skywatcher goto

[chrisseal42]

Hi All

I seem to be having ongoing probelms with the goto on my HEQ5 Pro I tryed two star align and vega was selected the scope slew to it but it was no where near vega. I centered it and selected another star and it again slewed to this star. it was closer but slill away off and I had correct star. Got message saying the PA +0.45 alighment failed. I only got it to work once. But I did park the scope last week and it was parked at a funny angle but it has been powered off since then. I just did a 6 min unguided and there was only a lttle trailing.

[Steve Ward]

Almost certainly an issue with the Time/Date format that you entered , date needs to be in U.S. format , i.e. MM/DD/YYYY  and 'Yes' to the Daylight Saving entry.

[ronin]

First is to make sure the mount starts out right, basically level everything that needs to be level, or levelish, I know that some do not say it but better to do if possible. Anything not level that is best to be level simply adds to the errors that the mount needs to corrct for

Set the Latitude to 51.55, well as close as makes sense and polar align the mount.

Data should be:

Longitude: 000 33 E

Latitude: 51  33 N

Date is as said MM/DD/YYYY but as it was the 20th last night doubt this could have been wrong, there isn't 20 months in a year, I am assuming the the SW software is not that stupid.

DST is Yes.

Watch out for the correct number of leading 0's on Longitude and also that it is East.

Off hand cannot think of much else, equally sure there is something obvious.

That's it, is the timezone 0, or whatever it now defines/uses as 0, it may be UTC or UTC 0. Think I read that SW changed what was displayed and confused everything.

Would be nice if SW gave an idea what PA +0.45 meant, as in what is +0.45.

[Cornelius Varley]

Is the on going problem with the mount related to your previous post http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/211247-sky-watcher-no-line-to-mc/#entry2256547 , and did you resolve the problem ?  Did the error message read  "RA off by >45  alignment failed" and not as you stated, which seems to be a common error and one that no one seems to have resolved. Also make sure that you have the most recent version of the Synscan firmware (rev 3.35)

Start the mount, entering all the correct data and try a single star alignment allowing the mount to slew to the selected star and then slacken the clutches and manually centre the star in the eyepiece and then tighten the clutches again. Immediately park the mount and switch off. Now slacken the clutches and manually set the mount back to the normal home position. Restart the mount, entering all the correct data again and do a normal star alignment. This time the alignment should be more accurate.

[chrisseal42]

Just thinking I amusing side by side setup when my scope is in parked posion the scopes side ways woild that be causing a problem.

[Phil Fargaze]

Point scope back to pole star manually and try to align again, just choose one star for starters and see how it goes

[Cornelius Varley]

Just thinking I amusing side by side setup when my scope is in parked posion the scopes side ways woild that be causing a problem.

The normal home position is counterweight bar pointing straight down and telescope pointing at the north celestial pole. You can also have a custom home position for situations where parking the telescope in the normal home position is difficult ie in an observatory. If the handset expects the mount to be in the normal home position and it is not then the slew to the first alignment star will be inaccurate. Even if you are using a side by side setup you should start the mount in the normal home position with the telescopes pointing at the ncp unless you are using a custom home position.

[wuthton]

As above but return the mount to the home position by slackening the clutches, don't use the handset.