New HEQ5 align probs

[thing]

It's clear here :hello1: so I took out my new HEQ5 to give it the works. I couldn't align it for love nor money. I did a accurate polar align on the mount after aligning the polar scope as per instructions but it kept coming up align failed doing a 3 star align and it was a fair bit off the stars too. After about the 10th time for some reason it decided it was going to be successful, again for no reason I could think of. I've come in to leave it tracking M31 for a bit but I had to slew it to get it spot onto M31. Anybody any ideas? I reckon i must be doing something wrong rather than the mount.

It's not my first GOTO mount by the way, so I've a good idea of the 'wrong' things you can do.

[cygnusx1]

I never had too much success with 3 star align on the HEQ5, always found the 3rd star way off, and a good deal of the sky badly aligned when slewing to it. Had the "alighnment unsuccessfull" too, many , many times, drove me nuts!

Seems a hit n miss thing.

Try 2 star, more accurate for some strange reason, i now use it along with sync of a few objects as i go along.

Preferred Celestrons CG5-GT method of alignment and ability to use any number of additional stars for more pinpoint accuracy.

[rusirius]

Glad to know I'm not alone. Have had the same problem with my HEQ5 Pro. 2 star usually works but 3 star is rather hit and miss and even if it succeeds it seems out by a fraction often placing objects somewhat outside of the FOV. Once you get if pointed on the object it seems to stay put fairly well.

I recently asked FLO about this and also had a look on the Sky-Watcher website. Here is what I found in the FAQ under Customer Support:

Q : How do I choose the alignment stars for Three Star Alignment?

A : The first alignment star should be an object close to the meridian line. For the other alignment stars, choose any two objects from the list of the recommended star provided by SkyScan.

On a similar vein here was the advice provided by FLO (via e-mail):

Additionally when aligning using Synscan you need to choose a first star that is almost due south, Altair is a good one at this time of year (8.30-9pm ish). You will probably choose it by selecting it on the handset rather than relying on what it offers. Then you'll need to choose a second star. I always try and pick one some distance away from the first one and at a different altitude. Once this is done you can go for the third which should be on the other side of the sky.

...you will need to go through a complete and successful alignment and then start the next alignment with your axes in the same position and you should find that things improve.

...Most goto's rely on the scope's axes being set at the same place each time you start aligning which is tricky to do by dead reckoning. I took four small strips of paper with a vertical line drawn on each piece and sellotaped two on each axis so that I can rotate the axes around until the lines meet up. It's rough and ready but works a treat.

So it looks like the first alignment star needs to be on the meridian, i.e. due south. I haven't tried this yet, but hopefully at the weekend, clear skies permitting.

[CELESCOPE]

Its strange how this effects ppl in this way , i guess if we have followed the instuctions as for setting up the mount, and then Polar aligned things should be pretty good, i have had two EQ6 PRO MODELS and have had no probs with the GO-TO, even using 1 star align , never used two , nearly always 3 star,and working under high mag for ccd imaging the target is always on the chip. i do as you say mostly start with my first alignment star in the south west , the north west and finally south east.the second and last stars are always in the eyepiece.this is of course with my refractors, did have afew probs with the C11 with mirror flop , , so had to then do a one star alignment and image in that area , slewing past the Meridian gave bit problems,if imaging in the east.

Rog

[Vega]

Same for me as well Rog, the EQ6 Synscan has worked very well with both 3-star and 2-star align. I now use the latter and get very accurate results (especially if I unlock the RA/DEC nobs and correct the first star manually rather than by the hand controller). Of late I've been leaving the mount set up outside after viewings. As long as I parked it the session before, I can just choose 'start from home position' each time and not bother with an align and still get accurate GOTO!

Matt

[cygnusx1]

just want to clarify:

rusirius

1.are you saying to get a more accurate sky model you have to repeat the alignment a number of times?

2.once the 1st align is complete do you return mount to home pos or start the new align from the last position?

