Sequence generator pro and nightly setup

[westernwolf]

Hi

I apologise in advance if this has been answered elsewhere previously.

Monday night I was having horrendous issues with my first real attempt at using Sequence Generator Pro, most of this seems to be entered around the ASCOM driver of my Sesto Senso 2 focuser. In the end I gave up and did things manually using Cartes du Ciel to align the telescope to M31, however this is not where I found myself pointing. This was the first time I'd used the software to guide the mount, I used to use the mounts GOTO system. After carrying out a quick imaging run because I had lost the will to live, and by plate solving I found I was actually on *68 Cas (HD4142). I had polar aligned using QHY Polemaster, this must have been ok because guiding wasn't an issue 360s+ imaging.

I'm not a fan of Cartes du Ciel at the moment because it seems to be clunky and very slow graphically, this may be because I communicate via wifi.

I am curious what people that use SGP do with regards to getting going for a nightly run, would SGP be able to plate solve and realign the mount to a target when it is this far out, or have I made an error in how my park is setup on the mount, tube up-weights down not accurate enough?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated because there seems to be a lot of cloud around at the moment  .

Kind regards,

Matt

Skywatcher 120ED (Moonlite focuser) on HEQ5-Pro, Atik 314L+, EFW2, Eagle2 onboard computer. 

[jimjam11]

Yes it can. Sgpro can platesolve using a variety of solvers, astap is the fastest (and easiest to setup) in my experience. 

This is how I use sgpro after my equipment has been dormant for a while:

Well in advance plan my sequence of target(s) making sure rotation is consistent if I have multiple targets configured. I use either 0 or 90deg in almost all cases.

Open my mount control panel.

Polar align using polemaster.

Open sgpro and run connect all devices.

Slew to a bright star in the vicinity of my first target (i normally use the same star for a month or so) and slew to it via my mount control panel. 

Take a frame and make sure focus is in the right ballpark.

Run solve and sync from sgpro. If the slew was miles off the first solve might fail, but sgpro defaults to blind solving when this happens. 

I then run center and rotate target for my first target.

At that point I let sgpro do its thing and come back in the morning to put it away.

 

If the weather has been reasonable and everything has been left setup (camera connection to ota) I skip the manual slew and manual solve and sync. I run polemaster and then just start the sequence...

[happy-kat]

welcome

What a shame you missed last night's StarGaZine

https://stargazerslounge.com/topic/358101-ep10-wednesday-15th-july-2020-730pm-bst-sequence-generator-pro-by-darren-jehan/

[westernwolf]

Hi

Thanks for the replies, the C/2020 F3 is my main objective at the moment but will use the method described on my next imaging run.

Kind regards 

Matt