Are you sure the mount head clamp, on the dec axis, is turned around the right way? As packed in the box it is turned backwards and you have to rotate it so that the arrow in the clamp area points towards the south celestrial pole.
Hello Glen,
The dec axis arrow is pointing to the south celestial pole.
I will have another look at it tomorrow and will pay special attention to where the alignment stars are located.
Very cloudy with some rain here tonight.
Thanks for your input.
Cheers,
Continuing my testing of the CGX, I picked the Running Chicken nebula in the early hours of this morning. CGX was setup slightly east heavy, much less so than I would apply to my old NEQ6, and I ran a full calibration routine in Metaguide before starting. I have found that for some reason Metaguide needs full calibration with the CGX, whereas it would be fine with a Quick-Calc with the NEQ6.
This is a test image, consisting of just 10x300S Ha subs, of the Running Chicken Nebula near the SCP. Taken with an ASI1600MM-C camera, through a 115mm TS Photolline APO, running a f5.5 reducer. Guided with Metaguide, and error plot performance was very good, the best achieved so far; there were times it was pretty much flat lining . There is still a slight hint of field curvature on the sides of the image and I need to look at my reducer/corrector spacing.
Obviously I am not really challenging the CGX, as the combined weight of the scope/camera/reducer/ filter wheel, etc is probably less than half the rated capacity of the CGX. However, it is still sitting on a ply floor in my observatory (and I had to discard two subs due to my movement in the obs during the test). I have to remember to start the run from Teamviewer in the house, at least until I get the CGX on the pier.
Obviously I am not really challenging the CGX, as the combined weight of the scope/camera/reducer/ filter wheel, etc is probably less than half the rated capacity of the CGX.
Looks great Glen!
I too haven't fully challenged it yet and am still tweaking and adjusting and looking forward to a properly clear night.
However I can say that my decent guiding results after a single 2-star align + 4 and ASPA still hold true even with my new 11" RASA + other gear. I've got 50 pounds (22 kilos) of counterweight on there now almost all the way across to balance so I'm approaching the high end of the payload capacity and all is well!
I posted this on CN, but thought I would add it here as well. This is probably my best image from the CGX so far: Eta Carinae
Nothing really that challenging - 8x80 seconds at 1000mm. Anything past 3 minutes is really hit and miss at the moment - I did 10 or so images of M42 at 4 minutes and only one is really borderline useable so still a bit of work to do. My fantasies of 15-30 minute guided exposures are a distant far off dream at the moment
Don't bother with longer exposures with the Canon...anything more than 5 minutes can get a bit hairy. Just vary your ISO to get the histogram where you want it within that timescale.
Thanks I guess I need my expectations set what sort of guided performance should I expect to be able to achieve with a mount of this class, assuming that things like wind are not an issue? (At say 1000mm)
I also have a 12 inch Meade SCT that I would like to do some AP with, but want to get an OAG before I really bother.
I had initially expected to be able to use my Astro Devices Nexus-S to wifi connect to the CGX, as it was working great with the NEQ6 Pro. Of course it is naive to expect that there would be a standard for mounts communicating via wifi, and sure enough the Nexus-S cannot support the signal levels of the Celestron mounts, so it's not just a cable change.
The solution was to sell the Nexus-S and get a Celestron Skyportal Wifi dongle (which arrived today). As Celestron claim compatiblity, and Sky Safari confirm that it will work with Sky Safari Pro as well as the Celestron Sky Portal software (a cut down version of Sky Safari by the same folks), i thought that everything would have been sorted out.
On connecting the wifi dongle to the CGX is apparent that the design team did not consider the implications, or had no other choice. As you can see in the photo below the wifi dongle sticks up in the air like a dogs tail, ready to snag any slewing heater cable, or break off if bumped. The RJ end cannot be rotated, nor was there an extension cable provided. As I have noted before I think the Aux ports are turned around the wrong way with the locking tab at the bottom - but it is what it is. So I am off to source an extension cable now so that I can relocate the wifi dongle down to a less exposed position.
