Synscan - fine tuning position

[Aramcheck]

Hi folks,

I'm still getting to grips with setup & alignment, but with limited clear skies & time, is there any way of making adjustments to the position of a target once I've gone through the setup routine & are using one of the Synscan catalogues to locate objects... Last week on holiday in the North York Moors, I had real difficulty getting targets in the centre of my DLSR. (Not so much a problem with small targets, but if they nearly fill the frame...)

I know I need to get better polar alignment, but even then surely there must be some way to make manual adjustments to scope position with the Synscan controller after finding a target?

I must be missing something very basic here!

Many thanks
Ivor

[Geoff Lister]

Hello Ivor,

Under the "Utility" menu, Synscan has a "PAE" function. Once you have centred an object, you activate PAE, and this improves the GoTo accuracy in a small (I believe it is about 5 degrees) patch of sky round that object. This can be done for various regions of the sky during a session. To avoid using old, inaccurate, pointing data, it is also worthwhile using the adjacent "Clear PAE Data" function at the start of a session. I hope that this helps.

Geoff

[Jiggy 67]

57 minutes ago, Aramcheck said:

 

I know I need to get better polar alignment, but even then surely there must be some way to make manual adjustments to scope position with the Synscan controller after finding a target?

I must be missing something very basic here!

 

I might be misunderstanding your question here and you may be after an ap solution but if you’re just after centering a target in the fov then you just use the directional keys on the controller after it’s slewed to the target 

[Geoff Lister]

2 hours ago, Jiggy 67 said:

I might be misunderstanding your question here and you may be after an ap solution but if you’re just after centering a target in the fov then you just use the directional keys on the controller after it’s slewed to the target 

Depending on the magnification of your optical path, you may need to set a lower slewing rate to make it easier to set the final position. Press the "Rate" key, then "3" or "4" then "Enter"

Geoff

[Aramcheck]

Thanks folks - it was me being an idiot... I think I just get flustered sometimes (especially with polar alignment problems eating into available imaging time & general lack of clear skies).

I've just had a trial session with the mount & having (in theory) located an object via one of the catalogues, it's slewing fine.

Appreciate the responses nonetheless!

Cheers
Ivor