What are the signs of an unbalanced eq mount?

[jjz]

I took my az-eq6 out tonight for the second time ever tonight and failed miserably.

The 2 star Alignment was consistently too low (RA) but about 20 degrees. The azimuth was pretty close.

I tried restarting and zeroing the mount a couple of time with the same results every time, the location was very close to my first attempt which worked without a hitch.

After packing up for the night I sat down and read my notes from my first session and realised i didn't balance the telescope this time around, does this issue sound like the result of an unbalanced setup?

Thanks Jjz

[Nico13]

Hi Joe,
Not a balance problem, it would have to be so heavily out of balance that you hear the drives complaining rather badly when doing your star alignment.
It is most likely you have very poor polar alignment to start with or you haven't set your local time correctly.
Not sure how much experience you have but a few things to check with the EQ are as follows.
Tripod is level and the mount is facing very close to true South.
Your latitude is set on the mount correctly for your position.
When you do you startup make sure your time, not daylight saving and longitude latitude settings are programmed in ok and set for Southern Hemisphere.
Make yourself a check list.
One thing is the mount should be slightly out of balance if you intend to take pictures, it helps it track better.
I find with the RA clutch fully disengaged if it slowly falls under its own weight to the counter weight side that's a pretty good point to start.
Hope this helps.

[Eden]

Following on from what Ken said (all of which is very sound advice, by the way), if your 2 or 3 star alignment is off target, correcting the problem is simply a matter of following through with the 2 or 3 alignment procedure and then running the polar alignment routine. This will instruct you on what adjustments to make in either altitude or azimuth to correct your mounts offset from the pole. If you do another 2 or 3 star alignment thereafter, you should find that it is within a reasonable degree of accuracy.

[jjz]

Thanks Ken and Eden,

I must admit I was rushed, will take my time next chance I get.

As far as I can tell balance was out and Polar alignment was out (feet were on the same pavers and in roughly the same position so not by much).

Latitude was unchanged from the previous session which went well and Mount was level.

I am currently in the process of building a check list :) so at least thats one thing I am doing right !

Joe

[Stickboy]

Joe one thing I did with a Celestron, not sure if the EQ6 is the same I put the date around the wrong way. You have to put the Month first?

Phil

Thank's Wayne for the spell correction

[rustigsmed]

what firmware version are you running on the handset Joe?

I recommend updating to atleast v3.35; then doing a two-star alignment, then doing the polar alignment routine on the handset. then back to a two star alignment, then repeat a couple more times...

[jjz]

Mount is only 1 week old, I am not near it but I am sure its V4.0?

First time I used the mount the 2 star alignment and polar alignment worked like a dream. Not sure what went wrong last night, 2 star alignment was way out not matter what I was trying.

Hopefully I can get out and try it again soon.

jjz

[madwayne]

I think Phil meant Month not Mouth :lol:.

Do you have an illuminated reticle eyepiece? If so why not check with a drift alignment? Star near zenith on the celestial equator. Position it on one of the reticle lines and watch it for 15 to 30 seconds. If you are close it won't move much. I'm not a fan of computer assisted alignment as I feel you will learn more about your mount and what it is, or isn't, doing by observing the stars rather than watching them on a laptop.

Being close to your mount and watching and adjusting it in the eyepiece will give you a feel straight up if it is tracking or not. My EQ6 has a nice "whoosh" to it when it is tracking. I've had times where I haven't had it tracking in EQMOD, didn't hear the whoosh selected it to track and surprise surprise if the star stopped drifting.

Good luck with the journey.

Wayne

[jjz]

Thanks Wayne :thumbsup:, ordered illuminated reticle eyepiece last week just waiting for it to turn up.

[madwayne]

Good call on the reticle Joe. When you use it make sure the stars move parallel to the lines in the reticle, or close to it. This will make your use of it more accurate and also much more efficient. Once you have the stars moving parallel to the lines on the reticle, use your slowest slew speed to do this, disable tracking. The stars movement gives you West. Measuring drift you are only looking for movement North or South.

One final word of advice. When you do get to the point that you are happy with what you've done write out all your steps straight after that session and use these as the basis for your setup each and every time regardless of where you are setting up.

