Newbee questions about SW SA GTi

[Markj57]

Took my new Star Adventurer GTi out for first light and was stymied by the user interface. Two immediate issues:

1) tried to align on Polaris.  The illuminated polar scope is far too bright red even at lowest setting, all I see is a bright red blur. How do I fix that? I could find polaris with the illumination off, and get it roughly set, but it sure doesn't look like the documentation suggests.

2) tried to do a 2 star alignment, choosing Vega and Capella.  It says, "Manually slew to Vega".  So I do, and get Vega centered, but on the screen there is no button for "done", or "set", or "align".  The one potentially useful icon (Star in a crosshair) is greyed out and can't be selected.  I'm stuck and can't proceed to the second star. The manuals are useless, at least I couldn't find any explanation in the manual that came with the mount or the online Synscan manual.  What am I doing wrong?

Thanks! Mark

[StevieDvd]

The alignment problem is probably the note in the manual which says:

"Before you can confirm center, the last slewing buttons you press must be the RIGHT and UP buttons. The right and up buttons will blink to remind you of this."

So centre the star and do a 'small down & left' followed by a 'right & up' to re-centre.

I don't use a polarscope but have read reviews commenting on the led being too bright. Not sure what you mean by the looking like the documentation, but you can install an app which will give you what it should look like for the time/date/location if that would help.

It would help if you gave a location as you could be in the southern hemisphere and us up top might give you the pictures of  polaris from the NCP view 😄

Welcome to SGL

[Markj57]

Thanks Stevie!  I did notice those blinking cursors and didn't understand the meaning. Weird.  

Yes I'm in Scottsdale, 33 degrees north.

I'm using my phone which has the time/date/location. My intent is to do precise polar alignment so I can take at least 2 minute subs.  The design of the polar scope seems to have a bolt running down the center of the field of view which is bizarre.  Would be interested if others are having success using the red light.

 

Mark

[StevieDvd]

On other mounts the polarscope is only opened when the dec axis is rotated to align the hole for light to pass through - have you done that?

Take the polarscope cap off the top and look through the hole and you 'should' see the hole appear when you rotate the dec axis. That may explain the impaired field of view - especially if you were not aware the above was needed.

[doublevodka]

2 hours ago, Markj57 said:

Thanks Stevie!  I did notice those blinking cursors and didn't understand the meaning. Weird.  

Yes I'm in Scottsdale, 33 degrees north.

I'm using my phone which has the time/date/location. My intent is to do precise polar alignment so I can take at least 2 minute subs.  The design of the polar scope seems to have a bolt running down the center of the field of view which is bizarre.  Would be interested if others are having success using the red light.

 

Mark

 

1 hour ago, StevieDvd said:

On other mounts the polarscope is only opened when the dec axis is rotated to align the hole for light to pass through - have you done that?

Take the polarscope cap off the top and look through the hole and you 'should' see the hole appear when you rotate the dec axis. That may explain the impaired field of view - especially if you were not aware the above was needed.

With the bolt thing it could be one of two things, as @StevieDvd said the dec axis needs to be aligned

But I've also come across this with an old eq3-2, it was possible to screw in the counterweight shaft too far so it got in the way, have another look in the daylight, it might be that 🤷‍♂️

Full synscan app manual here if it helps - https://inter-static.skywatcher.com/downloads/synscan_app_manual_en_20201008.pdf

[Markj57]

Stevie,

Guess what? You turn the Dec axis and "voila" a hole appears in the bolt.  No wonder it was all blurry and indistinct.  Thanks again!!

 

Mark

[StevieDvd]

So another check which will hopefully proveyour polarscope is correctly aligned and is best done in the day time with a good distant fixed object.  Basically, you need to point the polarscope so that object is centred in the polarscope view (the centre of the big cross). Now when you rotate the mount the object should stay centred, if it moves around a lot (follows a small circle around the centre) you can adjust the alignment - but we'll leave that for now until it's a known issue.

I checked the synscan app does show what the PA view should be for the time/date/location.  You are expected to have your polarscope clock face with 0 at top and 6 at the bottom. The app shows where polaris should be for you based on the settings - so, for example, could be at the 9 o'clock position. I think you know how from there onwards.

There is an updated Synscan app Pro 2.0.13 which may be worth trying as it may help with setting the polarscope led brightness.  It looks a little different as they  have coded it for PC/IOS/Android using a cross-platform software (Qt5) and adopts their new green livery.