Have bought a gorgeous little Skywatcher mak-cass 127AZ with SynScan goto, but cant seem to get the goto going.
Have never had a goto, so pretty sure its just me, Dobs are soooo easy.
Finally a break in the weather last night so gave it another go, but it goes in the wrong direction, again, after I have aligned the first star.
Have it facing south, set up the right time/date/lat/long etc .... align stars .... slew to Vega and enter, then to Altair (last week I tried Arcturus and it went in opp direction) and it heads south!! Doh.
Anyone have any ideas of what I could be doing wrong??
Have checked and rechecked lat/long and am East and South.
I can take it to one of our club members to help me, but thought i would do a quick ask here.
Thanks.
With my Synscan, it has to be aligned quite well first on the SCP before starting star alignment. I found it best to use a compass, in conjunction with the scale for latitude setting. It also means you need to get it pretty well levelled too. It seems to be a critical thing.
Initially I also found it helpful to do first a one-star alignment, then slew back to home position, then a 2-star, and slew back to home, then a 3-star. That seemed to progressively improve the pointing.
At first, only after all that folderol would it say "alignment successful". Now I'm getting more practised and I can cut out the 2-star step.
Even then, in use, if the go-to has slewed a long way round to some object, the pointing is much improved if I re-align on a nearby star in that region.
Initially I also found it helpful to do first a one-star alignment, then slew back to home position, then a 2-star, and slew back to home, then a 3-star. That seemed to progressively improve the pointing.
At first, only after all that folderol would it say "alignment successful". Now I'm getting more practised and I can cut out the 2-star step.
Cheers
Thanks Geoff .... after the one star alignment, you say to slew back to home position. I didnt do that, I just went from Vega onto another star to do 2 star alignment.
So I go back to the SCP then do another star??
Thanks Geoff .... after the one star alignment, you say to slew back to home position. I didnt do that, I just went from Vega onto another star to do 2 star alignment.
So I go back to the SCP then do another star??
Hi,
Yes, this was in the phase where my SCP alignment had not been very good at all. There was actually a tree in the way in my backyard (my neighbour has obligingly cut it down now ), and I hadn't yet realised how badly I was doing the initial setup.
So I would do a one-star alignment, then use Utility Func -Park, then turn off the hand control. This causes the Park position to be saved as a new Home. I would then turn on again and repeat that procedure for a 2-star alignment, starting from the previous Park - Home without moving anything in between. After the 2-star alignment I would slew to Park again and turn it off then on once more, figuring that I was improving the Home position each time.
I'd emphasise here that this was while I was still struggling with it, and it might all not be really necessary if you can get a really good alignment on the SCP first up.
Now with care setting on to the SCP I can always go from a one-star to a 3-star alignment without trouble, and sometimes a 3-star alignment alone is successful.
I think the next step might be to assess the accuracy of the altitude scale for latitude setting (I have a EQ5 mount) as I have read that it can be pretty rough.
I think the next step might be to assess the accuracy of the altitude scale for latitude setting (I have a EQ5 mount) as I have read that it can be pretty rough.
Cheers
I had the same issue with an EQ6 altitude scale. Thing was out by a couple of degrees so I got a protractor and hung a length of thin braided fishing line (with a weight at the end of it) through the centre of the protractor. Hold it parallel to your counterweight shaft then slowly adjust the altitude knob on the mount until the fishing line indicates the correct altitude. It's a bit rough but I found it better than relying solely on the markings on the mount.
P.S. Liz my apologies if this was a slight hijacking of your thread
I got a protractor and hung a length of thin braided fishing line (with a weight at the end of it) through the centre of the protractor. Hold it parallel to your counterweight shaft then slowly adjust the altitude knob on the mount until the fishing line indicates the correct altitude.
just a thought make sure its set for Southern hemisphere (South and East) (not north and west) you can have the same lat and long in northern as you can in southern. as long as your within 10 odd degrees your mount should do a successful align. well mine does anyhow, not saying that itll track well because it wont
Liz, not sure if this might help, but when I got my Neq6 I duly put it all together and found that the scope was going the wrong way just like you described ( inside the house just roughly aligned just to see it work). Almost crashed the scope into the tripod!.
Anyway i figured that the little do-hicky (square pin)that sits atop of the tripod and aligns the base of the mount to the base of the tripod was in the northern hemisphere posi! So I swapped it around and presto! All fixed.
Hope that helps....
Bartman
just a thought make sure its set for Southern hemisphere (South and East) (not north and west) you can have the same lat and long in northern as you can in southern. as long as your within 10 odd degrees your mount should do a successful align. well mine does anyhow, not saying that itll track well because it wont
Definitely on south and west Brendan, but checked again anyway.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bartman
Liz, not sure if this might help, but when I got my Neq6 I duly put it all together and found that the scope was going the wrong way just like you described ( inside the house just roughly aligned just to see it work). Almost crashed the scope into the tripod!.
