AZ-EQ5 alignment problems

[adamg502]

Hello all - really hoping you can help this newbie out.  I was able to complete a polar alignment on my AZ-EQ5 using a QHY Polemaster and it looked like it was pretty spot on.  I then performed a 3-star alignment via the mount controller.  The first two stars were moderately off, but they were still in the view so I was able to adjust it easily enough.  On the third star, it was much closer to center than the first two and it said the alignment was successful.  

I told it to slew to M31 and it did it's thing, but it was nowhere to be found when I took a test shot.  I uploaded the image to a plate solving site and it showed I was pretty much a full frame to the right of it.  I manually slewed where it should be and was able to center it in my frame.  I took a short test exposure and was happy with the framing so I took a longer 45 sec exposure and found I was getting significant star trails.  I took a 10 sec exposure and everything looked clear but another longer exposure had trailing again. 

I had to go back inside for a few minutes and when I came back, I went ahead and parked the mount in the home position and did another polar alignment routine and didn't have to make any changes so that appeared to be good.  I started a new 3-star alignment routine and again, the controller said it was successful.  This time I told it to slew to M33 and it said it moved to it, but again, it wasn't in my frame.  Plate solving that test shot showed it was almost in the same spot as the previous attempt as M31 was just outside of the frame.  I'm still not used to chilly night air and took a few more test shots and again, once I hit 20 seconds, i started getting star trails which got significantly worse the longer it was which leads me to believe the mount isn't tracking right.  Does anyone have any suggestions of things to check since the controller alignment hasn't given me any errors and the polar alignment appear to be right?

Thanks!

 

*edit - fixed spacing to help readability

Edited November 7, 2020 by adamg502

[fifeskies]

 

Sounds like the polar alignment is off by a fair amount , perhaps you bumped the mount after setting it, you don't mention checking the PA before you tried another 3 star alignment.

Also are you sure you have both the time and the location set accurately.

[adamg502]

Sorry, I put my return in the wrong spot of my post. so it may not have been clear  When I came back out, I put the mount back in home position went through the polar alignment routine to start over.  This time the Polemaster was showing I didn't need to touch the elevation or alt/az bolts at all then I did another 3 star before trying to go to M33.  I set the date and time before I started for the night and it should have been accurate within a second or two.  Location and elevation were entered and assuming my phone isn't broken, that should be right too.

[fifeskies]

When you do your star alignment are you adjusting to centre the star using the hand controller.

(do not unclamp the clutches and move it manually).

 

what lens are you using to align with or are you doing this off the camera view.

When aligning , to compensate for backlash , always try to finish centring by using the same 2 out of the 4 direction arrows , (eg up and left or down and right)

Overshoot and go back if you need to so that its the same direction every time.

Edited November 7, 2020 by fifeskies

[adamg502]

Polar alignment adjustments were done with the bolts on the mount.  I did the star alignments using the controller arrows to center the star in the middle of the crosshairs with live view of frame & focus in Backyard EOS so it should have been centered in FOV of my Canon T7i through the Redcat51 scope/lens.  I did go slightly out of center in both directions and went back to try and get rid of backlash, but I don't recall if I ended up using the same two directions when finishing the alignment process but I can certainly give that a shot tonight.  Also potentially worth noting, I was initially getting a both axes no power message on the controller.  Skywatcher had me ship the mount to them and they said they replaced the main board and I just got it back from them last week so I'm sure this is all operator error since I'm sure they tested functionality.

[adamg502]

So apparently I was doing it wrong.  The hand controller said it was pointed at M31 and I saw the coordinates on the display were changing, but apparently it was only saying where the object was but I didn't have tracking turned on.  Maybe I should have read the manual...  lol

Thanks for your input fifeskies!

Edited November 8, 2020 by adamg502
I can't type today

[Owmuchonomy]

If you are polar aligning to support an imaging session then when you come to set up your GoTo (which is independent to PA) do a 2 star alignment on the same side of the meridian as your object of interest.  Do not use a 3 star alignment.  Use 2 stars that are well separated.  In addition, make sure your last adjustments in star centreing are UP and RIGHT.