Skywatcher EQ35-Pro Help

[DamienB]

Hey all,


Apologies if this is a long post, but I have been struggling for the last month with this and having been a forum user over the years, I recognise how vital it is to have a detailed post.



I am new to astrophotography and have spent the last 9 months researching what I wanted to buy within my budget of $5000. The goal being to take photos of nebulae like Orion, horsehead, flame, pinwheel etc. I finally took the plunge and purchased the following:

Nikon D750 DSLR (and some kit lenses to help me learn the camera, remote controls etc).
Skywatcher Evostar 80ed
Skywatcher EQM-35 Pro GoTo Mount


Here's where I need some assistance. I have scoured the internet to find someone who has actually setup from start to finish the EQM in the southern hemisphere. But I have had no luck and all the videos/tutorials all seem to be from the northern hemisphere.


Here is what I have encountered so far:

1. Aligned the leg marked N towards south so that way the polar alignment scope as part of the mount facing the correct way.


2. I am in Adelaide (Seaford Rise), I set my latitude as best I can on the scale for 35.


3. Looking through the polar view finder I can see that Octans is marked as the top right quadrant of the view. But according to the Stellarium app, it currently lies at the bottom in the real world. So if I am to rotate the mount so it lines up, it puts it square upside down with counter weight pointing right up. Not exactly usable with a telescope on it....


3a. Carrying on without a scope, I then try to do an alignment, lets pick 1 star and Canopus. I can see that nearly above me if the app is correct :shrug: Hit go (once synscan is setup with correct time, date and long/latitude). It then zooms around and basically points sideways to the fence. Nowhere near up.


3b. Reset it so the weight is at what I'd call "home" aka pointing down. Octans in the upper right spot marking and attempt to do the star alignment again. This time it zooms about and is somewhat in the right area. Cool, getting somewhere and it's dark out. I did have Dylan O'Donnell from youtube respond to a tweet when I complained I couldn't use the arrows to adjust it and he said to change the rate. So did that, I align the scope with the Canopus star using a green laser pointer through the view finder and click ok. Alignment successful.


3c. I do notice that if I hold the Synscan, sometimes it will reboot itself and go through initialising. I am suspecting the cable link is dodgy. It seems to be a standard RJ45 so might just make a new one.



4. Right time to do some imaging. With alignment successful (:confused2:) I decided to select M42 - Orion. It's the beginners choice right? Slew to target..... Nope does some zooming about, ends up pointing to the ground. So i decided to loosen the tightening/locking bolts and manually move it to where it should be. Afterall it will still "think" it's locked into it right? So it should be tracking at the rate of the earth.....


5. With camera mounted, focus sorted I go to take some photos. Except I cannot take photos more than 10 seconds in duration, otherwise I get star trails. If I take 10-20 shots, I notice the star/nebulae I am tracking has drifted well out of center of view. It almost seems like it is tracking in the reverse direction, down, instead of up, and at the wrong speed. Adjusting the rate from 3 to 7 makes no difference. So I have to adjust the mount again. It becomes tedious and essentially ruins any photos I put into DeepSkyStacker.

With the DSLR camera, no-one explicitly explains that with the Nikon, if you attach it to a telescope you need to setup in the menu a Non-CPU Lens and give it the F of the "lens" otherwise it won't take any photos. According to Oz Scopes site where I purchased this gear from, The Evostar has an F of 7.5. Closest I could choose in the Nikon menu was 8.

I see a number of youtubers taking amazing photos and they all have long exposure times. 2 minutes, 5 minutes etc.


Ideally my goal is to be able set the mount up before the sun goes down. Then do an alignment, attach scope, fine tune. Once it's dark, literally key in the nebulae I wish to shoot and it actually lock on it. I am fine with spending 30 mins or so getting it right. What I am tiring of is spending hours stuffing about and then at midnight packing it in.



