, I just used one alignment star instead of 3 and the EQMOD program sometimes didn't crash with only 1 star but accuracy was a bit off. I use Windows 7 64-bit, have 3GB or RAM and a AMD Turion CPU in my laptop. Is there a decent fix for this or is my EQMOD cable to blame? By the way, I was using the direction keys in EQMOD to center the star, I wasn't using a gamepad. Maybe with a gamepad it'll be more stable?

In the future I would like to start astrophotography with short exposures and I bought a QHY5 camera for guiding purposes. But now I'm a bit confused... if you want to use Stellarium for controlling the scope with the ASCOM EQMOD program, but want to use the QHY5 camera for autoguiding, will there be 2 running ASCOM instances that will be working against each other? I.e.: when I use Stellarium to slew to M31 because I want to image that object, and the ASCOM EQMOD driver points my scope there and then I start PHD software, pick a guidestar and start guiding, will I damage my mount because Stellariumscope wants to stay on M31 and PHD wants to stay on a guidestar? Maybe it's a stupid question but I always wondered about this and thought I'd better ask before doing something stupid .

I guess I have a long way to go before actually starting imaging. I've already spent hours reading all about EQMOD but this hobby still holds many secrets to me. Thanks for helping a newbie!

[themos]

will there be 2 running ASCOM instances that will be working against each other?

No, don't worry about that. The two programs talk to the same driver.

will I damage my mount because Stellariumscope wants to stay on M31

It doesn't want anything. Once it gets you there, it just lets the mount track at sidereal rate.

I don't use Stellarium to drive EQMOD, I use Cartes du Ciel/Skychart.

[Haggis]

Thanks for clearing things up for me, Themos. I really appreciate it. Do you also know why the EQMOD crashes often when I perform star alignment and sometimes when slewing?

If I want to use EQMOD in the future for a permanent setup it'd better not crash before the end of an observing session and before returning to parking postion. I assume in case of a software crash, the mount will have lost alignment and won't know it's position when you reconnect so the whole setup procedure needs to be done again?

I hope I can find a way to prevent the software from crashing. Maybe it's Stellarium... I'll try my luck with Cartes du Ciel this weekend if the skies are clear.

[hemihaggis]

hello my haggis brother !!!

[themos]

Do you also know why the EQMOD crashes often when I perform star alignment and sometimes when slewing?

No, I don't. It always behaves well with me. I use a Windows XP 32-bit laptop and the hardware connection is an EQDIR cable I made myself. My mount's power comes from a 12V "bench" power supply plugged into the mains.

If I want to use EQMOD in the future for a permanent setup it'd better not crash before the end of an observing session and before returning to parking postion. I assume in case of a software crash, the mount will have lost alignment and won't know it's position when you reconnect so the whole setup procedure needs to be done again?

If you have lost alignment, you have to manually point it to a bright star and center it, then sync from your client application. Polar alignment is not affected. Or, if you have a camera on the scope, take a photo and send it to astrometry.net which will solve it and tell you what RA/DEC coordinates you're pointing to. You then feed that into EQMOD via a client application (I use EQTOUR for that).

[steelfixer]

Hi Haggis

I had exactly the same problems until I switched to CDC.

Since using CDC I have had no more conflicts between the different programes.

[Haggis]

hello my haggis brother !!!

LOL!

No, I don't. It always behaves well with me. I use a Windows XP 32-bit laptop and the hardware connection is an EQDIR cable I made myself. My mount's power comes from a 12V "bench" power supply plugged into the mains.

I use a 2.5A 12V adapter. I think I have a 4.5A 12V adapter somewhere. Maybe I should use that one...

If you have lost alignment, you have to manually point it to a bright star and center it, then sync from your client application. Polar alignment is not affected. Or, if you have a camera on the scope, take a photo and send it to astrometry.net which will solve it and tell you what RA/DEC coordinates you're pointing to. You then feed that into EQMOD via a client application (I use EQTOUR for that).

Another thanks for the advice! These are things I have been wondering about for some time. "What if the mount stops during an observing session because of powerfailure or software crash". At least now I know how to act.

Hi Haggis

I had exactly the same problems until I switched to CDC.

Since using CDC I have had no more conflicts between the different programes.

Then this weekend (if skies are clear) I'll switch to a better powersupply and CDC software and hope all will be fine .

