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Old 08-08-2021, 03:59 PM
Startrek (Martin)
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Hyper tuning an EQ6-R Pro Mount

I just watched 2 YouTube videos from Astrobloke in the UK where he hypertunes his EQ6-R pro mount and achieves incredible results in guiding error
Out of the box he was guiding around 0.80 arc sec error , then applying a PPEC to the mount etc.. he was guiding around 0.60 and after a hyper tune he’s now guiding at 0.30 arc sec error. He still believes he can get the guiding even tighter after all the work on the mount.
The only questions I have is what payload was his EQ6-R carrying and the mount really needs to perform over a range of seeing conditions to get a real evaluation of guiding as I doubt whether it would consistently guiding around 0.30 arc sec error or even lower ?
My EQ6-R pro ( I have 2 of them) mount can guide at 0.60 to 0.65 one night and a week later guide at 0.95 to 1.20 arc sec error
There’s not doubt that replacing all the bearings with premium quality bearings plus re greasing and backlash adjustments would improve guiding but by how much consistently ??
Comments and experiences most welcome

Martin


https://youtu.be/qujs7Kt_6_c

https://youtu.be/1-jAGnAiuE0
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Old 08-08-2021, 04:22 PM
AdamJL
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hmm. Most of the times I've had guiding above 1 is when I hadn't balanced properly. I shoot at home in B8 skies, and when we camp up in the mountains in B3 skies. The latter is usually quite windy and sometimes this impacts but we take steps to mitigate wind as well.
The EQ6-R is a great mount and yes it also depends on how much weight you're driving.
I've heard people on the NINA Discord say that PEC training is pointless if you have good alignment and are plate solving and guiding, and to be honest, my experience matches this (I've never done any PEC training beyond some sessions in my gym at home )

YMMV
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Old 08-08-2021, 04:41 PM
Startrek (Martin)
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Adam,
Thanks for replying
Do you know your AP payload ??
I forgot to mention my EQ6-R mount in Sydney under Bortle 8 carry’s 9kg AP payload ( average guiding around 0.85 to 0.95 )
My EQ6-R mount in my NexDome South Coast NSW under Bortle 3/4 carry’s 15kg AP payload ( average guiding around 0.75 to 0.85 )
I adjusted both mounts for backlash as best I can ( could probably spend more time on fine BL adjustments ) Both Ra and Dec drive belts are ok , not too tight and not to loose , about 3mm of flex
Cheers
Martin
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Old 08-08-2021, 05:37 PM
RyanJones
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Hi Martin,

I think with enough time spent you can get amazingly good numbers but as you rightly stated, there’s not much to be achieved by getting guiding numbers below seeing conditions and your equipment. In fact there’s a little bug in the back of my brain that despite my own experiences questions how that’s even possible. Suffice to say was getting consistant 0.5 - 0.6 on my HEQ5 pro with 10kg on board after a huge amount of tuning work and now with multistar guiding it can be as good as 0.3 - 0.4. Does it make any difference to my images though ? No. What I will say though is it’s nice to set up every time and not worry about what guiding I’m going to get. It’s always good.

Cheers

Ryan
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Old 08-08-2021, 06:43 PM
AdamJL
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Originally Posted by Startrek View Post
Adam,
Thanks for replying
Do you know your AP payload ??
I forgot to mention my EQ6-R mount in Sydney under Bortle 8 carry’s 9kg AP payload ( average guiding around 0.85 to 0.95 )
My EQ6-R mount in my NexDome South Coast NSW under Bortle 3/4 carry’s 15kg AP payload ( average guiding around 0.75 to 0.85 )
I adjusted both mounts for backlash as best I can ( could probably spend more time on fine BL adjustments ) Both Ra and Dec drive belts are ok , not too tight and not to loose , about 3mm of flex
Cheers
Martin
Hi Martin

Honestly, I can't imagine it's more than 7KG at a guess.
80ED + 50ED + bar + rings + cameras... nothing too heavy.

I've got the camera in the fridge taking darks right now, but tomorrow I'll set it up for you and weigh it all up.

Low weight definitely helps, and I usually guide between 0.4-0.7. Friday night in Sydney was closer to the latter, and a week earlier, closer to the former. Clearing backlash has helped a lot as well, but that's about all I've done to the setup. I'm sure when the new scope arrives, those numbers will increase a lot!