It'd be nice to set the remote control to take the multiple subs. Then I can enjoy being out in the night, delving into the universe. Currently I have managed to get one decent stack of Orion. The rest I have perhaps 10 nights of failures.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Damien

[Rerouter]

I cannot help much with the synscan side of things, but I can atleast help with the trailing, this is because your not dialed in exactly on the south celestial pole, the better that alignment is, the longer you can image before you get trailing stars

With your scope when the controller is behaving itself it has some routines to make polar alignment much simpler, until then I can atleast explain the manual process to get yourself aligned so you can get some longer images

How I went about finding it for my home was set the tripod up in the day where I image, but pointing about 30 degrees away from south so the leg cleared when I drew a line later on (without the scope or mount, no need for that to get hot)

Leveled it out as best I could with a bubble level, used a weight and a string off the mount screw to draw a vertical shadow under the center of the scope

Used an online calculator to work out the time of solar noon, when solar noon came, used a ruler to mark the line, extending it out to where the south leg should sit,

Measured off a point on that line to get the other 2 legs set as close to the same as possible,

Rechecked I was level, then marked off around each leg with a permernant marker so next time I just know exactly where south is for when I set up

When your imaging, make sure your tripod is level, and if you found south like I did, you can center out the 2 fine rotation screws, in the worst case when your controller is working again it lets you start from a much better polar alignment than you would usually have (phones and compasses turn out to not be as accurate as one would hope when near a chunk of metal)

Another recommendation after doing this would be align you camera with the RA / DEC axis, this way you can do a fine trim of where any other small offset is, e.g. you see the stars trail exactly horizontal, you know its an issue with your azimuth fine tuning, as for what way to adjust, I recommend taking a 1 minute exposure, and about 10 seconds in, hold the lense cover over for a few seconds, this gap will let you know which direction its drifting to trim it back the other way.

For context, I am waiting for a guide cam as I can let PHD2 work all this mess out for me, but until then, I have had to get creative.

[Startrek]

Damien
I’m sure the EQ35 mount is similar to the HEQ5 mount just a lesser payload
Here’s some set up procedures and how to polar align using the Synscan handcontroller ( you don’t need to have a view of the South celestial pole or use polar scope )
Hope the attached helps in some way
Good luck !!
Martin

[Startrek]

Forgot to attach one procedure
Tripod set up and alignment
I’ve maxed the download limit so I’ll send another post
Cheers

[Startrek]

Can’t send any more attachments on this post
I’ve exceeded the limit
Sorry

[Startrek]

Here you go
I’ve copied and pasted from notes

Setting up a Tripod to Align to True Celestial South

NB: This procedure is based on having your True South line already marked on the ground from a previous procedure ( length of true south line marked on ground approximately 500mm long or alternatively 2 fixed points marked on the ground 500mm apart)
1/ Open your tripod fully out and extend all 3 legs out by about 100mm then lock them
2/ Place foot of front tripod leg marked “N” directly on True South line and roughly line up the 2 rear tripod legs equally spaced in respect to the True South line
3/ Level the base platform of your tripod by adjusting the legs in or out as required .Check level of the tripod base in both north/south and east/west directions using a good quality builders aluminium bubble float level.Level the base as accurate as you can then lock the tripod leg adjusters nice and tight.
4/ Extend out your True South Line along the ground just past the intersection of the 2 rear tripod legs using a string line, aluminium angle or a straight edge. The feet of both rear tripod legs must be equidistant from the intersection of the extended True South Line. When adjusting make sure you only move the 2 rear tripod legs left or right whilst keeping the front tripod leg “N” stationary or pivoting but not moving off the True South Line
5/ Once the 2 rear tripod legs are equidistant from the true south line , the tripod is now set up level and pointing to Celestial True South
6/ Ensure you take care in setting up the tripod and measuring accurately to the nearest millimetre.This will assist the accuracy of your polar alignment procedure.

Cheers
Martin

[kens]

@Damien I'm afraid that at a focal length of 600mm imaging deep sky objects you are very soon going to have to autoguide.
The D750 has 6um pixels. At 600mm focal length that is 2 arcseconds per pixel. And your mount will typically have a periodic error of 60 arcseconds peak to peak. It has a worm period of around 10 minutes (638 seconds to be more precise). So every 5 minutes or so the mount drifts around 30 pixels in Right Ascension then back the other way for another 5 minutes.
Until you start autoguiding you would do better imaging at 200mm focal length or less and keep your exposures short.

[middy]

Hi Damien. When you entered your latitude into the Synscan, did you remember the minus sign? I.e. -35 degrees, not 35 degrees. It sounds like the mount thinks it is in the Northern hemisphere with you saying ‘it’s almost like it’s tracking the wrong way’ and ‘it pointed down instead of up’.

Cheers,
Andrew

[DamienB]

Thanks I will give this a go!

[DamienB]

I plan to get an autoguider, but shouldn't this mount be really doing that anyway? Tracking along with the earths rotation....



