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GM1000HPS - Unboxing

perfrej

By perfrej
in Discussions - Mounts

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perfrej

perfrej

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Thats is rediculous. 10Micron has limited AP compatibility and deliver the freely available ASCOM driver with the mount stating that it is but one alternative. They didn't rip anything, they're just shipping it and I guess nobody uses it. It has a thousand nifty features if you have the full AP firmware, which of course 10Micron doesn't. In fact, if you connect a 10Micron mount via the AP ASCOM driver, you end up with about fifty settings that either have no effect or simply don't work. It is not an option, not viable and, most importantly, 10Micron mounts are not AP mounts.

Better then to use 10Micron's ASCOM driver (beta) or mine. I don't know much about the 10Micron one, but mine works.

/per

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ribuck

ribuck

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Hmm very odd for them to make such a strong statement on the yahoo group. It sounds like some idiot trying to get their kicks by starting a stupid Rumor. If AP had an issue and genuinely believed that 10M has stolen some propriety code then their lawyers would be sending a letter to 10M directly, not posting on the web.

Just smell like a load of Rubbish to me.

Rich.

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famax

famax

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From my point of view, it seems that AP maybe fears such a competitor.

As i do not understand a thing in coding, i will not comment, anyway as stated , it is no way

fair to tell such statments on a public place.

By the way, i did mail the link to 10µ.

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perfrej

perfrej

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Well, I have never done that. I am such a DSO guy... Never even taken a decent shot at a planet. The firmware is the same in the two so they should perform on par. The 2000 does have five more degrees per second to crank out so it should do even faster objects.

/per

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perfrej

perfrej

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The thing works!

It has seen the light. I ran a three point model three times with polar screwing in between and now it is reasonably poalr aligned (within an arcminute and a half). A quick 25-point model gave a reasonable expected pointing accuracy which I think I can bring down when I remove the 5kg weight that I have on the scope ;)

It slews really well at 15°/s while building the model.

I then proceeded to shooting the soul nebula in Ha, O3 and S2 with my new QSI 683. It worked OK but I only had time and weather for 5/5/4 subs of ten minutes each. Not anywhere near what is needed, especially with the narrow Astrodon filters - they seem to let very little light through. The sky was a bit foggy...

I also shot a set of flats and some BIAS frames, all at -30°C. Nebulosity did the pre-processing and then on to Pixinsight for registration integration and assembly. Last, a couple of small tweaks in PS. All in all about fifteen minutes worth of work. It is not something I want to post in the imaging section ;) Instead I post it here as proof of first unguided light with the GM1000HPS!

Takahashi FSQ106EDXIII, Astrodon filters, QSI683. Capture with CCD Autopilot (and the movie was OK).

Larger here: http://filer.frejvall.se/Soultest.jpg

Soultest-800.jpg

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perfrej

perfrej

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I'm on the rosd for ten days... The image is completely unprocessed regarding star shape, and believe all subs are on thesame side of the meridian, so the high-res should tell.

The scope has an NEQ6 counterweight on a bar in order to move it up to avoid pier contact, and it wobbles a bit. I made the model at 15 deg/s with no slew settle time so it can be improved. As it stood for this test, the expected rms error was reported at 39". With a solid scope I usually get around 5.

All in all it is a reasonable result given the circumstances ;)

/per

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  • 2 weeks later...
perfrej

perfrej

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Hi all!

I'm back from my trip now and am testing the mount some more. It does perform quite well. For those of you who already have GM mounts, my model maker software is now out in the open. It simplifies model making a lot!

More soon!

/per

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DanH

DanH

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Hi Per,

As I've been reading your posts for the last month, I decided to order a GM1000 and of course was checking your website daily for the model maker software.

Thanks for the soft that I downloaded a minute ago.

I didn't forget the beers (Can't live without it !)

Now I have the soft and still missing the mount. 3 more weeks to wait .... ;)

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perfrej

perfrej

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That sounds horrible! Three more weeks! On the other hand, I waited a good month and a half for mine ;)

So far I am very pleased with mine. It is so much smaller than the 2000 and so much easier to take down and put back on the pier. The only issue I have so far is partly my own fault. I have a rather large base plate on my pier to accomodate the much bigger GM2000 base, and the GM1000 is quite a bit lower in all. The net result is that all my scopes bang into the base plate (30x30cm) :(

I have solved it temporarily by adding 5kg to the bottom each scope, thus moving it up in the saddle for balance, and thus adding 5kg to every imaging setup I have. I am about to embark on the road to a pier extender as I do not want to take away the ability for the pier to accept a GM2000 or perhaps a GM4000 (dream on, Per).

Let me know how it goes with the delivery!

Thanks,

Per

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Tim

Tim

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Here's a very amateur vid, complete with muck ups which I made recently to show somebody. Bear in mind that this is with a 1970mm focal length SCT, which has had a change of focuser and not been re-modeled since.

Vid just demonstrates the mount being swung around in off mode and then finding its targets nicely afterwards.

I achieved much better results graph wise in PHD by resetting the settings and configuring them for my C11. Pretty happy now that I could guide the big scope for 3 or 4 hours on one exposure without issue ;)

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DanH

DanH

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Hi Per,

I'm just wondering how you managed to enter your balcony "terrain map" ? Did you enter all points by hand ?

I'd like to prepare as much as I can without the mount. ;)

As you said, 3 weeks of waiting sound horrible... but I'm convinced it is worth waiting !

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perfrej

perfrej

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Dan, I made the map manually, but I need a new one as it was made with the GM2000 which sits 40cm higher. I slewed the scope manually, aimed roughly with the Tak's tube rings and the Losmandy bar as sight and just read the coordinates. Next time I am going to use the CCD with the S2 filter or an aperture mask in front of the objective. Slew with "mountsend", use the keys up and down and then just save the coordinates in a file. It is something you do only once so it is allowed to take some time.

Now, one of the things that I need to improve in Model Maker is the terrain mask display in the polar map. It is OK to just draw a straight line between two points in the othogonal one, but in the polar one it should actually be an arc between them. You can work around that by increasing the point density to, say, every five degrees in Az and just duplicate the Alt value. Suppose you have a straght line between Az 80 and 140 at 5 deg Alt. In that scenario you should enter 80:5 85:5 90:5 .... up to 140:5 in order to have a proper display in the polar pane. If you don't you end up wit the terrain taking a shortcut up to 40 degrees or so at Az 110...

The problem doesn't affect the stopping of entering points below the mask as that decision is made based on the position in the arthogonal map, so it is a rather cosmetic problem.

Yes, the wait should be worth it ;) It is a lovable piece of metal.

/per

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DanH

DanH

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Let's dream a bit ... it would be nice to take a 360° picture with a camera, and convert the landscape points as ALT-AZ. And then, have that picture as a backgroung of your drawings.

A bit like the landscape pictures in Stellarium or TheSkyX

I have another question regarding balancing, but I'll open a new post for that.

Dan

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DanH

DanH

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Hi Per,

The 3 weeks waiting time passed faster than expected !

Ian king received my mount and will send it via UPS tomorrow !

If weather becomes dreadful next week, you'll know whose fault it is :)

I should get it right for my birthday (next tuesday) !

Regards,

Dan

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