AZ-EQ6 Home position in AltAz mode?

[miker]

The instruction manual says to point the ota to North for AltAz mode Home Position. ( Does not offer an option for hemisphere )
In EQ mode it says North for Northern hemisphere and South for Southern hemisphere.
So my question is, do I really point it North in AltAz mode when in the Southern hemisphere? Page7 para 2.1 of the Synscan instruction manual.
Hopefuly setting it up outside for the first time tomorrow night.
I will only be using AltAz mode. Strictly visual!
Any advice will be much appreciated.

Michael.

PS This could be the first of many questions

[brian nordstrom (As avatar)]

My mates AZEQ6 was the same it's a software issue ,
we discovered that it ran fine on the ' North ' settings only on set up ? strange yes but it worked until he down loaded a fix 'Patch ? ' and all is now good , do a Google as I am sure the patch is still there.

We pulled our hair out trying to get the hand controller to recognise 'South' to do as it should ,,, frustration city .

Brian.



So my question is, do I really point it North in AltAz mode when in the Southern hemisphere? Page7 para 2.1 of the Synscan instruction manual.
Hopefuly setting it up outside for the first time tomorrow night.
I will only be using AltAz mode. Strictly visual!
Any advice will be much appreciated.

Michael.

PS This

[miker]

Thanks Brian, I will give it a go and see what happens. I'll try starting from Home Position North and then South if neccessary to get an alignment.

Regarding the Patch, do you know how old your mates mount is? There have been many software upgrades over the years I believe and mine appears to be the latest.

Thanks again for the reply.

Michael

[Kunama]

I never bother with setting a home position, just get the tripod level and then go straight into a 2 star alignment. If you don't have a GPS gadget, like the StarGPS, make sure your time and location are correct.

Choose stars that are between 30 and 60 degrees elevation and about 120º apart in azimuth. Make sure the two stars differ in elevation by at least 5º.

Centre then using a reticle eyepiece or by defocusing them so you are looking at a large disc.

At the moment Aldebaran in Taurus and Acrux are good choices...

[AndrewJ]

Gday Mike
I suspect its the same as Meades
In Polar you have to point the RA axle at the local pole, hence why its different between hemispheres.
In AltAz, you need the Az axle vertical and the OTA pointing "somewhere". ( And it needs to know where )
Meade uses the term "North and level" in Alt Az mode, ( to make it simple for users ), but you are really pointing to Alt = Az = 0, and this is the same direction, irrespective of hemisphere.

Andrew

[miker]

Matt, thanks for the reply. That makes perfect sense. As I will be "driving " it to the first star, it does not need to know where it is starting from. Then hopefuly the mount will "drive" itself very close to the second star. I will take care entering my local position and time.
Thanks for the star suggestion, Aldebaran and Acrux will give a good spread in Alt and Az.

Andrew, thanks for your reply as well. You are right. When I get the mount prmanently set up in the observatory, I will need to Park it in a Home position, so it has a reference to start from next time without re aligning.

I really appreciate every one taking the time to help me with this

Michael

[AndrewJ]

Gday Mike

As I will be "driving " it to the first star, it does not need to know where it is starting from.

If you start it in the correct home position, it should slew close to the first star by itself. Thats the whole reason for the std home position, ie it has a known spot to do a dead reckoning slew from.

Andrew

Ed
And then i read the Synscan manual . I never realised it didnt slew by itself to the first star.
I normally set my AZEQ5 up in level north and turn it on to view the sun.
After selecting AltAz and setting the date/time, i set it to sidereal, and it is actually aligned and tracking.
( based on how well i got level and North )

[Kunama]

Originally Posted by miker

Matt, thanks for the reply. That makes perfect sense. As I will be "driving " it to the first star, it does not need to know where it is starting from. Then hopefuly the mount will "drive" itself very close to the second star. I will take care entering my local position and time.
Thanks for the star suggestion, Aldebaran and Acrux will give a good spread in Alt and Az.

Andrew, thanks for your reply as well. You are right. When I get the mount prmanently set up in the observatory, I will need to Park it in a Home position, so it has a reference to start from next time without re aligning.