Now you have me doubting if i have the minus sign in there. Jeez i REALLY hope it's that simple. ;):lol:

[DamienB]

So i looked at the longitude and latitude settings and yes, no minus, however you cant put a minus in. I read that it's not co-ordinates as such, but the degrees and minutes. So i looked this up and my numbers are correct. Will get to trying the other stuff out on the weekend!

[middy]

It has been many years since I used the Synscan hand controller on my mount, but there will be some way of specifying that you are in the Southern Hemisphere. I still think that is the problem.

[Startrek]

To ensure your mount is operating in the correct hemisphere ( Southern ) you have to set “Time Zone” in Set up
For example in Sydney Eastern standard time is +10 and for Daylight Saving will be +11

Also ensure your location info is correct for Latitude and Longitude and your date and time are correct , remember the Synscan shows Month / Day / Year in that order ( US Method of Displaying date )

Refer Synscan manual pages 8 and 9

Cheers

[AdamJL]

You also need to put S in for South under Set Latitude :)

[DamienB]

Yes done all that. ;)

[Startrek]

Time zone is the critical setting in conjunction with your local latitude to determine your hemisphere
And yes all latitudes in Australia are South or S

[NorthernLight]

I appreciate that you might not be on a spending spree, but I had issues setting up in the backyard too and got there eventually. But if you really want to be in business in minutes, do this:

Get a polemaster
Get a keyspan USB to serial adapter
Get a EQDIR adapter
Get Ascom and Astro Tortilla (both free)
Get Stellarium and Stellarium scope plug in (free)
Get backyard Nikon
Set up gear and balance
Wait to darkness
Use polemaster to align mount
Use Astrotortilla via BackyardNikon to platesolve
Use Stellarium to dial in your object of interest
Put hand controller in safe place until you sell mount
Enjoy <5min pole alignment and spot on (deadcenter) pointing accuracy of GOTO

It will set you back some money but the most expensive kit is the polemaster. You will never look back.

Again, it all can be done without the things listed and it’s fun to learn and grow through it. But time is of the essence and frustration is not making this hobby more fun with so few nights to spend on all the expensive gear we acquire.

Just my 2cents

Edit: initially post was missing the EQDIR adapter, which is crucial for the serial port conversion

[DamienB]

Is this what you mean?


https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32882218910.html?spm=a2g0o.productl ist.0.0.b7655dd48xX8f1&algo_pvid=a0ac99e7-0010-4048-8d46-9a7d90cdf23d&algo_expid=a0ac99e7-0010-4048-8d46-9a7d90cdf23d-1&btsid=0b0a557016149505886246313ebe2 6&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb20 1602_,searchweb201603_


https://www.qhyccd.com/index.php?m=content&c=index&a=show&catid=136&id=32&cut=3

[NorthernLight]

Yes, that’s the one. It comes with adapters to mount in the opening where the pole scope inside the mount head has its aperture. The adapter I got works in both my CG4 and the NEQ6 as it’s the same bore diameter. The EQ35 PRO looks like a rebadged Celestron CG4 with added motors and encoders for GOTO. So I hazard a guess and say it would work with the same mount adapter. They are all Synta mounts after all. But it’s worth double checking. You have to chose the adapter for your mount at time of purchase. Mine also came with a free adapter that mounts for the majority of star trackers, like the iOptron Skyguider.
I used to kneel behind my NEQ6 mount in the cold damp grass peeping through the pole scope trying to locate Octans, which had to be done after nightfall but prior to mounting the scope and counterweights etc. Now I just need to wait until it’s dark enough for the polemaster to “see” the constellation and sensitivity/gain on the camera is easily pushed up whereas eyes need dark adaption and a reasonably dark sky with enough contrast to spot octans. Since it’s all on the laptop, the job can be done sitting on chair next to the mount. The first time I used it, it took me a little while to recognise Octans on screen. But once I had found it, I found it every time in a very short time. Granted, the better your initial altitude and true south orientation, the quicker it shows up on screen. But the field of view angle provided by the polemaster is reasonably wide, so scanning with the mount head from left to right (azimuth) will bring it up quickly. Plus, once you aligned your mount with polemaster in your backyard, the altitude will be spot on for next time (in your backyard), so you really only have to point the thing broadly in the direction of the SCP, which every phone app will show with enough accuracy to ensure the centre pin on the mount’s tripod faces the pole close enough that when you swivel the mount head left and right, the pole will show up on your laptop screen (i.e. not outside the azimuth rotation limit).
NOTE: if you have no clear view of the SCP, the polemaster will be no good to you as it relies on a visual confirmation procedure where you need to identify sigma octans and centre it with an overlay displayed on screen.
I like astrophotography and guiding is a big deal. I can honestly say that my guide graph shows subarcsecond guiding on many nights when aligned with the polemaster and i spend some time setting up the tripod properly. I mainly image at 600mm with an APS-C Sensor, unguided, I can go up to 2min. exposures and get images without unpleasant star shapes (sure, if you pixel peep, then you’ll see some but not when printed on a postcard).
In combination with the software mentioned, and leaving most of the equipment pre-assembled, I am setup in 30min. and that means mount aligned, target centred (even if it’s not visible in the viewfinder), guiding procedure complete and guiding stable, exposures dialed in for auto capture with dithering and remote controlling the whole shebang from my iPad via TeamViewer.

