EQ6R - which way 'round' to mount the OTA ??

[Mr_Cat]

This is probably a stupid question..

So, new to me EQ6r mount - last night was cloudy so no chance to use the goto etc. Tonight was clear so polar aligned. Mounted the OTA with the dovetail knobs on the opposite side to the power socket / hand controller port etc so when I tighten up the knobs I've not near the cables...

It made sense to me...

had fun goto-ing objects then parked the mount. Had a cuppa and a chat to the Mrs then went back out..
Did a three star alignment, more goto then hooked up the PC. Into Stellarium and loaded up the plugin. Hit view object and the telescope ended up no where near the object. Unplugged etc, parked, power off / on re-aligned and back into Stellarium - I zoomed out and spotted that stellarium puts up a reticule where it thinks the telescope is pointing - and it wasn't anywhere near where it was actually pointed.

I've looked at the manual and it is not specific. I've looked at images on line with OTA mounted and while some are set up the same way as I have others are different..

I could just change the OTA, park the mount, re-align and see  if it makes a difference in stellarium but some times It's simpler just to ask

thanks in advance !!

 

[sinbad40]

It doesn't matter which side the knobs are, as long as you don't rotate the head by hand with the clutches locked.  When you are in Stellarium, where does it think the telescope is pointing (if you have it polar aligned)?

[Mr_Cat]

It's definitely polar aligned. I had a lot of fun with that. I hadn't maximally moved the OTA after powering up the mount. It was all either automatically slewed or by using the arrows.

When I looked in stellarium It looked quite a distance out. I couldn't conclusively say it was 180 degrees out as that would have answered my question right there and then.

In the ascom.app I compared the Ra and Dec figures to an object I was pointing at and one figure was right but the other one wasn't.. 

Sorry, I was rushing, I'd been outside all evening leaving my Mrs alone...

Edited February 21 by Mr_Cat
Smelling mistake

[sinbad40]

So i have never had it that far out.  If the time, location and meridian are correct, I would have thought it was down to the head being moved while the clutch was locked.  Have you got the pc going into the handset or the mount?  May be worth disconnecting the handset if direct to the mount.

[Franklin]

Sounds like the mount/scope are working just fine and the problem is with the way Stellarium is controlling the setup.

[Mr_Cat]

Good suggestions and things to look at.

I figure I can "try this inside" - so take the scope of the mount, power the mount up, use the handset to slew to say orion and see what the EqMod data says - then unplug the handset, use eqmod to point it to somewhere else and then see what stellarium says.

I'm generally not going to be using Stellarium  but when people come round for a look then I probably will give them the app and let them pick things themselves to look at..

And computer things not working right annoy me !!

[M40]

Unless I am missing something, your site info is wrong for the Isle of Man. 

[Budgie1]

2 hours ago, M40 said:

Unless I am missing something, your site info is wrong for the Isle of Man. 

Not missing a thing, the centre of the Isle of Man is around 54° 12.0N 004° 32.0W.

I also notice the Park Position is set to a Defined Position and not the Home Position (telescope up, counter weights down). 

[Mr_Cat]

2 hours ago, M40 said:

Unless I am missing something, your site info is wrong for the Isle of Man. 

 

8 minutes ago, Budgie1 said:

Not missing a thing, the centre of the Isle of Man is around 54° 12.0N 004° 32.0W.

I also notice the Park Position is set to a Defined Position and not the Home Position (telescope up, counter weights down). 

Apologies guys - that isn't my screen shot  - that was just to illustrate the EQmod app and the coords it might show  - I think stelarium will just take these coords from the driver  and use them to display where it thinks the OTA is pointing. 

Apologies - it made sense in my head - but obvs not in what I posted !

To be honest I can't remember what the point of adding the image was.. Since then I have found out that since I parked the scope before powering it off it will remember the home position so I can do what I thought with out having to re-align it so I can compare the detail I'll get in the app with what is in Stellarium.

[Richard_]

I'm not sure how far out you are, but you could double check the coordinate system is the same between EQMOD and Stellarium as that may have a small impact. You can choose options such as J2000 or JNow, but they have to match between EQMOD and Stellarium.

Daft question, are both software indicating that you are in the Northern hemisphere?

[Mr_Cat]

54 minutes ago, Richard_ said:

Daft question, are both software indicating that you are in the Northern hemisphere?

Given how daft my question was to start of with I wouldn't worry about any resultant question!

I will check the eqmod ascom screen later - stellarium uses GPS data so that's a yes.

So my work path for later is...

1. Reset the OTA mount to the same "direction" as last night
2. Power it on. Enter date / time and select start from Park.
3. Examine  / snapshot current data in EQmod 
4. Examine / snapshot current data in Stellarium - if this is not the same check the settings in the plugin as per Richards suggestion
5. Slew mount to Sirius - repeat steps 3/4
6. Slew mount to Alioth - repeat steps 3/4
7. Slew mount to Caph - repeat steps 3/4
(these are the 3 stars it used in the 3-star alignment yesterday)

If there are any differences in the data reported then park mount, power off, rotate OTA mount / restart and re-star align (just accepting it was dead on the stars) and repeat the steps 3/7

 

[Veej]

my experience of this happening with my EQ6R-Pro is that it is usually down to incorrect values in the system.

I have seen incorrect values resulting from gps data when using a mobile - its probably worth double checking what other sites says these values should be and comparing them.

[Veej]

just as an example - on the left are my correct details i manually enter ( they work fine for me ) - on the right are the coordinates stellarium generates when i use the "get location from gps or system service" option.



 

[Mr_Cat]

8 minutes ago, Veej said:

Just as an example - on the left are my correct details i manually enter ( they work fine for me ) - on the right are the coordinates stellarium generates when i use the "get location from gps or system service" option.

Wow!
I will take a look at that for sure..

[Tomatobro]

I would power up the mount, then using the handset move the mount in RA and Dec to some position and then hit the park. When its finished parking the counterweight bar should be pointing down and the scope be pointing up.

Correct any misalignment by undoing the clutches and positioning the Dec and Ra. axis manually.

If the mount gets powered off while unparked it will start from its last position.

If you want to be super accurate on the axis positioning you can use a spirit level on the counterweight bar, undo the clutch and rotate the mount till the level on the bar shows its level then use the setting circle to turn it back 90 degrees. Do the same with the scope.

You now  have an accurate starting point (parked) for the mount.

search " How To Set The Equatorial Home Position "on Youtube for more info

 

Edited February 21 by Tomatobro
more info

[Mr_Cat]

So - it was fairly fruitless - followed my work plan but none of the data in eqmod matched up with the position data on the handset. even to start of with 
 

Realigned mount and no better..
Restarted laptop, no better

Then  I spotted that there was a more recent firmware version for the handset out..
Powered off mount, USB lead into Handset,  power on, updated firmware etc etc.

Now the data in eq mod matches the handset and stellarium is on target..

Sorted !!

[Mr_Cat]

and to answer my original question - No, it does not make any difference which way round the OTA is 

[Richard_]

Nice one, glad it's sorted!

Thinking about the handset, I remember having a similar problem a while back which was quickly sorted.

When you power the controller up, it will ask for the date in US format (MM/DD/YYYY) instead of rest of the world format (DD/MM//YYYY). I forgot about this at the time (as I mostly do astrophotography and do not use the controller) so when I told the mount 03-09-2023 (ie 03-Sep-2023), it would think I meant 09-Mar-2023. So you can imagine that things were off quite a bit!