Rowan AZ100 Mount Owners Thread

[fireballxl5]

1 hour ago, Telescope40 said:

point the OTA vertically as part of the alignment process

I'm sure that I was told you just point the horizontal scope south and then at a couple of alignment stars when I enquired at IAS last month

[Telescope40]

14 minutes ago, fireballxl5 said:

I'm sure that I was told you just point the horizontal scope south and then at a couple of alignment stars when I enquired at IAS last month

Thank you @fireballxl5  makes the process that bit more simple - always good in my case 🤣🤣🤣

John 

[fireballxl5]

9 minutes ago, Telescope40 said:

Thank you @fireballxl5  makes the process that bit more simple - always good in my case 🤣🤣🤣

Well my memory can't be that bad as it's stated in the Q&A...

What is the quick start mode.

A. Quick start is where you set the OTA level and pointing south (or reference point) this provides a very quick ‘alignment’ sufficient for the mount to calculate the tracking rates when you are push to observing.

See http://www.rowanastronomy.com/productsa9.htm

 

CS, Andy

[Stephenstargazer]

@Telescope40  My understanding is that you do not have the motors yet. If you are currently doing start up with DSC you can choose the altitude starting point in settings to be horizontal or a custom point. Does not have to be vertical, but that is default.

Note it is actually on the ALIGN screen itself. There are arrows (up/down) to allow the Altiude reference to be changed - 90, 0, custom. At turn on it will adopt the last you selected.

(Q&A refers to motor controller)

 

Edited November 10, 2022 by Stephenstargazer

[Telescope40]

38 minutes ago, Stephenstargazer said:

@Telescope40  My understanding is that you do not have the motors yet. If you are currently doing start up with DSC you can choose the altitude starting point in settings to be horizontal or a custom point. Does not have to be vertical, but that is default.

(Q&A refers to motor controller)

 

Hello. Your quite correct. No motors yet !! 
Ah. That’s news to me. I’ll take at a look at the settings - must be set on vertical ATM. 
many thx.  John 

[Hans Joakim]

Here is a very nice video showing Derek installing the motor upgrade kit on the AZ100: https://youtu.be/8Tn04gW8-O0

What beautiful mounts Rowan make!

[Deadlake]

As anyone got their AZ100 motorised yet?

Thinking of a xmas purchase...

 

 

[fireballxl5]

Delivery expected tomorrow😁

[Deadlake]

Anyone with the motor drive, does the power cable get handled around the base? 

Would it be a good idea to mount the batter on top of the mount so the cable would never get tangled?

 

 

[Stephenstargazer]

Depends what else is on there? two scopes and a DSC on the front, motor controller on rear and it would get congested. With just one scope then plenty of space for a modest powerpack on the counterweight side.

However most of us will have used mounts with a powers supply on or near the tripod/pier and it is really not hard to manage the cable. Especially on an AZ100 where you can turn it freely by hand in both directions without upsetting the encoders.

[fireballxl5]

It's arrived,  well packaged. I'll go watch the installation video again...

 

[fireballxl5]

Upgrade fitted and seemingly working well indoors only as the clouds have rolled in now. 

Installation took me around 1 hour using Derek's video. 

Setup a new scope preset in sky safari 7 and goto appears to function properly. 

It's very smooth and quiet - excellent quality all round. 

Looking forward to trying it in anger 🔭

Great job Team Rowan👍

 

Edited November 26, 2022 by fireballxl5
Typo

[Stu]

On 25/11/2022 at 10:07, Deadlake said:

Anyone with the motor drive, does the power cable get handled around the base? 

Would it be a good idea to mount the batter on top of the mount so the cable would never get tangled?

 

 

I don’t think it’s a problem Martin. The power cord is long, and I’ve not found it to get tangled up at all. In theory, if the mount keeps going the same way then yes it would, but in practise I haven’t seen that happening.

As Stephen says, there not so much space left to mount one anyway, although a smallish one should be possible. Not sure how much power the motors draw?

[Rixavatar]

On 26/11/2022 at 10:38, Stu said:

I don’t think it’s a problem Martin. The power cord is long, and I’ve not found it to get tangled up at all. In theory, if the mount keeps going the same way then yes it would, but in practise I haven’t seen that happening.

As Stephen says, there not so much space left to mount one anyway, although a smallish one should be possible. Not sure how much power the motors draw?

I haven't had a moment to get into mine yet, but I'm wondering if there is anti-cord wrap setting that tells the mount to take the long way around past 360 degrees to avoid cordwrap.

[Dek Rowan Astro]

9 hours ago, Rixavatar said:

I haven't had a moment to get into mine yet, but I'm wondering if there is anti-cord wrap setting that tells the mount to take the long way around past 360 degrees to avoid cordwrap.

Not at the moment, but we were discussing this feature recently and may add it to a future firmware release.

[Alan White]

I must just comment, having been at Rowan again today for another visit.
Watched AZ100 componets being machined and other parts produced, it was an utter pleasure to see fine kit like this,
being produced with pride in the UK.

It was a hive of Rowan Astronomy production today.

As always a real joy to spend time with the team chatting life, astronomy and more.