[DamienB]

I suspect I have a slight dilemma in that my house obscures a clear view of south and my backyard is tiered so I can only go lower which makes it worse... I'm still learning the night sky and everything looks like Octans shape if you try hard enough. :lol:


Last night was moonless and I went out there. I hooked the mount up via laptop and used stellarium + EQMASCOM. I managed to get it to work the other day during the day (just forwarded stellarium to 9pm) and it moved relatively close to where Orion would typically be etc. But last night it didn't want to play properly and whilst I had it line up with Canopus, selecting Rigel meant the mount moved perhaps 5 degrees and just stayed there, rather than spin nearly 180 degrees to face North West-ish.

As time was of the essence I just manually moved it. It still tracked ok, not ideal but I managed to take 80, 30 second exposures @ 4000 ISO. The uploaded photo is an unstacked shot from the camera. It's not good. No matter how i fine tune focus, and at 30 seconds I get pretty average star trails. Crazy thing is, it looks excellent in the view finder, and even if I export them to the PC.. it's when you crop and zoom in, do you find out how bad it is. :shrug:


Still, one must persist!

[DamienB]

If anyone is interested, here is the deepskystacker output. It is 290mb.


http://www.onsiteaudiovisual.com/extras/Astrophotography/OrionStacked.TIF


Damien

[Startrek]

Damien
Your polar alignment is way out if those exposures are only 30 sec

Q : Did you use the Synscan polar alignment routine is attached for you ? Plus all the other information ?

I still use the Synscan after 4 years, don’t need a view of the SCP and I’m polar aligned under an arc minute in about 15 minutes


All the best

Martin

[DamienB]

Oh completely agree on way off. I didn't follow that last night as it was purely a "oh the clouds have broken. Go go go. 🙄🤣🤣

[NorthernLight]

That place of yours is not very Astrofriendly. You could learn how to Scheiner. I tried and gave up on it. Manually it is very time consuming and not very intuitive. But suppose you could fix the center of your tripod with a marker on the ground so you find it every time, and let’s assume you had a ultra wide angle camera lens, then you could take a photo of the star trails arcing around your house. They would form a circle with your house in the middle part of the frame. When you take that picture and suppose the exposure is long enough to yield sufficiently long star trail arcs, then you could overlay a cross on screen (or print it on paper) to find the center point of the circling stars, which would be a spot on your house. Now, if you can scale the dimensions of the photo onto your real house and mark the center spot on your house, then you align the mount to that spot. You might need a ladder and a tape measure as well as a glow in the dark sticky spot. It will not be the most accurate alignment but if you augment the alignment with an auto guider, you could be in business for serious long exposure. Not sure how viable this will be but if you wind up trying, please do share the photos of the process. Good luck!

[DamienB]

I printed out your steps which whilst detailed, I still struggled initially with the descriptions. However I think i worked it out with placing the RA and DEC horizontally etc and adjusting the screw/clock etc.



I then followed the 2 star alignment as you outlined (Maybe suggestions of stars to use would be good if you plan to update document). I chose Canopus (because it's bright and I can see it), and the Acrux from the list. Whilst it was off by quite a way, I could realign it using arrows and get it on. This proved successful.


Or so I thought.


I reached the end of your document, although the polar alignment step didn't seem to work as intended. Unless I misunderstood the description, but again chose Canopus and it slewed to it, but not near. I corrected it with the arrows. Hit enter. It did it's thing. :confused2:



Did the 2 star alignment again with those two stars. It was still off, BUT was in the region. Corrected it again. Took about 45 minutes. Figured I must be doing something right.


