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GM1000HPS - Unboxing


perfrej

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Hi all,

I've got the mount from Ian King, nicely packed !

It is really a wonderful piece of equipment !

What amazes me at first is the silence of operation. What a difference with the CGEM ! The mount is so quiet when slewing !

Dan

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Well, it will mainly depend on the weather forecast... it's raining now :)

For now, the mount is close to my desk, I'm browsing through the menus and playing with it from my desktop computer through TheSkyX Pro

FYI, I don't know if it is TheSkyX or the ascom driver, but TheSkyX stopped responding twice this morning.

I have installed your latest ascom driver...

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I have no idea. It is the fist time I try to connect a mount to TheSkyX via ASCOM... CGEM (nextstar) support was native.

It works ok, but TheSkyX exits for no reason, once in a while. Strange behaviour !

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Dan,

TheSkyX doesn't have native support wo you probably have TeleAPI as the telescope and then selct my driver, correct? TeleAPI is a "glue" between the driver standard used by TheSkyX and the ASCOM drivers. I haven't really heard any earth-shakingly good reviews of TheSkyX. How are you getting along with it? Do you use it for capture or just for planetatium use?

/per

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Per,

I only use it as planetarium, as I didn't purchase the camera module.

In the telescope setup menu, I select ASCOM->Telescop driver, and then your driver (GM2000HPS) in the "settings" dialog, with the right IP and port 3492 and then "connect" the telescope. That works OK and I can use TheSkyX Pro to slew to any object.

I sometimes had to restart TheSkyX to be able to control the mount as it gave me an error (command failed: error 206) when trying to connect... but then it worked, exception made for the few glitches I've had..

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Interesting... Stellariumscope is a product that I have found to be slightly unstable. It doesn't handle ASCOM exceptions correctly so it takes a plunge into lala-land everytime a driver underneath it throws an exception. that can be a simple thins such as trying to slew while not tracking, which is forbidden in ASCOM and thus should throw an exception. The client, in this case Stellariumscope, should swallow the exception and just tell the user what is wrong. Instead, Stellariumscope takes a dive...

For reliable tests I have found Cartes du Ciel to be stable. It isn't the fastest thing on earth but it certainly does things the right way ;)

/per

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I downloaded the latest version of StellariumScope, dated 2013, march 15th. It works nicely with the latest version of Stellarium;

The problem is that I just don't like the look of Cartes du Ciel, so I'm investigating every other planetarium software.... :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi All,

I am trying to decide between the 1000HPS, Mach1 and AP1100.

There are two important things for me that I need to know if the 1000HPS does well:

- Daytime alignment. Does it have a procedure for that, like AP mounts?

- Manual (push by hand) panning. Can we control friction or are the knobs designed for lock/unlock only? Also, can it track while in the hybrid state (unlocked but with friction) or tracking happens only if fully locked?

Finally, does anyone know about a direct comparision made with the Mach1 regarding load capacity? Mach1 states 20Kg and 1000HPS staes 25Kg, but these are failrly subjective. The fact is the 1000HPS weights 18Kg and the Mach1 12.7Kg, both without counterweight bar, so maybe the 1000HPS has signicant more capacity than the Mach1?

It would be nice to have a pdf of the manual so that I could check all the features, but it seems not available.

Thanks is advance for any help,

Pedro

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Pedro,

Daytime alignment is not covered in any detail and I am unsure what you mean by it. I just roughly point it towards N and set the altitude dial to whatever latitude I'm at and wait for darkness. When it gets dark I run a small model with my model maker (available to you too) and then adjust whatever number of turns on the knobs that the handset tells me to. Then re-run the model or choose one with more points and you're good to. The model is in-mount so the PC is only needed to run my model maker. If you don't want to use a PC at all you do a three star alignmen, fiddle the knobs and then another three stars and maybe some refinement stars in addition. Takes a few moments, and since you do not need to be perfectly polar aligned (it tracks in both axis) you don't have to be that picky.

Frictions are just that; frictions. You can half fasten them, leave them completely loose or completely tight, and then anything in between those. Encoders are on the axis and report the same thing whether friction is on or off. You can push it around with half-tighened frictions and leave it tracking - it doesn't matter. In fact, I happened to run a model with the Dec friction more or less completely loose and didn't notice anything until the wind caught the scope and it skidded away to some unknown point in the sky. I then tightened the frictions and continued. The mount always knows where it is, frictions loose or tight, power on or off.

I have run my GM1000HPS with 23kg of scope (190MN, QSI 683, an electronics box and a 5kg weight) and it performed perfectly well. The only thing I would not do is run it with 25kg of scope at full slew rate, which for the GM1000 is 15°/s. It would'nt hurt the mount, but imagine the load when accellerating 25kg of equipment to 15°/s. ;)

My guess is that the 25kg load limit of the GM1000 is truly conservative as long as you don't slew too fast.

/per

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Thanks Per! That is great news!

I always wanted a tracking push-to-go mount. It is an old dream coming true.

Also nice to hear it handles 23Kg with no problem. However it probably is not near the AP1100 capacity of 50 Kg weighting only 19.5 Kg without counterweight bar.

The Daytime Polar aligning I mentioned is described in page 23 of AP manual (GTO Keypad Controller, Version 4.12), www.astro-physics.com -> Technical support.

