Carted du ceil

[Rodd]

Well, I finally got the lodestar driver problem fixed on my new laptop and I am up and running. However, they changed cartes du ciel. Before, I would slew to my first star and there was a button that allowed me to tell the program if the telescope was, in fact, pointing at the star.  I usually have to hunt a bit for my first star, but once I center it and tell the program I am on it, subsequent slews are more accurate. However, I can’t locate this button in the new version.  I absolutely need it or i will spend my life hunting for targets.  Does anyone know where this tool is?  I hate change, especially unnecessary change. It worked perfectly before.  Why change it?

as strange as it may sound, I am again dead in the water until I solve this. Can it be they removed the tool?  How can that be. There has to be a way to make corrections and to tell the program if a slew was correct. 

[Ibbo!]

If I am reading this right you need to click on the sync fuction which is at the top right of the tool bar, on my lay out it is the second "observatory dome " with the circle with a cross in it.

[Rodd]

So when I click that does it ask if the scope is pointing at the last slew target?  That is how the old version had it.  I don’t think it was called sync though. If used to be an open circle. I’ll look for it. The other problem is the  whole tool bar disappeared.  Also, to search for something there used to be a button with a picture of binoculars.  It would take you to the search interface. Now you have to do an advanced search.  Minimizing buttons is critical when it’s 5 degrees out ( I don’t use gloves)

[Priesters]

Hi,

On the View Tab, under Tool bar is the Main Bar box ticked?  You should then see the icons as per image below. 

HTH

Andrew

Edited February 20, 2022 by Priesters

[Laurieast]

You can right click on something and sync etc.

Or to the left of the domes is "Show Mark" 

Hope that might help somehow.

[Patrick Chevalley]

I receive request to remove this button from the default toolbar to prevent an accidental use.

You can use the menu to sync, but if you want the button again open the menu Setup / Toolbar editor.

Find the button you want to add on the left list, and the position where place the button on the right. Then click the right arrow button. Finally click OK and save the program configuration.

You can use this tool to arrange any button you want, the button "Standard" on the bottom set the old default with all the buttons.

[Rodd]

1 hour ago, Patrick Chevalley said:

I receive request to remove this button from the default toolbar to prevent an accidental use.

You can use the menu to sync, but if you want the button again open the menu Setup / Toolbar editor.

Find the button you want to add on the left list, and the position where place the button on the right. Then click the right arrow button. Finally click OK and save the program configuration.

You can use this tool to arrange any button you want, the button "Standard" on the bottom set the old default with all the buttons.

The question I have is, is “sync” the function I am talking about.  I forgot what it was called. I don’t see how it is possible to use the software without it.  If I slew to m51 and the scope IS NOT pointing at m51. I have to hunt fir m51. If there is no way to tell the software that s correction was made, every slew will be off.  So is “sync” this function.  Will if ask me if I am pointing at m51 if I hit sync?  Is this the same tool as I used in the previous version?

[Rodd]

3 hours ago, Laurieast said:

You can right click on something and sync etc.

Or to the left of the domes is "Show Mark" 

Hope that might help somehow.

Show mark is not what I am talking about.  I am talking about showing the RIGHT mark. If I tell if you slew to m51 and it is off, so m51 is not in the FOV, I have to hunt for it and move the telescope until m51  IS in the center of the FOV.  I want to tell the software of that correction so that it knows it’s pointing at m51. Otherwise every slew will be off.  Is sync that command? It wasn’t called sync before I don’t think

[Priesters]

Yes, that is what Sync does i.e. you search for the intended target, find it, press sync, it asks you to confirm the target and then it makes allowance for the amount it was initially out by in future slews.  Not sure if it’s Cartes du Ciel or EQMOD doing the calculations but I guess that doesn’t really matter.  

Edited February 20, 2022 by Priesters

[Rodd]

52 minutes ago, Priesters said:

Yes, that is what Sync does i.e. you search for the intended target, find it, press sync, it asks you to confirm the target and then it makes allowance for the amount it was initially out by in future slews.  Not sure if it’s Cartes du Ciel or EQMOD doing the calculations but I guess that doesn’t really matter.  

Great. Thanks. Little things like that can derail a night pretty fast. 

