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MESU/Sitech questions


kirkster501

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Concerning the positioning of the Altitude bolt, the tapped holes are at 10 degree centres. This then relates to your Latitude, in most cases for the UK between 50 - 60 degrees, so you should be using the fifth hole for southern and central England. The sixth hole for Northern England and Scotland.

And if I remember correctly 1 turn of the Knurled nut is equal to 1 degree.

Nigel

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I set up and take down each session (last time is starting to become a distant memory with the current weather  and other comittments) so I use the adjusters a lot.

+1 for leaving the azimuth bolt slightly tight to stop too much movement when finally tightening, and although my mount is ridiculously under loaded, I always try to adjust downwards in altitude.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hi all,

Quick question if I may? When doing a plate solve and the system successfully solves the frame a window pops up and starts a timer ticking down from 15 seconds.  Try as I might I cannot find where it is that this timer can be adjusted to a smaller value.  Sure, I can just tick "OK" but would rather this timer be 5 sdeconds or so.  Any pointers please?

Thanks, Steve

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This thread and Steppenwolf's really useful guide has been excellent. Picked mine up from Bern today and had it running on the bench with CdC and SGPro all evening and have to say it's really rather good (and a chunky little monkey compared to the AZ EQ6).  Would have struggled I think without all this great information, so thanks all :thumbright:

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  • 1 year later...
On 02/02/2017 at 07:58, iansmith said:

On your first time out with the mount, you can point it via the handset, and so make sure it doesn't crash. Alternatively mount the scope so it's approximately pointing at the pole. Plate solve this and do the init offset. Now the mount knows its location and from now on will know where it is, so long as it doesn't slip, get jogged, etc. After parking the mount remembers this information, so when you power on again the next time, it will know roughly where it is. It just requires another plate solve and init offset to properly refine its understanding of where its pointing (or to realign the pointing model if you have one).

You can set the SciTech controller with movement limits so it won't crash the mount.

Cheers,Ian.

3

Hello,

Where and how do you set the limits to keep from crashing the mount? I'm assuming you are talking about pier collisions which is what I have problems with. Can't use the Mesu remotely until I get that solved. As soon as it hits the pier you can't move the mount over the computer and have to go out to the observatory and use the hand control. I wish there were better help guides and Chuck Shaw would have completed the ones he talks about in his guide on the sitech website. I have no clue on how to properly set up a horizon file in sitech. 

Anyway thanks.

Mikie

 

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To set up a horizon file will require you to be on site to view the local horizon unless you already know the limits.

Open a new .TXT file in Notepad.

Start by pointing the telescope to the north (counterbalance bar horizontal) and adjust the Dec axis until you can see the horizon in the field of view then adjust further until the horizon just leaves the FOV and note the altitude.

Add this information to the TXT file in the format:-

0,25 where 0 is the azimuth and 25 is the altitude that clear the horizon

Move round by 10 degrees and repeat the altitude test and enter the next point:-

10,23

Repeat every 10 degrees until you reach 360 then save the file as SiTech.hrz in the directory \ProgramData\SiTech\SiTechExe

From within SiTech, select Config - Change Config! - Horizon File - then click on the  Load Horizon File button

Job done! Here is what my horizon file looks like:-

0,25
10,23
20,23
30,23
40,23
50,33
60,33
70,25
80,23
90,25
100,23
110,23
120,23
130,23
140,23
150,23
160,28
170,28
180,28
190,31
200,23
210,23
220,23
230,23
240,23
250,23
260,23
270,23
280,23
290,23
300,23
310,23
320,23
330,23
340,28
350,31
360,25

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48 minutes ago, steppenwolf said:

To set up a horizon file will require you to be on site to view the local horizon unless you already know the limits.

Open a new .TXT file in Notepad.

Start by pointing the telescope to the north (counterbalance bar horizontal) and adjust the Dec axis until you can see the horizon in the field of view then adjust further until the horizon just leaves the FOV and note the altitude.

Add this information to the TXT file in the format:-

0,25 where 0 is the azimuth and 25 is the altitude that clear the horizon

Move round by 10 degrees and repeat the altitude test and enter the next point:-

10,23

Repeat every 10 degrees until you reach 360 then save the file as SiTech.hrz in the directory \ProgramData\SiTech\SiTechExe

From within SiTech, select Config - Change Config! - Horizon File - then click on the  Load Horizon File button

Job done! Here is what my horizon file looks like:-

0,25
10,23
20,23
30,23
40,23
50,33
60,33
70,25
80,23
90,25
100,23
110,23
120,23
130,23
140,23
150,23
160,28
170,28
180,28
190,31
200,23
210,23
220,23
230,23
240,23
250,23
260,23
270,23
280,23
290,23
300,23
310,23
320,23
330,23
340,28
350,31
360,25

Thanks. SInce I'm in an ROR observatory the top of the walls are my horizon and I need to add a point for trees and other buildings. I guess I point to the tops and sides of the tree and note the az and alt. 

