Minor Hissy Fit and Rant

[xa-coupe (Jeff)]

I've spent a lot of time in the last cloudy period working on what I am doing wrong and I thought I'd identified what I've been doing wrong and so on ... and had to wait for a night where you could actually see stars.


That would be tonight.


Alignment done .. yep.. hopefully correctly..


Everything connected up .. yep .. been connected up in the living room for the last week so no issues.


Find carina .. yep.. but the mount is not as close as I would have thought after doing a star alignment and it was spot on (for a change).


Turn on guiding .. spent ages waiting for calibration.. then guiding goes off the rails .. not surprised as I am already having issues.. so turn it off.


Take a sample pic ... okay but not brilliant, only 30 secs as no guiding ...another sample pic at 20 secs .. about the same ...15 secs and star trailing??

Look at the Synscan set. It's on but lighting is funny. Pull USB out .. blank??


Anyway.. looks like the Synscan handset is dead. I've changed power sources .. pulled every trick I can think of but no good.


Sometimes I wonder why the hell I bother.


Early night now .. warranty call tomorrow.


Trust everyone else is having a better night.

[Startrek (Martin)]

Jeff,
When you say Alignment done “hopefully correct”
Do you mean Star Alignment or Polar Alignment, they are two different things
If your using the Synscan handcontroller to do a Star Alignment and a Polar Alignment I sent you the procedures in those emails ( did you receive them ok )
After your Polar Alignment is completed to handcontroller will display your alignment error in Az and Alt ( if alignment is good is should display plenty of zeros in both Az and Alt eg: 000 00 30 or 30 arc seconds ) Degrees / minutes / seconds

Or maybe your not using the Synscan handcontroller to Star Align and Polar Align ???

Martin

[xa-coupe (Jeff)]

I did get the emails thanks, I thought I had replied thanking you, apologies.

[xa-coupe (Jeff)]

Seems my mount is pooched... and Saxon's shut down due to COVID so I am effectively warrantyless for about another month...



So I got myself a Skyguider pro and have been messing with that. My guiding is .. messy.. but it is guiding a whole lot better that the EQ6R.
Anyway, at least I am making progress again... and the mount is a lot easier to wrestle about.

[rustigsmed (Russell)]

hey jeff, you can control your mount via your PC. you will need the right cable though ..

someone else should be able to assist in what program(s) you need (I still use the hand controller too).

good luck

[xa-coupe (Jeff)]

Originally Posted by rustigsmed

hey jeff, you can control your mount via your PC. you will need the right cable though ..

someone else should be able to assist in what program(s) you need (I still use the hand controller too).

good luck

Thanks for the reply. I do have a cable on order (2 in fact, the right one and the wrong one, I should have asked before I hit the Buy Now button).. but who knows when it'll arrive. I wanted it for tonight as it's a clear night and the forecast is dire for at least the next week and I was trying to get some decent images of Carina nebula, but no such luck.
I have found someone with a brand new hand controller who did me a good deal, it will arrive in the next week, and I hope that it's the issue not the mount itself. Time will tell.
I have all the programs one could want, what I need is competence.. a different story! I'm getting there, slowly but surely. EQMOD seems to be a better way of doing business, though I'd rather have everything sorted out before embarking on a new way of doing things.