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rumples riot
20-12-2004, 02:56 PM
I will do a review of the new purchase and will do a photo walk through from carton to being on the tripod. I hope that I have done the right thing. That reminds me I have to do a review of the field derotator which I now have the shots for. hmmm.

I am off to set up and take shots.:D

iceman
20-12-2004, 02:58 PM
Good luck Paul, hope it performs as expected!

rumples riot
20-12-2004, 03:06 PM
Funny how it was there for me to pick up, They had one in stock, first time that has ever happened. will send the reviews through shortly Mike for both.

beren
20-12-2004, 03:27 PM
Ahhh crikey ...heres one for the books ...had to wait for mine and the croweater walks in says thanks very much and thank your mum for the rabbit .....man that suxs {hold fist in the general direction of meade corp /calfornia in astonishment}

Well done Paul hope it works well , have fun trying to attach that little wedge thingo to the tripod with the short allen key meade supplies. Oh the extra bolts , the shorter ones are for the 12 and 14 lx200s i think.

rumples riot
20-12-2004, 03:38 PM
Bit like a volkwagon ehh. Finish putting it together and wonder waht the three extra bolts are for? There for next time when you are three short.
Yes the crow eater can just go and get stuff, thats because we are not on the other side of the planet. LOL We don't need to send out a search party to find the nearest post office here. LOL

Thanks Stuart, will give it a go in a while and let you get back on top.

beren
20-12-2004, 04:52 PM
LOL no worries Paul , just dont get the smaller bolts mixed with the longer ones in case you use them .....GAH....oh dont forget to compenstate for the magnetic declination and tell us if your compass and level are out .

Dave47tuc
20-12-2004, 08:09 PM
Good luck with the wedge Paul.:cool:

Look foward to seeing some nice photos.

Lucky things have changed, I remember guideing for two hours once and when i had my film developed nothing on it:confuse3:

Best.


:astron:

rumples riot
21-12-2004, 12:07 AM
Stuart, compass is a little out and level is fine though. Have now got pretty reasonable polar alignment, no realdrift after ten minutes. Am trying to refine this over tonight, so hopefully tomorrow night I can image for most of the night.

beren
21-12-2004, 11:05 AM
Cool , how did you find the alti and azi movements ? At some stage i gotta do the PEC training.

rumples riot
21-12-2004, 11:47 AM
Alt az movements seem ok, the wedge is really sturdy, still having a bit of trouble getting the alignment right. Got it so that the star was only moving over 5 minutes. Then went and checked the latitude and I had it set wrong. So by 12.20 this morning, I had it fairly reasonable again. Have left the scope set up this morning and will get it spot on tonight. Like you I have to do calibration and training of the drives again.

Drift alignment is not as easy as I thought it would be, any tips and which stars do you use? Last night I used Rigel first and Sirius as my horizon star. This latter changed and I used Rigel first and another star near the horizon as the other star.

Anyway hopefully when I go over to the shack it will be easier as I should be able to sigma Octans. And do a one star alignment.

Paul

beren
21-12-2004, 01:24 PM
Ahh Paul if im reading you right you got to have a star virutally above you , early in the evening Rigel would be to low, doing this sorts your Altizuth alignment and then a star 20-35 degrees on the eastern horizon sorts your altiude alignment.

I usally start with the Altizuth adjustment first and then the altiude and then double check .BTW do you have a illu reticle . Looking into a reticle i watch for north/south movement of the guide star and react by adjusting the altizuth handle {for the zenith star} or altiude handle {eastern star} so the star is back in the opposite direction. These adjustments might have to be fairly large as you start , but take it in small steps so you can monitor the star in the eyepice, after a few goes it becomes quite simple. You may of noticed if you turn one of the knobs one way and suddenly go the other way it takes a few turns to take up the slack , annoying , thankfully on mine just the altizuth axis suffers a little . I try and finish the alignment going in one direction so i dont have to turn the knob in the other direction.Hope this makes sense , the frustrating bit is remembering if you should go counterclockwise or clockwise when adjusting the knobs , thats why i try to watch the guide star while adjusting .

