Another EQMOD question

[barx1963]

Hi all.
I am running EQASCOM/EQMOD and CdC on my mount and using SGP for my main control program for imaging. I have setup plate solving which all works fine, but I am having issues with setting up alignment points for EQMOD to use to get pointing at objects that I do not have an image to plate solve.
To get plate solving working I have to set the User Interface to Dialog based, and it works fine. But I understand you can setup some alignment points as per this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-zQbftYbqw&index=11&list=PLBB117AE85EB6BF04
However when I get a star nicely lined up I am unable to go further as the Accept button is greyed out.

Any thoughts anyone?

Malcolm

[RobF]

Hi Malcolm

You shouldn't need to do any manual sync'ing on stars. Plate solving with "dialogue based" selected in EQMOD will basically iteratively home in on your desired co-ordinates with traditional solving or fail over to blind solving.

If you blind solve manually does it come up with a solution ok?
(From memory they had a new built in Plate Solve 2 mode that combines both and works really well for most people - not something I've had time or inclination to try yet)

[Merlin66]

Malcolm,
I can't help with the SGP issue, but I do use EQMod and CdC with my imaging program AA6.
I usually find a couple of CdC bright stars reasonable close to the target slew to them, centre them and sync.

To GOTO a unknown target (unknown to CdC!) you can enter the RA/Dec directly -right click on the "mount position box" and enter the target coordinates.
Seems to work for me....
Does this help??

[barx1963]

Unfortunately, the EQMOD program needs to be in "dialog based" rather than "append on sync" for plate solving to work. It appears that if you try to mix them up, pointing is all over the shop.

Malcolm

[barx1963]

Thanks for that. I am very happy with the plate solving in SGP, very accurate and repeatable. The reason I am wanting this is so that if I want to get a target that I do not have existing issue or unable to access Astrobin for a plate solved image to use, I can still use Go To to get me there. Anyway, I have solved the issue. It appears that you have to actually click on a star in CdC to get it to work when in dialog based mode.

Cheers

Malcolm

[peter_4059]

Malcolm. You can switch to "append on sync", sync on whatever stars you like than change back to "dialogue based" for the SGP centering routine. The issue is if you keep it in append on sync it creates dozens of sync points when using the centering routine all in close proximity which prevents it from converging properly.

[barx1963]

Thanks Peter.
That does make more sense. The video seems to imply that do a sync based after doing alignment via dialog based method may cause an issue so I was working on the assumption that mixing them was not good.

Cheers

Malcolm

[RobF]

We all go through the safety blanket phase of wanting to see something to sync on, but if you can get blind solving to work reliably for your rig you don't actually have to be pointing at anything.

As Peter says, you can mix and match sync models, within reason.
So you could blind solve to get an initial sync, then once you have one or two points for gross alignment of the pointing model, switch back to dialog based and let the SGP iteratively zoom in on your object.

For an object you're not sure of exact co-ords, just enter best estimate you have from software or elsewhere, then if you can get even a little of the object onto your FOV, use the "point telescope here" functionality to get centred where you want to be.

Then solve manually, and save those co-ords as your master position.


Hope that makes some sense :)

[peter_4059]

That's exactly what I do.