I checked the line of site on the clamp base, fearing that long scopes might strike the raised tail of the dongle, but it appears on the dovetail to clear, however, on a refractor with a diagonal and EP which had been rotated for viewing ease, returning to home position this might not be the case, or something like a smaller RC or SCT where gear might be hanging down in that area. Extending it seems prudent for all using it. Live trials of it soon.
On connecting the wifi dongle to the CGX is apparent that the design team did not consider the implications, or had no other choice. As you can see in the photo below the wifi dongle sticks up in the air like a dogs tail, ready to snag any slewing heater cable, or break off if bumped. The RJ end cannot be rotated, nor was there an extension cable provided. As I have noted before I think the Aux ports are turned around the wrong way with the locking tab at the bottom - but it is what it is. So I am off to source an extension cable now so that I can relocate the wifi dongle down to a less exposed position.
I checked the line of site on the clamp base, fearing that long scopes might strike the raised tail of the dongle, but it appears on the dovetail to clear, however, on a refractor with a diagonal and EP which had been rotated for viewing ease, returning to home position this might not be the case, or something like a smaller RC or SCT where gear might be hanging down in that area. Extending it seems prudent for all using it. Live trials of it soon.
Yeah I also have the skyportal, and agree the mounting is not ideal. I added a small USB hub on the top of my CGX (would be nice if they could find room for a USB hub somewhere) and when all the cameras and controllers are connected it's a bit of spaghetti mess luckily the CGX design helps to reduce the chance of cable snags.
Hello Everyone,
Finally back online after a large tree branch took out power and phone lines, took a lot of cleaning up and just under the price of a cgx mount to get power back on.
Still having problems with the mount and I have sent a video to celestron to see if they can determine what the problem is. The dec axis still goes to a limit switch warning when it spins to the west to find a star.
Just out of curiosity, my hand control is version GEM 5.29.6225 does this match everyone else's version?
Regards,
Wayne
My Pier adaptor blocks arrived from TPI Astro (Canada) this morning. Photos are attached. I asked Dave to make these for me as a "budget" adaptor model, he has a full disc adaptor as well. These are cheaper to ship as well. If you have some bar stock aluminium you could probably make them yourself. Tapped for the Celestron mount bolts (M10x1.5) on the ends, they bolt directly to my pier top plate. An accurate template was also provided for drilling the bolt holes in the plate and it matches the drawing I made based on my mount base measurements.
I hope to get this finished once it cools off a bit, at 42C it is just too hot.
Celestron does not know what is wrong with my mount and may have to be sent back to the US.
Not happy, good thing the weather is no good.
The Cloudy Nights thread reports that Celestron engineers found at least one instance of a limit switch connector was not properly seated in the factory. How that got past QA testing is the question. So that is one out of over 300 now delivered. I would suggest that Bintel should, as the local agent who has some tech ability, be abke to remove coverings to check limit switch connector seating. Shipping an entire mount head back to Celestron seems un-necessary. If it was me, and Bintel could not or would not do it, i would ask Celestron to talk me through checking it and give me approval to do so.
If the above cannot happen then i would ask Bintel for a refund and return shipiping at Celestrons expense. Apparently there is a time limit on refund requests, check with Bintel on their policy in this matter. You should be keeping Bintel across everything. As agent they are responsible.
The Cloudy Nights thread reports that Celestron engineers found at least one instance of a limit switch connector was not properly seated in the factory. How that got past QA testing is the question. So that is one out of over 300 now delivered. I would suggest that Bintel should, as the local agent who has some tech ability, be abke to remove coverings to check limit switch connector seating. Shipping an entire mount head back to Celestron seems un-necessary. If it was me, and Bintel could not or would not do it, i would ask Celestron to talk me through checking it and give me approval to do so.