I really appreciate every one taking the time to help me with this

Michael

I use a StarGPS module for time and location, great gadget, plug it in-turn on mount-wait till it acquires and fixes, then unplug and stow..... 60 seconds max.....

Yes the mount will get pretty close to the second star then just center it and you're done.

[The_bluester (Paul)]

I always point mine horizontal and rough enough north when setting up in alt/az mode (Which I use almost exclusively)

It would make more sense to me for them to point south in alt/az in the northern hemisphere, starting pointed opposite the pole IMO results in better positioning of the power cable though most of the night.

[miker]

Matt, that StarGPS looks like a great device, particularly if moving the mount out to dark sites. I hadn't heard of it before. I will just be on my water tank until I build the observatory about 50meters away. I'll use my hand held Garmin for the info.

Paul, that is interesting about the cable positioning. I assumed that there would be an anti cord wrap function in the menu but can't find it! My MiniTower Pro has the anti cord wrap function and I do use it most of the time.

One of the main reasons I chose this mount was so I could use SkySafari Pro and the Skywatcher WiFi adaptor to drive the mount. Are any of you using that combination? I eventually want to just touch the iPad screen in SkySafari and have the telescope point to that object.

Michael.

[Wavytone]

Hi Michael,

I use mine in altaz mode, however leveling the tripod carefully first makes a huge difference if you use a 1-Star alignment.

Though I’ve generally used 2-Star alignments.

[miker]

Thanks Wavytone, I levelled using the little inbuilt bubble but do wonder as to how accurate that is. Would be nice to have a machined plate on top that is parallel to the AZ shaft to put a level on.
After doing the two star alignment, goto was puting targets consistently just outside of the field of view of a 24mm eyepiece in the C11. I thought later that maybe I should have turned off the auxillary encoders.
Will try again next clear night. Bit of a learning curve with this beast��
Thanks for all the advice, it got me this far.

Michael

PS. Concreter just rang, and should be pouring the slab for the observatory on Saturday��

[Wavytone]

Hi Mike, I dont use the tiny bubble - its impossible to see in poor light.

IMHO it's a lot easier to use a clinometer or level app on a smartphone, just slap that on top of the tripod. There are many free ones, and you can check/calibrate them easily to within 0.1 degree which is more than sufficient for the purpose.

When aligning I also found it makes a huge difference as to how accurately you do this - just using say a finder with cross-hairs is nowhere near good enough. Similarly using an eyepiece in the scope without cost hairs doesn't really cut it either. These days I use a cheap 20mm eyepiece with illuminated crosshairs in the main scope (the MK91 which has a focal length of 3100mm).

The eyepiece was a cheapie - nice illuminated reticle but the eyepiece is an erfle with hideous field curvature. Tempted to butcher it into a Plossl.

[Decimus (Richard)]

Hi Miker and everyone.

I have had the AZ-EQ6 GT for nigh on two years. In all that time I have never once polar aligned successfully. Even in Alt-Az mode, I have only had two evenings when the mount tracked accurately. The instruction manual verges on the appalling, especially for the Synscan hand controller - e.g step 6 on polar alignment - 'Display Polaris Position' - on page 9. This is clearlyirrelevant for the southern hemisphere, so if you press 'enter' to get on with the next step, it must assume you are aligning with the NCP. There is no other option in equatorial mode.

Matt's comment illustrates a particular beef I have with telescope mount makers: NOBODY on planet earth has devised a self-aligning mount (that will work here, down south!), yet here we are in the age of GPS readings accurate to within 5 metres or less on the earth's surface! Some telescope mount maker will make a fortune when such a device is manufactured and actually works.

There are times when I have contemplated taking a (figurative) sledgehammer to the AZ-EQ6 because I all want to do is actually just observe (let alone do deep sky photography), but its tracking accuracy for me, is hopeless.I just don't "get" this mount at all.

[AndrewJ]

Gday Richard

NOBODY on planet earth has devised a self-aligning mount (that will work here, down south!)