[cygnusx1]

oh one other thing that doesn;t seem to work correctly, the sync function

my understanding was that it is used to get a more accurate map of the sky around a certain portioon of sky, i guess important for imaging and centering objects in the fov

my experience has been that far from improving things, once the sync is done, it actually throws the alignment off by leaps and bounds, usually a few degrees in one axis!!

syncans alignment model seems buggy to me...

[Vega]

If your polar alignment (completely seperate from GOTO alignment) is out then over time your map of the sky will progressively get worse as the night goes on. This is becuase the goto computer cannot know how good your polar alignemnt is and the mount will start to drift away from where it thinks the true target(s) are.

However, a sucesssful Star alignment will stay accurate for at least a few mins as long as the N side of the mount is facing North and the alt vaguely resembles your latitude .

Matt

[rusirius]

just want to clarify:

rusirius

1.are you saying to get a more accurate sky model you have to repeat the alignment a number of times?

2.once the 1st align is complete do you return mount to home pos or start the new align from the last position?

Not actually me saying it but the nice guys at FLO. My interpretation is that you only need to do the align once. However, if you park the scope at the end of the session and you start again with the mount aligned and scope in the same position, then the alignment should be maintained and can be improved upon. This is advantageouts if you have an observatory setup or are otherwise able to leave the mount in place because you can then start the scope from exactly the same position and it should maintain alignment. Vega's experience seems to bear this out.

I'm still new to the HEQ5 Pro mount and as I mentioned I've yet to try out the suggestions I was given myself, but I thought that sharing this information might help anyone reading this and experiencing the same problem. I'm hoping that with a little help and a lot more practice I can solve this.

PS, the Sync function does seem to imporve accuracy on my Autostar driven LX90, but I haven't tried it in anger yet on the Synscan.

Just out of curiosity, how many degrees do you reckon it to be out by?

[thing]

Thank God it's not just me then! Crikey, I thought these mounts were supposed to be superduper and all that, never had this prob with the CG-5. It was out by about 3 degrees in the same direction everytime. If you use the 'park' function, does that return the axes to the proper position to begin an alignment? There aren't any marks on the mount to get it set up in the null position and I was wondering how you would actually do that. Bearing in mind what FLO said about putting strips of sticky paper on it....

The other thing, when doing the polar alignment according to the instructions, it mentions tightening the set screws on the RA setting circle and rotating the mount in RA until the setting circle reaches zero. Now it's not the best written manual but on my mount, tightening down the RA setting circle locks it, movement of the mount in RA doesn't move the setting circle at all. You have to loosen it off for it to move. Is this just a badly written set of instructions? If so is there a web site where the instructions are written in clearer English? I noticed as well that after setting up the mount with a good polar align that the scope couldn't actually access Polaris, it got within a degree or so and that was it.

[Vega]

Through an eyepeiece, the scope should not be able to reach polaris because the Northern Celestial Pole is a good half degree away from it. Hence the need for a polar scope with wide FOV. THrough my 1200mm focal length scope I cannot see polaris even in my 32mm widefield EP (when scope is aligned and pointing to the true pole).

To actually access the pole star for viewing I think you need to move the scope in RA until the tube is on the far Eastern (or Western) side of the mount. Then a quick turn in DEC and it can see it

Matt

[thing]

Do you mean not view it or actually not reach it? I meant that the mount couldn't actually point the scope at Polaris.

[Vega]

Yeah, afterwards I realised your question... I've added to my previous post

Matt

[thing]

Strange, it must work on the same principle as the CG-5, yet the CG-5 would point you straight at Polaris if you wanted.

[thing]

Well I've put the bits of paper on after last nights 'park' position after the successful align. I shall see what happens this evening.

[rusirius]

Had the same issue with the RA circles and manual and just assumed it was an error and that you had to leave it loosened. Seemed to work out OK but I'm willing to be corrected by someone more experienced.

Heard a lot of good things about these mounts which is why I was willing to part with so much cash!

Park returns a scope to the 'home' position, which is where you usually begin the alignment from so yes it would return the axes to their proper position for starting an alignment. As you say there are no marks - another question I asked FLO - hence the suggestion about bits of paper.

