Need some help....
I never seemed to have an issues setting up a "special" parking position in Belgium...
Now I'm back in Oz setting up EQMOD - everything is working well other than getting it to accept a parking position.
Ideally the telescope facing East (Az = 90) at 0 deg Dec.
When I try it as per the manual and then re-sync the encoders - it always reads Az=275 - as if it's pointing West, instead of East.....
What am I missing?????
I had this all typed out ready to send, but will have to dedo it, because I accidentally closed the window..... grrr...
What I did was set the telescope in the normal home position with the mount off. After doing this power up the mount and connect to EQMOD from there without touching anything reset the encoder position, by clicking on the little icon with the two curved arrows, this will tell eqmod that you are in the home position...
now for the fun part.
Unpark the scope if you haven't already, Slew to whatever location you want the scope to park in. From there there is an icon under the one you just clicked on the reset the encoders, click that and a new window will pop up. You have a few options here, you can reset or set, what I did was in the top window, which is for park, I clicked on where it ways userpark or something like that, and named it User1park, I then clicked on set. Now eqmod has recorded that position into it's ini file. You can do the same for the bottom one for unpark if you like, but rename it to something like user1unpark. Close that window by clicking the little x. Now you should still have in the main eqmod window, park to home position set, click on it so it parks to the home position. (counterweights down and scope pointing towards pole)
Unpark the mount and open the setup window again, down the bottom in the middle there are two pull down windows, on the top pull down window select user1park, you can do the same for the unpark one to if you like.
Now when you look at the park button on the eqmod screen it should read user1park. click that and it will park the scope in your new position.
I hope I covered that right, not in the observatory atm, so working off memory. There are some small steps in there that you can avoid, but I put them in there so you can see it's working.
If you still have trouble, use the toolbox feature in the EQMOD folder and delete the ini files, that usually fixes most problems, be warned you may need to do it all again and reset your location etc....
Last edited by Astroman; 31-12-2013 at 05:10 PM.
Reason: put some paragraphs in to make it easier to read
Sounds like its something to do with change of hemispheres, Ken. In the northern hemisphere the RA axis point up at north (0°) so East is 90°. Southern hemisphere, the RA axis points up at the SCP (180°) but the mount still thinks its pointing North (0°) so by the time you point it East its reading 270°.
In EQASCOM Setup, is your lat and long correct and the hemisphere set to South (or is it still North)?
Sounds like its something to do with change of hemispheres, Ken. In the northern hemisphere the RA axis point up at north (0°) so East is 90°. Southern hemisphere, the RA axis points up at the SCP (180°) but the mount still thinks its pointing North (0°) so by the time you point it East its reading 270°.
In EQASCOM Setup, is your lat and long correct and the hemisphere set to South (or is it still North)?
I've double double checked the lat and long both in CdC and EQmod. It's southern hemisphere. The NWES buttons are also correct in their orientation.
Got me stumped at the moment. I'll give it another go tomorrow......
Can anyone who has a EQmod set-up and a Custom Park position (telescope nominally horizontal) confirm the Az reading they get in EQmod.
any chance of showing a couple of screen grabs of your eqmod window, with the setup window expanded (you can blur out the minuets and seconds of your location if you want) also the setup screen from the eqmod toolbox?
Everything looks fine there, except you have the parking going to home, which will put it in a counterweight position down and OTA pointing towards the SCP. (if this was set correctly)
So lets go back to the original post. Are you moving the scope into the new park position then re-syncing the encoders? Resyncing the encoders should only be done when the mount is pointing in the original home park position (CW down, OTA to SCP)
I might try this in the Observatory and see what it does, my guess is that it will show it pointing West.. Will confirm shortly though.
Sorry for all the questions I am just trying to work out which way the scope is pointing and what EQMOD is doing. Hopefully understanding this we can come to a solution for you.
Realistically you shouldn't have had to change anything if you had this park position in Belgium the only thing you would have needed to change is the location settings.
Andrew,
Missed that tutorial....
But I did follow your write-up below (message #2) and all is well!!!
I now have a Custom park position - counterweight down, telescope horizontal facing East. AND the Az reading is now 90.
I think the "key" was to go to Home park and re-set the encoder position...
Thanks to everyone for their help and input.
