It was all I could force myself to do. I still can't get round stars for more
than about 10secs or so to the North, and about 20 secs or so to the South. I have exhausted every avenue that all responders have suggested going down, as well as my own ideas. I could almost cry with frustration and rage. I'll give it one more try, and if I can't get some
improvement, I think I'll give up trying. The gear isn't slipping on it's
shaft; I get the P.A. down to just a few seconds like always; The scope is balanced against the drive; not doing meridian flips; nice steady power supply. Now I've forgotten which way the stars are trailing, so I'll have to have one more go to find out. What I just can't comprehend is how the
tracking can be so incredibly bad; I normally get 90-120 secs. Oops,
wrong thread.
raymo
Two reasons why I won't upgrade to autoguiding. SWMBO, and the
fact that the tracking is so bad that maybe the autoguider couldn't cope with it. If I can get my D.I.Y cooler finished, I might go back to manual guiding.
raymo
Raymo is it possible for you to borrow another mount, or go someplace where there us a similiar one, so you can try your scope and setup - as this would possiby eliminate your process and pin it down. If the mount is seriously defective, can it be rebuilt or would you be better off selling it - as is, and cutting your losses so to speak. If it's causing such frustration it will be damaging your love of the hobby and making each outing into some thing you dread.
Thanks for the suggestion Glen. Firstly, I don't know anyone with a
similar mount, in my town or anywhere else for that matter.
It is intensely frustrating because I am in my 60th year of owning scopes,
and astro imaging, [99% film of course]. I have been using this set up
for about two years successfully, getting around 90-120 sec unguided
subs. I am doing nothing different, am still getting down to a few seconds error in P.A. My next session will consist of studying the direction and
consistency of the star trailing, to see if I can glean anything from that.
raymo
I seem to be having a love-hate thing going on with Synscan, so next time I'm out I'm going to do a couple of rounds of the polar alignment routine followed by some good old fashioned drifting...seems a shame to waste a clear night but we'll see how it goes
Then the next problem I foresee will be RA drift...which seems to be worse in Synscan 3.36 than the 3.35 I used to run. Which version are you running raymo?
3.35 Dunk. I think the P.A. routine is working o.k. After aligning I can slew the scope back and forth between the alignment stars, and each star will be within or very close to the square at the centre of the reticle EP.
raymo
3.35 Dunk. I think the P.A. routine is working o.k. After aligning I can slew the scope back and forth between the alignment stars, and each star will be within or very close to the square at the centre of the reticle EP.
Ah OK. I wondered if it was an anomaly with 3.36, but maybe it's just my lousy polar alignment! I was getting quite good at it with 3.35.
Unfortunately, drift aligning might only illustrate how much drift there is and not give you any clues as to what's causing it, but I'm no mechanical expert (far from it!)
Did a night of testing , and as I thought, my P.A. is fine. I manually guided two images for 5 minutes each. I had to nudge the R.A. motor
about 5 times for each Dec motor nudge. The R.A. tracking error is
continuous and consistent [at least for 5 minss]. It would seem that the
tracking is running at no more than 20% of the required rate. Altering the
counterweights by a little or a huge amount made no difference
whatsoever. The R.A. drive gears under the cover are not slipping on
their shafts. The power is steady. Both motors work perfectly at any
speed from minimum guiding to maximum slewing. The R.A. manual
locking lever was tight. Is the worm and it's shaft one piece, or is it possible for the worm to
slip on it's shaft? Any suggestions would be most welcome.
raymo
raymo
Last edited by raymo; 14-01-2015 at 01:54 PM.
Reason: more text
Hi Kevin, As the tracking is rate is only about 20% of what it should be,
and assuming that nothing mechanical is slipping, would the PEC
function be able to speed the motor up by 500% would you think.
Nothing to lose, so I'll give it a try if nobody comes up with a cure
before my next opportunity. Come to think of it, the motor sounds the same as it always has when tracking, so maybe something has to be slipping. I just had a horrible thought--- maybe there is a problem with the motor controller
board. I bet that would cost a fortune to replace.
raymo
Probably a dumb question at this point but what tracking is selected in the handset? Before you go getting a board i'd try reloading the handset controller software, or maybe you have done that - it's been a long chase now hasn't it.
What happens if you change the tracking rate to Lunar, will it track the moon acurately?
Sidereal is selected. When lunar is selected the tracking seems to remain the same, but it probably would, being as the difference between L and S is very small. Being as the error doesn't seem to change between L and S
I doubt it would track the moon either. I'll have a try next moon.
raymo
With electronics its usually a bad conection somewhere stuffing things up. I'd try reaseating any conections that you can find and spray some WD40 around too.
