Dark Frame Optics - HEQ5 StellarDrive

[JonHigh]

I had an issue with my HEQ5 and it was recommended from an old astronomy company I dealt with 25 odd years ago that I should speak to Dave at Dark Frame Optics. Following a good chat I handed Dave a very stiff HEQ5 Pro (Rowan Belt fitted) that also had an awful Dec bearing issue as well. It was almost impossible to balance anything on it properly. I left Dave to it and three weeks later, I received what I would consider to be a brand new mount worth a lot more than I paid for it. This is what it should have been like when I bought it originally and never performed as good as this! I am now getting 0.21 - 0.45! REALLY, on an HEQ5 in June!!!  

Dave and Sharon were absolutely lovely to deal with. After reading comments and posts on Dark Frame optics, I was more than happy with their customer service. Dave is extremely knowledgeable and the aftercare has been second to none!  After speaking to Dave, he helped me tweak my mount and setup ever so slightly and WOW! The mount and PHD2  is the last thing I look at or think about, I can now just get on with imaging in my Bortle 6 skies!!! Just can't wait for Autumn and Winter! Mounts are mechanical things and sometimes needs a bit of TLC from their owners with sound advice from someone who really knows what he is talking about and not some guy on YouTube! How ever much we all love this hobby, it is a hobby after all albeit a very expensive one! 

KEEP CALM AND LET DAVE HANDLE IT!

Clear skies!

 

Edited June 10 by JonHigh

[Starflyer]

The settings you're using have PHD2 displaying the guiding error in pixels, this is fairly meaningless when comparing guide performance.

You'll need to populate your focal length (guide scope) and pixel size (guide camera) in the settings if you haven't already, and change the graph view to y: +/- 4"

 

Edited June 13 by Starflyer

[JonHigh]

Hi. Next time I get out I will have a look at that, thank you. I’m not even sure if I have changed that setting?

However, It’s the numbers I’m interested in and being consistent.  I just took a screen shot of the best RMS that evening as I have NEVER seen it so low! Also here is one from a log over the Image acquisition time I sent over to Dave. Still 0.68 Total on a HEQ5 is exceedingly good for this time of year! The guide camera FL and pixel size are both correct when I originally set it up. I'm  not sure why someone would not enter that as PHD2 needs that information or enter that incorrectly? I want it to guide properly and it can’t do that if data is incorrect. Surely PHD 2 needs to know what the user has connected to it, unless I am misunderstanding you? 

Edited June 15 by JonHigh

[FenderGreg]

If the stars are round then who cares 😄

 

Some great looking pics and some great looking performance!

[JonHigh]

Thank you.  It’s the image you get in the end is all that counts. I’ve seen bad graphs in the past and still achieved good looking photos so I don’t get overly concerned. That said, now my guiding is spot on it has most definitely translated into much better quality images and star shapes. 

Edited June 25 by JonHigh

[knobby]

Glad it worked out for you, there are very mixed opinions on Dave, for me it turned out ok too, pretty slow and iffy communication but weirdly when the mount was returned, the communication improved ! Dave have me his mobile number and helped a few nights with settings 😁

[JonHigh]

I know what it’s like to be a one man band and very busy. It’s a real juggling act. 
That’s why I wrote originally that I gave the mount to Dave and let him get on with doing what he does best. Not saying I didn’t miss not having the mount as when it was clear all you want to do is get out there! It takes time do it it properly, and that I get in a world that expects every thing done yesterday. Dave has been great to deal with from the start and sure he may not have picked up the phone straight away but he always calls back and gives you time, help and grounded advice. 

[W0nderste]

Approx how much to tune?

i also have HEQ5-rowan, and thought about getting it tuned, but wasn't sure if I could afford it right now

[JonHigh]

4 hours ago, W0nderste said:

Approx how much to tune?

i also have HEQ5-rowan, and thought about getting it tuned, but wasn't sure if I could afford it right now

You would need to email Dave re tuning but the StellarDrive Dave performs is top notch. £460 odd. Replaces bearings, uses lubes and dampening grease to your payload and climate conditions. Will also adjust the Rowan belt drive properly as I thought it was good but now runs even smoother. He also does a load of bench tests rather than put any old grease in and stick it back together.
 

Basically if I check all is running okay and notice RMS goes above .4/.5 I think something is wrong but usually put it down to my seeing conditions not being good that night. Please bear in mind I had it done for mid Galaxy season (not the best time of year anyway) so it will only get better in the coming months ahead. It’s performing much better and more consistently than a friend’s EQ6r. IMHO it is well worth saving up and being patient. I did and more than happy with the results. I have a mount performing way better than much more expensive ones. Plus Dave is a great guy for advice as well. 
 

