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Is my mount losing its tracking ability, or is it me?


lil_coz

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Hi all,

Hope you're all safe and well.

Quick question I've got on my mount. I've Got a Celestron CGEM that I've had for 6+ years, and I don't know if it's starting to lose its guiding ability, or if it's me that's not doing something quite right?

Polar aligning my scope is something I do every time I go out, because I mostly use it for AP. My method is align using 2 start align, plus the extra 4 star align, and then I use Celestron's All Star Align to get polar aligned. I also use a laser crosshair eyepiece through a x2.5 barlow to make sure I've got the stars perfectly centered.

Last night's example is I was taking 45s subs, and I've had to dump knocking on for half of my subs due to star trails. I'll have about 2 or 3 subs that are pin sharp, and then another 2-3 that have noticeable star trails, then I'll got back to 1 or 2 that are fine and so on throughout the whole 3-4 hour session. 

Is it something that I'm not doing right? Or has the mount lost its guiding ability?

Any help would be appreciated.

Many thanks in advanced. Clear skies!

 

 

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Can i ask whst scope youre using on it?

Not a fan of the ASPA method for astrophotography .. it's ok for planetary  but for deepsky id use sharpcap or polemaster for PA if you're a setup tear down kind of guy..

That's what I use for mine, well I use the sharpcap software with the polemaster camera , you could drift align but even thou it's far more accurate, it does take alot longer to do

Edited by newbie alert
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5 hours ago, newbie alert said:

Can i ask whst scope youre using on it?

Not a fan of the ASPA method for astrophotography .. it's ok for planetary  but for deepsky id use sharpcap or polemaster for PA if you're a setup tear down kind of guy..

That's what I use for mine, well I use the sharpcap software with the polemaster camera , you could drift align but even thou it's far more accurate, it does take alot longer to do

I bring mine down too. The polemaster is on my 'to buy' list, but a bit down the line. I feel like I can get a fairly good polar alignment for my needs at the moment, because I get the same results when I take 2 min exposures. 

I've got a SkyWatcher 150 on it.

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5 hours ago, michael8554 said:

If half are okay then your PA must be okay too.

If there's a repeating time pattern to the Rejects then it may be Periodic Error.

Michael

That makes sense.... I get the same result whether I use 45s or 2min subs. I'll pay attention to any repeating pattern.

After a quick Google, there's ways to dial it out, so I'll give that a go too.

Thanks!

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22 hours ago, lil_coz said:

 

Polar aligning my scope is something I do every time I go out, because I mostly use it for AP. My method is align using 2 start align, plus the extra 4 star align, and then I use Celestron's All Star Align to get polar aligned. I also use a laser crosshair eyepiece through a x2.5 barlow to make sure I've got the stars perfectly centered.

Reading this part here can I make a suggestion that will save you loads of time.. if you  star align and then polar align it will then throw your star alignment out..if you polar align first then it won't.. 

Also,  you can save all your star alignment if you hibernate the mount, so park to home position in utilities,  then scroll through utilities to hibernate .. next night, polar align and then when you switch on it will say wake up, accept that and off you go..no need to do a star alignment.. if it's not bang on you can sync it again..

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