Exos100 mount and Southern Hemisphere issues.

[Eta Carina fan]

Hi. I live in Santiago, Chile, and on a recent trip back home to the US, bought a new Explore Scientific Exos100 PMC mount, to use here for AP with my DSLR and AT72ED scope. I have the ExploreStars app  installed on my iPad, and it links fine, with slewing controls working from the tablet. My problem is, despite the fact that the app displays correctly my southern hemisphere location, the mount tracks as if it were in the northern hemisphere. I cannot find a hemisphere switch on the unit (like found on my SW Star Adventurer). I have written to ES but so far, no response.  I am hoping to connect with EXOS100 users in So Africa, Australia or other southern hemisphere locations, to learn directly from them how they overcame this issue.  Thanks!

[michael8554]

As you say, some mounts have a N/S switch to select the RA tracking direction.

Those that don't must rely on your location information to determine that you are in the southern hemisphere.

But first, are you sure your mount is actually tracking in RA, and is not just stationary?

To check, leave the scope tracking for 15 minutes while pointing at a terrestrial object.

Has it moved?

Has it moved to the East? Tracking direction is wrong, have you entered your Latitude correctly?

Has it moved to the West? Tracking is correct for the southern hemisphere.

It didn't move? Scope not fully initialised, so RA drive is off. Or in a non-tracking mode.

Michael

[Gasman]

I have been looking at maybe buying this mount and for now have the Explore app on my iPad and I notice in the menu/settings that there is under the ‘RA direction’ tab a forward or reverse option could that be the answer?. It also gives this option for Dec too.

Steve

[michael8554]

If it's got a Dec option too, most likely an option to reverse the direction of slews, but only when you press the slew buttons. 

Why? Your target is left of frame, so you press the right button, but the target moves left out of frame. The mount has moved correctly,  but it just didn't match your perception of what is shown in the eyepiece. So for your convenience you use the reverse option. But shouldn't change tracking direction. 

That's my thought, but try it if the mount tracks the wrong way in the test I suggested. 

Michael 

[Eta Carina fan]

Hi and thanks to all for the feedback, FYI I finally got in contact with a fellow at Explore Scientific support, and this is how it went:

1. I set up the Explore Stars app with all the correct parameters - Exos 100 mount, automatic GPS location, which displayed my -33.7 latitude correctly, and displayed RA direction as "Reverse", same with DEC direction. 

2. Aligned it to the southern pole, got the mount up and running and tracking (could slew it with my iPad Mini 2, no problem) and let it run for an hour.  It tracked from West to East.

3. Shared all that with Kent at ES. He told me to delete the app, reinstall, setup and repeat.

4. Did all that... same result - West to East tracking. So I went back into SETTINGS and changed the RA Direction to "Forward" and did the same with the DEC Direction. Ran it for another hour, and it still tracks West to East.

5. Kent says there might be a compatibility issue between Explore Stars and IPad mini 2s.

My next experiment will be to try an android tablet and see if that works.

If there is anyone else down under who has this mount and is using it successfully I would love to know about your setup.  Thanks again.

 

 

 

Edited September 5, 2019 by Eta Carina fan

[Eta Carina fan]

3 minutes ago, Eta Carina fan said:

Hi and thanks to all for the feedback, FYI I finally got in contact with a fellow at Explore Scientific support, and this is how it went:

1. I set up the Explore Stars app with all the correct parameters - Exos 100 mount, automatic GPS location, which displayed my -33.7 latitude correctly, and displayed RA direction as "Reverse", same with DEC direction. 

2. Aligned it to the southern pole, got the mount up and running and tracking (could slew it with my iPad Mini 2, no problem) and let it run for an hour.  It tracked from West to East.

3. Shared all that with Kent at ES. He told me to delete the app, reinstall, setup and repeat.

4. Did all that... same result - West to East tracking. So I went back into SETTINGS and changed the RA Direction to "Forward" and did the same with the DEC Direction. Ran it for another hour, and it still tracks West to East.

5. Kent says there might be a compatibility issue between Explore Stars and IPad mini 2s.

My next experiment will be to try an android tablet and see if that works.

If there is anyone else down under who has this mount and is using it successfully I would love to know about your setup.  Thanks again.

 

 

 

 

[Eta Carina fan]

PROBLEM SOLVED!!

I decided the problem must be an issue of the Explore Stars app and the iPad mini. So, this morning I took my Kindle Fire HD10, learned from YouTube how to install Google Play Store on it, installed Explore Stars, and repeated the test, but now with an Android tablet.  It worked. Pointed south, the mount tracks from East to West, as it should.  The only thing I had to do differently was enter my latitude (-33.7etc) and longitude (-70.7etc) manually, since for some reason the automatic GPS location finder did not work on the Kindle like it did on the iPad - where it did indeed enter my correct, southern hemisphere location data.

So, The EXOS100PMC apparently will work down here, but on an Android tablet. As soon as I get some decent images with its help I will post some here. Thanks again for all the suggestions.

 manK

 

Thanks again for all your help. I can’t wait to do some imaging with this little rig.

 

Have a great day.

 

[Merlin66]

manK,

Glad to hear you found a solution!

Onwards and Upwards.....