the trials and tribulations of Imaging

[oldpink]

after 10 days of wall to wall cloud the weather finally gave me a break

I set up about 3:30 in the afternoon, the moon was out and sitting in a clear sky at 5pm so decided to do some imaging
set up the camera slew around and got the moon in focus and fired off a couple of runs, all well at this point
came in for dinner and waited for the sun to set

8pm the sun was just setting so I decided to set up for the evenings planned imaging session with the intention of doing some DSO's
set up the laptop, hooked up the connections, fired up EQMOD and CdC and told it to slew to Jupiter  and I wasn't too far off the mark

hooked up the camera and took a couple of shots still fine at this point

8:30 the sky was darkening down so decided to try a few M's out, this is where it started to go wrong
pointed at M44 as I have done it a few times and a good one to set focus with
clicked on it and hit the slew and nothing happened, looked at EQMOD and it had timed out, Ok reset EQMOD it picked up its position
tried M44 again it started slewing but it slew right past the target and kept going
EQMOD had timed out again, reset again after a bit it connected lasted 2 minutes failed again, reset the full system but EQMOD would start up
but shortly after would time out
by this time it was 9:30 and after ruling everything else out I put it down to the cheap Serial / USB lead had failed I gave up and went back to the goto
and made the best of a bad night doing the planets as without EQMOD working I can't track accurately enough to do DSO

all in all very frustrating but I didn't let it get me down and made the best use of the clear skies

[Leveye]

Sounds like EQMOD may not be your  slewing weapon of choice. Keep at it!

[ChrisLX200]

With so many things to potentially go wrong I'm more surprised when my lot works, not when it doesn't

ChrisH

[oldpink]

I'm sure its the cheap cables
I've had one fail already but put that down to me not making it damp proof
but at £1.65 each you can't expect a high standard of manufacture

[sidelight]

I know your pain, I also had problems like this when I overloaded the USB cable (ie too many things hanging off it) it was intermittent and sometimes would work flawlessly, other times it would just randomly time out EQMOD (the problem became worse after updating EQMOD). Different USB sockets behaved differently.  That was a frustrating few months as whenever I set up to track it down and test it would be flawless, but as soon as I tried to do anything serious it would break down.  

Cheers

Ross

[oldpink]

yeah as soon as the rain goes off I'm bringing the mount indoors to see if its just a bad connection or an actual problem

[Thalestris24]

Hi

I hoped to make use of Glasgow's relatively clear skies last night too. Finally got Astrotortilla working with the new qhy8l ascom driver so that was a plus. Then tried to get PHD2 calibrated but had several failed attempts because of clouds. Finally got it calibrated but actual guiding was problematic. The heq5 was tracking unguided for 60s and giving nice round stars but when trying to guide - not so good . I've had nothing but problems with trying to guide using the ST-80. It always seems worse in DEC. It's bolted to the scope via a dovetail to the scope rings so I don't think there is any flexure. Rather it seems that PHD2 struggles to lock on a star. Maybe it's the poor atmospheric conditions. I think I'm going to switch back to the finder - I used to find it easier to select guide stars with the finder whereas the ST-80 seems to make it harder. Very frustrating! Oh well.

Louise

[oldpink]

yeah I made the best of a bad lot last night
despite the reasonably clear skies I was still getting a lot of atmospheric issues
but I didn't give up, Astro tortilla was one thing I was wanting to try to get better alignment
but as EQMOD was down that meant I couldn't test it out, there will be other nights though

just tested the system out and confirmed that there is a problem with one of the leads
not sure if its the USB - Serial or the serial to RJ11 that was supplies with the scope thats a pretty flimsy cable
I'll get a better USB - Serial over the next few days and see if that solves the issue
weather says Rubbish week ahead so no big loss being down for a few days

[Thalestris24]

yeah I made the best of a bad lot last night

despite the reasonably clear skies I was still getting a lot of atmospheric issues

but I didn't give up, Astro tortilla was one thing I was wanting to try to get better alignment

but as EQMOD was down that meant I couldn't test it out, there will be other nights though

just tested the system out and confirmed that there is a problem with one of the leads

not sure if its the USB - Serial or the serial to RJ11 that was supplies with the scope thats a pretty flimsy cable

I'll get a better USB - Serial over the next few days and see if that solves the issue

weather says Rubbish week ahead so no big loss being down for a few days

Hi

Do make sure your data leads are nowhere near any mains powered leads. This can cause a lot of problems and unreliable communications as I found when I first set my rig up. I've also substituted higher quality shielded usb 2.0 high speed cables (Cables to Go) for my original cheap ones. Also, make sure cameras are connected to high speed usb ports on your computer/laptop. Some connectors are only 'full-speed' rather than 'high speed'. If you use a hub (I don't) I believe it has to be a powered one. I also got a 5m serial-usb cable from Astronomiser. Pricey, but much better quality than the short one I originally got from FLO - which aren't cheap either!

Good luck next time!

Louise

[oldpink]

think this is more to do with cheap leads
even in the house with just the laptop connected to the mount its still not working
though when new they were fine, I think that dampness / moisture is getting in and killing them
I'll go get a decent one and make sure its well wrapped up this time to avoid any dampness issues

[terry67]

hi oldpink,,,,dont give up we might get another clear night this year yet

[oldpink]

I don't give up very easily
broken cloud just now put predicted rain & cloud later, now there's a surprise

[Tinker1947]

Once EQMod settles down its works very well, keep at it quality USB leads and a stable PSU for the mount and it will work very well.....

[oldpink]

the mount has its own dedicated power supply so no problem there
when the leads have been working EQMOD has been mostly fine

[Tinker1947]

Any problems i have had with EQMod have been self inflicted, like swivel round on me chair and knock off the mount PSU switch, then wonder why the thing won't slew...

[oldpink]

yeah its normally fine, but last night it was being very erratic, telling me it can't slew when parked, it was pointing south at 22 deg above the horizon

anyway made up for it tonight, out of the blue (literally) the sky's cleared up about 7pm and the moon was looking tempting
so I went out and played with the Canon a bit then went to the ASI and did some lunar closups of 2000 frames each

8:30 I swapped to Jupiter and ran 35gb of AVI's at 2 - 5000 frames, they look a little hazy in preview but time will tell
so happy chappy, got a load of data to play with, came in for a bit but still set up as the cloud is moving in quickly
but all ready if it clears again