After that i just centre a named star, find it in the Autostar catlogue and sync on it {say Canopus}and then find another named star {say Alderbarren} and hit GOTO. This second star is going to be off a bit , just centre it and then sync on it . Your next GOTO should be accurate as usal , when ive done this after getting drift alignment done with a minuim of 5 min for the guide star being centred my accuracy is super [still amazes me }. you may have to do some PEC training for yor imaging though but all my piggyback shots have come out well with no evident tracking errors. Among some tips ive come across its suggested to put some counterweight on the left fork arm to balance the heavier right arm , some "c" batteries in the battery compartment could be the answer , just dont forget them . watch out for your feild stops to , make sure you have the OTA in middle travel . And the big one , dont forget to put the scope in polar mode , ive done it and it drove me bananas trying to figure way things was going crazy.

rumples riot
21-12-2004, 01:45 PM
Stuart, yes I do have an ill Ep, question, how do I sinc the first star. What buttons do I push and which menu. Second, the polar home position is with the corrector plate pointing towards sigma octans correct?

And when I started drift aligning, it was pretty late as I had other duties to attend to (other half) so Rigel was really high in the sky by that stage. I think I have got it close but will check tonight, was tired when I packed it in.

I have read that no drift for five minutes means little guide corrections for 2 hours of photography. Is this tru or not? Apparently should stop field rotation for that length of time.

beren
21-12-2004, 02:34 PM
First centre the named star after finishing the dift aligning , go to the object menu , flick past deep sky, solar system etc until you get to named star . The stars are alphabetically set so youll have to scroll through them until you get the one you want {you can be more direct by entering their IC or other catalogue number}.Once found press enter , press and hold enter again for a couple of seconds until you here a beep , the screen should say the star has been syncyed . Should add just make sure the star is centered before syncing. After doing this pick another star and hit GOTO , centre that,sync it, and you should be set.

While i have no experiance with long exposures ive read 5 min is the min amount of time that should produce good results , i would go for ten minutes though . For 2 hrs doing some PEC training is going to be needed i think . Drift aligning should elimanate chances of field rotation , for imageing i would rely on drift aligning rather than then the Polar home alignment using sigma octanis.

Heres a pic depicting the Polar home position , just subsitute the north arrow with south for us {image taken form the excellent www.MeadeLX200gps.com site}

rumples riot
21-12-2004, 03:44 PM
Thanks for that Stuart, just not familiar with a fork mounted polar alignment, previously had a German mount and things are a little different.

So from what you have said I don't need to get a GPS fix for sync orientation. Is that right or am I wrong? This after I have drift aligned.

Paul

beren
21-12-2004, 04:00 PM
Sorry Paul forgot that .....after you hit GOTO to go to the second star it will do a GPS fix , after that it will continue with the GOTO command and you continue with the procedure..easy.

There is another method that involves gotoing between the pole star and another and adjusting the mount as you go , i tried it once with not much luck , having a bright star like polaris would help .More info on this method can be found here....

www.allaboutastro.com

[1ponders]
21-12-2004, 09:51 PM
Hi guys,
You might find this site useful if trying to set your wedge up using the inbuilt compass. Its a simple calculator to measure your magnetic declination. Helps to work out how far away from magnetic south you need to aim your wedge/GEM to be pointing near the SCP. I found it useful for a quick roughout alingment. Eg My position calls for me to aim the tripod/wedge assembly 12 degrees east of magnetic south.

http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/seg/geomag/jsp/Declination.jsp

Have fun

Paul

Strgazr27
22-12-2004, 12:16 AM
I just finished up a TON of mods to my Superwedge. After about 5 hours of modifications I can say it is now a nice wedge. The factory SW has a TON of issues that will start to crop up so be prepared. I will post some pics of my Mods tonight. They make a HUGE difference in the feel and stability of the mount.

CS's

Bobby