First Light - Synscan Tour upgrade goto controller.
OK, Skywatcher have been advertising this “upgrade” handpiece for about 6 months now, and they are available in Australia if you look hard enough.
I found one in January at Sirius Optics. Unfortunately the Australian Synta suppliers for this product didn’t bother to read the documentation, which says “connect to telescope with OPTIONAL cable”, and didn’t import these.
Anyway, thanks to the tenacious efforts of Ron at the above shop, the specific cable for my HEQ6 arrived yesterday. (Yes, it’s a different unavailable cable for each type of mount!)
This device is a little like a Vixen Skybook, or that Orion app thingy that connects this week’s version of the Ipad to drive the mount/scope.
The “Tour” has a touch screen sky display and an amazing amount of functions (importantly, it can even check your current Chinese Feng Shui luck-less-ness index)
This thing will run most Synta Goto mounts such as the usual Skywatcher, Orion, etc and some Celestron’s – there are settings for EQ’s, Alt/az and Dobs.
What I was after was to have computer-like functionality without carting all the junk around. (I have developed a deep and abiding hatred of ASCOM)
Ok.. As I’m a “Glass- half empty” kind of guy, I’ll list the bad bits first…
1/ It looks fragile, it makes the usual Synta go-to controller look like its SOLID (yes, yes, amazing, but true). There aint nothing in the construction of this device that would be approved for one of those black boxes which lay around in the vicinity of airplane disasters.
2/The plastic cover has a metallic paint-y looking top coat which is so delicate that it capable of getting scratches as you remove it from the bubble wrap.
3/ There is no separate socket for the GPS module (like the one the standard hand-piece has). So if you want to use GPS coordinates, you would need to ascertain GPS position with the GPS plugged in and then unplug it so that you can plug the telescope cable in. however, I found all of this unnecessary, due to the fact that, so far, it won’t recognize a Synta Skywatcher GPS module. (I suspect from the wording of the manual, that it may have its own specific “OPTIONAL” GPS module. (Thank you Synta)
4/ To do fine touch-screening such as clicking on stars, you can use the supplied stylus instead of your finger. – This works really well, but I will (yes, WILL) lose this tiny thing in the grass in my back yard. I’m surprised I haven’t already. (It should have a lanyard)
5/ Minimum setting of the back-lighting is close to unreadable and the next step up provides enough lumins to run all three State of Origin night matches.
Now the gooooood bits…
If the Americans look down their to-do list and realize to their embarrassment that they haven’t ignored the sovereignty of Australia lately, and immediately send a crack team of helicopter riding elite assassin’s to take out Bin-Rider’s sky-terrorist Compound… Please note: I WILL FIGHT to keep this device! It’s that good.
1/ It has its lists and tours which are much better organized than the standard handpiece, and most objects have a reasonable amount of information. (er, beware of “Chinglish” in some descriptions)
2/ When hunting for faint fuzzies, it will optionally go to the nearest bright star and get you to center it first. This makes the local sky ultra accurate. I found that this function made EVERY DSO land smack in the center of the EP at 250 magnification.
3/ One thing I found myself using a lot was that it can show pictures of most faint DSO’s. I discovered that consulting these this made me look for, and recognize more detail in the real objects back at the Eyepiece.
4/ You can type notes as you observe and drop them onto your computer. If you prefer, you can audio record them, and play them back later.
5/ In one of the modes, as you hold the hand-piece up and shift it around the sky, it will display the equivalent view. No, No, No, not like my phone app which gets stuck till I shake the phone, - this one is really seamless and smooth.
6/ One , two, or three star alignment are available, - I tried the 2 and the 1 star. Both worked a bit better than the old hand-piece, but it could be that I fluked a really good polar setup, so time will tell. One thing I really liked is that you can nominate the limiting magnitude of the selectable alignment stars to match your sky quality.
7/ A nice little menu lets you tune your mount for backlash and pitch. I had to set the backlash at zero, which surprised me, because my setup is an HEQ6 carrying a 12inch modified Newtonian, and an 80mm Stellarvue finder-scope, (all up its about 23kg) so I thought there would be more, not less backlash than the standard setting.
8/ The manual is an improvement on the usual Skywatcher documents, but there are sections which were obviously translated by Babelfish.
This gadget is WAY better than Synta’s internet advertising blurb would lead you to believe. I mean, wow Synta, which one of your advertising geniuses thought that the Feng Shui function was a good thing to highlight.
Yes, there are other options which are equivalent to this gadget, but if you’re considering a full functioned hand-piece replacement, keep the Synscan Tour hand piece in mind.
Well to summarize. In the end, I used it to check my Feng Shui, my Bagua and my personal Kua and found that, Yes, I was lucky to buy this gadget.
Thanks Rider, a most informative and enjoyable review. It's nice to hear early reports on this interesting device. Can you tell us the cost $ at all, and how is power supplied. I assume you've had it since January, in which case, how have the paint job and mechanics held up since then, given construction appears to be a bit lightweight.
Also, how are the menus constructed, and object lists filtered? I would a device that could filter with a mix of constellation and object type. Fox
I assume you've had it since January, in which case, how have the paint job and mechanics held up?
how is power supplied?
how are the menus constructed?
Fox
Hi Fox, no not January, I didn't purchase it till the cable arrived yesterday.
(There is something definitely wrong with Hughie the rain god, because I had a clear purchase night!)
