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Hi Terry,
There is no goto software as such. the goto is in the mount on my setup. For example, once polar aligned, I use the hand controller on my scope to goto an object in its database. The telescope has this built in and that is why it's called goto. However, if I use the software that came with my scope and the scope is plugged into the laptop, then you can give the scope goto commands from the software, but the scope has the smarts built in. Perhaps on your mount, you have to use software to control it in this way, I had a quick read online of your mount so you should have the Takahashi software to control it already, unless they make you pay for it seperately.
What have you actually been doing and in what order? You may be close...
My mount is different to yours but I think the concept is the same. Perhaps someone who uses a GEM mount could clarify.
Here is a slightly modified post I did a while ago in reference to Alignmaster:
First step is to align all the bits hanging off your scope, so for me I aligned my finderscope to the main telescope, attached the guide scope and then aligned this as well. This process is really easy and I got close enough, just use a bright star. You can use finder scope cross hairs, illuminated reicles, normal eyepieces if you have a good eye etc. The finderscope simply makes it easier to get a star in the FOV. A laser will work even better in my opinion as you can stare into the sky instead of up a weird angle, (align this to the main scope too).
By the way, I have had my guiding gear for just 2 weeks now and it all worked on the first night I was out. My friend gave me advice over the phone as to how to set it all up and the steps.
Oh, don't foget to focus everything of course and ensure that the tripod is very level.
OK, now everything hardware on the scope is aligned, then it is time to setup the tripod and wedge to point south. What I do is get a cheap $15 dollar compass, (the one with the flip out lid with the thin wire in it and the fold out magnifier), and as best as you can, line up the tripod so it points in that direction. I use 172 degrees, (for Adelaide), as that seems correct for where I am. I also ensure that my wedge's adjusters are set to their central position. I also set the alt on the wedge to about 36 degrees. These for me are excellent starting points.
Now that my scope is pointing close to south, I put the scope into its home position, (get this info from the telescope manual), and fire up Alignmaster. Although, I can't see why I have to do this as I manually slew to the first star anyhow manually. But it cant hurt.
The next bit is to select 2 stars. I have an updated star list which does help a bit, but I did have to wait an extra hour before I could see the stars I needed. (I have read that you can update the star list, sterne.txt, in Alignmaster with all the stars that you can see in your area and then Alignmaster can have more available. Just make sure that the coordinates are correct. I will try this next week). I then fire up PHD in the camera mode, QHY-5, and turn on the bullseye.
Now I slew and align the first star that Alignmaster asks for by either using a finderscope or laser pointer. This always gets the star to appear on the PHD screen and I then centre this star using the hand controller. (Orientation is a little tricky at first, especially if you are used to ALT/AZ like I was, but practice this and it will become second nature in no time).
Next accept this star and repeat the process with the second star.
After this Alignmaster will ask you to physically align your scope, then it will offset the last star you chose and expect you to bring the star back to the centre of the line, not centre of screen, just centre of line. Do this for both axis.
Once done, Alignmaster will ask you if you want to do it again, I do 3 to 4 times all up and it works fantastically.
The trick here to find out how close you are to good polar alignment is to look at the numbers at the bottom of the Alignmaster screen.
I'm at work now so I don't have a copy of Alignmaster to screen dump, but, once you have done the part in Alignmaster where you centre the first two stars and click Next, but before you manually move the mount, there will be 2 sets of numbers that are shown at the bottom of the Alignmaster software and look something like: 00:03:34 00:01:22 . The numbers will be different to what you see here but they tell you how close you are to good polar alignment. What you want to do is repeat all the Alignmaster steps untill both of those numbers are very low. If I get 00:00:12 00:00:32 then I am happy with that and auto guiding will fix the rest. Ensure that there are only numbers in the last 2 digits and get them as low as possible. Once you see the numbers and you are happy with the values, don't do any more adjustments and shut down Alignmaster as you are done.
NOTE: Alignmaster will change the stars in its list that are available as the time in the night goes by so sometimes if you dilly daddle, you may have to pick some other stars, but so far I have not had any major issues.
After this process, I shut down Alignmaster , locate the object that I want to photograph and add telescope control to PHD, tell it to auto find a star, select 'Guide' and it just works!
There may be something I have missed apart from some obvious things but generally from the top of my head this is it.
So basically,
1. Align all the hardware. This is usually only done once unless knocked badly.
2. Level scope and focus. Nightly
3. Use a compass to aim tripod south 172 degrees (for Adelaide). Nightly
4. Run Alignmaster/PHD bullseye and adjust tripod/wedge. Nightly
5. Start autoguiding. Big smiles.
This takes me between 15 and 25 minutes at this stage.
This is my experience of what simply works very well, I was lucky to have about 5 nights in a row that were cloud free so I could experiment and this process worked every night first time.
Cheers,
Damien.
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