Sky X and AP1600 think its in Northern Hemisphere

[gregbradley]

I tried to do a Tpoint run on my AP1600 last night and SkyX and Tpoint seemed to run as if it were in the northern hemisphere and it tried to slew towards the ground.

I checked lat/long and it seemed correct. When you run a SB mount there are other options that come up, the TCS which has a specific southern hemisphere setting. This isn't an option when running a non SB mount.

I don't see any other place in Sky X to set to Southern Hemisphere.

Suggestions?

Greg.

[gregbradley]

Logan kindly walked me through what I need to do. I haven't parked the mount to a known position before starting. Much like needing to go to the home position with an SB mount first.

Thanks Logan!

Greg.

[Atmos]

I wouldn't have thought that you would have needed to do anything other than stipulate your geographical location!
Something to remember for when I become less poor :P

[gregbradley]

Yes that was what I thought too. Come to think my Tak NJP mount had a start position counterweights down scope pointing forward as I recall so its probably common for mounts to have a starting reference point.

With a Software Bisque mount this is achieved with the home position.

You can install encoders on the AP1600 that gains that sort of useability plus unguided tracking.

Greg.

[gregbradley]

Still not sorted. Go-tos are way way off.

Hopefully tonight I can get it going. I can manually slew to an object and get it in the tiny frame of the Trius so its an orientation problem.

At least the tracking is good. A lot of it was under 1 arc second last night.

Greg.

[Logieberra]

That computer crash of yours sounds epic! Because I only ever use the pre-defined park positions (1 to 4) parking to, and unparking from any one of them, provides immediate feedback if something is way off in mount pointing/settings. It serves as a nice safety check before slewing all over the shop each night :)

[Logieberra]

Can you post screen shots of all your AP V2 driver settings?

[gregbradley]

Good tips. I am bit reluctant to use one of those predefined parks as I also have a CDK17 not that far from the RHA. If they both were in the wrong angle there is a possibility they could clip each other. I have to measure and see if that could happen.

I got it all working again and refined polar alignment with a large t-point model. I squared up the Trius as well using my home made tilt adapter which works quite well.

So now its all working beautifully so I can go back to flipping a switch, framing, focusing and setting it off to image for hours.

Greg.

[RobF]

Would be interesting to see some pics or description of your home made tilt adapter sometime Greg?
Glad you've succeeded in ironing out more bugs - hope the rigs hum for you now.

[gregbradley]

Yes its running pretty sweet now.
Some lovely images last night.
I'll take a photo of the adapter and mods and post it here.
I'm seeing the beauty of the Honders/AP1600 setup. AP1600 is guiding at between .8 and 1.4 arc secs with typical around 1 arc second. Its quite an easy to use mount and fuss free.

Also how good is AP customer care! I asked a question about how to get the mount properly aligned and Roland himself answered twice and also one of his employees.

I am completely convinced Roland Christen is a genius!

I would advise those heavily interested in this pursuit to connect up to AP as they are a major step up in competence and know how and professionalism.

Greg