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18 minutes ago, Mcrogers1 said:

Thanks. SInce I'm in an ROR observatory the top of the walls are my horizon and I need to add a point for trees and other buildings. I guess I point to the tops and sides of the tree and note the az and alt. 

That would work just fine

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2 hours ago, steppenwolf said:

To set up a horizon file will require you to be on site to view the local horizon unless you already know the limits.

@steppenwolf  Hope you don't mind me asking .....  the pairs of numbers eg 30,45 - is the second number degrees above the horizon?? ie if I can see the horiszon the second figure would be 0 ???

I want to do this in advance of setting up the mount so I will be using a compass for compass degrees and a Wixey for altitude.

Thanks in advance.

 

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9 minutes ago, Skipper Billy said:

Hope you don't mind me asking .....  the pairs of numbers eg 30,45 - is the second number degrees above the horizon?? ie if I can see the horiszon the second figure would be 0 ???

Yes, that is correct - if the telescope was pointing due East at, say, the sea where the sea and sky appear to meet, that would 90,0 and if you could see the horizon due South, that would be 180,0. However, if due West had a house in the way that could be something like 270,21

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19 minutes ago, steppenwolf said:

Yes, that is correct - if the telescope was pointing due East at, say, the sea where the sea and sky appear to meet, that would 90,0 and if you could see the horizon due South, that would be 180,0. However, if due West had a house in the way that could be something like 270,21

Thanks Steve - something I can when its cloudy!

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Just thought I would post a few photos here of how I am attaching my mount to its pier and a couple of small tweaks I have made - it may help someone else at some point but it didn't seem worth starting a new thread.

I have checked the Mesu mounting plate to mount face for flatness and they are both VERY flat! One drop of washing up liquid put in the middle of the base plate reached the edges of the bottom of the mount when put on top quickly and evenly and right to the edges. I also checked both individually with a sheet of glass and they are both properly flat.

To avoid introducing any twist into the base plate I bolted it to the existing pier top plate in three places with 1mm shim washers so tightening the base plate down to the pier top cannot introduce any twist. Its fastened down with 3 x M12 stainless bolts countersunk into the Mesu base plate. The small gap between pier top and base plate has been sealed with Sikaflex to keep any moisture out.

I have swapped the thumb screws for adjusting alt/az for stainless M10 nuts to give easier and finer control with a spanner.

I have put a very thin M12 thrust washer under the main bolt that holds the mount to the base plate - just very slightly slackening it allows the adjusters to work and it doesn't seem to introduce any shift when tightened - we will see when I get to polar align it!

Is it normal on this mount for there to be a gap where I have marked with a red arrow or should there be a washer there so that it holds the edge down ??

1.JPG

2.JPG

3.JPG

4.JPG

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The  azimuth post is just a rigid point for the horizontal threaded bolt to be secured, so there is meant to be a gap so the base plate can move when adjusted. 

I put a thin ptfe washer below the central bolt and metal washer as I did find it moved quite a bit on the final tighten down (a bit being 10-15 arcsec). Your solution looks good though, I’ll be interested to see if it eliminates any unwanted movement.

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21 minutes ago, tomato said:

The  azimuth post is just a rigid point for the horizontal threaded bolt to be secured, so there is meant to be a gap so the base plate can move when adjusted. 

I put a thin ptfe washer below the central bolt and metal washer as I did find it moved quite a bit on the final tighten down (a bit being 10-15 arcsec). Your solution looks good though, I’ll be interested to see if it eliminates any unwanted movement.

Thanks for clarifying that.

I will let you know how the thrust washer works/fails !

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On 06/02/2019 at 11:36, steppenwolf said:

To set up a horizon file will require you to be on site to view the local horizon unless you already know the limits.

Open a new .TXT file in Notepad.

Start by pointing the telescope to the north (counterbalance bar horizontal) and adjust the Dec axis until you can see the horizon in the field of view then adjust further until the horizon just leaves the FOV and note the altitude.

Add this information to the TXT file in the format:-

0,25 where 0 is the azimuth and 25 is the altitude that clear the horizon

Move round by 10 degrees and repeat the altitude test and enter the next point:-

10,23

Repeat every 10 degrees until you reach 360 then save the file as SiTech.hrz in the directory \ProgramData\SiTech\SiTechExe

From within SiTech, select Config - Change Config! - Horizon File - then click on the  Load Horizon File button

Job done! Here is what my horizon file looks like:-

0,25
10,23

2

Has anyone made their horizon file during the day? Talked to Dan at Sitech and he said position the scope on the east or west side with the counterweight bar horizontal. Then open up skyview and right click on zenith and do an offset init appropriate to the telescope pointing direction.  Do this and you should be able to make a horizon file in the daytime without being aligned to the night sky. I did this but the az seems way off when rotating about the RA axis. Steppenwolf mentioned making points at 10-degree increments from 0-360. I know the Mesu can't go 360 in RA because the dec plate catches at a certain point. Do you go as far as you can then reverse direction?  Sorry but this hor file business confuses me and if I get ever get it figured out I'm going to make a help file with pictures for slow learners like me.  I'm almost to the point if seeing if Observatory Solutions can get my observatory running over Team Viewer.

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