Carte du ciel and HEQ5

[Din]

Hi

I've been trying to get my HEQ5 upgraded to GOTO spec using the Carte du ciel program and ASCOM/EQMOD.

I can get it to point to the park position (Polaris for some reason) but when I select another object it seems to get the declination ok but the RA is the wrong way round. Selecting a star in Cassiopea sends the scope point to the east instead of the west.

I've tried checking the "Reverse RA" box in the ASCOM software, but no joy there.

Any ideas before I tear my hair out? (What's left of it)

Cheers

Ed

[Helen]

Hi Ed,

Have you checked that CdC has your correct time and location, and its the same as in Eqmod if you're using that.

Helen

[Din]

Helen

It looks like EQMOD has a 12 hour difference in the time setting to CdC. That would explain the RA problem.

Now I just have to figure out how to set the correct time in EQMOD.

Many thanks for that.

Back to the laptop...

Ed

[leelee970]

I have a similar issue, all I do is when i turn on mount imanually point it at a known star (or planet) and then sync it on CdC. then everything is fine for the rest of the session.

But now you've found out there is a difference in times i'll have a look at my PC later - unless there are clear skies tonight

[Din]

Helen

After some research I've found the LST in EQMOD is the local sidereal time, which is about 12 hours different to local mean time at the moment.

So it would seem that EQMOD and CdC agree in time and position.

Oh well, back to the drawing board...

Ed

[Din]

I have a similar issue, all I do is when i turn on mount imanually point it at a known star (or planet) and then sync it on CdC. then everything is fine for the rest of the session.

But now you've found out there is a difference in times i'll have a look at my PC later - unless there are clear skies tonight

I've tried manually pointing at a star (Polaris in this case) and it always returns to that spot when I ask it in CdC. It just seems to go the wrong way when I ask it to look at something else. As I said, the declination seems about right, but I'm guessing it's reversed the RA.

Mmmmmm...

Ed

[badgerchap]

In your co-ordinates, are you set to W or E? I know it sounds obvious but I often get confused, especially as Google earth gives it as -4 degrees E when CdC wants that as 4 degrees W!

Posted via Tapatalk on an ageing iPhone so please excuse any erroneous spellings or accidental profanities!

[DaveS]

Have you checked that EQMOD is set to your local lat / long? I was having similar trouble to you until I found that EQMOD thought I was somewhere in the Pacific off the coast of Mexico. Once I had both CdC and EQMOD at the same location they worked together with little trouble.

[Din]

EQMOD and CdC are both set to my local Lat/Long. Both with correct N & W designations.

It's probably something simple but the solution still evades me.

All this to save money on the GoTo handset!

Oh well... must crack on.

Ed

[Helen]

Ok I had a feeling that there was a previous thread about CdC and time. You might want to check that in your control panel your system time settings are set to the correct time zone. http://www.worldtimeserver.com/atomic-clock/ Apparently some computers can default to other timezones and that gets picked up by CdC (and EQMod).

Helen

[Din]

Thanks for that Helen.

I seem to have fixed the problem but I'm not entirely sure how. I tried reversing the scope, clearing all previous syncs in EQMOD, shutting everything down and starting again. Now the scope seems to track where I ask it to go using CdC.

Need to try it out for real now - lets hope these clouds stay away....

Cheers

Ed

[Din]

All

For those interested I think I might have discovered why the mount was behaving the way it did.

For some reason the park position was set with declination +90. Being so close to Polaris I was using this as a quick one-star alignment. With large changes in RA resulting in small changes in the position of Polaris, it was impossible to get a good sync.

Since then I have been using stars with a much lower declination for syncing. Seems to work fine now.

Cheers

Ed

[badgerchap]

Glad you got it sorted

Posted via Tapatalk on an ageing iPhone so please excuse any erroneous spellings or accidental profanities!