Dusting it all off...

[Woolnut]

As the title suggests I decided a few nights back to get my kit out after a fairly long wait.

I had never really bothered to polar align my scope in the past as nearly all my observation has been visual and not AP, but I think this is something I need to learn to do so I can tell my scope to go somewhere and it actually does it... Seems easy right? Well on Monday night I thought as much and decided to get the kit out early and in daylight, take it out of the bags (which by the way are really good, apart from the zips by a brand called Oklop) and get setup ready for my first attempt at using my scope for at least 12 months.  Things seemed to be going fairly smoothly, I remembered how everything went together and had very approximately aligned my scope North knowing that as it got darker I would need to reconsider slightly and correct if I was a long way out. Nightfall came and I could see Polaris, so thought it was time to look through my polar-scope and honestly I could barely see anything. Obviously both caps were off, but how on earth do people actually see through this scope and polar align? 🤔 Maybe my positioning wasn't optimal, but either way had to quickly give up on that idea...

The next thing I decided was well, if I can't actually polar align with the polar scope but can see Polaris using my finder and OTA I can't be that far off. It is worth noting that my OTA was pointing in exactly the same place as the mount was, so the starting position would have been close to optimal. So booted up my laptop, loaded Stellarium, forgot that this laptop didn't have the ASCOM drivers and had to download those and then was able to connect my scope up to the laptop.

From my garden at this time I can see Arcturus very clearly, so picked this as my first target on Stellarium and sent the instructions to slew over and I can tell you it was absolutely miles off, not what I was expecting considering my rough polar alignment can't have been that bad (or maybe it was?). I was never expecting it to be tight, but honestly it would have taken 15 seconds to slew somewhere close to the right direction from the point it landed at. So at this point I started to retrace what I had done previously and looked at the following;

• All SynScan related settings (date, time, long, lat, elevation, timezone etc)
• How many degrees my mount was set (approx 51) and that it was level
• Stellarium settings, although didn't find much
• ASCOM settings, again didn't find much

One thing I did notice was that SynScan provided Polaris coordinates that were nothing like the app i use on my phone was suggesting, but couldn't see an option to change or update this anywhere. After a bit of messing around I called it a night as it suddenly got cloudy out of nowhere.

Last night I attempted it all over again, managed slightly better results in terms of accuracy considering my polar alignment was not done but noticed after leaving Stellarium to follow what should have been Jupiter (sadly blocked out by trees in the garden) I could hear a knocking noise every few seconds that would make a considerable shake when looking through the eyepiece, almost like something was causing the motor gears to clunk (possibly a lack of lubrication?) I have a recording if anyone happens to want to hear what it sounded like, but I don't remember hearing this before. The motors obviously do make a strange noise, but this sounded more like an issue than standard operation. I left it for a while to see if it would get better and it seemed to a little, but is still concerning as if I ever get to the stage that I can polar align properly I would like to be able to observe what I am looking at without having to contend with a badly shaking view 🧐 FWIW, the EP in use was a really low power, something like a 32mm.

So I have a couple of questions;

• How does everyone else manage to polar align without a back-lit scope in the dark?
• Is there something obvious I have missed that would cause Stellarium to point in a different dimension even though my polar alignment is approximately correct?
• Does anyone have any suggestions around fixing or treating the knocking / shaking my motors seem to be causing?

 

Lessons Learned

• Read the manual again (If anyone happens to have the electronic copy for the EQ3 Pro SynScan mount I would greatly appreciate a link to it please)
• Don't leave it so long between observations so I can remember what to do, and how
• Don't under estimate the amount of time required to actually get good at Astronomy

Looking forward to hopefully being a little more active on here again, been a while 😎

[dark knight]

Been awhile for me too, from memory i think i used to follow a similar routine, used stellarium to target  eg arcturus when it stopped slewing i would release the clutches and manually push the scope onto the target then tighten the clutches back up, always seemed fairly good enough for visual work, polar alignment does need to be in the ball park though.

[Jiggy 67]

I understand that your PA will be off but have you gone through any sort of star alignment process, without that Synscan will never be anywhere near a target??....forgive me if I’ve read it wrong or ASCOM doesn’t need that, don’t know anything about ASCOM

For visual, you don’t need accurate PA, just get Polaris in the centre of the polar scope using alt/az adjustment only on the mount. However the more accurate the PA the better your GoTO works so use an app like Polar Align Pro and dependent on your reticle in the polar scope you may just have to replicate the view in the app for good PA. The process should be:

Polar alignment 

Scope in correct home position 

Input all data in Synscan accurately (date in American format)

1 or 2 star alignment 

Go for your first target 

Edited July 21, 2020 by Jiggy 67

[NGC 1502]

Dead simple solution.....get a basic Dob.....a few decent eyepieces......star chart......learn the sky.......relax all is calm.....blood sweat and tears a forgotten nightmare........😁

[Jiggy 67]

7 minutes ago, NGC 1502 said:

Dead simple solution.....get a basic Dob.....a few decent eyepieces......star chart......learn the sky.......relax all is calm.....blood sweat and tears a forgotten nightmare........😁

I sort of half agree. I use a GoTo and find it really simple. I don’t do AP so don’t use ASCOM, EQ Mod or anything like that, I don’t see the point of complicating things for visual only

[NGC 1502]

3 minutes ago, Jiggy 67 said:

I sort of half agree. I use a GoTo and find it really simple. I don’t do AP so don’t use ASCOM, EQ Mod or anything like that, I don’t see the point of complicating things for visual only

Actually we’re on the same page......I do know folks who get on fine with complex kit........and others that wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole.

Probably best - whatever gets you under the stars - enjoy 😁

[Cosmic Geoff]

I recently acquired Synscan as an upgrade. I don't quite understand why you are trying to align the mount using a laptop, Stellarium, etc.  Doing it via the handset would be simpler.  The polarscope in my EQ5 is a bit of a pain in the neck to use, but usable provided Polaris is within the FOV of the device.  With the scope in the Home position, Polaris should be visible in the finder and maybe main scope, for a rough alignment.  The later versions of the Synscan firmware have a feature whereby you can go back after a two or three star align and fine tune the polar alignment - you get some numbers on the handset screen and you are supposed to mechanically adjust the altitude and azimuth on the mount.  I did it once...

My impression is that if you use this feature the alignment ought to be accurate enough for AP. Not that I have tried AP with it.

[Jiggy 67]

Geoff, if you’re breaking your neck using your polar scope this is a god send:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adapters/astro-essentials-right-angled-eyepiece-for-polar-scopes.html

6 minutes ago, Cosmic Geoff said:

The polarscope in my EQ5 is a bit of a pain in the neck to use

 

[Cosmic Geoff]

3 minutes ago, Jiggy 67 said:

Geoff, if you’re breaking your neck using your polar scope this is a god send:

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/adapters/astro-essentials-right-angled-eyepiece-for-polar-scopes.html

Thanks. It costs more than the polariscope did, though.

[Jiggy 67]

Just now, Cosmic Geoff said:

Thanks. It costs more than the polariscope did, though.

😂😂😂....it may well do, but believe me, it’s worth it’s weight in gold!!

[Woolnut]

Thanks for the responses everyone, I am going to give it another try in a few days time now I've spent some time reading and its started to come back to me!

Does anyone have any idea about my mount whilst moving jolting at all? I've seen lots of conversations on here about adding weight to the mount to dampen the vibrations, but this is much more than a vibration, almost like every few seconds someone was kicking the mount accompanied by a loud click sort of sound each time.

Edited July 23, 2020 by Woolnut