alignment problems with Celestron evolution, video

[skydivephil]

Hi. Im having serious problems with next star evolution 8. I thought I was pretty happy with how to align the telescope with a wedge. i was trying to perfect polar alignment and managed to get a 75 second exposure with minimal star trailing. But then I tried again , and as far as I can see ,I did the same procedure and got very significant star trails after 20 seconds. 

Last night things were even worse. The telescope kept saying alignment failed after just trying the standard two star EQ north align. 

Finally after many tries, it said alignment successful. But when I asked it to slew to another target it went to completely the wrong part of the sky. 

I also tried the polar alignment procedure. What the next star evolution does is to slew the telescope to where it thinks the star in question should be if it were polar aligned. When i tried this with my aforementioned successful attempt, the telescope slewed away from the initial target star and then straight back to it. I then makes another slew which might be slightly off and you are supposed to adjust the wedge knobs to put the target star in the centre. 

The initial set up is as far as I can see identical to my successful attempt. and as far as getting the moral two star alignment i have never had a problem with this. 

I have no idea why thing have gotten worse. but I have made a video showing the problem. Its here:

https://vimeo.com/185125452

Maybe you can spot the error. Any help, very welcome

 

[noah4x4]

Erratic unexplained stuff like this is most often attributable to time/date or more likely location being incorrect. Also Evolution WiFi is so flakey anything is likely if using that for control. Were you using the HC or tablet? I had awful wild erratic alignment and goto problems until I abandoned WiFi and use only the HC, inserting location via <menu>. 

[ronin]

What is the power source?

I would check all the angles that you have set on the wedge, assume that the base section of the wegdge is also level in order to get the correct angle out of it, and what is defined in the scope for Lat and Long, also date and time and DST and timezone.

Check that the angle scale on the wedge makes sense - I have one that seems reversed, no idea why so don't ask, makes life interesting and occasionally plain confusing. Oddly the thing is meant for a goto that is set to EQ mode but usually would run in Alt/Az - somewhat like your operation I think.

 

[skydivephil]

2 hours ago, noah4x4 said:

Erratic unexplained stuff like this is most often attributable to time/date or more likely location being incorrect. Also Evolution WiFi is so flakey anything is likely if using that for control. Were you using the HC or tablet? I had awful wild erratic alignment and goto problems until I abandoned WiFi and use only the HC, inserting location via <menu>. 

I put the location in as London where I live and the time seemed spot on,  I only used the hand controller as I found the wifi interaction more hassle than its worth. Thanks for the reply though, if you have nay other ideas they'd be very welcome. 

[skydivephil]

2 hours ago, ronin said:

What is the power source?

I would check all the angles that you have set on the wedge, assume that the base section of the wegdge is also level in order to get the correct angle out of it, and what is defined in the scope for Lat and Long, also date and time and DST and timezone.

Check that the angle scale on the wedge makes sense - I have one that seems reversed, no idea why so don't ask, makes life interesting and occasionally plain confusing. Oddly the thing is meant for a goto that is set to EQ mode but usually would run in Alt/Az - somewhat like your operation I think.

 

Thanks for the reply. On the next star evolution the power source is always the same, it has inbuilt lithium iron battery that is charged at the plug then the battery usually lasts about 8 hours. I line in London Uk and the angle of the wedge was set at 51 degrees. See attached pictures. 

[xyz]

I'm not sure if this a new problem on a once well functioning scope or whether it has never worked for you. I can recommend that you double check - time, offset from GMT (if appropriate), daylight saving, date (US format or UK format ?) and location. I think you can check battery voltage via the hand controller - check this. The fault seems to indicate that the scope somehow has location or time/date wrong.

[skydivephil]

4 hours ago, xyz said:

I'm not sure if this a new problem on a once well functioning scope or whether it has never worked for you. I can recommend that you double check - time, offset from GMT (if appropriate), daylight saving, date (US format or UK format ?) and location. I think you can check battery voltage via the hand controller - check this. The fault seems to indicate that the scope somehow has location or time/date wrong.

Hi , I will check again. But this is a new fault on a scope that is more than a year old. i never had a problem just ding two star alignment, Ive had the wedge a few months and always been fine.