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Skywatcher Synguider - A review in parts...

Psychobilly

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philming

philming

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Funny thing. I have the feeling the problem you had with the EQ3 is related to the worm gear setting. As if it was too close to the gear and causes backlash. I know I have to set it up every time I change the weight on the mount (A CG5-GT). I guess the EQ3 is built the same way. Check out the different sites on how to tweak the CG5, I think you'll see what I mean.

i.e. when I have it wrongly set, if I go to rate 9 on the hand control and move an axis, the mount wont stop when I release the button. It keeps going for a while. If I loosen the pressure of the endless screw on the gear a little, it goes back to normal. Just have to find the proper pressure amount using the 3 screws underneath the mount, near the worm gear box.

I can pretty much understand this way why the mount "jumps".

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  • 2 weeks later...
philming

philming

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Hi again. I got my synguider and wondered about something. Should the polar alignment, and maybe goto alignment be done properly when using the Synguider? I've given it a shot through the window of my appartment, with no alignment whatsoever, just pressing OK to everything on my CG5-GT HC and choosing last alignment, and It lost the star quiet rapidly using the normal procedure (focus, lock autoguide). Not sure why it happened (MIGHT be clouds related but I cant be absolutely positive...

I hadn't changed the agressiveness or noise level either...

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AndyUK

AndyUK

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Hi there - I'm not sure what others do, but even though I might be intending to guide, I still polar align as accurately as I can (using the polar scope and polarfinder.exe) and then conduct a 3 star align before starting up the Synguider.

(I suspect that people some may even drift align in order to get the polar alignment spot on too...)

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kila

kila

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Hi Peter,

Last night I fourght Synguider on my EQ3 for more than 4 hours without succes. I found the thread that you started, and immediately recocgnized (please forgive my misspellings!) the symtoms you described - my setup does exactly the same!

What is status?

The new release of software for the synscan computer, version 3.27 does not mention this issue. Is it beeing ignored?

Regards

Kim

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Uranium235

Uranium235

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Having watched an Atari ST die on me many times live with a major pop group who decided to sequence their entire set rather than put it on ADAT tapes

Anyone dragging an ST onstage with Cubase is asking for big trouble :) 3 bomb crash...lol. Ahhhh, the old days!

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Starblazer

Starblazer

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EQ3 issue is about to be resolved, it's not a HBX issue..

And as for the Atari ST... it was worse...we were running Creator

Haha, Creator >..< that's a blast from the past, in more ways than one.

Thankfully things have moved on since then and the likes of Sonar/Reason/Reaper/Ableton have moved things on a bit.

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Psychobilly

Psychobilly

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In testing...as it's only affected a small no of people and appears in the DEC axis as we both saw, wen sending multiple guide updates... gotta love skywatcher for really digging in to this one

Yep hats off to them... and You Nick for persevering with them to recognise the issue...

Once its fixed then the EQ3-Pro will become even more useful than it has been up until now...

Billy...

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  • 3 weeks later...
philming

philming

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Hey my 2 cents...

I did some tests yesterday eve, in the worst possible conditions.

The setup is a CG5-GT with double dovetail bar, with on one side a SW 80/400 achro with guiderings and the SG, and an Equinox 80ED, mounted with a binoviewer and 2 18mm EP on the other side. Not that it matters, just to indicate the mount was loaded.

It does what it says, the only problem i found was getting the star on the LCD after switching from the EP to the SG, i'll get back on this further on.*

The test was made from a closed window, without any alignment whatsoever. Just oriented the system roughly north, that's it. I had a parafocalised EP i had set a while back. Used this to get the star in focus and centered, replace the EP with the SG and... nothing.*

I get back to the EP, align as best I can the finder scope with the EP, switch back to the SG and bingo there comes my star.

I center the star on the LCD**, and it isnt easy because of the lack of proper scope alignment and such.

I switch between the different zoom levels to get the star as pin point as possible***

Back to the main menu, i choose "lock" it says something like "locking star" and finaly "locked".

I then experimented with the camera speed to get the BRI setting as close to a stable 10 as possible. This led me to 1/16th or 1/32 s. I didnt play with the noise setting.

Now off to the guiding menu, i choose "Auto-cal". After a few minutes "Calibrating" becomes "Guiding".

I read here one was supposed to lower the RA and DEC aggressivity to avoid losing the star. I did so and brought the values at about half of what they were initially.(500 / 700 is I remember well, after change).This is done easily with the down and left arrows of the command. You should do that very progressively else you'll lose the star. Dont really know why.

I left the gizmo running for 15 or 20 mn, and the star was still there, followed by the SG.

*The culprit for this is my basic SW diagonal. The locking screws touch the SG's body so it ends up slightly off axis. Enough for the star to be off frame once the SG is in position.

I will need a new diagonal that allows an easy switch between the EP and the SG. Any suggestion would be welcome ;-) Maybe a flip mirror ?

** It seems like the proper centering of the star on the LCD isn't such a big deal after all. When the star gets locked, the SG centers the star all by itself anyway.

*** Even if the focus isn't very sharp, the SG will still work very well. I have to do some real test with an imager to see. But it seems to be woprking just as well with a slightly blurry, blobby star...

So as a conclusion i would just say it DOES work, should anybody have any hesitation about that toy.

Cant wait to have the skies clear up and do some real life testings ;-)

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