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Auto-guided EQ1 mount

Gonzo

By Gonzo
in DIY Astronomer

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Gonzo

Gonzo

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Disengage the motor and rotate the worm gear with your finger: does it fell sticky?

I think it does from the last time I've done that. Will try again this evening.

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Gonzo

Gonzo

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You need to get PHD working, then open the brain and click on disable guide output, then Tools -> Enable Logging, then find a star and let it "guide" for an hour. Then feed the PHD_log.txt file to pecprep or send it to me.

going to try this on the next clear night :)

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themos

themos

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I meant the sky background saturates already! I'm now shooting 5 min subs at ISO 100 and the background is at about 50% maximum. This is just to see how stable the platform is as a production rig. So far, so good, I've pulled in 6 good 5min exposures on the trot.

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Gonzo

Gonzo

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When I bought the EQ1, I knew this mount had potentials. Well it turns out I was right after all :), with a bit of DIY and perseverance you can achieve great things.

I've used my EQ1 more than my EQ3-2 :)

Just can't wait 'til I get my GF1 timelapse remote :icon_scratch:

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themos

themos

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Last night I fired off 12 5min and 4 8min exposures (Declination 8 degrees, 8 arcseconds per pixel). I can't see trailing in any of them and DeepSkyStacker thinks that the full-width-at-half-maximum is pretty consistent. Next time I'll try 10 minute exposures.

post-13420-133877742755_thumb.gif

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themos

themos

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Last night I tried 8min and 10min exposures. The 8min were again good. The 10min not so good, interesting. Here's a 1000x800 100% crop from the DSS stack, 12x8min, shot at ISO800 and f/8.

The bright star at bottom right is 74 Orion.

post-13420-133877743583_thumb.jpg

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themos

themos

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And for comparison, same kind of crop for the 6x10min stack, at ISO 100 and f/8, different bit of sky.

You can see some left-right trailing (that's declination direction, not right ascension, and also coincided with up-down direction, maybe a cable was pulling?).

post-13420-13387774359_thumb.jpg

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Gonzo

Gonzo

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Great results gain Themos, haven't had the chance to check my EQ1 to see what's wrong with it.

I'll start doing long exposure again when I receive my GF1 remote.

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Gonzo

Gonzo

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First night since I've done some work on the EQ1...

three test shots of Arcturus this evening

all ISO100

2min

image_service.php?photo_id=1541&type=mid

4min

image_service.php?photo_id=1542&type=mid

4min16sec

image_service.php?photo_id=1543&type=mid

the 256" shot was supposed to be a 20min shot, just for the fun of it.

But it turns out that my GF1 is limited to a bulb of 256".... gona have to investigate this ;)

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themos

themos

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4 minutes would be plenty, though, to get you comfortably beyond the read-error-limited regime.

I tried a Canon 200mm f/2.8L lens last night with the EQ1 setup. Results were mixed: we did get 3 out of 5 untrailed 4 minute shots (at 5.5 arcseconds per pixel, declination ~20 degrees). But it seems that the EQ1 polar axis shifts around quite a bit (about 15 arcminutes ?) as the mount is rotated in RA. To counter this, when using heavy lenses, I will need to add, pretty precisely, weights to make sure the centre-of-mass of the imaging gear is right on the polar axis of the mount.

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  • 3 months later...
Gonzo

Gonzo

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Same here :(

I'm working on the eq3-2 waiting for winter to come back....

Believe it or not, I haven't been able to use the EQ1 autoguider since March! Will we ever have a clear, dark night ever again?

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