To be fair, the Meade LS scope does work well at fully auto aligning, when it works.
The same has been said for the Meade LX600 and LX850 with Starlock, but there are still many people who have problems due to focus related errors and carbon based interference :-)

Andrew

[Wavytone]

Richard, I would suggest finding someone who knows and can teach you to align.

In altaz mode the AZEQ6 should do a 1-star or 2 star alignment well enough - but the key here is to:

a) level the tripod properly - any error will be translated to the same error in every GOTO thereafter.

b) enter the date, time and the site long and lat correctly. Stuff this up (eg DDMMYYY instead of MMDDYYY, or DDMMSS vs decimal degrees) and the consequences are not pretty.

In equatorial mode however you MUST get the polar alignment reasonably close - a few degrees at most. Typically I can align using bright stars and the dec circle to 1 degree, which is good enough to produce good GOTOs thereafter unless you are aiming at something within 10 degrees of the pole (unlikely as theres nothing interesting there anyway).

For this purpose:

1. Do this in daylight - align the dec circle accurately with the OTA in daylight, so it reads correctly and put a dob of silicone glue in place to make sure the damn circle can't rotate accidentally (the glue needs to be removable in case you need to rotate the dovetail 90 degrees - don't use superglue or epoxy).

Why ? because you will need the dec circle at step 5.

2. Make sure the finder is accurately aligned with the main scope. Mine is a bog standard skywatcher 8 x 50 and it does stay aligned well enough from one setup to the next, but its worth checking while assembling the scope. Why ? because you'll use the finder at step 5.

3. Use a clinometer app on a smartphone - calibrated - to level the tripod head better than 1 degree. Forget the stupid bubbles if you have one - they're unreadable in low light and uncalibrated which means if you rotated the tripod legs 60 degrees, it won't read the same as it did last time you set up. Something else the manufacturers don't think of.

4. Align the mount in altitude using a smartphone clinometer to set the altitude equal to your latitude, better than 1 degree. If you have levelled the tripod and use a regular observing site you'll find the setting should be pretty accurate each setup, ie no fiddling.

5. Align azimuth using a bright star due east/west and low down, near the horizon, by setting the scope o the declination of this star and adjusting azimuth to centre the star in the scope. I know very few here on IIS understand this, but it beats the crap out of drift aligning. Aligning using the finder crosshairs is good enough - you only need do get within a degree.

6. Put the scope precisely in the PARK position - ie pointing at declination -90 (the pole) and the dec axis vertically under - before switching on and commencing the alignment process. Use the clinometer to set the dec axis vertical.

7. Switch on and begin a 2-star alignment. If you miss step 5 the alignment process will flap up hopelessly, guaranteed. Be ready to kill the slew if its driving the scope below horizon or into the legs.

Lastly, its also possible your mount is faulty - the first one I received was - powered up pressing buttons looked OK, it slewed and the motors went zzzzz, but it could not perform an alignment. Bintel acknowledged the fault and swapped it.

[Decimus (Richard)]

Originally Posted by Wavytone

Richard, I would suggest finding someone who knows and can teach you to align.

In altaz mode the AZEQ6 should do a 1-star or 2 star alignment well enough - but the key here is to:

a) level the tripod properly - any error will be translated to the same error in every GOTO thereafter.

b) enter the date, time and the site long and lat correctly. Stuff this up (eg DDMMYYY instead of MMDDYYY, or DDMMSS vs decimal degrees) and the consequences are not pretty.

In equatorial mode however you MUST get the polar alignment reasonably close - a few degrees at most. Typically I can align using bright stars and the dec circle to 1 degree, which is good enough to produce good GOTOs thereafter unless you are aiming at something within 10 degrees of the pole (unlikely as theres nothing interesting there anyway).

For this purpose:

1. Do this in daylight - align the dec circle accurately with the OTA in daylight, so it reads correctly and put a dob of silicone glue in place to make sure the damn circle can't rotate accidentally (the glue needs to be removable in case you need to rotate the dovetail 90 degrees - don't use superglue or epoxy).

Why ? because you will need the dec circle at step 4.

