Synscan autotracking advice needed

[DannyLee]

Can anyone tell me how to use my Skywatcher 127 Synscan GOTO as a simple solar/ lunar etc tracking device? 

The awful manual seems to suggest that if you have not gone through the star alignment procedure, but want to track the moon,  then you point the scope at the north and have the tube level, then select  Lunar tracking from the setup sub menu.

I assumed you then use the slewing keys to locate the moon and hey presto it then tracks.

Tried this, lots, even holding my mouth in different and interesting ways, but nothing happens at all...

What am I doing wrong?

I have tried the alignment procedure but my home sky view is crap and I can never get two stars to complete the deal. In any case skylight is so bad only the moon sun and planets are really visible so why do I need Goto? Besides which, I like looking at the sun ( Mylar filter) so how do you do the star alignment during the day?

Any comments greatly appreciated 

Dan

[Cornelius Varley]

When you say "nothing happens" what do you mean exactly ?  Are you able to slew the mount to the moon or the mount refuses to track ?

[geordie85]

Of you go into settings, auto tracking then select lunar/ solar your mount will start tracking wherever it's pointing.

Edit: you may need to go to utility function. I'm typing this from memory as I'm not at home at the moment 

[JemC]

8 minutes ago, geordie85 said:

Of you go into settings, auto tracking then select lunar/ solar your mount will start tracking wherever it's pointing.

Edit: you may need to go to utility function. I'm typing this from memory as I'm not at home at the moment 

I think its the following,

press menu

scroll down until you come to Tracking

then press enter

scroll down until you come to Lunar/solar, then just press enter on solar and you should be good to go,

James

[ronin]

To set up without doing an alignment (2 star usually) it appears a bit convoluted.

You are right in that the scope has the be level and pointed North. With all the data in and correct you have the scope in this Level and North home setting. The scope should ask you if you want to begin Align. The pdf I have says 1 = Yes, 2 = No. As you do not want to align you select 2. Which skips the alignment. It goes to what is described as Easy Tracking, however I am willing to bet it is nything but. Although Easy Tracking almost looks as if it does no tracking until you pick the desired one after you have said skip the alignment. Which makes some sense as the scope is not aligned adn so does not know the movement to apply. You manually "force" it.

Seems that the next step is to select the tracking - SETUP/Tracking and pick Solar/LunarNone or whatever. You then slew the scope to the object and it scope "should" track art the defined rate.

The presumption is that if it starts Level+North then the movement you perform by the slewing allows the scope to determine what vertical and horizontal drive has to be performed in order to maintain the object central. So make sure that it is level and make sure that it is North. From recent experience on a very similar exercise I found that 5 degrees off of North means the sun disappears out of view VERY fast and I had a small wide firls scope, you have a narrow field scope and will suffer more.

One bit of the pdf says that you have the have the data in the scope and the scope in the Alt/Az (Level+North) position before you power it on. In effect enter it all, leve and North it then power cycle the scope. BUT only one paragraph says that, it is not mentioned elsewhere.

This is the pdf I have: http://www.skywatcher.com/downloads/SynScan_HandControl_web_280313V3.pdf

it is only relevant to the hand controller, and may or may not be the software version you have. Relevant bits seem to be Section 2.2, steps 6 and 7. Then back to Section 1.2 and on to  Section 6.1.

Suspect this manual is easier as it just covers the Synscan hand controller and nothing else.