I then default to Orion because every one knows where that is as a place I'd like to image tonight.

Keyed in M42. It slews....


And slews... COOL POINTING THE WRONG WAY. :mad2::mad2: It didn't even spin around to face north. Ended up pointing South West.


I released the clutches and spun it around. Fine tuned it. Mounted camera. Even at 10 second exposures I was getting oval stars. I also notice when it tries to slew itself, it sounds like a slipping gear. :shrug:



I can't even be sure if it is ACTUALLY tracking. If I cycle through my photos (I took 60 at 5 second exposures just to feel like i did something), Orion slowly edges across the image. I would think if it was tracking in general, it'd be fairly locked in. The way my brain works is, regardless of where it 'thinks' it's pointing, it should still track at the rate of the earth yes? (I get the speeds will be different as you extend out from the SCP, but it should still track at 'A' rate).



So what to do? What to do?


I am tempted to email the Astronomical Society of SA and see if there's someone in Adelaide with this mount and who would be happy to come and set it up, show me physically how it's done. I don't even mind paying for the service. Unless there's someone from SA on here that want's to come assist for a bottle of scotch.

:help:


I shall keep persisting.


Damien



(https://www.assa.org.au/)

[Startrek]

Damien,
Sorry to hear your woes
Can’t follow what you are doing it’s a bit fragmented
Your obviously not polar aligned
Some prerequisites before you start ,
1/ Did you mark your true south line ?
2/ Is you tripod orientation correct , facing true south ? ie: front leg and foot pointing true south. The closer and more accurate you are to this true south line the closer you will end up on your 1st Alignment Star in the field of view
3/ Is your mount in its “home position” with counterweight shaft pointing down the front tripod leg (which is pointing true south )
4/ Did you set up your Synscan handcontroller with correct settings
Latitude and Longitude for your site
Time Zone Adelaide SA +10.30
Current Time expressed in Month / Day / Year, not our way in Australia
5/ Currently I would be using the following Stars between 8.30pm and 9.30pm
for your 2 Star Alignment and Polar Alignment routine ( 2 Star Alignment Stars Miaplacidus and Acrux ) and Polar Alignment Star ( Miaplacidus ) The closer to the SCP and south meridian line for your polar alignment Star the better ( but not passing the meridian line
6/ Did you down load a copy of Stellarium on your home PC or laptop ? This planetarium gives you a map of every object in the night sky at any time all year round , year after year . You can use Stellarium to identify and nominate your Alignment stars and polar alignment Star
7/ Are you using a good centering eye piece ( My recommendation is an Orion 20mm 70 deg illuminated reticle eye piece) as it has a wide field, pretty good optics and good eye relief. Or are you using a software program on a laptop to do your Star Centering
Accurate Star Centering is extremely important for tight polar alignment
8/ As per the Syncan procedure you must perform a 2 Star alignment to determine initially how much error in Az and Alt your mount is away from the SCP. ( eg : Miaplacidus and Acrux ) Then perform a Polar Alignment with your polar alignment Star ( Miaplacidus ) , then you must finish with a 2 Star alignment again ( Miaplacidus and then Acrux ) to determine your resultant error . This process is an iteration and you may require 2 , 3 or up to 5 or 6 iterations to get your error down below 1 arc minute
Your handcontroller displays the Elevation and Azimuth error like this -
Mel=+000 00 00
Maz=-000 00 00
Expressed in degrees , arc minutes , arc seconds
The more zeros from left to right the better
All I’m doing above ( point 8 ) is describing exactly what’s been documented in my Synscan PA routine document

Other than the above points I can’t provide further assistance

Hope you get your mount polar aligned sooner than later

All the best
Martin

[NorthernLight]

Hi Damien,

In what direction are your stars actually trailing? I assume your shooting through the ED80 at 600mm focal length?
Can you see the oblong stars on the camera screen or only when zooming in or on a big screen?

If your mount is roughly polar aligned and set to track in the Southern Hemisphere, than a slight misalignment it should not be too noticeable in a 10sec exposure.

The Goto alignment feature has zero effect on the mounts tracking performance as this is only governed by pole alignment and correct hemisphere entry. but the mount can track

a) in sidereal on northern hemisphere
b) sidereal on Southern Hemisphere
C) in lunar both ways as above
d) in solar both ways as above

To better understand what’s going on, it would be helpful to find out in which way your mount actually tracks

Perhaps take try to align the mount with the aid of a phone app to seek out the pole location and use the phones inbuilt inclinometer to judge the pole height (the markers on the mount are not reliable and more decorative).