[Priesters]

No worries.  Unfortunately in my experience there appears to be limitless things that can derail a precious clear evening/night so I have to say I am incredibly grateful to those who give their time and effort for free developing tools such as Cartes du Ciel so we at least have half a chance of capturing anything at all.  @Patrick Chevalley

Edited February 20, 2022 by Priesters

[Rodd]

12 minutes ago, Priesters said:

No worries.  Unfortunately in my experience there appears to be limitless things that can derail a precious clear evening/night so I have to say I am incredibly grateful to those who give their time and effort for free developing tools such as Cartes du Ciel so we at least have half a chance of capturing anything at all.  @Patrick Chevalley

Yes. Free software is amazing. I have been using CDC since the beginning. Phd2 recently because maxim won’t guide my oag system.  But I can’t dither with phd2 so I should go back to maxim and a refractor

[malc-c]

I believe the "offset" is calculated by EQMOD (I'm sure Chris will hime in if he still reads this forum).   If your system is mobile and needs setting up each night you need to clear the stored sync points in EQMOD otherwise the corrections will be out.   Much the same way as doing a three point alignment with the synscan handset creates a new alignment patter.

Having polar aligned and powered up the mount in the default home position connect EQMOD via CdC.  Expand EQMOD and click on the button to clear all sync data (has Dx in blue and a red X),  Select a bright star in the west in CdC and right click on it and select slew to... Once you are at target, used the NSEW buttons on EQMOD to position the star centrally in the field of view.  Then right click on the target star in CdC and select sync.  This informs EQMOD that the scope is on target, and EQMOD notes the difference in where it thought the scope was pointing and where the target is.  I then repeat this for a star in the East, and one in the North.  This provides EQMOD with a triangle to which all the corrections and offsets will be applied, and any target within that triangle should then be well within the field of view, if not near centre.

The advantage with EQMOD is the more sync points are stored the higher the accuracy of subsequent gotos become. 

 

[Freddie]

14 hours ago, Rodd said:

Yes. Free software is amazing. I have been using CDC since the beginning. Phd2 recently because maxim won’t guide my oag system.  But I can’t dither with phd2 so I should go back to maxim and a refractor

I can dither with PHD2 using Artemis (Atik capture software) so I'm sure various other capture software would also be able to do the same.

[Rodd]

1 hour ago, Freddie said:

I can dither with PHD2 using Artemis (Atik capture software) so I'm sure various other capture software would also be able to do the same.

Problem is I use Maxim DL and don't have enough clear sky time to learn something new

[Rodd]

2 hours ago, malc-c said:

I believe the "offset" is calculated by EQMOD (I'm sure Chris will hime in if he still reads this forum).   If your system is mobile and needs setting up each night you need to clear the stored sync points in EQMOD otherwise the corrections will be out.   Much the same way as doing a three point alignment with the synscan handset creates a new alignment patter.

Having polar aligned and powered up the mount in the default home position connect EQMOD via CdC.  Expand EQMOD and click on the button to clear all sync data (has Dx in blue and a red X),  Select a bright star in the west in CdC and right click on it and select slew to... Once you are at target, used the NSEW buttons on EQMOD to position the star centrally in the field of view.  Then right click on the target star in CdC and select sync.  This informs EQMOD that the scope is on target, and EQMOD notes the difference in where it thought the scope was pointing and where the target is.  I then repeat this for a star in the East, and one in the North.  This provides EQMOD with a triangle to which all the corrections and offsets will be applied, and any target within that triangle should then be well within the field of view, if not near centre.

The advantage with EQMOD is the more sync points are stored the higher the accuracy of subsequent gotos become. 

 

I dont know what EQMOD is--I don' have that unless it is connected to CDC somehow.  I did not realize about the triangle.  I will try that.  Right now for me--once I sync on my first star, I can slew to stars nearby and they will be in FOV--so I usually hop to my target.  Then I am on teh target for many sessions.  I would love to learn how to plate solve--my life would be MUCH easier

[malc-c]

1 hour ago, Rodd said:

I dont know what EQMOD is--I don' have that unless it is connected to CDC somehow.  I did not realize about the triangle.  I will try that.  Right now for me--once I sync on my first star, I can slew to stars nearby and they will be in FOV--so I usually hop to my target.  Then I am on teh target for many sessions.  I would love to learn how to plate solve--my life would be MUCH easier

My apologies, I should have looked at the mount listed in your signature.  I would assume the same function is provided through the V2 Driver, which strangely enough looks quite similar to EQMOD !  details here 

The website states 

Quote

Can be configured to convert SYNC commands to RCAL commands to prevent possible mount mis-positioning. (Recommended!)

Maybe this option needs ticking to give you better accuracy ?

[Rodd]

17 minutes ago, malc-c said:

My apologies, I should have looked at the mount listed in your signature.  I would assume the same function is provided through the V2 Driver, which strangely enough looks quite similar to EQMOD !  details here 

The website states 

Maybe this option needs ticking to give you better accuracy ?

