Another sync scan set up problem

[mr saddo]

Hi every one, i had my sky watcher 130p newt out last night, and what a night mare, could not get alignment, levelled the scope pointing north, two star set up, cappella has first star, second dont know has clouds came in north west? , having trouble with time zone set, if i leave it at +00.00 the LST time is 5hours in front of my time, so I -5 hour the time zone to bring time same has my time ,and daylight saving to no, date right, location right. i reckon the handset is on American time probably where there made (celestron)?. I have had scope out today and levelled it and marked the bottom of the legs where it will stand , orientated north where it will go to night, any ideas on the LST time thing? and aligning tips.I am very disappointed has it has took me weeks to choose a scope, i went for this type has i was struggling to find stuff in sky, plough, ccassiopia. jupiter, cappella, pliedies and thats about it! spent a few nights with my 17x70 bins laid out side. thought i would take the plunge and get a scope! yours paul

[Breakintheclouds]

Hi Paul,

The local sidereal time has very little to do with the time you'll see on your watch - don't expect them to match up. Sidereal time is just a way of measuring which part of the sky is overhead at any given point.

When setting up the SynScan, you just set the time as you'd expect, which it sounds as though you are doing. So what actually went wrong? Was the only problem that the LST wasn't what you expected, or was the GOTO completely out of whack too? If you let us know, we can probably find a solution.

[Capricorn]

The time zone is 00:00

The LST I have no idea about, cannot recall seeing it appear. The unit should ask your "local" time (watch), date and DST (which as you say is off)

Do you mean that the time displayed is 5 hours different to your watch?

If so don't worry, they come up with a default time, mine it is always 20:00, I have to simply tell the thing the real time.

Little confused about the alignment you described: You say the first star was Capella, then you say you don't know what the second star was as the clouds came in.

If the second was covered by cloud how did you centre it to complete the alignment.?

You do not mention entering you location as Lat/Long, nor Date. If you have not supplied a Lat/Long I guess that the default is somewhere on mainland USA, and so 5 hours time difference.

Need to know exactly what you did, sorry if it sounds stupid but there will be one small item that is missing or incorrect. It is just that alignment is not scope on ground, scope levelled, scope pointing north and then centre one star. The thing is that is all that the original post says you did. Presume that you did a fair bit more so you need to state it all.

[Capricorn]

Just read the set up procedure and one small point about the time jumped out at me, it says:

Enter the time in 24 hour format, press Enter to see the value entered, if correct press Enter again.

Seems that someone could easily enter the time, press Enter to either see the time or get the system to accept the value then not press it a second time. Not sure what occurs if the second press is not entered.

[mr saddo]

hi, if you go to information and time on hand set LST is on top line your own time is underneath, they dont match up untill i -5hrs them. i pursume LST is local standard time.

[mr saddo]

hi, had a go tonight again for alignment, levelled the scope with built in bubble on mount pointed north, put the right long and lat in right order! time date, 2 star align choose vega then arturus but the scope slewed below horizon and stopped it was nearly pointing to floor, i checked arturus on pc stellerium it was very low at 6pm, any way i pressed enter and alignment successful! oh joy! i selected planet jupiter and it slewed in to north east, jupiter was well in to west by now and quite high. i went back to vega and the scope went vertical i had to press escape to stop it hitting the mount! and damaging the tube, i gave up by now and went in. yours paul.

[mr saddo]

hi yeah i put my long lat in right order, and time right, sorry forgot about the second star what i choose i think it was vega, but it clouded over.

[Breakintheclouds]

i pursume LST is local standard time

No - LST stands for Local Sidereal Time, and it tells you whereabouts the stars are.

It works something like this: the sky is divided into 15-degree segments. If you stood staring straight ahead into the sky, you'd see one of these segments go past each hour until, after about 24 hours, you'd be looking once again at the bit of sky you started with. Because of the way the sky rotates like this, its rotation is measured in hours. (15 x 24 = 360)

A fairly random line, running through the constellation of Pegasus, has been chosen as the zero hour line. So when your local sidereal time is zero hours, Pegasus will be due south. An hour later, the 1-hour line will be due south, and so on.

So what I'm saying is that local sidereal time (LST) has almost nothing to do with the time of day - right now you're finding that the two are about 5 hours apart, but each day they'll shift by about 4 minutes relative to each other.

In summary:

'Real' time tells you the time of day

Sidereal time (LST) tells you which bit of the sky is overhead right now.

I'm not sure how clear I've made that!

