The capricious gods of AP

[StuartT]

So how is it that some nights nothing seems to work. Polar aligning takes forever and you end up accepting a crappy alignment before your target goes out of view. Your camera keeps disconnecting. None of your platesolve-sync operations are within tolerance and they just keep repeating. Your focuser has a gazillion steps of backlash. You can't get the exact same rotation as your last set of subs. The clouds keep appearing then disappearing... After a couple of hours of swearing, you just give up.

Then on another night, it's crystal clear and your setup goes like a dream and you're imaging within 15 mins.

🤷‍♂️

[ollypenrice]

A permanent observatory increases the good nights by a staggering margin...

Olly

[tomato]

I agree a permanent observatory improves the good to bad nights ratio no end, but boy, it’s even more frustrating when the established setup decides to play up. 
I’m not sure how, but I recently managed to corrupt the software that runs my mount. After unplugging and plugging in numerous USB leads and restarting the software repeatedly, I eventually had to restore the file from the backup. In the meantime 3 hours of pristine, moonless sky had slipped through my fingers.

[ONIKKINEN]

All part of the charm for the hobby. I think it makes the mediocre result after months of imaging look so much better when these "why am i doing this-nights" are in the mix.

[callisto]

1 hour ago, StuartT said:

So how is it that some nights nothing seems to work

 

1 hour ago, StuartT said:

Then on another night, it's crystal clear and your setup goes like a dream and you're imaging within 15 mins

And thats why we all do it my fellow observer & imager 😊

[Elp]

Last time a blanket of cloud as if the gods were draping the sky with a solid tablecloth disturbed my session twice. Never seen anything like it.

Oh and my mount decided that each target was pointing into the ground...

[gorann]

In my experience, the lost hours are virtually allways down to computers (and USB) or their inability to accept the smallest error of us. Very rarely down to the optics or mount. So I just try to keep the involvment of computers to a minimum.

[ollypenrice]

9 hours ago, gorann said:

In my experience, the lost hours are virtually allways down to computers (and USB) or their inability to accept the smallest error of us. Very rarely down to the optics or mount. So I just try to keep the involvment of computers to a minimum.

Here here. Do nothing via computers that can be done without them. By far and away the most reliable AP setups based here (there are seven in all) involve handset-controlled mounts and manual focus plus ST4 guiding.  The PC is limited to camera and F/W control and direct communication between guide camera, PHD and the mounts. The only thing I don't expect to work every time without fail are the filterwheels, which sometimes are not recognized.  I have an alternative software for them if they refuse to connect quickly but would be happy to use a manual wheel if such were available. (They don't seem to be made in 2 inch.) Anyway, even the F/W issue is rare.

As you say, the overwhelming majority of issues are PC and USB-derived.

Olly

PS Next year I hope to be able to congratulate my original Mesu mount on ten years without dropping a sub to tracking error.

Edited November 18, 2021 by ollypenrice

[Tim]

13 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

A permanent observatory increases the good nights by a staggering margin...

Olly

This is a fact. But I still get nights, even when nothing has changed, when things just don't seem to want to work.

When this happens I turn everything off and on again, and if that doesn't fix it, I go to bed, and sleep soundly in the knowledge that it will be fine again on the next session.

Inscrutable gremlins!

[ollypenrice]

15 minutes ago, Tim said:

This is a fact. But I still get nights, even when nothing has changed, when things just don't seem to want to work.

When this happens I turn everything off and on again, and if that doesn't fix it, I go to bed, and sleep soundly in the knowledge that it will be fine again on the next session.

Inscrutable gremlins!

This is quite literally true.  When I've had my F/W issues (before finding an alternative software to use when they won't connect) I would walk away and, in the morning, they would work. This was well and good when I was just imaging for myself but was not a workable solution with guests.

Olly

[StuartT]

Thanks all. 

I would dearly love to have an observatory. But my garden is tiny, alas. What I have instead is a permanent tripod setup on a concrete base which I cover with a Telegizmos 365 so it stays polar aligned (more or less). I guess that's a half way to having an actual observatory dome, in that at least I don't have to physically set everything up each time.

As for USB woes, I totally agree! My laptop annoyingly changes its mind about what number to give the COM port every time I connect up! 😡

Some of you will have seen this, but I do find it amusing.

 

[Fegato]

Due to lack of clear skies I've been waiting weeks to complete some tests to work out what's causing reflection artifacts in my images. I saw a brief opportunity a couple of nights back, and did manage to get about 30 mins of data in 4 hours of trying before the clouds made me give up. The whole session was chasing little bits of clear sky.

The funny part is that as I quickly spun my RASA into vertical using the handset, and started taking flats with an Aurora flat panel on top of the dew shield - my mount / NINA then decided to meridian flip! You should have seen me rush outside in a panic to rescue the panel before it fell off! 

