Skywatcher AZ GTI mount owners thread

[SuburbanMak]

16 hours ago, herne said:

When in the field do you use AA batteries to power the mount?  If so don’t use rechargeable ones, they tend to be underpowered and can cause issues.

I used AA cells to begin with and found them to drain fast and be unreliable much below full power. I use a Celestron power tank, pictured. 

[Priesters]

Here’s my new light weight, portable but definitely not cheap set up, ready for first light .  See what people mean about the altitude adjustment for polar aligning being heavy on the finder tips but I reckon I’ll manage.  There’s also no more telescope money left in the piggy bank for an ASI Air so I’ll be sticking with the cable spaghetti for a while . All fits in to a tripod bag and a small oklop eye piece bag too so I’m chuffed with that.

Edited May 20 by Priesters

[herne]

49 minutes ago, Priesters said:

See what people mean about the altitude adjustment for polar aligning being heavy on the finder tips but I reckon I’ll manage.

Make sure it’s set for high latitude not low latitude.  Nice light weight rig though .

[doublevodka]

1 hour ago, Priesters said:

Here’s my new light weight, portable but definitely not cheap set up, ready for first light .  See what people mean about the altitude adjustment for polar aligning being heavy on the finder tips but I reckon I’ll manage.  There’s also no more telescope money left in the piggy bank for an ASI Air so I’ll be sticking with the cable spaghetti for a while . All fits in to a tripod bag and a small oklop eye piece bag too so I’m chuffed with that.

What I've read elsewhere is it is good to get a longer dovetail bar to sit between the wedge and AZ-GTi (blue arrow), as roughly marked below the center of gravity is where the red line is. A longer dovetail allows you to shift the center of gravity over the wedge, making adjustments easier and the whole thing a little more stable

 

[GoldTop57]

Re: altitude adjustment for polar aligning.

I had to adjust the latitude configuration for my WO wedge recently and found that the rod/bushing was very sticky with grease - i cleaned this up, re-greased and its much smoother - whilst I haven't used it in anger yet I'm hoping this will make latitude adjustment a bit easier when polar aligning.

[AstroNebulee]

1 hour ago, Priesters said:

Here’s my new light weight, portable but definitely not cheap set up, ready for first light .  See what people mean about the altitude adjustment for polar aligning being heavy on the finder tips but I reckon I’ll manage.  There’s also no more telescope money left in the piggy bank for an ASI Air so I’ll be sticking with the cable spaghetti for a while . All fits in to a tripod bag and a small oklop eye piece bag too so I’m chuffed with that.

It's looking great, really pleased you have it all ready to go now. Let us know how you get on. As @doublevodkasaid (and beat me to it ) you'll need a longer dovetail bar to use on the wedge as your centre of gravity is to far over to one side. 

Cheers 

Lee 

 

Edited May 20 by AstroNebulee
Grammar

[Priesters]

Ta dah - and for once, no additional purchases necessary.  Bolt attaching mount to dovetail (and serving as a safety bolt) has been pinched from the tripod extension that I’m not using.  The green dovetail came with the Evoguide and the silver dovetail with my WO GT81 and I’ve already upgraded that to Losmandy so it was spare.  Using a short 1/4 - 20 bolt that I had in stock for the safety on the green dovetail.  You can probably tell I’m quite pleased with tonight’s efforts.  Thanks for the advice all

[doublevodka]

13 hours ago, Priesters said:

Ta dah - and for once, no additional purchases necessary.  Bolt attaching mount to dovetail (and serving as a safety bolt) has been pinched from the tripod extension that I’m not using.  The green dovetail came with the Evoguide and the silver dovetail with my WO GT81 and I’ve already upgraded that to Losmandy so it was spare.  Using a short 1/4 - 20 bolt that I had in stock for the safety on the green dovetail.  You can probably tell I’m quite pleased with tonight’s efforts.  Thanks for the advice all

Always a bonus when you don't have to spend more Did the shift in center of gravity help with the adjustments? 