Thank God it's not just me then! Crikey, I thought these mounts were supposed to be superduper and all that...

The other thing, when doing the polar alignment according

Thank God it's not just me then! Crikey, I thought these mounts were supposed to be superduper and all that, never had this prob with the CG-5. It was out by about 3 degrees in the same direction everytime. If you use the 'park' function, does that return the axes to the proper position to begin an alignment? There aren't any marks on the mount to get it set up in the null position and I was wondering how you would actually do that. Bearing in mind what FLO said about putting strips of sticky paper on it....

The other thing, when doing the polar alignment according to the instructions, it mentions tightening the set screws on the RA setting circle and rotating the mount in RA until the setting circle reaches zero. Now it's not the best written manual but on my mount, tightening down the RA setting circle locks it, movement of the mount in RA doesn't move the setting circle at all. You have to loosen it off for it to move. Is this just a badly written set of instructions? If so is there a web site where the instructions are written in clearer English? I noticed as well that after setting up the mount with a good polar align that the scope couldn't actually access Polaris, it got within a degree or so and that was it.

to the instructions, it mentions tightening the set screws on the RA setting circle and rotating the mount in RA until the setting circle reaches zero. Now it's not the best written manual but on my mount, tightening down the RA setting circle locks it, movement of the mount in RA doesn't move the setting circle at all. You have to loosen it off for it to move. Is this just a badly written set of instructions? If so is there a web site where the instructions are written in clearer English? I noticed as well that after setting up the mount with a good polar align that the scope couldn't actually access Polaris, it got within a degree or so and that was it.

[thing]

OK good news, I put the bits of paper on at last nights 'park' position. It did a three star align no probs. I thought it might be a fluke so i turned it off and set up the lines manually, did another 3 star and it aligned again. The GOTO is just about spot on using a 13 mil Hyp (about x77). I just did a complete sky tour, it put everything bang on the money.

By the way, why don't sky tours have any sense of order? You whizz around from meridian to meridian, you would have thought it would have had the brains to take you to the nearest 'next object', but there you go. Right I'm off to take some 30 sec then 1 minute exposures of M13, see how it tracks. It's really warm out, I'm in a t-shirt!

[cygnusx1]

You seem to have it sorted thing, did u choose random alignment stars??, that best alignment star choice software?? Just curious as my 3 star align is never accurate over whole sky, only in areas i seem to have aligned!!

And why does my sync function seem to make things worse! :crybaby:

[thing]

I aligned as suggested earlier in the thread Kevin, I took Altair first which was right on the meridian, then Caph which was high to the East, then Arcturus which was low to the West. I had to manually choose them on the handset. I didn't try the PEC last night, I'll have a look at that another time. The CG-5 has a similar thing and it used to throw the alignment out for other parts of the sky as well even after you had cancelled it. I've done a full first light on the HEQ in the equipment section.

[Vega]

Briliant, glad you cracked it :cheers: . Its wonderful once its accurate

Am I going maad or does the Tour think that the Pinwheel Galaxy is M33 :scratch: . I tried it last night and was thought I was going nuts when I pressed on Pinwheel Glx and it headed off to Triangulum. :shock:

Matt

[rusirius]

Managed to try out the mount again last nigt. What a wonderfull clear night it was too. Unfortunately I did not have the same level of sucess as you thing. I chose a star close to the meridian - Markab. Next was Capella and finally Vega. The alignment was successful but navigation was still a bit hit and miss. Some objects (e.g Jupiter) came into the viewfinder while others were a couple of degrees off and were not placed in the FOV of the eyepiece (10mm on SW Evostar 120). Overall it did seem a little better though.

I took a couple of pictures using the 350D and the motor drive did keep the object central in the camera viewfinder for several minutes so the tracking seems good. I won't know how the pictures turned out until I get my laptop back on Tuesday from repairs and process them.

One stranage thing that happened was that the scope ran into the tripod a couple of times. It hasn't done this before...

Glad you manage to crack it thing.