[themos]

Also, use some self-adhesive cable holder to hold the power plug securely at the EQ6 end. Same for the control cable.

[Haggis]

It's been stormy all week long in the Netherlands but yesterday evening a small window of opportunity finally opened. For almost an hour, we had a nice clear sky so I rushed outside to try my luck once again with EQMOD.

I carried my GSO 200/EQ6 tripod outside my shed, did a very rough polar alignment, connected my powercables and EQMOD serial to USB cable, started my laptop and opened Cartes du Ciel as Stellarium Scope had been giving me trouble earlier. This time, EQMOD crashed immediately after I opened it. I could only start it again after I reconnected the USB cable. EQMOD ran for a few minutes and allowed me to pick 1 star for alignment but then crashed again. I put the USB cable in a different USB port and tried again, but the program crashed within 5 seconds. Very frustrating!

By that time I thought I heard a slight hissing noise coming from outside. I thought it was leaves blowing in the wind at first but when EQMOD crashed for the 5th time I tried to pinpoint the sound. After a while I saw small sparks of electricity on the ground, right on the spot where one of my tripods legs was. I disconnected the serial cable from the mount and the sparking went away. I reconnected the cable and the sparks came again after a few seconds. By then I thought the EQMOD cable was malfunctioning so I tossed it aside and connected the handcontroller instead. Did a quick 3 star alignment and got a nice glimpse of the Orion Nebula. I saw clouds coming so I quickly installed my Canon 1000D in the focusser and with EOS remote utility managed to snap a few shots of the nebula. My first nebula photo ever! A bit out of focus, but I had to hurry.

When I touched my camera, I felt faint electroshocks stinging my hands. The camera is attached to a USB cable which is attached to a 2M USB extensioncable which goes into my HP laptop. Again, I noticed electricity sparks, this time where the USB cable went into the extension cable. It appears that probably my USB ports are to blame for my problems with the EQMOD program. I've tried all available ports but the electroshocks were still there. This weekend if the weather allows it, I'll try again with a PC!

Weird story huh?

[Tim]

The only time I have had problems with EQMOD talking to my mount was when the power supply for some reason wasn't performing properly. The connection would time out. When I swapped the power supply the problem went away.

I might be wrong but I dont think a 2.5A supply will cut it for an EQ6?

When you eventually get set up, give pulse guiding via eqmod a go. It works really well and the interface is so intuitive that once you understand the graph report you can adjust as necessary and get a really smooth guiding line.

Cheers

Tim

[Merlin66]

NEQ6pro at full slewing on both axis only takes 2A at 12V.

I use a 12V>15V DC convertor to ensure the voltage is always goo.

[steelfixer]

Haggis

WARNING WARNING WARNING

The usb does not carry enough voltage/ampage to create tripod to earth sparks.

What does however carry suffecient voltage is your power supply.

Have you got the connector wired up the correct way round.

It sounds from what you are discribing as if the frame work of your tripod is live which would point to me that you have the power sorce wired up the wrong way round.

Apart from the damage you could do to the mount you will probably blow your computers as well.

Please check polarity of your power sorce before you try anything else !!!!!!!!!!!!

[Psychobilly]

Its quite common for Some Switched Mode Power Supply designs have floating outputs..

If you measured the ouput voltage with respect to Earth with a DVM on AC volts you would typically measure half the mains supply voltage on the output..

Theres an old thread discussing the halfords 5A brick supply and tingling mounts... I will try and dig out a link...

Here it is...

http://stargazerslounge.com/showthread.php?t=69841

Peter...

[steelfixer]

Peter

Facinating thread.

A little on the worrying side but interesting none the less.

If this senario were to happen using your expertease in this field what would be the likely result.

Wet or damp concrete or decking or some other non conductive material.

Tripod set up with this floating voltage running through it.

Usb lead connecting into long repeating usb lead lying on the wet surface.

Floating voltage returns to the computer via the screen on the usb lead.

Probably a one in a million chance but still possible?

[Haggis]

Thanks for the warning, Steelfixer and thanks for the additional information, Psychobilly!

I bought the mount second-hand and the seller supplied a simple 220V -> 12V 1.5A poweradapter which had a plug that was a bit too loose and kept falling out of the mount. I found a powersupply on one of my speakersets which had the same polarity and a better fitting plug and 2.5A so I figured it would be a better choice. I think polarity is correct, otherwise I'm sure the mount would have shortcircuited immediately when powering on??

