You are getting pretty large errors in DEC as well, though not as bad as RA. Remind me of your guide settings. For sure you need to bin the guide camera at your focal length. Regardless of your PEC status you ought to be able to guide better than this. What ADU is your guide star? How long are your exposures? min/max settings?
To me it looks like corrections are not being applied soon enough or aggressively enough to prevent the "clumping" on either side of X and Y. It doesn't look like seeing. If seeing, I would expect to see jumping in random direction on both sides of X/Y, not clumping on one side or the other. Perhaps what you are seeing is PE; the question is why can't you guide this out?
Hi Peter, i am seeing a lot better tracking now that i have been able to run a PEC training run through the new version of PemPro and i have been able to get tracking like this tonight.
Maybe this is about as god as it gets for me. i think i just have horrible seeing conditions ...
FYI, guide set up is a MMOAG with a lodestar X2 at ~98" FL , binned 2x2
What do you get if you run it through PHD and just track (no corrections)? That'll give you an idea on what the pure tracking is like without having to take guiding corrections into consideration. At least it'll rule something out, if it looks bad without any guiding corrections then you know where the problem is.
i took the light shroud off with the assumption that it was getting caught in the breeze and messing up the tracking. that seems to have helped enormously
Some scopes are very susceptible to wind. I take the shroud off my CDK17 if there is any breeze.
I used to have an RCOS12.5 inch with a closed tube. It sat in the back of my car at my dark site on way too many occasions when it was windy as my mount could not handle the wind induced errors.
I used to have an RCOS12.5 inch with a closed tube. It sat in the back of my car at my dark site on way too many occasions when it was windy as my mount could not handle the wind induced errors.
BTW (sorry to digress slightly Aidan) Greg, was this the scope I saw in the classifieds recently...?
After talking about this issue for months, I am being shipped a new RA worm block, hopefully that will solve the issue
Ahh, how annoying. I thought that was only the initial offerings that had that problem. Gee they have had several years now to get their quality control sorted. Naughty and slack. So does that make everyone who owns one of these mounts on this site have had to have a new worm block or has there been one or two lucky ones that somehow managed to escape?
Well you have the patience of a saint and I am pretty certain you will indeed find it was the worm. Good that they send a new one, bad they didn't get it right in the first place despite this being an old problem with production. SB after sales service is quite good. But I think we all would like to be assured we will get a working mount for that sort of money in the first place and not a work in progress you are the quality control person type mount.
While you are at it I would check that the belts are the correct ones as that was the other problem. They should be a grey colour not black. The black ones shed material and cause bumps in your PE.
Well, I too hope Aidan's issues are solved with a new worm. But, to be fair to Software Bisque I think any judgement ought to be reserved to see if indeed that is the outcome. Personally I'm a bit sceptical given that errors in declination are ca of the same magnitude as errors in RA. Given that declination is not moving much compared to RA that would point to some sort of error in guiding. Another possibility might be that the worm is contaminated and requires regreassing. It is in spec as far as PE is concerned though it remains a mystery as to why PEC enabled doesn't seem to improve PE with either TSX or PEMPro. Gee, I hope I'm wrong about these things and a new worm does the trick. But, having replaced the worm 3x on my original MX without addressing the underlying issues (which was totally different than this issue!) the jury is out.
By the way, Greg, this one is an MX+ so the belt thing is not in play.
to be honest, i think they are chucking me a new block to shut me up for a while and it might actually not solve the issue. i really hope it does, but i am all out of ideas. the RA variability is definitely more than the Dec variability and like you said, enabling PEC doesn't help PE. well if nothing, this will remove one element.
I agree with you. The worm might be a "hail Mary" pass. Maybe it will help. I'll say this here and not at SB but I think they really don't read the posts through in their entirety each day so, as you might imagine with the large number of issues, it is difficult to remember each thread from day to day. Even when I try to follow certain posts I find it difficult to manage all the facts from day to day and the evidence for that is in my last post over there to you. Yes, I know and you know what you have previously posted but my recommendation to you is that you post complete easily accessible info of exactly what you are trying to show with each post even if you area repeating yourself. And when a thread gets long and you have new info start a new thread and don't assume anything is remembered. This was my experience and it eventually bore fruit.
Time will tell but I am pretty confident the new worm will fix things. Perhaps there is some play in the worm meshing with the gears or the axle of the worm is a bit off etc.
I guess we'll find out soon. PMX+ would still have belts right?
I agree with you. The worm might be a "hail Mary" pass. Maybe it will help. I'll say this here and not at SB but I think they really don't read the posts through in their entirety each day so, as you might imagine with the large number of issues, it is difficult to remember each thread from day to day. Even when I try to follow certain posts I find it difficult to manage all the facts from day to day and the evidence for that is in my last post over there to you. Yes, I know and you know what you have previously posted but my recommendation to you is that you post complete easily accessible info of exactly what you are trying to show with each post even if you area repeating yourself. And when a thread gets long and you have new info start a new thread and don't assume anything is remembered. This was my experience and it eventually bore fruit.
Peter
i agree that SB don't have the time to look at every post each time, sometimes i get other people entering the conversation meaning well but it puts the questions i had for SB further up the chain and they don't respond.
SB support has been ok, though i had a faulty MKS 5000, then the issue with tracking and now i am starting to get the tell tail signs of more hardware related issues (mount hit something and port in use errors). all my other gear has worked relatively flawlessly but i have not been overly impressed with the quality of SB.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gregbradley
Time will tell but I am pretty confident the new worm will fix things. Perhaps there is some play in the worm meshing with the gears or the axle of the worm is a bit off etc.
I guess we'll find out soon. PMX+ would still have belts right?
Greg.
we will find out soon ... i am also looking to move my telescope in the next few months so hopefully i will get improved seeing as well. i just might be able to produce some half decent images.