PS. Also had the rail kit done and makes polar alignment much easier. No longer fighting with stiff alt bolts that feel like they are going to give way at any moment!!! Nice one Dave!!! 

Edited June 25 by JonHigh

[JonHigh]

Just an update. I was out the other night and grabbed a screenshot of the best RMS I have ever seen and stayed there for quite some time until the atmosphere got in the way! 0.16 on an HEQ5!

Again. Thanks to Dave, I really have nothing to worry about especially as winter is coming! 

Edited August 13 by JonHigh

[WolfieGlos]

I wasn’t aware of this, but that is some seriously good guiding on a HEQ5! I purchased mine second hand back in January, and have varied between 1.3” down to 0.6” last week, with no changes or maintenance yet.

This seems like something to consider if my frames start to suffer; generally my scrap rate is very low anyway, mostly from wind. Thanks for this.

[JonHigh]

3 hours ago, WolfieGlos said:

I wasn’t aware of this, but that is some seriously good guiding on a HEQ5! I purchased mine second hand back in January, and have varied between 1.3” down to 0.6” last week, with no changes or maintenance yet.

This seems like something to consider if my frames start to suffer; generally my scrap rate is very low anyway, mostly from wind. Thanks for this.

I found Dark Frame by chance. Yes, to be honest it didn’t take me too long to consider sending my mount to Dave as it really wasn’t balancing well at all, not to mention the awful Dec axis. It’s a bit like a car, bad tyres will not stop you in time or give you the confidence in grip around corners. Same goes for the mount, everything relies on it working properly. I did some imaging about month ago as it was clear but gusty. Still got .3/.4! Didn’t seem to mind the odd gust at all. Maybe I got lucky?! I haven’t scraped a single frame since it was done. 
Dave can also fit a Rowan belt mod and the Rail for the mounts Alt bolts ( I didn’t know I needed until it was installed!). Clever bit of kit. Well worth giving him a call at the very least. 

Edited August 14 by JonHigh

[scotty38]

On 13/08/2023 at 08:38, JonHigh said:

Just an update. I was out the other night and grabbed a screenshot of the best RMS I have ever seen and stayed there for quite some time until the atmosphere got in the way! 0.16 on an HEQ5!

Again. Thanks to Dave, I really have nothing to worry about especially as winter is coming! 

Just curious but what does it look like if you change the settings to arc seconds rather than pixels?

[JonHigh]

1 hour ago, scotty38 said:

Just curious but what does it look like if you change the settings to arc seconds rather than pixels?

Hey. Sure, next time out (hopefully tonight 🤞🏻) I’ll change it and do a screen shot of the graph for you, no worries. I usually don’t worry to much with the graph though. In the past the graph has looked awful yet the RA,  Dec and Total RMS figures are still very good. The subs look great with round stars. 

[Stuart1971]

8 minutes ago, JonHigh said:

Hey. Sure, next time out (hopefully tonight 🤞🏻) I’ll change it and do a screen shot of the graph for you, no worries. I usually don’t worry to much with the graph though. In the past the graph has looked awful yet the RA,  Dec and Total RMS figures are still very good. The subs look great with round stars. 

As has been said, RMS will nearly always look good and low when using the pixel scale. It needs and should be arc-seconds to know how the guiding really is performing…pixels will tell you nothing…for instance on a 3.5 micron pixel camera and RMS of 0.5 pixels, if your imaging scale is around 1.5”/pixel, (it may be more) then that gives approx  0.75 RMS in arc-seconds…🤔🤔

[JonHigh]

As said, when I go out next I will change the setting. Hopefully the atmosphere will play ball again. 😂

Also, if you scroll up you will see the log I screenshot on 14 June over almost a 3 hour acquisition time in Arc-Secs. However, I would also be interested to see the difference as well! No worries at all. I’ll post the screenshot as soon as. 👍🏻

Edited August 22 by JonHigh

[Stefan73]

Is it worth looking at the frequency analysis of the mount in phdlogview too?  Presumably the smoother the mount the more the lumps and bumps in that smooth out?  I've got massive bumps around 486s and 120s with my EQ6R but I've no idea if they're comparatively good or bad.

[JonHigh]

I used to be a pro photographer and what counts are the end results no matter how you arrived there. That’s what really matters. I have got some absolutely lovely images and still so much to learn from this awesome hobby!!! I just want to get on with imagining and not have to overthink if my guiding is a hair’s width off due the crappy atmosphere otherwise that would dominate and ruin my joy in imaging. Does it work? Yes, yes it does! 😉
All I can say is that my mount was awful (about 2.5-3.5 total RMS) and I didn’t fancy doing the job myself. I paid for a service and got back a mount that does the job which it couldn’t do before it went to Dark Frame. Even if the guiding with great seeing was running .9 I would be happier than what it was.

