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Old 16-09-2014, 11:09 PM
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g__day (Matthew)
Tech Guru

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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Sydney
Posts: 2,902
I have used a Vixen Atlux with SS2K-PC for about 7 years now - so hope I can help you!

Things to check.

Power on settings - you can have 10 defaults (in case you like to go to up to 10 different observing location). Are you just using power on selecting location one each time? I presume you do and then you Press Enter to reset all coordinates (rather than ESC to use last alignment parameters) or doing something else fancy?


On power up the scope should be level and facing dead East at the horizon - elevation 0. Press Enter (rather than Esc) to initiate a new set up. Then go to Setting and wander through location and time first.

Dates - make sure your enter the coordinates in yy/mm/dd format.

Entered your time zone (+8) correctly and local time hh/mm/ss (noting hours is a 24 hour clock so 10pm is 22/00/00).

Location - Longitude and Latitude - make sure your get the +/- for West / East and South / North entered correctly! Enter Longitude and then Latitude - with Southern Hemisphere being negative Latitude and Positive Longitude!

Sydney is 33 South 151 East so is entered +151 10 00 -33 08 00

Perth is 31 55' 33" South and 115 50' 18" East from your avatars location so is entered +115 50 18 -31 55 23

Gearing - mine is -60 180 -60 180 - the minus before the sixty tells the mount which way to spin the gears as we are in the Southern Hemisphere! This tells the controller the motor gear has 60 teeth and the other gears 180 teeth.

Motor settings - if you scope is heavy for you mount - choose option 3 on both RA and DEC! This runs the motors a bit slower and more smoothly on slews. A very light set up might choose Option 1 for both axes.

Polar alignment mode - if its in an observatory and well polar aligned makes sense to run it in polar aligned mode - else select Polar unaligned if you are in the field.

First alignment point - can be the Moon Centre if you don't know the 32 reference stars. Once you have a one star alignment (by dead centre the object on the target and holding the align button for three seconds until the controller beeps) select one to two more well spaced reference stars and then see how close the go to is if you go back to the Moon!

* * *

That is the basics of set up - even 20 degrees off polar alignment once you have 2-3 reference stars both go tos and tracking should be brilliant. Go tos should be within 30 - 60 arc minutes at worst and tracking can be brilliant - unguided up to ten minutes with no star trails.

Provide a bit more detail about exactly what your power on sequence, check list and SS2K settings are and I can possibly help more.

PS

Also check your PSU is delivering at least 12V and 2-3 amps - I use a regulated Lab power supply to give 15V and 5 amps - overkill but my unit only draws what it needs!

Last edited by g__day; 16-09-2014 at 11:23 PM.
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