[Priesters]

Yes, definitely easier on the finger tips now

[bomberbaz]

21 hours ago, Priesters said:

Ta dah - and for once, no additional purchases necessary.  Bolt attaching mount to dovetail (and serving as a safety bolt) has been pinched from the tripod extension that I’m not using.  The green dovetail came with the Evoguide and the silver dovetail with my WO GT81 and I’ve already upgraded that to Losmandy so it was spare.  Using a short 1/4 - 20 bolt that I had in stock for the safety on the green dovetail.  You can probably tell I’m quite pleased with tonight’s efforts.  Thanks for the advice all

Looks ace that, the evoguide setup is such a nice rig

Where did you get the bar and c/weight??

[Priesters]

45 minutes ago, bomberbaz said:

Where did you get the bar and c/weight??

It was from AliExpress.  Ordered 28/4 and arrived yesterday - £44 with shipping so not cheap.  I tried the StarAdventurer counterweight kit but it didn’t seem heavy enough.  I considered getting an additional SA counterweight which I’ve seen a few people do but I went for this bar as it’s designed specifically for the AZ GTi and is a bit longer I think (in case I want to really overload the mount in the future ).  The counterweight is a Bresser 2kg which I bought from Amazon - £32.  If there’s a way of doing something more expensively, I’ll find it .

Edited May 21 by Priesters

[bomberbaz]

5 minutes ago, Priesters said:

It was from AliExpress.  Ordered 28/4 and arrived yesterday - £44 with shipping so not cheap.  I tried the StarAdventurer counterweight kit but it didn’t seem heavy enough.  I considered getting an additional SA counterweight which I’ve seen a few people do but I went for this bar as it’s designed specifically for the AZ GTi and is a bit longer I think (in case I want to really overload the mount in the future ).  The counterweight is a Bresser 2kg which I bought from Amazon - £32.  If there’s a way of doing something more expensively, I’ll find it .

My bar could do with extending if I am honest, thats why I noticed yours.

I was thinking about buying a new one as it is ever so slightly unbalanced.

Think I might just try a small bolt into the bottom of the bar, some tape and a large washer, will be cheaper and hidden anyway.  

[bomberbaz]

tried doiing a test run last night, everything worked fine until tracking, not tracking at all.

I tried swapping cable around, changing the baud rate but nope, anyone got any tips or a method of checking the cables?

[AstroNebulee]

5 hours ago, bomberbaz said:

tried doiing a test run last night, everything worked fine until tracking, not tracking at all.

I tried swapping cable around, changing the baud rate but nope, anyone got any tips or a method of checking the cables?

Hi Steve 

I set my baud rate to 9600 and choose eq mod mount with my eq dir cable from my az gti to my AAP and tracking to sidereal. 

So my cabling for AAP is storage key in USB 3, 294mc pro usb3 cable to USB 3 port, 120mc-s guide camera usb3 cable to USB 2 port, eq dir cable from az gti to USB 2 port. 

Your setup worked fine when you had your 50ed on it didn't it, so strange how the tracking has changed. 

Will rack my brains more to help

Cheers 

Lee 

Edited May 23 by AstroNebulee

[bomberbaz]

1 hour ago, AstroNebulee said:

Hi Steve 

I set my baud rate to 9600 and choose eq mod mount with my eq dir cable from my az gti to my AAP and tracking to sidereal. 

So my cabling for AAP is storage key in USB 3, 294mc pro usb3 cable to USB 3 port, 120mc-s guide camera usb3 cable to USB 2 port, eq dir cable from az gti to USB 2 port. 

Your setup worked fine when you had your 50ed on it didn't it, so strange how the tracking has changed. 

Will rack my brains more to help

Cheers 

Lee 

You got it spot on there Lee.

I am wondering if anything has changed that I didn't notice. I shall go back through settings later and see if anything changed during the re-wire boggle when I changed scopes. 

[Elp]

9 hours ago, bomberbaz said:

tried doiing a test run last night, everything worked fine until tracking, not tracking at all.