Edited August 22 by JonHigh

[JonHigh]

On 13/08/2023 at 08:38, JonHigh said:

Just an update. I was out the other night and grabbed a screenshot of the best RMS I have ever seen and stayed there for quite some time until the atmosphere got in the way! 0.16 on an HEQ5!

Again. Thanks to Dave, I really have nothing to worry about especially as winter is coming! 

Quite right to update this. The Total RMS for the screenshot was not .16 but .44” 

Not looking or just wishful thinking I guess!!! 😂. In the meantime I’ll change the setting for those interested and will post when I’m out next. Thanks for noticing! 

Edited August 22 by JonHigh

[JonHigh]

13 hours ago, scotty38 said:

Just curious but what does it look like if you change the settings to arc seconds rather than pixels?

It does look different. The seeing is not the best over head but please see the screenshots just taken!  One with Pixels and the other in Arc-Secs

Edited August 22 by JonHigh
Deleted post and updated

[wimvb]

18 hours ago, JonHigh said:

It does look different. The seeing is not the best over head but please see the screenshots just taken!  One with Pixels and the other in Arc-Secs

You don’t show corrections in your graph. With an rms of 0.13/0.1 and MinMo of 0.26/0.4, there shouldn’t be many corrections. In essence, phd is just watching the tracking of your mount, without correcting. That is of course a good thing. Btw, round stars are not a sign of good tracking, merely a sign of random errors.

On 22/08/2023 at 14:11, Stefan73 said:

Is it worth looking at the frequency analysis of the mount in phdlogview too?  Presumably the smoother the mount the more the lumps and bumps in that smooth out?  I've got massive bumps around 486s and 120s with my EQ6R but I've no idea if they're comparatively good or bad.

The peaks show possible sources of poor tracking. The wide peak near 500 secs is the periodic error of the worm gear. The peak near 120 s is one revolution of the stepper motor timing wheel. Periods shorter than the exposure time cannot be resolved. Long period errors can be guided out, short period errors not. With belt driven mounts like the eq6-r, it pays to use 1 s guide exposures if you want to finetune it. There can be a 10 s peak which corresponds to the motor timing wheel advancing 1 ”cog”. This peak is related to belt tension. For normal guiding, use longer exposure times, of course.

Edited August 23 by wimvb

[Stefan73]

6 minutes ago, wimvb said:

The peaks show possible sources of poor tracking. The wide peak near 500 secs is the periodic error of the worm gear. The peak near 120 s is one revolution of the stepper motor timing wheel. Periods shorter than the exposure time cannot be resolved. Long period errors can be guided out, short period errors not.

Thanks.  I'd guessed it was something like that.  Presumably reducing these peaks would be a result of tuning the mount (for RA anyway)?

If so it would be really interesting to see how a well tuned mount looked.    Or maybe I'm completely barking up the wrong tree!

[Stuart1971]

19 hours ago, JonHigh said:

It does look different. The seeing is not the best over head but please see the screenshots just taken!  One with Pixels and the other in Arc-Secs

That graph looks a lot more realistic in arc seconds, and still good at 0.43, be nice to see the correction though, so tick that box…👍🏻

[JonHigh]

Interesting. Thank you so much for the comments. I’ll look into the display setting in more detail. Especially turning on the corrections box. Would be good to see exactly what it’s doing. Got to read up! Unfortunately it was not good at all last night, I just really wanted to get out but ended up battling with the clouds. So not a good example but wanted to see the graphs. When it’s clear, I’ll run a guide assist, plus re calibrate as I haven’t done that in a while. So much to learn and loving this hobby! Thanks guys! 👍🏻

Edited August 23 by JonHigh

[wimvb]

16 hours ago, JonHigh said:

Interesting. Thank you so much for the comments. I’ll look into the display setting in more detail. Especially turning on the corrections box. Would be good to see exactly what it’s doing. Got to read up! Unfortunately it was not good at all last night, I just really wanted to get out but ended up battling with the clouds. So not a good example but wanted to see the graphs. When it’s clear, I’ll run a guide assist, plus re calibrate as I haven’t done that in a while. So much to learn and loving this hobby! Thanks guys! 👍🏻

You should still have the guide log on your computer. If you load it into phd log viewer, it's an easy task to show all the statistics. But, judging from your published screenshots, there probably aren't that many corrections. As long as the tracking error is smaller than the MinMo settings, phd won't send a pulse. And since your error rms is smaller than the MinMo (I believe MinMo is in pixels), most guide exposures never resulted in a correction.