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Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2017 14:48:03 GMT
Hey Guys,
So I managed to get the scope out last night for its first light. What a painful night it was... Very quickly realised that polar aligning is tough! But got that relatively close I think. Biggest issue I had was being able to see Polaris and the rectile at the same time. But I was happy enough it was pretty close after messing about for 30mins.
(Question on polar alignment...do I still need to do a 2 star alignment after lining up Polaris in polar scope?)
However that's when the pain started. The goto was a million miles out. Like not even close. I tried to manually sync to targets etc. But hand controller kept saying 'object below horizon' but it 100% wasn't below horizon. Nothing I done seemed to work. Using the camera prob wasn't the best idea. Think it just complicated things haha. I double checked the settings and they seemed fine for my location and time. Lots more practice required!!!
In the end I just gave up and manually pointed the scope at Orion. Found even 2.5 sec exposures where seeing star trails. Was a tough night but gotta start somewhere right!
I'll post a couple of the attempts later. They pretty poor but at the very least I got a good play about with everything and I know what I need to focus on learning going forward.
Cheers Chris
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Post by davy on Feb 14, 2017 17:35:07 GMT
Yip unfortunately you need to do an alignment as well,, the more you practice the easier it gets,, check your settings,, daylight settings ect, time /date , I don't know the handset layout for that mount , I have the heq5 and use eq mod,, I hate the handset to be honest
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Post by howie1 on Feb 14, 2017 19:51:42 GMT
I'm the opposite to davy ... I love handsets and hate having extra complexity of eq mod and setting it up, and downloading drivers, and having updates n stuff. I think it "knows" that I get peeved real quick when tech goes wrong ... and so always go wrong!! LOL! So, a long cable on the handset and I've never had an issue. KISS appraoch for me. Love the handset. Each to his own As davy says, be sure you enter the correct latitude and longitude and date and time and such. The PA (polar align) with the polar scope just turns the mount HEAD so it is pointing towards the pole. The OTA on top of the head could be pointing any which way! If the OTA was tilted over with a horizontal counterweight bar in RA, and pointing towards the ground in DEC, you would still be polar aligned. The HEAD and the polar scope is still pointing bang on True North. But because the OTA is tilted way over, the star map in its 'brain' is waaaaaaay off! So the 2 or 3 star alignment fixes the orientation in RA and DEC of the OTA so it is pointing to where the stars actually are in the sky. cheers
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Post by davy on Feb 14, 2017 20:21:52 GMT
Yeah Howie,, keep it simple,,lol.. I seem to get more hassle with the handset,, I like the way you can set up eqmod,, I think it's more a belt and braces approach,, I get a nice calm feeling looking at all the data,, if something goes wrong i can usually work it out from the screen,, Far better that than me f in and blinding out the back in the pitch dark,shouting I'm going to throw the piggin lot over next door's fence. 😉
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Post by howie1 on Feb 14, 2017 22:35:05 GMT
Yeah Howie,, keep it simple,,lol.. I seem to get more hassle with the handset,, I like the way you can set up eqmod,, I think it's more a belt and braces approach,, I get a nice calm feeling looking at all the data,, if something goes wrong i can usually work it out from the screen,, Far better that than me f in and blinding out the back in the pitch dark,shouting I'm going to throw the piggin lot over next door's fence. 😉 Ha ha davy. I can just imagine it ... you sound like me and my Hi Fi ... every time I turn it on something goes on the blink! I swore at it just yesterday threatening to do a Fawlty and beat it to death with a branch!
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Post by davy on Feb 14, 2017 23:53:27 GMT
Few times I've came in the house and Carol has just gave me the look,, and things not going well,,, she knows not to ask now as I just rabbit on about this and that not working and to top it off either clouds roll in or a battery goes flat as you finally sort out the problem aaaaaaaaaaRgh,,, astronomy stress free aye right
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Post by Deleted on Feb 16, 2017 23:30:55 GMT
Thanks Davy i'll double check all the settings again. I know its something daft im doing. Thanks Howie. That makes sense and would have made my life easier had i known that haha! The mental position i had to get myself into to look through the polar scope without hitting the scope was funny...and sore! i just thought everything had to be in the 'zero position' so kept the scope pointing north too. I did do a 1 star alignment. I'll try a 2 or 3 star next time. Another thing i found tough was trying to work out what direction goes where when moving using the arrows on the controller! I.e Up arrow does not make it go up...left doesnt go left etc. Alt Az's are so much easier and faster haha.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 16, 2017 23:53:53 GMT
Here are a few of the randoms i quickly grabbed manually pointing the scope at M42. I used EOS utilities to take them didnt get any other software involved. I just took as many pics as i could changing exposure and iso settings here and there. I think i may have messed up the colour balance tho haha. Its mega red. I tried to compensate for the mad blue shade the CLS filter gives. Im staying in central london so figured the filter was mandatory haha. iso 6400 exp 1.3sec iso 12800 exp 1.3sec iso 3200 exp 1.3sec iso 3200 exp 2.5sec Baby steps!
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Post by howie1 on Feb 17, 2017 3:46:41 GMT
The mental position i had to get myself into to look through the polar scope without hitting the scope was funny...and sore! i just thought everything had to be in the 'zero position' so kept the scope pointing north too. I did do a 1 star alignment. I'll try a 2 or 3 star next time. Re the contortions to get to look through the polar scope ... you know the iOptron has a built in polar alignment routine in the hand controller? It uses whats called an "iterative" process. No need to look through the polar scope. Pretty simple thing to do. It selects and slews between two stars - one on the Meridian near Zenith/Equator, and another one near the Horizon. For each star it slews to, it tells you to centre it using one of the following things ... it says to use either the Az bolt or the Alt bolt and one of the arrow direction buttons. Just follow the instructions. It's called iterative because every time you iterate between the two stars the amount of adjustment you do gets less and less. Perfect PA means you don't do any adjustment at all no matter which star it slews to. But note! You do not have to go to that extreme ... its usually about 3 iterations and you're good to go. Thats near enough. Oh yeah .... and after doing that remember that you will then be polar aligned, BUT you still then have to do a 2 star alignment after that! I first heard the method mentioned in Uncle Rod's Astro blog where he said it was extremely accurate - but didnt say what it was! I hunted it down on the web and from a mate recently getting a second hand iOptron ... lo and behold it was in their hand control all programmed in neatly!
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Post by davy on Feb 17, 2017 8:27:37 GMT
I see someone has made an ascom driver for ioptron mounts,, details in ioptron yahoo,,
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Post by davy on Feb 19, 2017 12:45:41 GMT
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