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clear night autofocus nightmare(sgp and pegasus controller)


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hi all my autofocus (pegasus and sequence generator) let me down big time last night ive never had the best v curve when autofocusing but its always done well,but  last night was a wash out ,lots of settings changed to no avail,the v curve was up and down like a yoyo,just a couple of questions for anyone with a motorised focuser,which shaft do you have your focus motor on and how do you work your settings for autofocus out,any other info/suggestions appreciated

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I have a Lakeside focuser and control it via Ekos, had similar issues to start with.

It usually works ok with initial step sizes of 50 but last night I had to up it to 100, then it worked really well. Backlash can be the main cause of poor V-Curve, I roughly figured mine was around 40 steps but have now upped it to 70 in the settings. Another cause for poor focus routine is atmospheric conditions.

Most autofocus modules fix to the coarse adjustment side.

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I have two Lakeside focusers, both are fitted to the coarse focus knob side and both have worked very well with SGP for the last few years.

Backlash is very important, you don't need to get it exactly right, a higher value than your backlash won't hurt, better to have more than too little.

What scope and camera are you using?

Did you take any screenshots of your V curves, a pic can be very revealing?

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I had this the other night. Just couldn’t get focus using Lakeside with Ekos on my Star 71. My step size is set to ten so will up that. 
 

in the end I sat there just capturing an image and watching HFR jump around so figured it was just a bad night but focusing has been the bane of my set up. 

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35 minutes ago, Richie092 said:

My step size is set to ten so will up that. 

That's tiny steps.

I'm thinking there might have been a touch of stiction in the focus so next session will try zoom in and out 1000 steps to start with.

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I think I have both of my lakesides set at 100 in EKOS for initial movement. I found it can't go further than 999 ticks in one go though - if you set it to move 1000 it disconnects - I reported this on the INDI forum a while back.

My backlash is also set at around 70 and I fixed the motor/gearbox to the coarse side of the focuser on both scopes.

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11 minutes ago, TerryMcK said:

I found it can't go further than 999 ticks in one go though

I had that when I first got it and was using the focus control box, it has limits set by default. Have a look at the Lakeside website on how to set it up, that should then enable EKOS to go as far as it wants.

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i have just ordered another flexible coupling and im going to remount to the course side and im not sure if my focuser bottomed out and screw securing flexible coupling may not been as tight as it should,any way like i said my v curve has never been great but it never let me down either  so theres hope,thanks to all who have made great suggestions:thumbsup:

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well a quick update ,fitted the focuser to my coarse side and wow what a difference its only been like it 2 years,but it always worked,had trouble connecting to the mount yesterday(thats a new one on me) but things turned out good in the end see image below thanks guys,forgot to add this was with a new install of nina as well

 

856420489_vcurve.thumb.jpg.948254e521668b97c13c2bc41148ae98.jpg

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