EQ6-R and Stellarium Sync

[NiteNite]

I apologize if this has been discussed but I cannot locate anything solid on line.

I am not sure if my process if flawed or software is flawed etc.

I polar align the mount and then I turn it on and start from the home position.

I execute a three(3) star alignment.

At this point I think I am safe to connect stellarium to the mount. I do so and then try to send the mount to a target.

When I do this, the RA goes horizontal and EQMOD flashes that I have reached the mount limit (or something like that, I cannot recall the exact term).

What am I missing?

Please help.

Eric

[Jamgood]

When you start the slewing process within Stellarium, are you doing it from the parked position or from the last of your star alignments?

When I used to use Stellarium, before plate solving, I use to do my star alignment with Stellarium and EQMod as I had completely taken the handset out of the picture. Slew to target in Stellarium, once centred in the frame using the EQMod controls, hit the Sync button in Stellarium. That was one star aligned. Repeat as often as needed.

Edited March 4, 2021 by Jamgood

[NiteNite]

8 minutes ago, Jamgood said:

When you start the slewing process within Stellarium, are you doing it from the parked position or from the last of your star alignments?

When I used to use Stellarium, before plate solving, I use to do my star alignment with Stellarium and EQMod as I had completely taken the handset out of the picture. Slew to target in Stellarium, once centred in the frame using the EQMod controls, hit the Sync button in Stellarium. That was one star aligned. Repeat as often as needed.

I don't have or I don't know where the sync button is...not clue where to find it.

 

[Jamgood]

3 minutes ago, NiteNite said:

I don't have or I don't know where the sync button is...not clue where to find it.

 

When you connect your mount to Stellarium do you see this box?

If not, either press the Telescope Icon in the bottom toolbar or hit CTRL+0. With that control box you can select you target. Say you want Arcturus. Click the star with your mouse and then hit Current Object in the control box. Then Slew will take the mount to it. 

Then, depending on your set up, you need to centre the star in your camera view. Once centred, hit Sync and it will put a Sync marker in EQMod.

It will place in in a sky map on this page. (You get that up by pressing the little Notepad Icon in the Alignment/Sync box.

Hope this helps.

[NiteNite]

This really helped. I really appreciate the effort made for me here.

I found this menu by hitting CTR 0. I parked my mount and pulled the handset out. I turn it back on and then connected through Stellarium. The mount slewed the RA down toward the ground and then the EQMOD flashed: Horizon Limit. I messed around with this for an hour and then saw in the configure box on Stellarium that Degrees Minutes Seconds (DMS) was not checked. I checked this box. Reset and it slewed right next to Sirius for me. Yay!  I centered it into my camera crosshairs and hit SYNC and it worked. I then chose another star and selected it and then hit SLEW on Stellarium and nothing happened. I could not get it to go unless I hit CTR-1. That did the trick but when I centered up the star and hit SYNC, nothing happened.

Any ideas?

[Jamgood]

In Stellarium, before you pressed Slew for your second star, did you click the button that says Current Object? This puts the co-ordinates in for the area the mount is to slew to. If you skip that one click, the mount won't move because the co-ordinates will still be from your last object. Like you found, CTRL+1 will slew to the object and is a nice shortcut.

If you click the little Spanner Icon with the three red >>> in EQMod that will expand the program. When you click Sync in Stellarium, you should see the Point Count under Alignment/Sync in EQMod change to 1 when you've done the first star. Then 2, 3 and so on when you've done more. The Point Count always starts at 0.

When you have set sync points, they will show in the Alignment Point List Editor. You'll have the co-ordinates on the left and little red markers on the graph on the right. Using this works best if you can do a few sync points and create a triangle on the graph like in the image below. So you sync with a star in the West, East and South say, then have the object you want to track inside that triangle. If you watch when you've made a few and slew to an object inside the triangle, the points will be connected on on the graph showing that you are at optimum accuracy between read points. It is not essential to do this but it helps with the accuracy of tracking objects.

This was how I started before I went into guiding and plate solving. Star Alignment is a thing of the past now and probably will be for you in the future.

Hope this helps. Keep asking if you get stuck. We've all been there and are here to help. 👍

Edited March 5, 2021 by Jamgood

[NiteNite]

After I wrote my reply, I guessed that might be the issue.

[NiteNite]

On 05/03/2021 at 06:39, Jamgood said:

In Stellarium, before you pressed Slew for your second star, did you click the button that says Current Object? This puts the co-ordinates in for the area the mount is to slew to. If you skip that one click, the mount won't move because the co-ordinates will still be from your last object. Like you found, CTRL+1 will slew to the object and is a nice shortcut.

If you click the little Spanner Icon with the three red >>> in EQMod that will expand the program. When you click Sync in Stellarium, you should see the Point Count under Alignment/Sync in EQMod change to 1 when you've done the first star. Then 2, 3 and so on when you've done more. The Point Count always starts at 0.

When you have set sync points, they will show in the Alignment Point List Editor. You'll have the co-ordinates on the left and little red markers on the graph on the right. Using this works best if you can do a few sync points and create a triangle on the graph like in the image below. So you sync with a star in the West, East and South say, then have the object you want to track inside that triangle. If you watch when you've made a few and slew to an object inside the triangle, the points will be connected on on the graph showing that you are at optimum accuracy between read points. It is not essential to do this but it helps with the accuracy of tracking objects.

This was how I started before I went into guiding and plate solving. Star Alignment is a thing of the past now and probably will be for you in the future.

Hope this helps. Keep asking if you get stuck. We've all been there and are here to help. 👍

Hey, I wanted to again thank you. I was not selecting the object and then slewing to it. Once I fixed this, I was able sync several objects and got my alignment almost perfect.

 

[Jamgood]

2 hours ago, NiteNite said:

Hey, I wanted to again thank you. I was not selecting the object and then slewing to it. Once I fixed this, I was able sync several objects and got my alignment almost perfect.

 

Good stuff. Glad you got it sorted and I was able to help. 

Let the fun begin. 👍