New Mounts woes

[Bobby1970]

It would appear that the alignment stars for March 15th are also in the West??

 

I don't see how this is ever going to help me get a decent alignment for objects in the east?????

 

 

[Cornelius Varley]

10 hours ago, Bobby1970 said:

popped out to the garage and powered up the mount, set the date to 15th March as suggested above. 

Stars now available for 3 star alignment are :- Procyon, Betelgeuse, Aldebaran, Regulus, Capella, Rigel.

 

????

Are those the selection of stars available for the first star or the total number of stars listed for a full three star alignment ?

[Paul M]

 

3 hours ago, Bobby1970 said:

It would appear that the alignment stars for March 15th are also in the West??

 

I don't see how this is ever going to help me get a decent alignment for objects in the east?????

 

 

It's not impossible to get good alignment from such a grouping but it helps to have them as far flung as possible. The greater the distance the drive and mount move between alignment objects the more that any compound motion errors become apparent and get allowed for in the handsets calculations. So it's possible for the goto accuracy to be diminished if all the alignment stars are close together. 

I wouldn't expect it to anything like degrees or even significant fractions of a degree out so long as you have reasonable polar alignment and you take care with centering your alignment stars.

I've said it before about my NEQ6, I'm a bit slap dash with polar alignment and rush through 3 star alignment but I rarely fail to get an object within the low power field of view on subsequent GOTO's. In that respect, Synscan seems pretty bomb proof.

[Bobby1970]

On 05/11/2016 at 15:01, Chris Lock said:

 

Quote

12 hours ago, Cornelius Varley said:

Are those the selection of stars available for the first star or the total number of stars listed for a full three star alignment ?

 

Full 3 star alignment. total stars listed. 

 

I am concerned that whatever date I set, the alignment stars all seem to be in the West. 

[Cornelius Varley]

Something isn't right here. The normal procedure for a three star alignment would be that the handset presents a number of suitable stars for the first star alignment. Scroll through the list and select one star from this selection, the mount then slews to the star, fine tune the alignment and then press enter. The handset then gives you another selection to choose from for the second star, select one and repeat the alignment and again for the third star. The three groups of stars selected by the handset should give you one in the west, one in the east and one near the meridian. This will give you a large triangle of alignment points which will give greater accuracy than three stars close together as it seems to be with the Optistar mount.

[Chris]

On 11/5/2016 at 23:19, Paul M said:

 

I guess the mount is a rebadged OEM affair. Perhaps there is more stuff about this mount under a different brand name. Might be worth researching. 

It's a rebadged Bresser EXOS 2 Goto. I was looking at these a while ago and read some threads on CN which suggested it was bvery good for the money but the firmware was a bit "clunky". No one described this problem though, I'm thinking it's either on some kind of dodgy setting or the firmware is just corrupted? 

[dph1nm]

Wow, there is a 13 page thread about this mount on CN. I suggest you read it ...

NIgelM

[Bobby1970]

I received an email from Pete at Opticstar today. 

He advised me to do the following:-

1. Polar align the mount, - which i did with Sharpcap, and my altair GP Cam in a 70mm travelscope piggybacked on my ST120

2. Select three star alignment from handset - the only stars available were again in the west of my observing position and there were only two listed within the three star alignment menu (altair, deneb) . So, i selected these one after the other, entered them in my zoom eyepiece at 24mm, then entered them at 8mm in my zoom eyepiece. 

I was advised by Opticstar that if only two stars were available to use two then do a "target sync" with a star in the same meridian. i.e. West. So i did. i used Vega i think, thought it was odd that it wasn't listed in the first place, but hey ho. 

Anyway, following this step i sent the scope to M57, as before all was well, bang in the middle of eyepiece at 24mm, still in the eyepiece at 8mm.

Next (following what Opticstar have told me) i sent the scope to a star over in the East, Capella. Wasn't in the eyepiece, but was just in the finderscope. I entered it and did another "target sync" then picked another star in the east, think it was Mirphak, can't recall how accurate it was, but i think i did another "target sync" on it.

