Yet another Stellarium, EQMod, N star alignment question.

[Gtech]

So having sucessfully setup my 190MN on a NEQ6 Pro mount using the Synscan 3 star alignment method a dozen times with Gotos consistently putting objects very close the the centre of a 7mm EP, I thought I'd move on to using EQMod.

I got an EQDirect cable, downloaded the drivers, EQMod, StellariumScope and Stellarium. It was all connected and up and working in no time. Excellent stuff.

Now ontto N star align, fired up all the app and middleware, synced all the location/time data and started the N star alignment through Stellarium - Choose object, Crt-1 (slew to star), centred star in EP and hit Crt-3 to append data to a new list in EQMod and then on to star 2. I expected it to be out and adjusted and appended the data. Onto star 3, still out, so I adjusted and carried on.

I got up to 6 star alignment (covering NESW and all visible in the N star data list) and I'm still not seeing much improvement in goto accuracy all objects are well outside my 18mm EP and some only just inside the 32mm EP, So scratch head time!

I parked the scope and resorted back to the Synscan handset, 3 star align bang almost perfect gotos.

So not to give up, I parked and tried EQMod again (methodically checking everything), still no accurate gotos....so back to Synscan.

All firmware, apps and drivers are the latest versions, netbook is clean XP install. Manual polaris alignment is good and i'm patient!

So if anyone can shed some light on what possibly is causing poor goto's through Stellarium/EQMod please let me know.

Thanks

John

[JamesF]

Is it perhaps worth trying a different planetarium application?

I have pretty much the same setup, but I'm using Cartes du Ciel rather than Stellarium for controlling the scope.

James

[Gtech]

Swapped out Stellarium for CdC, did only a 3+N star align and gotos were spot on! Thanks James.

Next problem is guiding via PHD, spent an hour trying to calibrate and kept getting star didn't move enough calibration error. So resorted to un-aided mount guiding and took some 20s subs of Andromeda

[JamesF]

That's good news. I've had the "star didn't move enough" error, too. There's a setting you can change to help with that. I can't remember what it's called off the top of my head, but I think the default is 750 and I changed it to 1500. I'll have a look when I can get to my imaging laptop.

James

[JamesF]

It's the "Calibration step (ms)" setting that I changed. Setting it to 1500 sorted out the problem for me. I'm guessing you need larger steps as the focal length of your guide scope gets shorter.

James

[IanL]

This will tell you everything you need to know about getting going with PHD:

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/188777-phd-guiding-basic-use-and-troubleshooting/

Re the Stellarium problems, check that you have the right location and time zone settings in Stellarium, and also check that you are using the same epoch (either J2000 or JNOW) in everywhere you can set it (can't remember the exact options off the top of my head but a mismatch between different bits of software could throw you off target as you described).

[solarboy]

hi

how did you download the drivers for EQMOD

if you are at kelling could you pop over and show how its done

becourse i have tried and failed lots of times

pete

[Gtech]

hi

how did you download the drivers for EQMOD

if you are at kelling could you pop over and show how its done

becourse i have tried and failed lots of times

pete

For my old NC10 netbook running XP. I got an EQDirect Cable (Prolific type) from Astronimiser and downloaded the PL2302 drivers direct from Prolific.

I installed the Prolific drivers, plugged in the cable and made a note of what COM port was assigned and installed the ASCOM platform and EQMOD. I Ithen configured EQMod to use the assigned COM port, plugged in the NEQ6 mount, powered up and checked all was working. e.g. slewing etc