Cheers
Adam
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Old 08-08-2021, 06:45 PM
Startrek (Martin)
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Ryan,
Thanks for your comments and personal experiences
I think the main thing to consider in guiding is not the overall guiding number ( anything under an arc sec will give you round stars with 5 minute subs ) but whether you have any noticeable periodic error or unusual excursions in Dec or Ra possibly caused by ( mechanical) backlash ( not atmospheric disturbances affecting your guide Star )
My mounts can hum along nicely for half an hour or so with Ra slightly higher than Dec , guiding around 0.70 total and all of a sudden a big 1.5 to 2 arc sec excursion in Ra occurs which results in a slightly bloated stars in that particular frame. I know it’s not PE as it doesn’t occur repeatedly every 6 to 8 minutes through each worm cycle , it’s random and not re occurring, more likely atmospheric dispersion as the guide stars SNR drops a bit when it happens and in the PHD2 star profile tool , the red bullseye dot moves off the reticle quite a bit
Whether doing a Hyper Tune on my EQ6-R mount will reduce the affect of any Ra spikes caused by atmospheric distortion or disturbance is something I’d like to get some advice on
Maybe one other benefit of a Hyper Tune could be quicker guiding recovery after a dither, my mount only takes 10 to 15 sec to fully recover from a 4 to 6 pixel dither which is not too bad. I heard of folk waiting 20 to 30 sec to recover from a dither
Cheers
Martin
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Old 08-08-2021, 09:24 PM
RyanJones
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Originally Posted by Startrek View Post
Ryan,
Thanks for your comments and personal experiences
I think the main thing to consider in guiding is not the overall guiding number ( anything under an arc sec will give you round stars with 5 minute subs ) but whether you have any noticeable periodic error or unusual excursions in Dec or Ra possibly caused by ( mechanical) backlash ( not atmospheric disturbances affecting your guide Star )
My mounts can hum along nicely for half an hour or so with Ra slightly higher than Dec , guiding around 0.70 total and all of a sudden a big 1.5 to 2 arc sec excursion in Ra occurs which results in a slightly bloated stars in that particular frame. I know it’s not PE as it doesn’t occur repeatedly every 6 to 8 minutes through each worm cycle , it’s random and not re occurring, more likely atmospheric dispersion as the guide stars SNR drops a bit when it happens and in the PHD2 star profile tool , the red bullseye dot moves off the reticle quite a bit
Whether doing a Hyper Tune on my EQ6-R mount will reduce the affect of any Ra spikes caused by atmospheric distortion or disturbance is something I’d like to get some advice on
Maybe one other benefit of a Hyper Tune could be quicker guiding recovery after a dither, my mount only takes 10 to 15 sec to fully recover from a 4 to 6 pixel dither which is not too bad. I heard of folk waiting 20 to 30 sec to recover from a dither
Cheers
Martin
I used to get odd spikes and they bugged the hell out of me. As with yours, not periodic. I replaced my bearings and it helped a little. The worm drive shaft bearings made the biggest difference but the really consistency and smoothness came from hand polishing the gears but that took some serious time to do. It did work though. The only bumps I get now are from wind or my dog running past the mount lol. I don’t dither ( well at least not controlled ) so I can’t say what my recovery time is.
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Old 08-08-2021, 11:49 PM
raymo
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You can't afford to dither, got to get the job done before the next lot of clouds arrive.
raymo
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  #9  
Old 09-08-2021, 07:38 AM
Startrek (Martin)
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You can't afford to dither, got to get the job done before the next lot of clouds arrive.
raymo
Raymo,
Thanks for the humour, I think the country needs more humour at the moment
But seriously Dithering does work to reduce or remove fixed pattern noise in your images
I’ve dithered from day one even when I first used my Canon600D with BYEOS , significantly cleaned up the noise in the image
Who ever named this process might have been a ditherer , dithering around !!
Thanks
Cheers
Martin
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Old 09-08-2021, 08:30 AM
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The_bluester (Paul)
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I was chatting to a gent in an observatory and actually the "Dither" name came from more or less exactly what it sounds like. "Dithering around" in terms of not sitting still. It came from mounts (Mounting exactly what I do not recall) which had plain bearings, and they will suffer from stiction where they essentially lock up and take extra force to get moving if they sit still for any period of time, so they were "Dithered" by constantly sending small movements so they never sat still long enough for stiction to take effect.
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Old 09-08-2021, 01:22 PM
RyanJones
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The_bluester View Post
I was chatting to a gent in an observatory and actually the "Dither" name came from more or less exactly what it sounds like. "Dithering around" in terms of not sitting still. It came from mounts (Mounting exactly what I do not recall) which had plain bearings, and they will suffer from stiction where they essentially lock up and take extra force to get moving if they sit still for any period of time, so they were "Dithered" by constantly sending small movements so they never sat still long enough for stiction to take effect.
From what I remember reading it was first observed unintentionally in mechanical bomb guiding systems on aircraft where the vibrations during flight made the systems run more accurately than on ground testing.
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Old 09-08-2021, 02:28 PM
Startrek (Martin)
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Further to discussing Hypertuning on my EQ6-R pro , the guy from Astrobloke in the UK has another YouTube clip about PEC training your mount for better tracking and guiding performance.
Looking into it a bit further , the EQMOD developers ( Chris Shillito inc ) incorporated PEC training or AutoPEC into EQMOD for mounts with troublesome periodic error ( circa 2007 to 2010 ? )
Unfortunately I can’t use this as I “Dither” and you can’t dither on a PEC trained mount , it sends the mount all over the place
Also I Calibrate in PHD2 and save my Calibration for up to 6 to 12 months ( Auto Restore Calibration) again Auto PEC only works when you switch it off on an un calibrated mount , perform a PHD2 calibration , then switch AutoPEC on again. Too much mucking around , so I’ve ditched the idea of trying AutoPEC to improve my mounts guiding
A Hypertune is probably the only way I could improve my mounts performance
It would be nice to guide nice and stable around 0.40 to 0.50 consistently
Cheers
Martin
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Old 09-08-2021, 04:07 PM
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Originally Posted by AdamJL View Post
Hi Martin

