A little gripe about the EQ5 pro SynScan

[lensman57]

Hi to all,

Last friday I eventually managed to get an EQ5 pro GoTo mount for my SW 127 Mak, this is my first EQ mount BTW. The AZ SynScan GoTo mount that the scope originally came with was not very stable for any serious observing though very portable and convinient for Grab and go sort of thing. I managed to sort the mount out on friday afternoon and did a lot of reading about all aspects of the set up. Tonight I saw a near clear sky and decided to give the mount a go. I managed to align the mount to polaris rather quickly and I think that it was aligned right as once I rottaed the RA axis through 180 the polaris stayed on the reticle circle. Anyhow by the time I came to align the SynScan the clouds had turned up again and covered all the usual alignment stars.

I then decided to just have a go with the scope and looked at the moon, tracking manualy with the hand set at "0" rate for a few minutes before it was all clouded over. My gripe is why SW thinks it necessary to align the whole set up through the GoTo before auto Sidereal tracking could be enabled for the RA axis, surely if the mount is aligned to NCP using polaris then auto tracking with RA axis should be more than adequate for visual observations, I understand why a GoTo alignment is necessary for AP or DSO imaging but for observation this is surely an unnecessary step.

If I am wrong in any of my assertions then I apoligise and will be gald to be corrected and guided, if not then perhaps the relevant parties could perhaps persuade SW to incoporate this feature in the next firmware update, can't be that difficult I guess. Again if I missed something then please correct me as I am a novice in this field.

Many thanks and regards,

A.G

[Steve Ward]

The Go-To alignment has no bearing on AP.

For AP you need very accurate Polar Alignment to enable the mount to track objects for long exposures.

The 1 , 2 or 3 star alignment merely lets the mount s/w know the position/orientation of the celestial sphere at that particular moment in time and enables the mount to locate objects upon it.

I believe that the Synscan handset is the same on your EQ5 as it is in my HEQ5Pro , in which case you should find a "tracking" option in the "Set-up" menu that allows you to switch between "Sidereal" , "Lunar" or "Solar" tracking , depending on what you are viewing.

If you were viewing the Moon on "sidereal" tracking you'd have got some drifting.

When I use the HEQ5Pro for Solar shooting I simply select "Solar" tracking , press "No" when asked if I want to align , and then release clutches and move onto the target manually, the mount is automatically tracking in RA from the start.

Similarly for Lunar , I just select the appropriate setting and skip the alignment procedure as it's usually the only target for the night.

[ronin]

Check the manual there may well be an option to not go through the alignment, or a reduced version.

What I suspect the scope needs is an OK from you that it is "aligned" and should carry on as normal and so track.

So until you press an OK or Enter button at some stage it will not have an internal flag set for Alignment successful and I would guess this prevents tracking to start at the default.

They tend to hide the non standard alignment options.

[Cornelius Varley]

The latest firmware revision does have the feature you are asking for. The star alignment can be skipped and the handset used as a simple Syntrek handset. You could actually do this with earlier versions of the handset by saying "no' to begin star alignment

[lensman57]

The Go-To alignment has no bearing on AP.

For AP you need very accurate Polar Alignment to enable the mount to track objects for long exposures.

The 1 , 2 or 3 star alignment merely lets the mount s/w know the position/orientation of the celestial sphere at that particular moment in time and enables the mount to locate objects upon it.

I believe that the Synscan handset is the same on your EQ5 as it is in my HEQ5Pro , in which case you should find a "tracking" option in the "Set-up" menu that allows you to switch between "Sidereal" , "Lunar" or "Solar" tracking , depending on what you are viewing.

If you were viewing the Moon on "sidereal" tracking you'd have got some drifting.

When I use the HEQ5Pro for Solar shooting I simply select "Solar" tracking , press "No" when asked if I want to align , and then release clutches and move onto the target manually, the mount is automatically tracking in RA from the start.

Similarly for Lunar , I just select the appropriate setting and skip the alignment procedure as it's usually the only target for the night.

Hi Steve,

Many thanks for your reply, I have found the tracking options under the set up menu and the 3 optios are there plus an extra one called PEC+sidereal. Am I correct to assume that that I would need to tighten the clutches after centering on the object and then the tracking resumes?

Many thanks,

A.G

[lensman57]

Many thanks to all whom replied to my post, will report the next time I get a chance to try the mount and the scope.

Regards,

A.G

[alan potts]

This gets up my nose too. I bought this mount as a manual none Goto, and that tracks as soon as you switch it on. I upgraded to the goto at a later date.

Alan.

[earth titan]

I thought it could be overridden. When I had synscan I just used to tell it not to align ( I think), but it was a few years ago as I only have syntrek now.

Typed by me on my fone, using fumms... Excuse eny speling errurs.