[OneCosmos (Chris)]

So, I took a punt and my Staraid Revolution arrived. That same evening I went out and did the quickest test just to see how it may work.

I have a Skywatcher EQ35 Pro and a Canon EOS Ra with my Sigma 105mm f/1.4 lens. I am using an SVbony 50mm f/4 guidescope -see pic attached. Actually the Staraid automatically works out the fov and fl snd reported 188mm so a little less than f/4.

NB I read subsequently Staraid don’t recommend a guidescope FL greater than 150mm although it will work with longer.

Because I intended only A quick jaunt outside to test I didn’t bother to:

Update the software on the Staraid
Add the counterweight bar to the mount.

Either one of these factors could have caused the slight issue I faced.

Firstly as soon as you turn the Staraid on it begins trying to find stars snd calibrate and if it successful it starts guiding. You do NOT need to connect to the unit via any method at all to configure anything or start it off -that’s its main selling point.

Initially however you do have to connect to the Staraid wifi access point and access the admin page in a browser because you’ll need to see a capture to find focus. Once done you can lock the guidescope focus in place and never touch it again and possibly never log in again either. There are reasons to do so though such as accessing real-time guiding graphs or performing polar alignment, telescope alignment, software updates etc

I first aligned the mount manually just using a compass and inclinometer as I always do. I then ran the polar alignment routine. The idea is to point the guidescope/telescope/camera lens/mount anywhere and it platesolves to find the exact location. I just left it all pointing to the celestial pole and it thought I was 2 degrees off -not bad for dead reckoning. I then clicked Alt and it shows you where your mount is in relation to the celestial pole which is the bulls eye in a set of concentric circles. You the move the Alt bolts to move the dot representing the mount position. At first no matter how much I turned them the dot didn’t move and I was close to the point of deciding it was hopeless. It didn’t help too that it kept losing lock and said I was moving too fast and to pause. This is despite the fact that I knew I was moving it many degrees in ALT with no impact on the dot whatsoever. I tried a second time with the sand result. On the third attempt I decided to move AZ first instead and that worked a charm. This time Alt also worked (no idea why) and the dot moved to the exact centre bulls eye.

I felt pleased with this and decided to start autoguiding. The damned insolent device simply couldn’t or wouldn’t calibrate. It kept trying giving different errors like ‘no movement’ in one axis of other, even ‘Wrong Movement’ at one stage! It then had the temerity to ask if the mount was tracking (it was). Now it was getting personal, positively rude actually��

At one point it did calibrate and I saw a guiding graphs but it disappeared almost as soon as it started and calibration started again, interminably.

This morning I updated to thd latest version of the software abc fixed the counterweight bar. I’ll try again tonight.