I tried swapping cable around, changing the baud rate but nope, anyone got any tips or a method of checking the cables?

The preview view of your guidecam was working fine and updating accurately?

[AstroNebulee]

5 hours ago, bomberbaz said:

You got it spot on there Lee.

I am wondering if anything has changed that I didn't notice. I shall go back through settings later and see if anything changed during the re-wire boggle when I changed scopes. 

I should of added I power my AAP with the zwo 12v mains power brick then run a power cable to mount and one to my 294mc pro from the AAP. 

Let is know how you get on later

Edited May 23 by AstroNebulee

[bomberbaz]

Hi guys.

Ok so I was getting a preview from the guide but here's where the problem may lie and only a live test will tell. 

The tracking button just above the 3 buttons for sidereal, solar and lunar was not ticked. I thought it defaulted to sidereal if left unticked but maybe not.

Anyway, I shall give it a bash either tonight but doubtful due to cloud, or more likely tomorrow as it is more likely.

Cheers

Steve

[bomberbaz]

Question. Can someone go into their IP and port settings in the app and tell me what ethernet address is and port number plus either TCP or UDP please.

Mine is at IP 10.0.0.1, PORT 4030 and TCP.

I have read it should be 10.0.0.10 and UDP but would like to see if mine is the only one defaulting to this.

cheers

steve

[AstroNebulee]

1 hour ago, bomberbaz said:

Question. Can someone go into their IP and port settings in the app and tell me what ethernet address is and port number plus either TCP or UDP please.

Mine is at IP 10.0.0.1, PORT 4030 and TCP.

I have read it should be 10.0.0.10 and UDP but would like to see if mine is the only one defaulting to this.

cheers

steve

Where do you find the up and port settings in the app? I'm being dense haha, whether is because I don't have station mode activated in the app I'm not sure. 

My tracking is turned off as you can see but once I start a session  it turns on and goes to sidereal mode 

I'll attach a few screenshots from my app. 

Edited May 23 by AstroNebulee

[bomberbaz]

@AstroNebulee just click next to the serial by baud and it changed over mine, funny setting and needs a little work by development imho

[AstroNebulee]

19 minutes ago, bomberbaz said:

@AstroNebulee just click next to the serial by baud and it changed over mine, funny setting and needs a little work by development imho

Ahh I see, I had to have the mount slide switch off to change it to ethernet. I'll attach a screenshot of mine for you. Seems its the same as yours Steve. 

I always have serial showing as connected and didn't know about the ethernet setting. Not sure what difference it makes, so I'll keep mine in serial and baud rate 9600.

Cheers 

Lee 

Edited May 23 by AstroNebulee

[bomberbaz]

22 minutes ago, AstroNebulee said:

Ahh I see, I had to have the mount slide switch off to change it to ethernet. I'll attach a screenshot of mine for you. Seems its the same as yours Steve. 

I always have serial showing as connected and didn't know about the ethernet setting. Not sure what difference it makes, so I'll keep mine in serial and baud rate 9600.

Cheers 

Lee 

cheers Lee, that's bang on pal 

[Priesters]

 Nearly got first light on Saturday but clouds had other ideas .  I did learn that everything seems to connect ok and I actually guided for about 30 seconds!  Was getting some strange outcomes with plate solving though but couldn’t see the EQMOD interface to check what was going on with alignment.  Is it normal to not see the EQMOD interface when EQMOD is operating via the SynScan App?

[AstroNebulee]

27 minutes ago, Priesters said:

 Nearly got first light on Saturday but clouds had other ideas .  I did learn that everything seems to connect ok and I actually guided for about 30 seconds!  Was getting some strange outcomes with plate solving though but couldn’t see the EQMOD interface to check what was going on with alignment.  Is it normal to not see the EQMOD interface when EQMOD is operating via the SynScan App?

I use an AApro so hopefully someone will be along soon who uses a laptop (think you use nina isn't it?), great news you got most of it working well and guiding, that's half the battle

Edited May 24 by AstroNebulee
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