Following this, i told the mount to "goto" M31. There it was just off centre at 24mm in the zoom eyepiece. 

I went to many other targets, successfully. M81, M82, double cluster.

Then i sent the mount back to the opposite side of the sky. Did a "target sync" on a couple of stars and all was well too. Checked out M57 again. M15, some other Globular clusters which i can't remember the numbers of lol, the cooling tower????. 

Anyway all in all a successful evening. 

It does seem a bit "quirky", the way the GOTO is used. But it did appear to work when i followed the instructions i had received from Opticstar. 

I have a query though, hopefully one of you guys/girls with some other type of EQ goto mount can confirm this or not.

Opticstar have told me that with other goto EQ mounts, when changing meridian from west to east, it is normal practice to add a "sync star" i.e., perform some sort of "target sync" as the opticstar manual calls it. Can someone confirm this is the case with say, a Skywatcher EQ goto mount please?

I still have a couple of questions for Opticstar as there does appear to be a strange electrical sort of "crackling" sound coming from the area containing the RA electronics.I do not think it is the motor and Opticstar have informed me that the mount they have tested at their end appears to be quiet. 

Finally, another concern i have is this. What if i cannot actually align with any stars from the alignment list i am presented with? i.e., i cannot see them as they are obscured by buildings or something. And why am i not presented with some stars in different parts of the sky to align to, i.e. in the East????

Anyway, i feel as though i have made progress. But still have a couple of outstanding issues.

 

 

 

 

 

[RobertI]

40 minutes ago, Bobby1970 said:

Opticstar have told me that with other goto EQ mounts, when changing meridian from west to east, it is normal practice to add a "sync star" i.e., perform some sort of "target sync" as the opticstar manual calls it. Can someone confirm this is the case with say, a Skywatcher EQ goto mount please?

By default with the Celestron Nexstar controls, the two or three star alignment will always present you with a list of stars to the west of the meridian to choose from; when you have finished aligning on those, it will then ask if you want to add 'calibration stars' and will present you with a list of stars to the East of the meridian. I believe you can select as many calibration stars as you want. So I guess calibration on the Nexstar is a bit like synch star on the Opticstar in principle, but the Nexstar guides you through the steps whereas the Opticstar does not.

NB: with the Nexstar I believe you can toggle which side if the meridian you want to choose alignment and calibration stars. 

[RobertI]

Just to add to the above, in my experience it is essential to add at least two calibration stars with the Nexstar if you want decent gotos (at least when using my CG5).

[SonnyE]

I think you will need to come up out of the well so you can see more sky....

But it is just a thought....

[Nova2000]

If I'm not wrong, when I use my clubs mount we usually select alignment stars in different parts of the sky. Ie a star in East. A star in West and somewhere else. It makes the goto more accurate. 

 

[Bobby1970]

Having read lots of info regarding the mount it does appear to be functioning as it's meant to. It's just the software which is quirky and quite clunky. It appears to be good value to me. Even with its odd alignment method. 

There is an odd noise coming from the RA electronics/drive area so I am being sent a replacement bit to swap out. 

Tbh. Peter at Opticstar has been pretty good with answering my queries and indeed explaining how the mount needs to be set up. 

Next task is to attempt some imaging with it. 

[RobertI]

Glad you're getting to the bottom of it. I guess we are not used to getting clunky software these days, so it's natural to assume there is something wrong.  

[Davey-T]

4 hours ago, Bobby1970 said:

Having read lots of info regarding the mount it does appear to be functioning as it's meant to. It's just the software which is quirky and quite clunky. It appears to be good value to me. Even with its odd alignment method. 

There is an odd noise coming from the RA electronics/drive area so I am being sent a replacement bit to swap out. 

Tbh. Peter at Opticstar has been pretty good with answering my queries and indeed explaining how the mount needs to be set up. 

Next task is to attempt some imaging with it. 

When Imaging all I ever do is sync on a star near to my target, no point messing around with star alignment unless you're planning to do  GoTos all night.

Dave