Power supply is by a replaceable rechargeable mobile-phone-type battery (recharge is by usb from my computer or from the mount if it is attached.) (did I mention it works as a stand alone unit as well? -this suits me because my grab and go scope has b'ga-all background information in its database)
Menus are simple and the Goto selection is:
star tour,
DSO tour
constellation
Named star
Named DSO
Solar system
Messier
NGC
Double star
IC
SAO
Separately there is another menu called encyclopedia which includes a handy function listing up coming meteor showers, solar eclipses and lunar eclipses as well as facts about various types of equipment, astral bodies, scientists etc.
also a moon phase and twilight section, plus a calculator, compass, audio recorder and note pad.
oh, and if you don't rush to turn the function off, it will yap at you like a Meade Lightswitch with an asian accent!
Thanks Rider. Question, when you select 'constellation', what happens? Does it give you a constellation tour, ie. can filter out DSO's and Messier under constellation only. Fox
PS: I just went to the Sirius Optics page, next to zero info' there...!
Thanks Rider. Question, when you select 'constellation', what happens? Does it give you a constellation tour, ie. can filter out DSO's and Messier under constellation only. Fox
Hi again fox, I didnt try the constellation function last night, and tonight it is the usual 20 tenths cloud up here in Bris-vague-as, so Ill have to check that function next time. (The go-to menus are designed to work when it is setup attached to the mount, and if I did that in the spare room it would knock down all my books when it slewed )
By the way a quick test leads me to believe that you can put in a very large number of of user defined objects, (and if the main memory ever becomes full, you can add more memory with micro SD cards). The user defined objects can be set up on your computer and then downloaded to the device.
Great review: You've almost got me interested in the thing and I don't even have any Synta gear!
But don't lose any sleep over the threat of a Yankee invasion: Some Americans have a vague notion that Australia exists ("Crocodile Dundee, right?") but most of us have never heard of the place - and that's unlikely to change unless somebody in the Outback strikes oil.
One of the reasons I went for the Celestron CGEM over the EQ6 was to get the much more powerful nexstar hand controller. Looks like this add on gives similar functionality. (Minus the all-star polar alignment) Good stuff.
I have received confirmation that standard Skywatcher GPS module wont work with this device.
As I suspected, the Synscan Tour Handpiece DOES require a specific (as yet un-imported) compatible GPS receiver.
Synta seem to have a thing about GPS. - Remember when they changed their software to try to block out the ability to use the 3rd party skyGPS?
Sometimes I think Synta and Tasco (Aussie agents) just like to royally P-off their customers for the sheer joy of it.
Anyway, its still a great bit of kit, so if I go away to a new site, I'll just get the GPS position with the standard hand-piece and enter it manually (till sanity prevails.)
I took my shiny new Synscan Tour for an extended workout over the weekend. It was controlling a 10" Sywatcher dob.
I got the Tour because the scope came with a Syntrek controller which other than the possibility of nominal tracking does not seem to offer much advantage over push to.
Some of my comments are intended as customer feedback (improvement suggestions) in the hope that someone with contacts at Skywatcher reads this and passes it on as they don't seem to welcome direct customer feedback.
Overall quite pleased but with a few frustrations.
- Much easier to use than flicking around the menus on a convetional Synscan.
- Display was easy to use and most menu's made sense.
- Seemed to keep track of where it was pretty well when the scope was manually pushed to an object.
- On a number of occasions after completing a 3 star align the telescope started driving off on it's own and would not respond to further input. Power everything down and start again was the only fix I found. I'd had similar last Tuesday night as well.
- It has a nice Precise Goto feature that nominally goes to a bright nearby star first when slewing to a faint object in a part of the sky not close to a known alignment point. You center that star then it moves to the nominated target. The facility can be turned off.
; It does not seem to consider that solar system objects may be brighter than nearby objects. Silly when looking for Saturn, absurd when using a solar filter and slewing to the Sun in daytime.
; No capability to add the final target as an aligned point if adjustements are required when you get to it, that would seem like a simple extra.
; Similar to the previous point it would be nice to be able to tell it to realign a point if tracking errors occur and do something similar to PAE adjustment based on the difference.
- I dropped the little stylus once (thankfully found it when I worked out it was missing). Should be supplied with a pack of spares.
- If you dim the display down for night time usage you need a really dark spot to get to the menu to set it up for daytime usage (under a picnic blanket in the car).
- Tracking was no where near good enough for any deep sky astro work even with short exposure times but that was probably the dob mount rather than the controller. I still need to play with backlash settings etc.
- Also had some off behaviours where I'd drive the mount slightly one way and the motors drove it back afterwards which was frustrating when I was trying to center an object.
- It would be nice if the controller kept track of what type of mount it was last connected to and defaulted to that rather than selecting from the same list.
- Also be nice if after connection there was the ability to nominate an object that you were pointed at as an alternative to entering angles. If I'm centered on Venus it should be a more precise indication of where the scope is pointed than a nominal compas bearing.
- It would be nice to be able to record an observing log (targets slewed to or click on an target in the display and have it added to a log)
- The included dictionary seems to be poor quality with errors, probably better not to have it than have it as a poor quality after thought.
- It would also be nice to use the controller as a pass through for remote control from a PC (and on the pretty please list camera control via one of the USB ports).
The controller seems to run a piece of software called iSky on WindowsCE using an Arm S3C2440 Processor (Samsung I think).
The controller is great but has the potential to be a lot better with some extra software development.
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