Anyway i figured that the little do-hicky (square pin)that sits atop of the tripod and aligns the base of the mount to the base of the tripod was in the northern hemisphere posi! So I swapped it around and presto! All fixed.
Hope that helps....
Bartman
I reckon you are on the right track Bart, and have just raced out to scope to check for the little nut thingo that connects mount to tripod, but cant seem to find anything noting southern hemisphere?? Bugger.
Might be something in handset too, cos I reckon thats where it thinks I am.
Went through all the details of the setup again, and again ...... pressed the utility function on the handset, as tells you what you location is, and it has me at +70!!! Help, get me outa N.Hem.
Hey,
I had a similar problem when starting out with my NEQ6, the mount tried to track to stars below the horizon despite having been fairly certain that the mount was pointed south (i.e the bolt in bartmans pic was facing south). The problem it seems is that I was rushing through setup and didnt notice the fact that the NEQ6 uses that annoying MM/DD/YY date setup... whoops.
With that solved the scope pointed in the general direction of the alignment stars but needed to much correction to gain success.
As I couldnt see the SCP from my house due to some trees, I found the easy way for a ballpark 3 star alignment was to choose the first star (i.e. Alpha cen) allow it to slew and then rather than using the handcontroller to adjust, I would adjust the alt/az as if you were polar allinging on alpha cen. From there you could select the next two known stars and adjust with the hand controller as per normal.
This simple setup is not any good for anything but visual use but will give you a fairly accurate visual tour.
Definitely on south and west Brendan, but checked again anyway.
West? South and East!
According to the National Gazetteer of Australia:
Code:
SOUTH TOWNSVILLE QLD Town or Locality 19° 15'S 146° 49'E
TOWNSVILLE QLD Town or Locality 19° 15'S 146° 49'E
TOWNSVILLE QLD Building 19° 15'S 146° 48'E
TOWNSVILLE CITY QLD Town or Locality 19° 15'S 146° 48'E
TOWNSVILLE TOWN COMMON
CONSERVATION PARK QLD Park or Reserve 19° 12'S 146° 44'E
TOWNSVILLE WEST QLD Building 19° 16'S 146° 47'E
I think you will find the date and or time are entered incorrectly e.g. dd/mm/yy instead of mm/dd/yy. Time needs to be entered on the 24hour clock. These mounts can be a mile off the SCP and will still align and point accurately ( I know I tested mine to see how far I could be out and still have it function, 10 degrees no problem). Use the 3 star alignment as it compensates for cone error and you do not need to stuff around getting your scope right.
I think you will find the date and or time are entered incorrectly e.g. dd/mm/yy instead of mm/dd/yy. Time needs to be entered on the 24hour clock. These mounts can be a mile off the SCP and will still align and point accurately ( I know I tested mine to see how far I could be out and still have it function, 10 degrees no problem). Use the 3 star alignment as it compensates for cone error and you do not need to stuff around getting your scope right.
Mark
Hi Mark,
Mostly, that's easy enough to check. There are though a few cases around where more persistent trouble does occur.
For instance I had all that above dead right, after checking and re-checking, and I still HAD to get somewhere reasonably close to the SCP to begin, not a mile off, certainly. So it did not seem that way to me, after one time trying for 4 hours to get a successful alignment, and solving it only in the way I described earlier.
Perhaps it can be attributed to the mount I have, I don't know.
I can definitely confirm that Liz has setup the scope correctly as far as lat/long , time and date are concerned. I have a little experience with gotos as I have a cpc C9.25 myself and he's a beaut.
I have endeavoured to make sense of this scope for two days now and I really believe that there is a software issue. For instance; if carrying out a two star alignment using Alpha Cent as the first star then one would expect that if Hadar was chosen as the second star that the scope would at least move to the right - just a little but this one drives to what I think is 180 deg out around to the Nor West !
I have parked the scope and it does this at 000 deg alt and azimuth. OK so I line up on Celestial north ( close as I can) and try again to slew to 155 deg 40 deg alt where the scope says Alpha Cent is right now. This reading is in the handset and agrees with stellarium pretty well. Ok so nicely setup on Alpha and then select Canopus which according to Stellarium is displaced further around to the southwest and whoa off we go to the north east. I confess I am lost as to why this is. The thing seems to know where the first star is Ok but thereafter .......
Tried uploading new firmware but no joy with my usb/serial adapters on this thing.
Anyway I dont know what else to try so any more thoughts appreciated
as long as your within 10 odd degrees your mount should do a successful align. well mine does anyhow, not saying that itll track well because it wont 
