Scope and Mount Problems.

[Paliadon (Kris)]

Okay guys, one from left field. I seem to be having a bit of a drama with my scope. I have a Meade 12" ACF mounted on an NEQ6 Pro mount. 1st problem: I seem to have a problem trying to collimating the scope. 2nd problem, I am also seeing some slack in my worm drives on the mount and can't seem to polar align the scope accurately.

Any one have any ideas on what I may do to fix these issues? Is there a service agent in Australia?

I am in central Victoria (Seymour) if any one is close and wants to give me a hand. :-) I am more than happy to pay for your time.

[Joshua Bunn (Joshua)]

What problem are you having with collimation specifically?
There are numerous articles on the web about how to collimate your scope. here are some resources:
http://www.sctscopes.net/SCT_Tips/Ma...llimation.html
http://www.astrophoto.fr/collim.html
Try to get someone to help you, someone at the eyepiece and someone at the corrector end. you can also replace the eyepiece with a camera, I find that way more accurate.
Do some tests just to get an idea of what movements of the collimation screws do to your out of focus star shapes, then you have more of an idea what movements do what.

Josh

[dannat (Daniel)]

r u a ASV member -a trip to heathcote with scope & mount in tow would be my suggestion
how old is the 10" -& how bad is the collimation

[Paliadon (Kris)]

Hey Josh, thanks for the tips. I've tried many sites and tips; however, jut can't seem to get it right. Not sure if i'm second guessing myself or not.

Dan, no, i'm not too sure what that group is sorry. I have mounted the scope on a pier in my back yard and just seem to have no luck with collimation or "slack" in the mount. As I can't see (due to street light) the area in the sky I require for polar alignments I have done so manually with a compass and theodolite. The biggest issue for me is drift. I successfully achieve three star alignment, but I get quite a bit of drift even over just a 10" exposure.

[Joshua Bunn (Joshua)]

Are you able to post a picture of the out of focus star (doughnut) for us?

[Merlin66 (Ken)]

Kris,
A 12"Lx200 OTA on a NEQ6pro is pushing the limits of the mount....
The OTA weighs in at 17.1Kg, then you have the extras....

[raymo]

Kris, The three star alignment only tells the mount where it is looking in the sky, so that it can give you Go To capability, it doesn't polar align the
mount. It doesn't matter if you can't see the South celestial pole area,
just use the polar alignment feature that is built into the later versions of the hand controller firmware. If your controller doesn't have the feature, download the latest version. A two star alignment is sufficient, as the three star one is really for correcting for cone error. I suggest that you download and print out a copy of the Synscan user's guide which
is quite comprehensive.
raymo

[Paliadon (Kris)]

Will do, next clear sky evening I will.

[Paliadon (Kris)]

Okay, so I've tried in vain to get the update to work. I keep getting an error. I am pretty sure something is wrong with the way in which the loader is reading the hand controller.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/paliadon/16917834959/

This is the error I get when I attempt to update.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/paliadon/16916257378/

Any ideas?

[Paliadon (Kris)]

Originally Posted by raymo

Kris, The three star alignment only tells the mount where it is looking in the sky, so that it can give you Go To capability, it doesn't polar align the
mount. It doesn't matter if you can't see the South celestial pole area,
just use the polar alignment feature that is built into the later versions of the hand controller firmware. If your controller doesn't have the feature, download the latest version. A two star alignment is sufficient, as the three star one is really for correcting for cone error. I suggest that you download and print out a copy of the Synscan user's guide which
is quite comprehensive.
raymo

Hi Raymo, thanks for the reply mate. Just wondering what version the polar align came into the hand controller firmware? I have the hand controller running 3.27 at present.

[raymo]

Hi Kris, 3.35
raymo