Wayne

[jjz]

I have setup the mount again, polar alignment is good enough for 40-50 second pics with round stars.

Goto is still way out, azimuth is fine just the ra it's always out by about 20 degrees no matter what target I pick, does anyone have any ideas?

[killswitch]

If your PA is fine but your goto is off then you've likely entered the wrong location/time/date or your centering incorrect alignment stars

[jjz]

Location/Date/Time were ok, got them of my phones gps and an online atomic clock but I might have chosen the wrong stars.

I chose what I thought were easy targets, Hadar and Betelguese but I might have been wrong.

At least I got the PA side of things ok. :)

With your AZ-EQ6 does it remember the GMT? When I start my mount it remembers the last location and last date but it always defaults to a GMT of -10:00 instead of the +10:00 I have been entering.

thanks
Joe

[killswitch]

Mine defaults to the previously used timezone if i recall.

Did you say no to DST?

[jjz]

Yes, no to DST. I wonder if there's an issue with the Timezone then.

If I go into the setup in the controller and check the observation site settings it shows -10:00 GMT, changing it and saving doesn't seem to work

[jjz]

Ok I think I have resolved the problem. :)



I think this time it wasn’t a newbie issue but a glitch in the software. Polar alignment etc was good but the software was simply flipping the GMT, throwing the GOTO out.

When I entered +10 GMT on start-up and then checked the observing settings from the controller it was showing up as -10GMT. Changing it to +9 +8 … in fact anything showed up as a negative -9 -8. Etc… in the Observing Settings.

I then tried +0 and it saved and showed correctly in the observing settings, it was also the default after a restart. I then changed it to +10 and that was stored correctly so I think it was a glitch in the software but its ok now..

I retested the mount this morning and all was ok, I will test it next clear night but I am pretty confident all is ok now.



Thanks everyone



JJZ

[rustigsmed]

Hi Joe,

When I got my EQ8 out of the box I had a very similar situation to yours with crazy pointing errors. After I updated the firmware it worked.

Sounds like you have the newer v4 handset, the older handset (which I use) has firmware starting with a 3, with the latest firmware update at v3.37, the equivalent on the v4 handset is firmware update v4.37.03 - they are the same but the handset requires different coding.

Might be worth updating the firmware the last one only was released in March. You can see your existing version by turning the mount on it should show on the screen in the first couple of steps.

http://ca.skywatcher.com/_english/05_service/01_download.php?ccid=8

http://www.telescope.com/assets/product_files/technotes/TN021_07-14.pdf

It would be worth reading the handset manual on how to update the handset. I watched a youtube tutorial when I did mine.

Best of luck.

Russ

ps the other thing that springs to mind is that you may have chosen a nearby star accidentally and the first time you used it you chose the correct star.

[jenchris]

Another good reason to change to eqmod.

[ZeroID]

Joe, another related suggestion. Once you have a good position and alignment mark the spots on your pavers so you can just drop the mount back down in the same place each time. I preset my mount legs to suit and just used a spray paint spot as a marker point. Worked great till I built the Ob.

[jjz]

Cable was delivered 2 hours ago :thumbsup:



I plan on drilling 2 little alignment holes as soon as I am confident with the pencils marks I am currently using.

[jenchris]

I hope you didn't pay more than 20 dollars for the cable.
HITECASTRO do one for about 40 dollars and it's no better than the one I got from Dontronics for $16 (add two dollars for the DB9 connector you have to solder on)

[jjz]

I ordered the EQ5 Shoestring cable from Bintel with some other bits and peices. I think the cable $65 :eyepop:

[John0z]

Joe,

One question, when you entered the Geographical Coordinates, you did put East for longitude, right? If you happened to enter West, that might be the reason for your timezone always being -10.

[jjz]

I dont think so, but its good to know if I have issues again. As soon as the unit accepted +10GMT everything started working at it should :)

Thanks for the Headsup :)

[5ash]

I have an eq6 and take the time to balance it on both axes , if not I find the pointing accuracy unreliable. Also never use alignment stars low in the sky as refraction errors cause misalignment and goto's inaccurate.
Regards philip

[matthewota]

An unbalanced mount will display aberrant behaviour. Yuk Yuk....