Then, choose a star in the east 90deg in declination (dec axis perpendicular to RA axis) and expose once at high ISO for a second or so, to see the stars location in your frame as a reference point. Then expose for while the mount is tracking for something long enough to produce a clear star trail in the image, say a minute (maybe chose ISO 400 if you combat light pollution).

The resulting image will be upside down when shooting through your Ed 80. If your star trail marches mainly east, then you’re tracking in the wrong hemisphere. So the problem is in your information provided to the mount. Any other direction means an error in polar alignment.

The ability of the synscan controller to complete an alignment routine to sharpen up the GOTO is limited to a relatively small polar alignment error. I don’t know exactly how much misalignment it can tolerate. But Beyond the this tolerance in degrees, it will just make wild guesses as to where it is pointed. If you then also track for the wrong hemisphere it will go haywire.

Have you had an instance where the scope tried pointing to the ground? Is the 2 or 3 star alignment feature offering you stars in the northern hemisphere?

[NorthernLight]

PS: the App PS Align Pro is very helpful and only costs a a few bugs. Can only recommend it. Even has a daylight alignment routine, which does not require being able to see the SCP.

[DamienB]

I appreciate all the help so far. ;) Been busy with running my business, so haven't had much of a chance this past few days which sucks as the skies have been clear.


I am tempted to do a video of me setting it up and you can see where I'm going wrong. Would that be helpful?


Damien

[NorthernLight]

That would be helpful. Looking forward to solving this mystery, and happy Easter!

[DamienB]

So I have been slammed with work, but last night in the living room, decided to go through the setup write up that was attached previously to this thread. One thing I have noticed is that the top section where the telescope sits, faces East/West in it's home position. It always has, out of box.



Is this ok? Or should it not be pointing North/South?



Could this be why I'm out all the time as the write up mentioned rotating it 90 degrees so it is East/West and levelling it.... but it's that way by default for me. If this is wrong, how do I change it?


Photo attached.


http://www.onsiteaudiovisual.com/extras/Astrophotography/mount.jpg

[Startrek]

Damien
If your mount is set up correctly, your telescope with sit north south in the saddle and point south
Here’s a series of my procedures to set up from scratch
I don’t know if you have these already, but if you follow them carefully you will get up and running I’m sure
Your EQ35 mount is similar to it’s bigger cousins the EQ5, HEQ5 , EQ6 and EQ6-R mounts ( some of the steps in setting up the mount head itself might vary a bit but the mechanical concept is the same )
Good luck again !!!
Cheers
Martin

[DamienB]

Hey Martin,


Yes I printed them out and was following it.



This bit here:





It is at 0 without rotating it? In the home position (counterweight down)..... So in the home position, when i click telescope in, its facing East/West before i go any further.... Hence the picture.


If i move that section 90 degrees so it faced north south, the pointer is to the side and pointing to 90

[Startrek]

Damien
Yes you must set your Ra axis first so your counterweight shaft is pointing down the front tripod leg with the Ra setting ring circle “0” lining up with the arrow , then you set your Dec axis ( the telescope holder or saddle ) by turning it roughly east west , then place a bubble level across it against the straight fixed part (not the opposite side where the 2 telescope clamping bolts are) and move it slightly clockwise or anticlockwise to level it perfectly with the bubble level
( I use a 300mm Stanley builders bubble level )
Once levelled , you then turn the Dec axis ( telescope holder ) anticlockwise exactly 90 degrees or a quarter turn, the numbers on the Dec setting ring circle are not so important it’s the anticlockwise 90 degree movement that’s important . The Dec setting ring circle is only used to measure your 90 degree movement so once the Dec is levelled and ready to rotate , I just loosen the Dec setting ring grub screws , rotate the ring around so that the 90 degree mark is opposite the pointer arrow on the mount , lock in the grub screws , then rotate the Dec axis ( telescope holder ) 90 degrees until “0” lines up with the pointer arrow on the mount. The Dec axis or telescope holder has been rotated anticlockwise through 90 degrees or a quarter turn and should now be facing south north
Obviously you have lock and unlock the Ra and Dec clutches to do the above rotations
Hope the above makes sense
I just read my procedure and it describes pretty much what I said above
Just think in your mind that all we are doing to set “Home Position” is levelling both Ra and Dec from horizontal through 90 degrees or a quarter turn
So the Ra ends up with the counterweight shaft pointing down the front tripod leg and the Dec ends up facing north south when you telescope is attached
Cheers
Martin

[DamienB]

Hey Martin


Can you post a picture showing that top bit in its home position on your mount please?