Honestly, I can't imagine it's more than 7KG at a guess.
80ED + 50ED + bar + rings + cameras... nothing too heavy.

I've got the camera in the fridge taking darks right now, but tomorrow I'll set it up for you and weigh it all up.

Low weight definitely helps, and I usually guide between 0.4-0.7. Friday night in Sydney was closer to the latter, and a week earlier, closer to the former. Clearing backlash has helped a lot as well, but that's about all I've done to the setup. I'm sure when the new scope arrives, those numbers will increase a lot!

Cheers
Adam
Why would you have your camera in the fridge to take darks?
These CMOS cameras really only need 0 to -10C to get very low levels of noise and you want a temperature that the camera can achieve year round for maximum convenience and for a minimal calibration library.

Greg.
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Old 09-08-2021, 10:13 PM
AdamJL
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Originally Posted by gregbradley View Post
Why would you have your camera in the fridge to take darks?
These CMOS cameras really only need 0 to -10C to get very low levels of noise and you want a temperature that the camera can achieve year round for maximum convenience and for a minimal calibration library.

Greg.
I shoot at -15 during winter. And I leave the heater on in my house.
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Old 10-08-2021, 09:02 AM
AdamJL
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Hi Martin

As expected, it's not much weight at all, currently
I'm only driving about 5.72kg (excl counterweights) hence the decent guiding performance.

Next month if all goes to plan, I'll have a new scope which will at least double this weight so we'll see how that impacts performance.

Cheers
Adam
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Old 10-08-2021, 10:44 AM
Startrek (Martin)
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Originally Posted by AdamJL View Post
Hi Martin

As expected, it's not much weight at all, currently
I'm only driving about 5.72kg (excl counterweights) hence the decent guiding performance.

Next month if all goes to plan, I'll have a new scope which will at least double this weight so we'll see how that impacts performance.

Cheers
Adam
Adam,
Thanks for getting back to me
You have a very lightly loaded EQ6-R mount , even doubling that payload , provided your well balanced you still should get good guiding numbers

I’m carrying just under 15kg requiring 3 x 5.1kg counterweights with an extension shaft
I’m in two minds whether to Hypertune, my only issue with my guiding is the odd Ra spike ( which is not PE ) getting my total rms value lower is just a want not a need
The odd Ra spike ( Dec is rock solid ) could be caused by worm drive , micro binding on Ra axis or just atmospheric conditions relating to guide Star
Sometimes I can guide beautifully for 15 to 20 mins and then a 1.5 to 2 arc sec Ra spike occurs which leaves you with a slightly bloated star when you zoom in 100% ( usually I discard that sub )
Maybe I’m asking too much out of a $2.5k mount
Thanks for your input
Cheers
Martin
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Old 10-08-2021, 11:10 AM
AdamJL
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Originally Posted by Startrek View Post
Adam,
Thanks for getting back to me
You have a very lightly loaded EQ6-R mount , even doubling that payload , provided your well balanced you still should get good guiding numbers

