Some Noob-type Questions About Mounts

[Stub Mandrel]

I'm discovering things about GOTO mounts.

First is probably a stupid question as I assume this is how a fixed pier scope works... but if I 'park' my mount when I go to bed and leave it set up, could I come back to it later in the daylight, can I expect it to be able to slew to find Venus? I appreciate the need to make sure the sun doesn't get into the scope while it's slewing.

 

When I set up the mount how accurately should I 'park' it at the beginning - should I just get Polaris near the finder cross hairs? If I do a 3-point alignment will this make the accuracy of the park position unimportant? (I realise I should get the PA as good as possible though).

 

In Cartes du Ciel, if I try and slew to an object across the meridian the mount goes crazy, threatening to pull all my wires out. Is it trying to do a meridian flip? Can I stop it doing this so it goes straight to the object? My garden only allows me to see objects relatively a short way west of the meridian and things get behind the tree before the scope gets near the mount legs so flipping is a waste of time.

 

How much battery do I need to run a HEQ5 for a night? I read that it takes 2 amps, but is this just during a slew? What sort of amperage does it need when tracking/guiding?

[Dr_Ju_ju]

1st yes, I leave mine permanently configured\running but parked, and so when I next connect to the controller, its all ready to go....

Parking for me, means weights down & OTA pointing in the direction of Polaris. On my mount its possible to adjust the RA\DEC calibrated rings, so that even if I power off \ reboot, I'll know the mount is in roughly the right position.

Meridian flips for me a handled by SGPro and or EQMod, saves the worry of tangling cables.

As for power, I run everything off the mains, so don't know....

 

 

 

[Stub Mandrel]

15 minutes ago, Dr_Ju_ju said:

Meridian flips for me a handled by SGPro and or EQMod, saves the worry of tangling cables.

Thanks Julian - can i switch of meridian flips in EQMOD?

[Dr_Ju_ju]

If you have SGPro, let it do all the work.....

[Stub Mandrel]

24 minutes ago, Dr_Ju_ju said:

If you have SGPro, let it do all the work.....

But... all I want to do is switch off meridian flip...

[Dr_Ju_ju]

then disable it in EQMod, but be aware that the mount will then keep tracking across the meridian, & may cause issues, but if you're standing by the side of the mount, you'll be able to see if things are going awry.

[Stub Mandrel]

I think we may be slightly at cross purposes! I'm wondering where in EQmod I turn it off!

I'm not  remotely worried about crossing the meridian, as I'll always be within thirty degrees of it the mount should be well behaved, I never had any problems with the EQ3.

[RayD]

You can disable it by un-checking the 'allow auto meridian flip' box.

I wouldn't have thought it should flip during a slew though, so I'd be inclined to check the location, date/time and side of pier settings also.

[Stub Mandrel]

Thanks, I'll look out for all that.

[Geoff Lister]

Hello Neil,

A while ago I measured the current consumption of each of my (Az/Alt) mounts, and the maximum consumption was when slewing at max. rate in both axes simultaneously.

I would suspect that the worst-case peak currents would exceed these figures (slightly) for perhaps 100ms during OTA acceleration, at the start of a max. slew. I would expect the HEQ5's consumption to be similar to that of my Skyliner (bottom line of table).

These are my various interchangeable power sources. I tend to use the 12V, 2A plug-top supply, in a shoe box, with an extension lead (the box avoids dew forming on mains connections). My preferred portable supply is the pair of 6V 2600mAh battery packs "borrowed" from my radio-controlled model sailing yachts.

Geoff

 

[Stub Mandrel]

Thanks Geoff, that's useful. I think I may be able to put an analogue ammeter in the supply line which will tell me a lot.

An hour ago I connected my charger to my leisure battery (no mount involved) to check the no-load voltage would be safe to connect the mount. Oddly the voltage went up to nearly 20 volts then seemed to drop with charger attached... then just measuring the charger disconnected from the battery it was all over the place, up to 15, down to 4 then back to 13.

At this point the magic smoke came out... I think this explains why its been struggling to keep the battery topped up for the last few months

I have no idea what it is with me, there are few electrical devices simpler than a transformer based car battery charger yet I have managed to write off three over the years - and not by connecting backwards or anything like that!

I have an 'intelligent' charger from Lidl and that seems to be doing a better job.

 

Still can't stop it meridian flipping - I have 'allow auto meridian flip' unchecked and even ticked 'weights up slew' which is supposed to stop it flipping as well and neither works.

[newbie alert]

Not too sure on skywatcher mounts but with my celestron I can park (home position) hibernate and switch off.. next time I setup I then  wake up, clarify the time slew to a star for focus ,sync on that star if it's out and off I go again..im not on a fixed pier...setup and tear down each time