1. Point the mount roughly north.

2. Park to Position 1 (scope horizontal and counterweight bar horizontal, scope on the West side)

3. Unlock clutches and move approximately both axes to real Position 1.

4. Using a 7" carpenter level on counterweight bar, level RA axis. Scope tube does not need to be accurate at this time. Lock clutches.

5. Park to Position 2 (scope horizontal and counterweights fully down)

6. Unlock DEC only and manually level the scope horizontally using the level. Lock DEC.

7. Park to Position 1

8. Level the scope horizontally using the mount alt-adjuster (do not move mount axis manually or with keypad)

9. GOTO a daytime object (sun, moon, bright planet or star)

10. Center object using the mount Az-adjuster

I did this procedure once, with an AP600, and it worked, I got Jupiter on first try.

I did not thought about what I was doing just followed the steps, and it worked.

Now that I am thinking about it, if we have encoders and we have the tripod leveled, steps 2,3,4,5 and 6 are not needed.

Do you agree?

So, having encoders makes daytime alignement much easier. That is very important to me as half of my astro time is the sun, and I do not have a fixed setup.

So I guess my decision is made. The 1000HPS will be. I will miss the light weight (for the capacity) of the Mach1 and AP1100, but manual panning and easier daytime polar alignment are too important to me.

Thanks!

Pedro

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Pedro,

When I see how he AP procedure actually works, I can tell you that the equivalent procedure with a 10Micron HPS-series mount would entail changing most points. To be more precise, it would be:

1. Level mount

2. Roughly point N in Az and Alt with the "knobs"

3. Slew to Az/Alt 0°, 0°

4. With a sprit level on the scope, level it manually in Dec(loosen frictions)

5. Goto a visible object

6. Adjust with knobs to center object

This will give you an alignment (regardless of mount) that may be good for gotos, but it will definitely not give you any unguided performance. When you realize how fast a model of, say, ten points, is run, you will want to do that instead. It will be faster and it can be done between nautical and astronomical darkness when you can't image anyway, so ni time lost.

/per

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Hi Per,

Thank you for the latest ASCOM driver !

I'll test it tonight.

By the way, I had a chance to use your Model maker program yesterday for the first time (due to bad weather, even in south of France), and this is working like a dream !

Here are the 4 latest points pinpoint results :

00:25:32 - Slewing to refine point 19 at 134, 74
00:25:59 - Slew settle 3s...
00:26:02 - Exposing (15)...
00:26:20 - Solving...
00:26:21 - Ra diff 1,40 arcsec
00:26:21 - Dec diff 2,30 arcsec
00:26:21 - Solved OK
00:26:21 - Syncing
00:26:21 - Synced OK
00:26:21 - Slewing to refine point 20 at 240, 74
00:26:48 - Slew settle 3s...
00:26:51 - Exposing (15)...
00:27:09 - Solving...
00:27:10 - Ra diff 0,18 arcsec
00:27:10 - Dec diff 1,56 arcsec
00:27:10 - Solved OK
00:27:10 - Syncing
00:27:10 - Synced OK
00:27:10 - Slewing to refine point 21 at 286, 74
00:27:16 - Slew settle 3s...
00:27:19 - Exposing (15)...
00:27:37 - Solving...
00:27:38 - Ra diff 0,51 arcsec
00:27:38 - Dec diff 1,52 arcsec
00:27:38 - Solved OK
00:27:38 - Syncing
00:27:39 - Synced OK
00:27:39 - Slewing to refine point 22 at 70, 74
00:28:02 - Slew settle 3s...
00:28:05 - Exposing (15)...
00:28:23 - Solving...
00:28:24 - Ra diff 0,34 arcsec
00:28:24 - Dec diff 4,25 arcsec
00:28:24 - Solved OK
00:28:24 - Syncing
00:28:25 - Synced OK

And I didn't even take the time to do a polar align :)

That will be for tonight, if weather permits !

Dan

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Per,

I’m confused now. I thought the HPS mounts always know where they are pointing, so if we loosen friction and move it manually, it knows what we moved. In that case doing step 5 after step 4 would discard whatever adjustment we made in step 4, unless we by some mean told the mount “this is the real 0,0; adjust to that”. If we got to 0,0 and then move it manually, will the mount still think it is pointing 0,0?

My use of the daytime alignment is not for preparing the nigh time in anticipation, is for use the telescope in full daylight, with sun or planets. So only instant exposures, yes. You probably say that I don’t even need to be polar aligned for this. I have two goals, find planets in full daylight and keep sun and planets permanently centered in field of view.

So in fact I don’t need to get correct polar alignment. What I need is to get the same alt-az alignment as the last time the mount was used, so that the mount knows where it is pointing. But since I have to have some alt-az alignment it may well be the right polar alignment, that has the added advantages of no field rotation and allow use at daytime as well.

Thanks for helping me understand the HPS.

Pedro

Pedro,

When I see how he AP procedure actually works, I can tell you that the equivalent procedure with a 10Micron HPS-series mount would entail changing most points. To be more precise, it would be:

1. Level mount

2. Roughly point N in Az and Alt with the "knobs"

3. Slew to Az/Alt 0°, 0°

4. With a sprit level on the scope, level it manually in Dec(loosen frictions)

5. Goto a visible object

6. Adjust with knobs to center object

This will give you an alignment (regardless of mount) that may be good for gotos, but it will definitely not give you any unguided performance. When you realize how fast a model of, say, ten points, is run, you will want to do that instead. It will be faster and it can be done between nautical and astronomical darkness when you can't image anyway, so ni time lost.

/per

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