Thanks

[Startrek]

Damien
My mounts packed away at the moment in Sydney but here’s some earlier photos of both my 6” and 8” newts on my two EQ6-R mounts , plus a photo in my study when I was doing some testing with EQMOD and Ascom Stellarium telescope control late last year
Also a advertisement photo of your mount in Home Position
I hope these get your head around this procedure for setting home position
Martin

[DamienB]

Okay,


I got it.

Well kinda. I ended up adjusting the top so it was North South, then the ring to line up as 0 to the pointer (which was on the side). Effectively meaning home is 90 degrees offset.

Anywho, I did a two star alignment and it wasn't too far off. Adjusted with laser pointer through guide/finderscope. Checked in eyepiece. Did the polar alignment and then another 2 star alignment.

Decided to then see if it could find Orion. It could not. Not even close, didnt even spin around to North. But then I selected Acrux (one of the star alignment stars) and it locked back on it.. Hmm. Did another 2 star alignment. Seemed ok. Screen showed errors with 3 leading zeros. Which cant be that bad surely? First time around showed 1 degree and i did it again. But the Maz is 2 degrees? Is that bad?


Photo uploaded. http://www.onsiteaudiovisual.com/extras/Astrophotography/20210401_201559.jpg

So second time around, I chose Canopus. It locked on pretty close. Then i chose M42 and it actually got fairly close. I adjusted it slightly with the arrows and clicked camera on. 30 second exposure. Clean and crisp.


1 minute exposure... no star trailing. On to a winner. Tried my luck at 2 minutes. No way in hell. Stars trailing for miles. Not sure how these astrophotography Youtubers do 3 and 5 minute exposures but oh well. I am getting there slowly.

So I did 30 1 minute exposures on Orion, but what i noticed is the star trails began to appear after awhile. I selected M42 again from the list and it was off. Quite off. Readjusted.

My next question is: Do I need to do an alignment again mid way through my sessions?


I'm also dreadful at post processing. Need to sit and really look at tutorials. This was done in GIMP after deepskystacker had it's way, and also in PhotoNinja (awesome program). It still doesn't pop but thats a job for another night.


Will get out again tomorrow. I'd like to start photographing other stuff outside of Orion, but at this stage, its a go to as it's easy to see and find.


Thanks for all the help so far!


http://www.onsiteaudiovisual.com/extras/Astrophotography/Orionpng.png

[Startrek]

Damien
Your polar alignment numbers for Azimuth and Altitude are not good , your way off

Please read my notes and procedures carefully in the Synscan Polar alignment routine , as you asked me if your numbers were any good , the notes and procedures would have told you that

Sorry if I sound a bit harsh but but you need to read , read , read and then do a simulated make up procedure during the day to get ready for the real test at night

I’m confident you will get there , it took me a few weeks and 3 or 4 night sessions to get my polar alignment error down to 1 arc minute or under

Good luck !!
Martin

[DamienB]

Having a go at the Flame Nebula tonight. Hows this for alignment?


I have an issue with the synscan. So i had it aligned like this with 10" and 15" I selected Alnitak and its Slewed. But then it stops? I press it again, it slews a bit more. 3rd time it gets to the location (you'd think it would do it all in one hit). Fine. But then it was out, not by much. I pick up the hand controller and it REBOOTED....... :mad2: So I had to set the whole damn thing up again. Which resulted in 10" and 12" :shrug: It's definitely the patch lead between hand control and main box. Job for tomorrow.

I still can't take exposures longer than 1 minute 30 without getting star trailing. I did remember to set the rate to 3 after adjusting it. But even at 1 min 30, every so often i have an image with star trails. So currently imaging at 1 min 10.


