Synscan Alignment Problems - Sky Watcher Allview

[selkie72]

I recently bought a new Sky Watcher Allview Mount to take wide angle tracked photos of the Milky Way etc. I am having problems aligning the mount using the Synscan handset.

In Astronomical mode I have set the location using Long / Lat (in that order) for Lerwick - 001 09' W 60 09' N. Set time zone to UTC. Set date in mm/dd/yyyy format - 12/13/2012. Entered correct time. Set daylight saving to NO.

Began Alignment using Brightest Star in SE sky. Synscan selected Jupiter which I centred in the spotting scope I was using. Then I selected Castor and centred. Got Alignment Successful message.

I then selected Jupiter as a test object and the mount slewed down towards the horizon and about 20 degrees to the E of Jupiter's position. Have tried repeating the entire alignment process with no better results.

Any suggestions as to what I am doing wrong?

[scoobee]

I am not 100%, but I just googled lerwick coordinates

60.1542° N, 1.1486° W

Lerwick, Coordinates

Can you put in degree or just decimal

[selkie72]

Position I have set is correct, 60.1542 in degrees and minutes is 60 degs 09 mins to the nearest minute.

[DrRobin]

Hi,

I had a Skywatcher Alt AZ mount followed by a Dob and the best alignment was always done with two stars as low to the horizon as possible, about the same altitude and spaced around 120 degrees apart. Any attempt to use a star as high as Jupiter currently is always led to a poor alignment.

I think the mistake you have made is that your two objects are very different in Alt and not far enough away in AZ. It seems to me that the Skywatcher mounts only calibrate the AZ and then the absolute position only and don't do anything with the Alt.

The other things to look for is the mount perfectly level? Don't trust the inbuilt bubble, they are always wrong. Are you running it from a good power source?

Is your scope well balanced?

If everything checks out it might be a bit of fluff in the optical shaft encoder or clutch slip.

If you don't do an alignment, but just pointing north and then slew round to Jupiter, does it track correctly? I use my Merlin his way to image the sun and use to use mt Dob this way for viewing the planets.

[selkie72]

_{Hi Robin, thanks for your reply. Will try using stars further apart in AZ for alignment as you suggest.}

_{Will check mount with a spirit level. Power is from a Skywatcher Powertank. Tripod supplied with the mount is very stable and the scope I was using for alignment was a small spotting scope so no balance problems.}

_{Forecast for the weekend here in Shetland is horrendous, so will probably be next week before skies are clear again!}

[DrRobin]

Hi Ryan,

You might want to have a look at the following thread I started last year? I did make a few measurements during the day to help determine problems.

Good luck with the weather, it is going to be reasonably wild in the North East.

[selkie72]

Hi Robin,

Thanks for the link to your previous thread, have read the posts. I will definitely try using stars further apart in AZ for alignment and also levelling the scope and pointing north for tracking without alignment. This should be all I need to do to take long exposure wide angle photos.

Quite windy here last Friday night but not as bad as expected. NE Scotland seemed to get the worst of the storm for a change.

Have a good festive! Cheers, Ryan

[DrRobin]

Hi Ryan,

Good luck with the alignment. By the way if you find anything new add it to the original thread, it all helps those who follow.

Just a quick point, with very long exposures you will get some field rotation, which will blur the stars. Field rotation is more noticeable the at certain points than others, but you might start to see some on 2 minute exposures, depending on your focal length.

Hope you get some clear skies over the festive period and good luck, I look forward to seeing some nice wide field shots soon.