[Arushin]

Hi,

I know this is going to sound obvious but are you sure that you have the correct firmware for your mount? Just after I bought my Mak 127 second hand I decided to update the firmware from Skywatchers website. I downloaded and installed the right version number but the wrong type (I presume the EQ instead of AltAz) and my Goto did all sorts of bonkers things like inverting the Alt and hitting the mount etc.

It's just a thought, but it may be where your problem lies.

I am not the only one to have made this mistake by all accounts, but I did manage to overwrite the error with the correct firmware and it sorted the problem. Mine is now not perfect, but reasonably close.

Hope you get it sorted soon!

Tony

[MikeP]

My EQ6 mount uses SynScan but since I'm not familiar with your mount / scope (I assume it is one of these - Reflectors - Skywatcher Explorer 130P SynScan AZ GOTO) it may work quite differently.

It took me several nights to get mine working. The problem was to do with an error in where the mount "thought" it was pointing when it started. What cured it for me was to switch the mount on, slew to anything, park and switch off. If necessary, manually align the scope again. Switch on and do your alignment again - hopefully all will be well.

Always park at the end of a session so the mount knows it is pointing at Polaris and hence when you set it up that way and start again it should be OK.

My apologies if this is utter drivel since it is based on my experience with SynScan on an equatorial rather than an Alt/Az mount.

Mike

PS Since the weather is so bad, you can try this indoors to see if it makes any difference

[mr saddo]

hi, oh right, iam glad someone has explained the LST thing, bit new to this sort of thing. thanks yours paul.

[mr saddo]

HI there, the version is 3.8 checked on skywatcher site its current one.yours paul

[mr saddo]

HI yeah i park the scope, but sometimes it parks in wrong position when i have been slewing it about. yours paul.

[mr saddo]

In summary:

'Real' time tells you the time of day

Sidereal time (LST) tells you which bit of the sky is overhead right now.

I'm not sure how clear I've made that!

Dear breakintheclouds AH i understand now, i was thinking it was local standard time what a bell end i am, thanks for that, no wonder the mount was having a fit, i have now put in the normal time and left LST well alone, try again tonight if weather is clear!! yours paul

[dmahon]

This is what I do:

Set the mount up pointing north and at Polaris. Take the telescope off the mount. Switch on the mount, enter whatever data you like, move the mount somewhere then PARK the scope and switch the mount off. Put the telescope back on and manually move it by disenagaging the clutches so that it is pointing at Polaris again.

Switch the mount back on. Enter the correct time, timezone (which is +0 if you are in the UK), daylight savings, lat and long. Do a 3-star alignment with stars that are visible using a low power eyepiece to begin with, moving to a higher power one to properly centre it. It shouldn't be far off at all if you managed to get the mount pointing at Polaris. Repeat on the next 2 stars - if sucessful, tell the mount to go to Jupiter and you'll soon find out if it has worked!

At the end of the session, PARK the mount before switching off. Then you won't have to bother doing the first paragraph next time around. It won't remember the current time and date (it remembers what you entered last time, not what time it is now - which is fine for lat/long/timezone and usually for daylight savings, but obviously not for time/date), you have to enter it each time.

[David010167]

don't forget that the date is in US format month day year. The 8 Nov 2010 would be 11/08/2010

This caught me out the first time I used mine

[mr saddo]

hi there, had another go last night, got alignment, but when i sent it to jupiter it said it was below horizon! but it was clearly high south, stupid thing, aligned again, vega first then slewed to arturus but to wrong part of sky!! really frustrated with this now.When you park the scope does it always park to polaris?. yours paul.

[dmahon]

It should - but the mount doesn't have encoders within it to tell it where it is actually pointing. That's why I say park it, turn it off, undo the clutches and manually move it round so that the scope is pointing North and the weights are pointing down. When you turn it on and resume from Park, it should now be very close on the first (and subsequent) alignment stars.

Unless you set a custom park position.

[mr saddo]

Still no joy tonight, being on phone today to Rother vally optics today where i bought it from, they reckon the LST has nothing to do with the side rail time has suggested by some one, but is local standard time, if you go on the hand set to view information and time it gives you LST top line and your own time bottom line. when i set the time to + 0000 the scope says theres no objects in the north on bright star alignment. but when you match the LST time +8hrs 16min the stars are shown, still wont slew to jupiter below horizon, rother vally optics reckon it does not matter where you place the scope, it shoud still find and align. I AM REALLY FRUSTRATED AND FROZE MY *** OF WITH THIS SYNC SCAN TONIGHT, i ended up putting it away and getting my 17x 70 bins out for some star time.Only thing i can think of it was made in china has it said on the box and it is set on there time?