Anyway, the moral and my take is - most of the problems I have in imaging sessions seem ultimately to be operator error.  And yes, they mostly happen all on one night, so I put this down to brain just not being in gear, or sometimes changes having been implemented incorrectly.  However, I take the point about USB - why isn't there anything better?  (well - I connect my CEM120 via direct LAN / ethernet connection, because I can, and this works a dream)

[StuartT]

7 hours ago, Fegato said:

The funny part is that as I quickly spun my RASA into vertical using the handset, and started taking flats with an Aurora flat panel on top of the dew shield - my mount / NINA then decided to meridian flip! You should have seen me rush outside in a panic to rescue the panel before it fell off! 

eek!

[Pompey Monkey]

19 hours ago, StuartT said:

 

As for USB woes, I totally agree! My laptop annoyingly changes its mind about what number to give the COM port every time I connect up! 😡

 

The easiest remedy for this is to only use USB to serial adapters with FTDI chips, NOT the Prolific brand.

FTDI "remembers" the correct COM port regardless of which USB socket is used, while Prolific doen't.

Believe it or not, the reasons are due to hisitorical issues with IPR piracy!

[StuartT]

6 hours ago, Pompey Monkey said:

The easiest remedy for this is to only use USB to serial adapters with FTDI chips, NOT the Prolific brand.

FTDI "remembers" the correct COM port regardless of which USB socket is used, while Prolific doen't.

Believe it or not, the reasons are due to hisitorical issues with IPR piracy!

Hmm.. thanks for this. But it sounds like I'd need to actually open up the laptop and change some hardware to do this, right? If so, I think that's a little above my pay grade.

[kirkster501]

Before I built my obs I regularly set up with brilliant clear sky, got one sub and then it clouded over.  I wait for an hour, still cloudy so call it a night and bring the stuff in.  Of course, five mins later it clears.  So I wait to see if it remains clear, and it does.  So I get all the gear out again and set up again.  Two subs in, it clouds over (again).  I wait an hour or so to see if the cloud has set in for the night and it appears it has.  So I take it all in for the second time.  As soon as I have done so and just going in the house, it clears.  Ahhhh, I say to myself, it'll cloud over again soon.  But it didn't and it was clear for another ten hours.

^^^^^We have all been there.  Equipment hokey-cokey, in-out-in-out.

Edited November 19, 2021 by kirkster501

[Pompey Monkey]

2 hours ago, StuartT said:

Hmm.. thanks for this. But it sounds like I'd need to actually open up the laptop and change some hardware to do this, right? If so, I think that's a little above my pay grade.

The chips are in the cables!

So no need to disassemble anything

[StuartT]

1 hour ago, Pompey Monkey said:

The chips are in the cables!

So no need to disassemble anything

Which cables though? I have a lot! One long one from the house out to the Ultimate Powerbox, then a bunch of them out from there to my equipment.

And how would I know what type of chip a given cable has? (I didn't even know cables had chips!)

[ONIKKINEN]

5 minutes ago, StuartT said:

Which cables though? I have a lot! One long one from the house out to the Ultimate Powerbox, then a bunch of them out from there to my equipment.

And how would I know what type of chip a given cable has? (I didn't even know cables had chips!)

The seller and/or packaging will tell you which chipset and which chipset drivers you need. The pegasus astro EQMOD cable will have an FTDI chip in it for example. Only these special purpose USB to serial connectors have a chip whereas a usb to usb cable is just a cable.

[StuartT]

11 minutes ago, ONIKKINEN said:

The seller and/or packaging will tell you which chipset and which chipset drivers you need. The pegasus astro EQMOD cable will have an FTDI chip in it for example. Only these special purpose USB to serial connectors have a chip whereas a usb to usb cable is just a cable.

Hmm.. I haven't bought any dedicated astro cables for my rig. I didn't know I needed to. I just get USB cables from Amazon generally.

[ONIKKINEN]

46 minutes ago, StuartT said:

Hmm.. I haven't bought any dedicated astro cables for my rig. I didn't know I needed to. I just get USB cables from Amazon generally.

Well, you dont (if you are using a newer EQ6 with a USB port). But you could if wanted.

Its just that Skywatcher uses the previously mentioned perhaps worse prolific branded chips inside the mount itself and in order to use an FTDI chipset you need the cable. Also you would need the cable if your mount had no on board USB.

Edited November 19, 2021 by ONIKKINEN

[StuartT]

4 hours ago, ONIKKINEN said:

Well, you dont (if you are using a newer EQ6 with a USB port). But you could if wanted.

Its just that Skywatcher uses the previously mentioned perhaps worse prolific branded chips inside the mount itself and in order to use an FTDI chipset you need the cable. Also you would need the cable if your mount had no on board USB.

ok, so now I'm confused. Pompey Monkey said the chips are in the cables, but you seem to be saying the Prolific chip is actually inside the mount. So how will using a particular cable make any difference? (sorry to be dumb, but I don't really understand any of this kind of thing).

Perhaps you should pm me about this, as I have now taken this thread way off topic! Sorry everyone

Edited November 19, 2021 by StuartT