An alignment issue..

[Nortilus (Josh)]

Ok, I have a NEQ6, controlled by EQmod, run with Cartes du Ciel. I have a qhy5 as my guide cam. I use PhD as my autoguide software. I use alignmaster for my alignment. Everything has been fine with all this and has worked so great for me. However recently when I'm doing my alignment when it comes to do my alt adjustment the software is just constantly telling me to lower my alt. I know im about 21 degrees but the sofware was telling me to go down to like 12 degrees and the star drift gets worse (obviously). Not sure what im missing or doing wrong but i have checked and double checked everything.

Going to have another crack at it tonight but it is getting really frustrating.

[glend (Glen)]

Maybe go back to basics and try down loading Synscan V3.35 from Skywatcher, this gives you good Alt Az error routine, and new polar alignment process. I just use an inclinometre for altitude and its never more than a few seconds off. I assume your tripod feet are on something solid and not a lawn.

[Nortilus (Josh)]

Im on lawn, but no different to where i have been before when everything was working. And to be honest...i dont even know where my hand controller is as I havent used it in almost 2 and a half years...

[Eden (Brett)]

Hi Josh,

I've never used Alignmaster but I did have a similar issue once with my own mount. In my case, the solution was to reset the mount to factory defaults and re-enter the geographical co-ordinates, GMT offset and local time.

Since you're getting those values from EQMod, it might pay to double check them just to be sure. Without the hand controller I couldn't suggest a way to reset the mount to factory defaults, though.

[Eden (Brett)]

I just had a quick look at Alignmaster -- I notice that it expects you to enter the geographical co-ordinates.

Does it attempt to read them from the mount or does it just push the values that you enter to the mount with the assumption that they haven't been set already? Since EQMod does this too, it might pay to double-check both of them to rule out any conflict.

[Nortilus (Josh)]

yeah...i double checked all dates time and locations. As far as im aware, the mount gets it location from EQMod each time you connect. This is something you need to set before connecting to the mount...I dont think it is kept in the mounts electronics anywhere but if this is the case can someone confirm this and do i need to do a reset somehow.

[Eden (Brett)]

The co-ordinates are stored by the mount after the first time you enter them and are retained even after you power the mount off. But yes, they are sent to the mount by EQMod each time you connect to the mount with it.

Good luck finding your hand controller and I hope a factory reset resolves the problem for you.

Should that fail, I might suggest checking the EQMOD .ini file to make sure it isn't corrupted. Depending on how heavily you've customized it you might want to try deleting that and starting with a fresh configuration, just in case EQMod is establishing a connection to the mount but is sending incorrect or incomplete information to it.

[Nortilus (Josh)]

Ok, reset all defaults in all programs and deleted all data from eqmod and started fresh...this seems to of worked...thanks for the heads up...