 

[fireballxl5]

First Light so to speak using my newly motorised AZ100 list night was a brief viewing of Jupiter in murky skies. All using a Lyra Optics 80mm/f15 refractor with an 8mm eyepiece giving a mag of 150x. Some initial observations are as follows. 

1. Polar alignment using the built-in utility seems to work well enough,  at least for good tracking performance. Also tried some random go-tos and these seemed to be reasonably accurate at this power/fov, but with some requiring sight re-centreing.

2. Goto is smooth and quiet, as is tracking at 150x.

3. I didn't figure out how to manually override the motors, as when I first tried to operate the slow motion controls it just seemed that the  belt was riding over the pulley teeth.  Maybe the clutches need to be loosened for this to work? In the end I just disabled the motors in the Rowan app before manually moving the scope. This was a pain tbh, especially using Sky Safari on the same device (my phone). I also tried using the virtual joystick but this wasn't so intuitive either or easy to get the desired motion or speed.  

4. Use/control using Sky Safari with the goto is ace🙂

On the whole very impressed with the hardware performance,  just some learning required on the operation side. 

CS, Andy

Mount in action...

[Deadlake]

What did you make of all the cabling?

I wonder if they have a motorised AZ100 only in the works?

[fireballxl5]

4 minutes ago, Deadlake said:

What did you make of all the cabling?

Once installed the mount cabling is a non-issue. They are short,  stiff and out of the way.  The power lead was also of minimal concern.  I had the battery pack sat on the tripod tray and had no cable wrap,  though I only slewed between the NE and W.

[fireballxl5]

One more point,  unless I've overlooked something, using the Rowan app and Sky Safari on my phone the Nexus DSC unit will remain in the drawer😬

[Stu]

1 hour ago, fireballxl5 said:

Once installed the mount cabling is a non-issue. They are short,  stiff and out of the way.  The power lead was also of minimal concern.  I had the battery pack sat on the tripod tray and had no cable wrap,  though I only slewed between the NE and W.

I agree, cabling is well thought out and neat, no issues.

[Stu]

16 minutes ago, fireballxl5 said:

One more point,  unless I've overlooked something, using the Rowan app and Sky Safari on my phone the Nexus DSC unit will remain in the drawer😬

Again, agreed! With the Rowan unit connected to SkySafari, that’s all you need really. I know the DSC can be handy if you don’t want to use the phone, but, despite the huge catalogues in the DSC, I still find SkySafari easier to locate objects, but also see what is nearby to look at.

[swsantos]

4 hours ago, fireballxl5 said:

First Light so to speak using my newly motorised AZ100 list night was a brief viewing of Jupiter in murky skies. All using a Lyra Optics 80mm/f15 refractor with an 8mm eyepiece giving a mag of 150x. Some initial observations are as follows. 

3. I didn't figure out how to manually override the motors, as when I first tried to operate the slow motion controls it just seemed that the  belt was riding over the pulley teeth.  Maybe the clutches need to be loosened for this to work? In the end I just disabled the motors in the Rowan app before manually moving the scope. This was a pain tbh, especially using Sky Safari on the same device (my phone). I also tried using the virtual joystick but this wasn't so intuitive either or easy to get the desired motion or speed.  

I do not believe the slow motion controls are meant to be used while there is power to the motors. "Overriding the motors" I believe means manually grabbing the telescope or panhandle and moving the telescope without the slow motion controls whereby the motors will then again take over once you reposition the telescope that way.

 

Dek posted a reply to a comment on Cloudynights to that effect last week, quote...

"The slow motion controls should not be turned when the motors are on, this will put significant stress on the belts.

There is a joystick in the AZ100 'app' and control arrows in Skysafari.

You can also nudge onto position.

Our planned handset will have a real joystick.

You can have a tablet with Skysafari and a phone running concurrently with the AZ100 app joystick  or the two apps running in split screen mode on a single tablet."

Edited November 30, 2022 by swsantos

[Deadlake]

9 hours ago, Stu said:

Again, agreed! With the Rowan unit connected to SkySafari, that’s all you need really. I know the DSC can be handy if you don’t want to use the phone, but, despite the huge catalogues in the DSC, I still find SkySafari easier to locate objects, but also see what is nearby to look at.

When you had the motor unit on trial, are you saying you used SkySafari most of the time. 

You used the Nexus just for testing purposes?

[fireballxl5]

7 hours ago, swsantos said:

I do not believe the slow motion controls are meant to be used while there is power to the motors.

Yes that seems to be the case.  My point was to confirm that this is what I found having read previously on this thread (page 33) that it would work in this way (no need to disengage the motors),  see link below. 
 

This never seemed to have been concluded in this thread and so I mentioned what I found in my post, hoping that I'd simply overlooked something that may allow it. 🙂

To clarify,  go-tos are quick and I didn't feel the need to override the motors. It was when fine-tuning the position manually as I found the virtual joystick a pain. So I had to disable the motors before using the manual slow motions and re enable. Use of a larger display for both apps to be simultaneously displayed is an option for consideration. 

As has been mentioned,  use of SS is a big plus,  so if the hand controller could have a joystick and a display with Android OS to use SS on the same physical device then this would be great!

CS, Andy🙂

Edited November 30, 2022 by fireballxl5