EQ6 Settings - giving me a headache!!

[daz]

Hello fellow EQ6'ers

I realised the other day, that my position settings were incorrect - I had it set to East instead of West (I know, I know!!). So, with it correctly set last night, I started the alignment routine - and it was out my a mile!

After much faffing around, I set Daylight Saving to NO and it was then OK.

I am, therefore, confused!!

Time Zone is 00 hours (i.e. no offset)

Daylight Saving = Yes (i.e. British Summer Time)

Lat/Long are now correct 52, 4 N - 0, 30 W

Date/Time is correct

Any suggestions as to why the alignment is out??

:scratch:

[MikeP]

Daz,

I had the same sort of problems when I first got my EQ6.

I'd try my usual trick of switch on/park/switch off/manually move to home position/switch on and then go through alignment. I think it stores the park position somewhere and that somehow causes confusion.

Mike

[daz]

Hi Mike

Yes, it does - and it parks OK. If it was 90 degrees out when it slewed, I know it would be that, but its not.

It appears to be 1 hour of RA out, and that's what's confoosed me!!

[MikeP]

Have a look at this post http://stargazerslounge.com/index.php/topic,17775.0.html - sounds like KK had a similar problem.

Mike

[daz]

Thanks Mike

Have posted in there

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

I'm starting to wonder if the park position is related to the last park position, or resets itself after an alignment routine. That would mean that if you do a good alignment, park the 'scope and shut it down, the next time you power it up its already remembered the alignment because its just relative to the park position, if that makes sense? If it goes from wherever it is to home park position by dead reckoning, it ought to be abe to go back the same way?

If, however, it remembers the last park position and returns to there, that would be why its off maybe. Also why its consistently off for a while once you get a problem.

As I understand it, the park is to make the PEC work next time you use it, so it knows where all the cogs are relative to the stored PEC training data. Maybe the park 'scope goes back to a preset position and it can't work out how to do the PEC except for from a single starting point?

Just another thing I don't know - the list is growing alarmingly.

Kaptain klevtsov

[MikeP]

KK,

With 3.12 it offers more than one park position. Haven't cycled through them - I just use HOME. After it parks, you get a message saying it has stored the position, please power off.

Don't know what that adds to the party but it does sound like everything is relative to where it parked. Thinking back, when Steve supplied my EQ6, the one I got had been slightly used (a long story) - that would account for me being unable to get the goto working initially.

Mike

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

I wonder why it says that it has stored the position. You would think that it already knew the position as it chose to go there. Odd that.

Kaptain klevtsov

[daz]

Yep, parking is used for PEC - you're right KK, without being parked, it loses the position of the encoders, so doesn't know where to start from.

Thinking about this, you may be right. If my saved HOME position was correct PRIOR to my adjusting the latitude (which was approx 1 hour of RA out), then I think I need to update that.

OK, I think I have a plan - The cloud gods appear to be smiling on my this evening so I'll update you all later.

[George]

EQ6 does not have encoders it counts the steps to get to a given position. When you have done an alignment set to park home, then switch off and check everything is plumb using a spirit level. Then set both circles to 0 so in future if you want to move your scope for any reason moving any axis back to zero gets you in the park position.

BTW best way of setting alignment accurately the first time I found was to start from park position, do a 1, 2 or 3 alignment, repark the scope, switch off then switch back on then slew to any star, star is FOV everytime for me.

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Will report back after tonight if the clouds stay away long enough. I managed a 3 star align late last night, when 3 candidates that I could find (some have different names in Starry Night Pro BTW) were available. I did a 3 star align, slewed to NGC 6543, had a peek (spot on, right in the centre :cheers: ) at the little blurry thing with no halo and parked the 'scope as it was late and getting foggy. The outside of the Tal was dripping wet, so I thought that I'd pack it away before it drowned. Tonight, if all goes according to plan, a 1 star align should be easy peasy and all that is required, hopefully.

Maybe have a bash at the core of the cat's eye, you never know.

Kaptain Klevtsov

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Right, more data, but no help whatsoever.

I did a 3 star align after the one star align failed a bit. Albireo was half an eyepece radius off, 25mm Plossl, Tal 200K. After the 3 star, went to NGC6543. Fuzzy close to centred, yay! After centring Alkaid, the other two were quite close inthe finder, so I hoped it would be OK.

Told it to goto Vega so I could fit the camera and focus it, went to unpack the camera. The scope was pointed nearly horizontal. Not good.

Tried Alkaid (an alignment star) and it missed by a mile. Told it to park, and it parked fine. Checked the time and date were OK and in the right format, all OK.

Dinner time now, will post more later after more faffing about. I'm going to try my other handset for a start, see what happens there.

Kaptain klevtsov.

[George]

Kaptain, Is the scope balanced properly and all the clutches tight?

Im running out of ideas

Oh yean & are you giving it enough amps?

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Yes, yes and yes. I thought it was the power do-dah as the LED started to flicker on me like it does when the power is low. I went to maplin and bought a mains power supply (7Amp) to get round that possibility. No change.

Later that same evening I had more playing with it. I can do a 1 star align and get close, but a 3 star goes nowhere near. I expect I'm using the wrong stars as not many are visible from here.

Swapped the handset from the HEQ5, which works fine, but still the same thing.

So I tried another tack. 1 star align (gets close-ish with the goto) then link up the computer and Starry Night Pro. By controlling from the computer the targets were on the chip every time for ten objects. Wierd. Wierder still, Starry Night opens a new "telescope" window when you connect to the mount, with a cross showing where the 'scope is pointed. It was pointed wrong, although in the normal screen I could centre Vega, click "slew to centre of screen" and it did, according to the camera. But, not according to the telescope view screen.

I let it run some 90 second shots of M57 and saw minimal trailing. Ten minutes and the movement all seemed to be PE, as the ring bobbed up and down but stayed roughly where I'd put it. No wandering off in any direction generally, as you'd expect if the alignment was off.

Now its gone all misty up there so I think I'll pack it away soon.

Kaptain Klevtsov