Each night is an improvement though.



http://www.onsiteaudiovisual.com/extras/Astrophotography/alignment1.jpg

[Startrek]

Damien,
Ok now we are getting somewhere
That’s about as tight as you can polar align that mount ( well under an arc minute )
Well done !!!!
What scope are you using on that EQ35 mount ?
In most cases with tight polar alignment on these Skywatcher EQ mounts you can only take up to 60 seconds ( maybe up to 90 sec if your lucky ) exposures before your Stars start to look eggy shaped or rice shaped.These mounts are not mechanically designed and machined as good as Swiss watches so it limits you to 60sec at best or 90 sec exposures if your lucky.So there are mechanical deficiencies in your mount whilst it tracks an object across the night sky
Here’s where Autoguiding steps in
Autoguiding assists your mount to keep pointing at an object with very high precision whilst the mount tracks across the night sky
Autoguiding allows you go beyond the 60 sec unguided exposure and successfully take 2 min , 3 min , 4 min , 5 min or up to 10minute exposures with perfectly round stars
PHD2 is the most popular and successful guiding software across the globe and it’s a free download
You will need a guide scope and guide camera connected via USB cable to your laptop to get started with guiding
Maybe read up on PHD2 guiding to get your head around it !!!
In the meantime just take 40 to 60 sec (unguided exposures ) to gain experience with imaging
Pick easy bright targets like Carina nebula , Omega Centauri cluster and other Star clusters to get some imaging time under your belt. Forget about dim targets like the Horsehead, galaxies etc.. with 60 sec exposures , they just won’t cut it

PS: As far as slewing to targets the Synscan handcontroller will never be perfectly accurate , it will always be off target a bit due to your mounts mechanical deficiencies and poor atmospheric conditions etc... just centre it
Alternatively you can spend more time on your 2 star alignment achieve more accuracy
Make sure you pick 2 bright alignment stars on the same side of the meridian, similar altitudes say within 20 degrees and not more than 60 degrees in azimuth apart
Last night I used Acrux and Regulus as my 2 star alignment stars ( Acrux was my polar alignment Star )

Cheers
Martin

[DamienB]

Hey


The scope i have is: Skywatcher ED80. I have the Adaptors and it came with an extension. 3" i think they call it but its a bit less, and helps with focus. ;)

Camera: Nikon D750


Yes, the guide cam is my next purchase. Just spreading costs a bit as i've recently laid chevron flooring and renovated a room, french doors drying atm. (I have more than one hobby and nothing is a simple hobby!)


Good to know on the 60 seconds. Im pushing it tonight with 1m 10/20 and ive noticed every 3rd-4th shot has egged stars and i wonder if it's to do with the mount moving at that point etc.



My guide stars are Acrux and Miaplacidus as you suggested.



I'd like to move on to other things too. A Pinwheel Galaxy would be nice.



Two questions:


1. Is the mechanics of these mounts known to have slipping issues? It often sounds like it slips/whirs when it moves.
2. Is there an upgrade kit to make them run smoother?


My next step is to cable USB sockets to outside next to the power point so I can run the system from the PC under my TV. ;)


Thanks for the help so far. At least there's headway.



Damien

[Startrek]

These mounts have mesh gears and worm drives and will always have a grinding sound when it slews to an object. Once your locked on to an object and start tracking it should be fairly
Im pretty sure there is no belt upgrade kit for this mount to make it smoother , quieter and run more precise with less backlash ,only it’s bigger brother the HEQ5. You still need to autoguide with any mount above the 60 sec exposure time
I would have steered you towards buying the HEQ5 as a first mount , they are the most popular mounts for beginners plus has a slightly higher payload rating than your EQ35
EQ35 payload is 10kg
HEQ5 payload is 13kg

Martin

[Startrek]

Just check when using Miaplacidus and Acrux as your Alignment stars ( they are not guide stars ) that Miaplacidus has not past the south meridian line yet as its getting awfully close at the moment around 9pm to 10pm
1/Your 2 alignment stars MUST be on the same side of the Meridian
2/Your 2 Alignment stars MUST be brighter stars say magnitude 1.5 and brighter
3/Your 2 Alignment stars SHOULD be as close to the south Meridian line as possible ( governed by the time at night )
4/Your 2 Alignment stars SHOULD be between 30 to 50 degrees in Altitude and no wider apart ( Azimuth) than say 50 degrees, closer the better as the mount only has to move a shorter distance back and forth between the alignment stars
5/ Your 2 Alignment stars ( one Star will be your polar alignment Star ( and one of the 2 Star Alignment Stars ) which is closest to the south celestial pole and south meridian line , and the other further away

Depending on what time at night you want to Polar Align , but at the moment you could possibly use Acrux as your polar alignment Star ( and 2 star alignment Star ) and Hadar as your other 2 star alignment Star
I’m pretty sure they satisfy the above criteria ( points 1 to 5 ) for using the Synscan Polar Alignment Routine

Good luck !