When I read Psychobilly's thread I think I have to use a better power adapter, though. I have a universal Antec notebook adapter lying around which can be set for 12V. It's a 4 or 4.5A if I remember correctly. Would you think it's safe to connect this one? It has the same polarity as my current adapter but I hope it will solve the sparking problem and USB connection failure. If it's better to buy a different adapter, what should I look for in layman's terms?

What I find curious is that the USB mini cable that goes from the laptop to the Canon 1000D was giving me slight electroshocks on the hand even before making contact with the camera and the mount! So I figured the laptop USB ports are to blame. I have issues with the laptop when using a scanner which I can't get to work on it but works on my PC so I really don't trust that laptop. Also, when I was only using my handcontroller and the power supply and had not yet connected the USB cable to the camera, the sparks at the tripods legs were gone. Is USB current really "too weak" to cause sparks? I've seen some pretty nasty sparking on other USB ports in my life but it was always at the USB port, never a few meters away .

I await further advice before trying anything! I really appreciate your help guys!

[steelfixer]

Haggis

This is now way out of my field so I will bow out.

In my very basic understanding the output of a USB is only 5 volts with a minute ampharage.

But like I say it is now down to the experts in this field and there are many of them on here to try and solve your problems.

I will be watching this with great interest.

[Haggis]

Thanks Steelfixer, I hope the experts can give me some advice. I think I won't connect my 2.5A power adapter again as you may be right about it being malfunctioning. In the mean time, I hope Psycho can tell me if the aforementioned universal notebook adapter would be a good choice to connect to the mount.

[steelfixer]

No problem mate, I hope you get it sorted soon.

[Tinker1947]

Do you have a RCD unit that all the power is taken from...???

[Psychobilly]

The leakage path is through multiple series cap across the transformer ... so in that casd the design is multi fault tolerant and meets the requirements of the relevant iec safety standards... doesnt mean to say that any other ones do.

The units arent certified for outdoor use...

One of the biggest problems i used to have is finding far east power supplies with genuine test certs... we used to spend a fortune putting likely csndidates through certification at BSi in Hemel Hempstead...

[Haggis]

Well, this evening, we had about 20 minutes of clear skies so I went out and tried again. This time I used an entirely different computer; an old desktop PC with a fresh installation of Windows XP Home SP3, a Sempron 3000+ CPU and 1GB of RAM. I wanted to know wether my laptop's USB ports or the power supply were to blame regarding last week's crashing of EQMOD and the "electroshock" problem.

I'm happy to report the electroshocks are gone, using the exact same power supply. I didn't test the setup very long however, because of clouds and frustration (read on to find out why) but I guess my laptop USB ports were the cause of last weeks electroshocks. However, EQMOD still crashes! Everytime I connect the cable and connect through the EQMOD software everything works fine until I use the dialog based star alignment. As soon as the dialog box asks me to slew to a star and I click a star in either Stellarium or Cartes du Ciel, EQMOD crashes. I can't even shut it down with the taskmanager. I tried a couple of times using different USB ports but the software kept crashing. So this is on a different PC with a clean installation of Windows, plus drivers plus updates, recent ASCOM and EQMOD software.

Tomorrow, I'll try it again with a different poweradapter. I only used my old powersupply to check if the electroshocks were gone. If it doesn't help with the crashing of EQMOD, then I think my EQMOD USB/serial cable is to blame. If it's not the cable, and if it's not the power supply, could it be the mount? All works well with just the handcontroller...

[Haggis]

Merry Christmas all!

I tried again today in the shed and everything was OK! I've tried the old 2.5A adapter and the new 4.5A adapter and I didn't have problems performing a star alignment. Of course, this was a test situation. There were no stars, I was indoors. EQMOD didn't crash, not even after I slewed to the 8th alignment star. My guess is it has to do with the dry underground. It's dry in my shed and when I had the problems, my tripod was outside on the wet concrete and one leg in the grass. I really hope this is the answer and my problems will be gone the next day I try it outside and put the legs on a dry piece of wood. In a couple of weeks, I'll be giving the mount a permanent position in a nice dry little shed of it's own so there'll be no more of these weird problems.