I’m carrying just under 15kg requiring 3 x 5.1kg counterweights with an extension shaft
I’m in two minds whether to Hypertune, my only issue with my guiding is the odd Ra spike ( which is not PE ) getting my total rms value lower is just a want not a need
The odd Ra spike ( Dec is rock solid ) could be caused by worm drive , micro binding on Ra axis or just atmospheric conditions relating to guide Star
Sometimes I can guide beautifully for 15 to 20 mins and then a 1.5 to 2 arc sec Ra spike occurs which leaves you with a slightly bloated star when you zoom in 100% ( usually I discard that sub )
Maybe I’m asking too much out of a $2.5k mount
Thanks for your input
Cheers
Martin
well there's that old rule of "don't go past X percentage on your mount's capabilities" and depending who you talk to, X is a variable figure

I think 2/3 is about right. The EQ6-R does 22kg from memory so you're just over that. However I've heard people have used 18+kg systems on the EQ6-R and had great results, so I guess as you go heavier, you have to spend more time getting your balancing absolutely spot on with appropriate bias. You previously mentioned using a clamp meter to balance, have you gone down that route yet?
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Old 10-08-2021, 12:26 PM
Startrek (Martin)
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Originally Posted by AdamJL View Post
well there's that old rule of "don't go past X percentage on your mount's capabilities" and depending who you talk to, X is a variable figure

I think 2/3 is about right. The EQ6-R does 22kg from memory so you're just over that. However I've heard people have used 18+kg systems on the EQ6-R and had great results, so I guess as you go heavier, you have to spend more time getting your balancing absolutely spot on with appropriate bias. You previously mentioned using a clamp meter to balance, have you gone down that route yet?
Using the clamp meter to balance by measuring the motor currents on both sides of the axis is novel idea but I wouldn’t use this method unless I had the bearings replaced with SKF or equal as my mount like most EQ6-R’s has some degree of stiction
You wouldn’t get a false reading but not exactly super accurate

Cheers
Martin
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Old 07-09-2021, 05:33 PM
AdamJL
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Originally Posted by Startrek View Post
Using the clamp meter to balance by measuring the motor currents on both sides of the axis is novel idea but I wouldn’t use this method unless I had the bearings replaced with SKF or equal as my mount like most EQ6-R’s has some degree of stiction
You wouldn’t get a false reading but not exactly super accurate

Cheers
Martin
Thought I'd post back on this. I set my new scope up and was waiting for a good change to test it out. That was last night, here in locked down Sydney.

The Esprit at 10+kg is a chunky telescope. Add in some new rings and losmandy bars, a heavy flattener/reducer (seriously, it's a big boy!), a NUC, Pegasus Astro box, guide scope, reverse dovetail clamp, loads of cables... well it's a lot heavier now!

And last night I was averaging about 0.5-0.6 with guiding. Happy with that!! This mount is awesome.
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Old 17-09-2021, 09:46 AM
Splurk (Mark)
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Originally Posted by AdamJL View Post

And last night I was averaging about 0.5-0.6 with guiding. Happy with that!! This mount is awesome.
I have had my EQ6R Pro since December 2020 and have been happy with it. I have a Sky Rover 130mm Sextuplet on mine with 294mm and filter wheel and it guides very well. See the attached.
I had very good polar alignment for a while and while selecting a guide star I just let it track without guiding and the star mostly stayed in the window, within the oval, and this is likely the periodic error as it speeds up and then slows down on each cycle. So I have run pec training which sometimes helps while other times it doesnt seem to, but every time I try ppec the mount screws up. With guiding on it squeals until it comes to a stop. I updated the motor controller drivers to v3.13 and went again and now the board is bricked. Apparently I am not the only one this has happened to so be careful. Pec seems ok but not PPEC.
Replacement board is on the way so I hope that fixes it but I wont use PEC or PPEC with this mount again thats for sure. If this becomes a second mount in future I would love to strip it down and rebuild it with better bearings etc but I wont be touching it while its my only one
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