2. Use a clinometer app on a smartphone - calibrated - to level the mount better than 1 degree.

3. Align in altitude using a smartphone clinometer to set the altitude equal to your latitude, better than 1 degree. If you have levelled the tripod and use a regular observing site you'll find the setting should be pretty accurate each setup, ie no fiddling.

4. Align azimuth using a bright star near the east/west horizon and the dec circle. I know very few here on IIS understand this, but it beats the crap out of drift aligning.

5. Put the scope precisely in the PARK position - ie pointing at the pole and the dec axis vertically under - before switching on and commencing the alignment process. Use the clinometer to get this right.

6. Switch on and begin a 2-star alignment. If you miss step 5 the alignment process will flap up hopelessly, guaranteed. Be ready to kill the slew if its driving the scope below horizon or into the legs.

Lastly, its also possible your mount is faulty - the first one I received was - powered up pressing buttons looked OK, it slewed and the motors went zzzzz, but it could not perform an alignment. Bintel acknowledged the fault and swapped it.

Hi Wavytone. Dec circle? I was told to ignore the setting circles as they are irrelevant for GOTO inALT-Az mode??? Wondered why the instruction manual ever mentioned them as nobody uses them nowadays?

[Decimus (Richard)]

Originally Posted by Wavytone

Richard, I would suggest finding someone who knows and can teach you to align.

In altaz mode the AZEQ6 should do a 1-star or 2 star alignment well enough - but the key here is to:

a) level the tripod properly - any error will be translated to the same error in every GOTO thereafter.

b) enter the date, time and the site long and lat correctly. Stuff this up (eg DDMMYYY instead of MMDDYYY, or DDMMSS vs decimal degrees) and the consequences are not pretty.

In equatorial mode however you MUST get the polar alignment reasonably close - a few degrees at most. Typically I can align using bright stars and the dec circle to 1 degree, which is good enough to produce good GOTOs thereafter unless you are aiming at something within 10 degrees of the pole (unlikely as theres nothing interesting there anyway).

For this purpose:

1. Do this in daylight - align the dec circle accurately with the OTA in daylight, so it reads correctly and put a dob of silicone glue in place to make sure the damn circle can't rotate accidentally (the glue needs to be removable in case you need to rotate the dovetail 90 degrees - don't use superglue or epoxy).

Why ? because you will need the dec circle at step 4.

2. Use a clinometer app on a smartphone - calibrated - to level the mount better than 1 degree.

3. Align in altitude using a smartphone clinometer to set the altitude equal to your latitude, better than 1 degree. If you have levelled the tripod and use a regular observing site you'll find the setting should be pretty accurate each setup, ie no fiddling.

4. Align azimuth using a bright star near the east/west horizon and the dec circle. I know very few here on IIS understand this, but it beats the crap out of drift aligning.

5. Put the scope precisely in the PARK position - ie pointing at the pole and the dec axis vertically under - before switching on and commencing the alignment process. Use the clinometer to get this right.

6. Switch on and begin a 2-star alignment. If you miss step 5 the alignment process will flap up hopelessly, guaranteed. Be ready to kill the slew if its driving the scope below horizon or into the legs.

Lastly, its also possible your mount is faulty - the first one I received was - powered up pressing buttons looked OK, it slewed and the motors went zzzzz, but it could not perform an alignment. Bintel acknowledged the fault and swapped it.

By the way, thank you so much for taking the time to provide all this info, Wavytone. It's all a revelation to me and I really read instructions over and over - this is new!

[Wavytone]

Couple of edits - at step 2 I should have said "...level the tripod..." and inserted a new step 2...

[Wavytone]

Originally Posted by Decimus

Hi Wavytone. Dec circle? I was told to ignore the setting circles as they are irrelevant for GOTO inALT-Az mode??? Wondered why the instruction manual ever mentioned them as nobody uses them nowadays?

The dec circle is indeed ignored by most - however it is the key to a quick and good alignment in equatorial mode. I've seen guys who don't "get this" waste half the night drift-aligning and still be off by several degrees.

No need for the circles in altaz mode - what matters is the tripod head is level and you have entered an accurate altitude and longitude.