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EQ6/pro resume from park?

Ben Ritchie

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Ben Ritchie

Ben Ritchie

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How is resume from park supposed to work with the EQ6/pro?

A couple of nights ago I did a 3-star align, and had very good goto for the rest of the night. I then parked the mount, and last night I powered up, got the 'resume from park'? message, and selected yes. After that it's the usual date/time/place input, but then it gets to the normal begin alignment y/n message.

What's the right answer here? Last night I said yes and did a 1-star align, but I think that's wrong - it slewed to near Mirfak, my alignment star, but goto wasn't very good after that. 3-star align removes the point of parking as i'd do that on a normal restart, so should I have said no to begin alignment and started tracking manually?

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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I can't really answer your question but I do use Park on one of my mounts. (On the other I can't because of the position I need to use to clear the observatory.)

I use it simply because when I restart on another night the initial alignment slew is far more accurate and it saves me a couple of minutes. The alignment star is usually on the camera chip straight off. After that I think there is no difference. 3 star is better than 1 star. In fact I use 3 star just via the finder unless I will be after some very tricky imaging target invisible in short exposures. In that case I centre the alignment stars on the chip.

Olly

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Ben Ritchie

Ben Ritchie

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In the other mounts i've owned you just resume from park and goto your target, all the information is saved. Now I guess the 'update time' step is necessary as the EQ6/pro doesn't have an internal clock (?) but my naive assumption was that that's all that would be required.

I know what you mean about the initial alignment being better from park, but my SkySurfer makes the cold startup pretty easy so that in itself is not a huge timesaver (I start roughly right, let it slew, release the clutches and centre the alignment star by moving the OTA, tighten the clutches and do fine corrections with the handset).

Was really hoping to avoid the 3-star align, which with an observatory mount is 90% of the time taken to get up and going.

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robbieince

robbieince

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On my EQ6 I resume from park and all I need to do is enter the correct date and time. No need for subsequent alignment. Go to is fine. However I prefer the same functionality in eqmod where you can resync locally to my hearts content.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Ben Ritchie

Ben Ritchie

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Finally had two sessions without messing with the mount in between, so can confirm this. I resumed from park, entered the new time, said 'no' to alignment, started sidereal tracking manually and hit GOTO Albireo.

The mount woke up, meridian-flipped, and put Albireo almost dead centre of a 5mm eyepiece (208x). Fantastic.

As a bonus, I have to manually park with the OTA pointing due east to fit the roll-off roof back on, and after doing this once manually, "park -> custom position" remembers it.

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Ben Ritchie

Ben Ritchie

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I'm really impressed by my (plain vanilla non-EQMOD) EQ6 at the moment, the GOTO is 95% of what my old G11/Gemini managed with a 10-star align, and Gemini incorporates a very detailed model that compensates for flexure, non-orthogonality and all sorts.

Only slightly frustrating thing is that i'm not quite sure why it's suddenly so good, as it's been 'ok' up until now - at high powers i'd often have to swap out for a lower-power eyepiece to find my target just outside the FOV. So i'm not going to touch it while it's performing like this :D

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  • 1 month later...
joselin

joselin

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Hi

I tried this last night (previously parked the scope while on Polaris a week back), started from park and no to alignment. Slewed of to Jupiter.... hmmm out of the fov could just see a bright glow to the side so i centred it in the eyepiece and slewed off to Capella again out of the FOV and re-centred.

I then performed a 3 star alignment, later on i re-parked on Polaris.

Now anybody got any ideas as to why it didn’t work?

I’m setup on a permanent pier and polar aligned (i think ).

Is it the polar alignment?

How important to the second is the time input?

Could it be that my location coordinates are incorrect?

It be might another week or 2 before i get to try again so it would be nice to be armed with some things i could try.

Thanks

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Breakintheclouds

Breakintheclouds

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Well blow me, that's great news! I had no idea that was the case. With two to do each night that's going to save me a shedload of time. Many thanks to you gents.

Olly

Ditto from me. Last time I used the scope my GOTO was working as sweet as a nut, so the news that it'll all still be there next time is fantastic.

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NickH

NickH

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What's a handbox? :-)

considering an open pandora rig for EQMOD now... uber compact, about the same size as the HBX, and the control interface is just perfect. Pocket hub velcroed to the back of the lid..mmmm

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Ben Ritchie

Ben Ritchie

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Now anybody got any ideas as to why it didn’t work?

No, but it happens to me too with 3.25

I’m setup on a permanent pier and polar aligned (i think ).

Me too.

How important to the second is the time input? Could it be that my location coordinates are incorrect

Don't think it's this, as I have GPS for time/location and still see it. Sometimes wake-from-park is great, other's it's just a bit off. I'm certain the 'scope isn't moved while it's parked, but dunno why the perforamance seems a bit variable

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NickH

NickH

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Something us visual folk use to avoid having a laptop destroy our night vision :)

... or dew destroy a nice laptop :o

Good response :-)

Red gel for Pandora - add to order - tick!

In all seriousness, having something as compact and long running as the handbox but with the featureset of EQMOD = quite enticing

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simon84

simon84

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I did wonder that earlier, do you remember what version of Windows it was running? Hopefully it wasnt the CE edition.

Been in touch with Jacquelyn at Pandora and hopefully once I've placed my order I should get one delivered by November. Its a shame the dollar price isnt a straight conversion using current exchange prices but I dont think a bit of kit this good will be available anywhere else anytime soon.

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joselin

joselin

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Hi

I tried this last night (previously parked the scope while on Polaris a week back), started from park and no to alignment. Slewed of to Jupiter.... hmmm out of the fov could just see a bright glow to the side so i centred it in the eyepiece and slewed off to Capella again out of the FOV and re-centred.

I then performed a 3 star alignment, later on i re-parked on Polaris.

Now anybody got any ideas as to why it didn’t work?

I’m setup on a permanent pier and polar aligned (i think ).

Is it the polar alignment?

How important to the second is the time input?

Could it be that my location coordinates are incorrect?

It be might another week or 2 before i get to try again so it would be nice to be armed with some things i could try.

Thanks

ok so last night the same happened again as above.

this time once i had performed a 3 star alignment i re parked and switched and then powered back up and hey presto still not aligned as accuratley as i left it, this time the star was in the fov of veiw but still some way out.

anybody have this problem and managed to find a solution ?

:(

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