If the above cannot happen then i would ask Bintel for a refund and return shipiping at Celestrons expense. Apparently there is a time limit on refund requests, check with Bintel on their policy in this matter. You should be keeping Bintel across everything. As agent they are responsible.
Hi Glen
Got in touch with Bintel and have been told to ring monday because that is when their tech "Don" gets back from holidays. So I will ring first thing monday.
Wayne
Today I managed to get the CGX onto the pier. Photos attached.
A couple of issues with the Celestron 10mm bolts used to lock the mount to the tripod (or pier adaptor) and the ones used to lock down the AZ rotation to the base. The issue is that some of the bolts (2) were binding in the holes. I noticed this when I was testing on the tripod but let it go until I was putting it on the pier. On examination what I found was that the anodising/or paint on the bolt threads was applied pretty thick and this was causing them to bind. The fix for this was to run each of the bolts through a 10x1.5 die to clean out the threads, I also ran a 10x1.5 tap through the receiving hole to clean out the threads. While retapping these holes I found that the factory had not run the tap all the way through the hole thus the one that was binding was bottoming out as well.
I decided to go ahead and retap all the seven holes and put all the bolts through the die. This fixed all the issues, but left a fair amount of metal dust to clean up. I put some anti-seize paste on the bolts and now everything is nice and smooth and all lock downs are clamping as they are suppose to.
In fairness to Celestron, the factory most likely does not assemble the mount head onto the tripod for testing prior to shipment, but the AZ lock bolts should have been picked up as three were tight enough but the fourth was bound before grabbing. They have some QA issues to address. I suggest all CGX owners check these seven lock bolts (the 3 around the tripod flange), and (the four on the base which lock the AZ rotation). Your looking for freedom of rotation, non-binding in the hole, and enough depth to seat against the base and lock it in place.
Since the middle of last year, Celestron has been touting the Planewave developed CGX control software, which will be available to CGX owners. This carrot has little factual information. The Celestron website is still saying that the Planewave software will be released "BY the 1st of February 2017". With only a few days left in the window to get this software out BY the 1st of Feb, the silence is deathening. If anyone runs across news of this release please post it here. Thanks.
I am having problems getting Sky Safari Pro/Sky Portal wifi working reliably on the CGX.
The wifi connection through AUX2 is failing to connect at times and generally poor. I am connecting a tablet to the Skyportal device (using the Direct connection method) but it drops out when it connects at all.. The nearby laptop ( which runs SGP) and manages the imaging gear, is connected to the house wifi and running a Teamviewer session back to the house PC for remote monitoring. This same setup (two independent wifi sessions) worked perfectly with the NEQ6 and Nexus. Has anyone got Sky Safari Pro working through the Skyportal wifi device attached to a CGX? If so how did you set it up?
Another very strange issue is that when it does connect, it assumes NCP orientation despite my Obs longitude and latitude, GMT offset, time etc being clearly Southern Hemisphere. I cannot find a setting that changes this to SCP. How did you manage this, it its running?
Probably not relevant but I always used access point mode with my skyq on the adv gt mount. Direct mode had no range at all and dropped out all the time.
Celestron CGX mount control software is now available
The CGX software is now available for download. Go to the Celestron CGX web page and scroll down to the very bottom, its called Celestron PWI software now. Comes with a quick start guide that should be read. Only works on CGX and CGX-L.
I have installed it on my laptop and will be trying it on the mount tonight, i hope.
Initial impressions are that it is pretty basic. Provides PA provided you are roughly aligned. Uses PointXP modelling. Can find thing by M & NGC number but Skyview has no zoom in capability. Certainly no threat to Stellarium or Sky Safari in the GUI area. I have to actually play with it before any further thoughts.
I guess I need my expectations set 
what sort of guided performance should I expect to be able to achieve with a mount of this class, assuming that things like wind are not an issue? (At say 1000mm)
