New Synscan 3.28 firmware polar re-align feature

[Shiggy]

Hi there, has anyone been able to get the new synscan beta firmware polar re-align feature to work in the southern hemisphere?
I have seen reports of the feature working in the north. A bit like the celestron all star feature, after alignment (2 or 3 star) it lets you realign your alt/azi bolts after slewing to a star and centering first with handset, then another slew with the error so that you can correct it with the bolts to centre it.
When I try it my scope pivots around and points to the ground, backwards from the target. A friend has also tested the firmware on his synscan and had the same result so we wondered if it was something to do with our hemisphere.
Any ideas?

Cheers
Shaun

[GeoffW1]

Hi,

As reported elsewhere, I have been getting the same thing consistently. I have tried several different stars from the presented list, always with the same result. Given the good reports from the Northern Hemisphere, it's got to be our location I reckon.

I have not yet tried any workarounds, like putting in a wrong latitude.

I have emailed Skywatcher, but so far with no response.

Cheers

[ReaPerMan]

The Skywatcher site now has the following:

>> EQ SYSCAN FIRMWARE V3.28 BETA 21 (http://www.skywatcher.com/swtinc/customer_support.php?id=124&class1=1&class2=101) ( size:385KB )
Notes: Bug fixed in previous beta version (SynScan EQ Ver.03.28 beta 20) that there were an error in polar misalignment calculation for the southern hemisphere.

Don't know if it works yet may give it a try when I can.

:P

[GeoffW1]

Hi,

Good news to see that, I will give it a try too.

Cheers

[technofetishism]

tested this out tonight, seems to work pretty well considering how far off polar i was when i started the process.

[KG8]

This sounds good! I'll download it too. Will make me a little lazier though :)

[bmitchell82]

So its not too bad now :) when it does the polar alignment does it give you a read out of the approximate accuracy? Also when it does the alignment does it align both axis at the same time eg.

slews Alt and Az then you use both at the same time to come back onto the object.? This is the main annoyance i have with alignmaster, is when it does the adjustments its one axis at a time not both.

:D be good to see the and paddle updated!

BM

[technofetishism]

does both axis's at the same time BM. And there is a readout telling you the error before it asks about making you move the knobs.

[bmitchell82]

not bad. :)

might just upgrade it for fail safe functionality! :)

[GeoffW1]

Hi,

Despite several previous attempts (which ended with cloud, power failures, and general slacking on my part) last week was the first time I have been able to have a really good go with this Beta feature. Instead of observing, I spend the whole night playing around with it, trying to provoke a bug somewhere, using various stars and 2-star and 3-star alignment first up.

First I leveled the mount, and aligned it roughly with a compass, and set the altitude with a bubble level. I have read that not all of this is really necessary, but that is an experiment for next week.

As advertised V2 of this Beta works in our hemisphere, and it did quite well. It performed best if I did a 3-star alignment initially, but often that can fail first time, so I settled on a 2-star alignment, followed by homing, and then a 3-star alignment.

Then on selecting Polar Alignment, and a star from the restricted list it gives, the mount slewed to this position. It was quite a way off. The misalignment in Alt and Az is reported at this time. Following the published procedure, the star was centred in the EP using the hand controller, and ENTER pressed. The mount then slewed a bit again, and reported Alt and Az misalignment. The star is now centred again, using not the hand control, but the mount mechanical adjustment screws in Alt and Az.

On repeating this Polar Alignment procedure using the same star, I noticed the reported misalignment got smaller. On the third iteration, it was reduced again. Next time it was reduced to the same order as lost motion in the mount gears due to backlash.

Further positioning around the sky was quite accurate, the equal of the best manual polar alignment I have managed to do (I have not tried drift aligning tho).

The only thing I noticed was that twice in all this jiggery-pokery the mount did not stop slewing when I released the hand control button. I have noticed that happening previously when the backlash setting was too large, but this time it was not so caused. When I tried to reproduce this "bug" deliberately, I could not. It seemed that selecting a different slew rate would correct the condition so it disappeared for a while. More experimenting ahead.

Cheers

[Astro_Bot]

Thanks for that report. Very interesting.

It's damned difficult to see Octans in the polar scope from my place (as I assume it is for most people) so an optimised polar alignment procedure is eagerly awaited.

[ZeroID]

Sounds like it might be time for another firmware upgrade. I think I'm pretty close with my setup now but anything that improves it has to be good ..

[silv]

why hasn't anyone thought of mounting a static Polaris satellite up there, somewhere, visible for everybody?
couldn't we do a fund raiser? or a DIY project?
surely, with duct tape and some timber we could throw something together that would do it?

[Poita]

I have thought about that more often than I would like to admit.

It would be a boon to all Southern astronomers. :D

[Poita]

I do this first now, and then run alignmaster to do the final tweak.

It works really well.

I thought I had the slew problem mentioned, but it turned out to be a stuck key on my hand controller :rolleyes:

[ZeroID]

Chuck a BBQ up there with it and a shuttle docking port and we'd be sweet man !! :thumbsup:

:rofl: :lol: :P

[Poita]

It would be warmer up there than it was in Mudgee last night :P