NEQ6 first light. Help me figure out what I did wrong

[portedGoblin]

Hi

Just got the NEQ6 this week and tonight I had clear skies for a few hours so I was out trying it.

Here is what I've done and what happened.

- I aligned the polarscope during the day. I followed the vids on astronomyshed, making sure the polarscope remained centered when I rotated the declination axis. I also made a home position with the clock rings.

- I set up the scope on the side of the road in the woods. My usual spot. I pointed it north, and leveled the tripod and mounted the head etc.

- Put on the Nikon D600 with 70-300 lens.

Can I adjust the red light in the polarscope? It was so strong it was very hard too see any stars.

- After having to turn the power on and off I am pretty sure I got polaris in the right spot. I got the GPS off my phone. Set timezone to +1 (Sweden) pretty sure I got the date correct 12/08/12. I used both the clock ring and the Polar Finder app and they seemed to indicate the same position for the declination axis.

- After aligning polaris. I set the declination axis to 0 (it has to be in 90 to be able to see through the polarscope) but kept the RA axis in what I had for the polar alignment (like 21:02 on the clock ring).

Should I have put both axis in the park position before starting the 2-star alignment process?

- I think the whole polar alignment went well. But when it was time for alignment it missed Vega by a very large margin. Not even close.

- I redid everything several times. Tried other starts. It was always way way off.

- I gave up but as an afterthought I took one image just to see where it was pointed. A 15s exposure, normally I would get startrails after about 1.5-3s. I was surprised to see the stars coming out round. I then entered M31 just to see where I would be. Here is a 30s exposure of that location.

http://www.astrobin.com/26885/

Apparently its in Draco somewhere.

So, any idea what I did wrong?

[Steve Ward]

When you've done the PA you need to return the mount to the Park position before starting the Alignment procedure.

Steve.

[Photosbykev]

The LED can be dimmed in the utility menu on the handset.

The mount should be positioned to home and then power cycled before the star alignment i.e weights straight down and scope pointing North

From what you've said the home position was wrong before the star alignment

[portedGoblin]

Cheers guys. I think that the park position was the problem.

The clouds are gone again so I might go back out and try again.

[VigdisVZ]

First time for me was worst. But you get more comfortable with it pretty quick. I had problems with polaris last week and had to turn down the LED power in the mount, it's in the handset menu somewhere.

Let us know how it turns out, you live pretty close to me if I remember correctly so if worst comes to worst we could always set the scopes up someplace and go through the steps together.

[kirkster501]

After Polar Aligning you then set the mount to home. Select your first alignment star and goto it from the alignment menu. It will be somewhat out because no one has their home position 100% accurate. The further your first star is from the NCP the more "out" it will tend to be. I always choose Kochab as my first star, or Dubhe if for some reason Kochab is not available. Get that bang on in the middle and then slew a good 120 degrees away if you can, something like Alperatz or Algenib in Pegasus are good choices. You'll probably find you are out a bit again. Align that star and I usually do a 3rd star to minimize cone error.

The more accurate you can get the star truly in the middle of the FOV the more accurate your goto-ing will be later on in your session, particularly if you are imaging. It is time well spent to do this accurately.

You are doing great - stick with it. Its always hard when you start off with a EQ mount.

[portedGoblin]

OK so I went back out and tried again. Conditions was not very good. I had even more trouble with the red light in the polarscope. I will need to fix the setting for that.

Anyway, this time I set the home position before doing the alignment and it worked. I slew to M31 and took a shot. It was off to one side of the image but all things considered I'm happy with that. There was a difference this time between the app and the clock rings.

Right as I got everything running the clouds rolled in again. I packed up and went home and now I can see M45 from my apartment witch means its clear again. That annoys me no end...

Tomorrow I will try and finetune the home position and fix the bleeding red light.

Thanks for the help guys!

[kirkster501]

I had even more trouble with the red light in the polarscope.

There is an option in the NEQ6 Pro handset to set the brightness. You need to turn it all the way down to 10% or less and it *does* remember what you set it to when you power down. When they come out the factory they are set ridiculously high level! They are so bright you cannot see anything through the Polarscope.

[portedGoblin]

Here is a picture I took during the session yesterday with my old D40 A little dramatic perhaps...

I kind of like how it turned out however, the noise adds a spooky feeling.

[portedGoblin]

I think I have some old version of the hand controller because I do not have the brightness option anywhere and some old thread I found said that some versions of the controllers did not have it.

Can someone find the exact menu / name of the setting so I can check it?

I have something called Handset Setting / LED Backlight but that does not seem to affect anything I can see.

Also how do I know what controller / software version I have? Before you suggest I cannot connect it to a computer because I do not have a computer with a RS-232 port.

I guess I need to buy a USB adapter from FLO?

[portedGoblin]

I have 03.27 I saw when turning it on.

[VigdisVZ]

Same version as you. Polar Scope LED, under setup > handset > polar scope led.

It's not in the manual menu tree however.

[Astro_Baby]

The hand controller needs to be version 3.27 or above and the motor control board (MCB) needs to be version 2. If this is a new mount it should have a version 2 MCB.

You can divine the software versions under UTILITY > Show Information > Version

Polarscope illumination is under SETUP > Handset Setting > Polar LED

The back of the manual has a menu tree in it. Its not always accurate as Skywatcher havent rewritten the manual for some time for Synscan.

[portedGoblin]

Found it!

Thanks again for the help! I love it when I find communities like this!