Synscan 3.35 P.A. feature meltdown

[raymo]

I have just endured 2 1/2 hrs of frustration. The P.A. feature on my
HEQ5 has been very good, but this evening it went crazy. I got down
to around a minute of error on both axes in around 20 mins. The next
iteration resulted in an error of + 53 mins in Az, but the Elev. remained
around a minute. Another iteration resulted in an Az error of - 47mins.
The final iteration showed an Az error of + 1 deg. 38 mins, and the Elev
suddenly showed an error of almost a degree. These huge variations are impossible given the miniscule adjustments I was making. Then the clouds rolled in, so it was all for nothing anyway. Has anyone else had a
similar experience?
raymo

[VPAstro (Andrew and Cam)]

Hi raymo,
Yes, I had this happen once before. As I was make the adjustments, the error was getting worse. I did post a message here, and got some helpful responses, but it seemed to fix itself the next outing, and I have not had that issue since. I have now upgraded to ver. 3.36, which seems to give me better alignment. I can now get it down to less than 1 min on both alt and az.
People were putting it down to my weight on the heq5, which is approx 15 kgs, which I know is too heavy for AP, but it is working for me, and I am happy with the results, that my son and I get. The mount has had that scope on it for over 10 years now, but I have since added the goto upgrade kit to it.
Hope it works for you again next time you are out as I find it a quick and easy way to align given the light pollution in my area.

I did try alignmaster, but could not resolve the alignment as well as I could with the synscan.

[Camelopardalis (Dunk)]

Yeah I've had the polar alignment gremlins attack before with my EQ6. I just powered it off and start again. I've only tried 3.36 out for one night, and at one point even that threw a random error at me. Again, I just switched it off and started again. It's exacerbated by the lack of smooth movement of the axes, regardless of load, at least with the EQ6.

One day, I would really like a permanent mount...

[glend (Glen)]

I have had a couple of odd PA routine events with V3.35 but generally am happy with this version. I am getting down to just a few seconds of error, and a couple of times on 0 0 error, but my NEQ6 is setup on concrete pads sunk in the yard and aligned perfectly to true south.I also run well below the rated imaging capacity recommendations for this mount, and keep a bit of weight on the RA axis to stay 'engaged' dufing movement. As I am mainly doing guided imaging I tend not to obsess about alignment perfection. As long as I can get my target into the field of view and find a guidestar it can be centred and will track very accurately under Metaguide control for long periods of time. I don't use the hand controller once aligned as I revert to Sky Safari Pro on my tablet for all fine movements and control.

[Steffen]

I've had this happen to me in the past when during the 2-star/polar alignment cycle one of the alignment stars slipped past the meridian and I ignored that.

It has not happened to me (to that degree) when I stuck to the same stars for 2-star and polar alignment and stayed on one side of the meridian.

On occasion I did notice my polar alignment going around in circles (refusing to get better than about 1 arc minute), I believe that was when 2-star alignment was inaccurate due to poor choice of alignment stars.

Cheers
Steffen.

[raymo]

Thanks for the info everyone; hopefully it'll be o.k. next time. Unlike Glend, [and most other people, I suspect], I have no means of guiding,
[other than manually], so I need to get the error down to just a few seconds.
raymo

[raymo]

Worked fine tonight, and then 100% cloud.
raymo

[Camelopardalis (Dunk)]

I'm sure there's a built-in cloud detector...