Ahh--yes, that is what I use.  i think I do have that box checked, but I will verify.  One must remember, I am shooting with a very small FOV--1960 mm with the ASI 1600--my FOV is quite small.  So the goto is doing pretty good after I sync a few times.  Its never spot on the cross hairs though.  I have never tried the triangle thing though.  I will try that tomight.  

[malc-c]

Having told the mount when its pointed correctly at three points in different directions then in theory through the math built into the driver (assuming it has the same feature as EQMOD) it should be able to work out the small errors and make the small corrections for any target within the area mapped out by those three points, and give you reasonable accuracy, especially with a high precision mount.  My HEQ5 is fixed in the observatory, so I sync on every target I've visited and now every goto has the target  more or less central in the fov of my Canon 400D.  It may well be that on your mount the target is still out slightly rather than under the cross-hairs every time given how tight your FOV is.  But given your mount is far superior to the HEQ5 I would expect the precision would give you good accuracy, and you will hopefully find the mount hits the mark each time.

[Rodd]

14 minutes ago, malc-c said:

Having told the mount when its pointed correctly at three points in different directions then in theory through the math built into the driver (assuming it has the same feature as EQMOD) it should be able to work out the small errors and make the small corrections for any target within the area mapped out by those three points, and give you reasonable accuracy, especially with a high precision mount.  My HEQ5 is fixed in the observatory, so I sync on every target I've visited and now every goto has the target  more or less central in the fov of my Canon 400D.  It may well be that on your mount the target is still out slightly rather than under the cross-hairs every time given how tight your FOV is.  But given your mount is far superior to the HEQ5 I would expect the precision would give you good accuracy, and you will hopefully find the mount hits the mark each time.

Mine is pretty permannet--I have not changed it in over a year.  unfortunately, I never synced on the target once I got there for two reasons--I did not know this working method your describe--I will from now on.  But secondly, often I will goto a target and it will be off center--but the framing I want will be somewhere off center so I just manually frame it the way I want.  Once I find a target, I will stay on that target fpor weeks (months these days), so I did not see a need to sync.  I never realized that each psync will be remembered and work to give future goto commands more accuracy.  Is this true even if I tweak PA?  I do check PA every time I image and  tweak it--more or less depending on the duration of time since I last imaged.  If tweaking PA erases the previous syncs--then I haven't lost anything.  

[malc-c]

I'm no expert, and we all have different ways of doing things.  Others might suggest a different workflow.

I think if the PA is out then yes to a degree the software will compensate for that, but naturally if its way off the corrections may compound the inaccuracy.  If the mount is moved for any reasons then you would need to delete all the previous sync points as they will no longer be valid.  It's no hardship, you only need to do the three point alignment once again and then you should be fine, even if you never added any additional sync points to the  mapping.

[Rodd]

5 minutes ago, malc-c said:

I'm no expert, and we all have different ways of doing things.  Others might suggest a different workflow.

I think if the PA is out then yes to a degree the software will compensate for that, but naturally if its way off the corrections may compound the inaccuracy.  If the mount is moved for any reasons then you would need to delete all the previous sync points as they will no longer be valid.  It's no hardship, you only need to do the three point alignment once again and then you should be fine, even if you never added any additional sync points to the  mapping.

I will try this.  If it works, I will be one happy camper.  Even having to hunt for 10 minutes is a painb when it 10 dagrees out.    Do I have to do anything else--check a box to tell it to correlate within the region bounded by 3 points0--or will it automatically do that?  Also--my syncs from last night are still there?  They must be becuase After syncing on A Ursa Maj initially, I tried a long slew to A Gemini--and it was not in the FOV.  So I slewed back to A Ura Maj and it put it dead center--so it rememberered.

[malc-c]

I can't really advice as I don't have the same mount or use the same driver.  There is a lot of information on the driver in the link I placed in the post above - might have the answers there

[bottletopburly]

@Rodd I would highly recommend getting platesolving working in whatever program you use ,I use APT and use ASTAP to platsolve most software will work Astap from within as far as I’m aware and communicate with CDC  then no need to do three star alignment.

[tomato]

+1 for plate solving and ASTAP. My FOV is only 0.41 x 0.27 degrees when I’m imaging small galaxies, and I don’t want to lose any precious imaging time trying to find small, faint targets.

It takes a bit of time to load the star databases, but NINA makes setting up and using plate solving really straightforward and it is very fast and robust in operation. I wouldn’t go back to star syncing.