Re: G11G and Polar Alignment
I use polemaster and I don't even turn the mount on til after I polar align. For rotation I just grab the counter weight shaft and move it about 30 degrees...or close...it works fine at about 20 degrees... then move it back to the counter weight down position by hand. Once aligned then I turn the Gemini on...works great. Since I've been using Polemaster my guiding is "spot on"!
Stu
On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 7:58 PM Michael Herman < mherman346@...> wrote: That's ...interesting. I mean that Sharpcap should care to tell you specifically to turn off tracking (they can't really mean to turn the whole mount off, can they?), whereas Polemaster does not mind if your mount is on or off.??
During Polemaster operation:
I leave my mount tracking sidereal rate , then I use my RA motor to rotate the RA axis when instructed by its software.? ?
Have fun,
These astronomy related puzzles keep coming like the daily Soduko.? Some days are tougher than others!
Best,
Michael
I Polar Align with my GM811G off. Otherwise, if mine is on, my RA is tracking. (Moving, rotating.)
Plus, Polar Alignment is a mechanical function of Polar Aligning the mount to the North Celestial Pole. Which does not move.
The actual aligning is the Alt-Az planes.
Polaris rotates around the NCP.
But, by all means do it your way. If it works, Don't Fix It.
What I'm doing is working, or so my results are telling me.
Clear night tonight! Yeah!
--
SonnyE
(I suggest viewed in full screen)
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Re: G11G and Polar Alignment
That's ...interesting. I mean that Sharpcap should care to tell you specifically to turn off tracking (they can't really mean to turn the whole mount off, can they?), whereas Polemaster does not mind if your mount is on or off.??
During Polemaster operation:
I leave my mount tracking sidereal rate , then I use my RA motor to rotate the RA axis when instructed by its software.? ?
Have fun,
These astronomy related puzzles keep coming like the daily Soduko.? Some days are tougher than others!
Best,
Michael
I Polar Align with my GM811G off. Otherwise, if mine is on, my RA is tracking. (Moving, rotating.)
Plus, Polar Alignment is a mechanical function of Polar Aligning the mount to the North Celestial Pole. Which does not move.
The actual aligning is the Alt-Az planes.
Polaris rotates around the NCP.
But, by all means do it your way. If it works, Don't Fix It.
What I'm doing is working, or so my results are telling me.
Clear night tonight! Yeah!
--
SonnyE
(I suggest viewed in full screen)
|
Re: G11G and Polar Alignment
I Polar Align with my GM811G off. Otherwise, if mine is on, my RA is tracking. (Moving, rotating.)
Plus, Polar Alignment is a mechanical function of Polar Aligning the mount to the North Celestial Pole. Which does not move.
The actual aligning is the Alt-Az planes.
Polaris rotates around the NCP.
But, by all means do it your way. If it works, Don't Fix It.
What I'm doing is working, or so my results are telling me.
Clear night tonight! Yeah!
--
SonnyE
(I suggest viewed in full screen)
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Swapped DEC and RA motor cables can ruin your day ¡
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Russ,
When I have have experienced issues like this there are two basic things to try. First replace the coin battery in the Gemini Unit. You're probably in the Northern Hemisphere where it's winter and the cold might be putting a strain on the battery which could be affecting stored information or the internal clock. Secondly, if things are that messed up you may want to go to the Hand Controller and find the Reset to Factory Defaults option. Then start entering everything from the beginning. I have had my alignment model wrecked by syncing on the wrong star, and it only gets worse from there. Just doing a Cold Start may not purge all incorrect data entries.
I'm sure this group will give you enough info to get you going again.
Good luck.
John
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Russ,
Assuming you are cold starting in the CWD position you may have a time issue between local time and UT.
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On 20 Jan 2021, at 11:43:19 am, Russ via < njrusty@...> wrote:
Confused here.? After entering Site Lat, Long and Time, I would expect any mount to at least slew to an area of the sky 'near' the target first (I did complete an excellent polar alignment last night, prior to Cold Start tonight).? Are you saying that even though the mount is like 90 degrees away from target, I still need to manual slew to target and start modeling from there?????
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Russ,
Is you mount in the telescope CWD position when you do a cold start?
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On 20 Jan 2021, at 11:25:38 am, Russ via < njrusty@...> wrote:
I am so damn furious with my mount right now!!? I had to do a cold restart and verified my site info; Lat, Long and time.? Rebooted Mount and verify settings are saved and correct.
1)? I tell the mount to go to Betelgeuse (which is in the SouthEast sky right now).? But the mount slews to SouthWest; which of course is way off.? Shouldn't it be much closer then this????
2)? When I then go to the Gemini Software and try to enter my LAT/LONG, it will not allow me to enter any numbers.? What the HELL???
3)? When I exit the Gemini Software and look at my hand controller, the Site information is all zeroed out!!
I am beyond furious that after 2 weeks of crap skies, the first night of clear skies I run into this crap!!!
Any help will be appreciated!!!!
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I know this sounds crazy, but check that you do not have the RA and Dec cables switched. ?I have done this. ?More than once.?
Check your time zone. ?I found that setting the time zone to 00, and the time to Greenwich time cleared up issues with daylight savings, etc.. ? that is recommended by the Gemini II website.
jmd
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Thanks Brian.? I have a cheat sheet created identifying exactly those checks and I verified a number of time all setting are correct (via handheld).? Going back outside again and starting all over.? I compared my cheat sheet to your comments above and verified I have those exact settings.
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Hi Russ
Sorry to hear this, that sounds super frustrating
It's definitely sounding like a setting somewhere, so here are some ideas:
First, I recommend using the hand controller to enter your settings, just to eliminate one variable
If your mount is slewing exactly 90 degrees opposite it may be you have the wrong mount type selected? double-check that under Menu->Mount->Type
. I've also recently had a couple customers with similar issues thinking they had a G11 when they had a GM811
Also confirm you have the correct gearing?under Menu->Mount->Gearing and compare to this table:
Otherwise the site/time/location are often culprits, use the address tool to get accurate info: ??
some typical errors include: not putting negative sign "-" in front of the longitude (if you are in US) wrong timezone offset(needs to account for daylight savings too, right now pacific time is -8, eastern is -5) using decimal instead of HH:MM when entering time info not using 24 hour time format
Confused here.? After entering Site Lat, Long and Time, I would expect any mount to at least slew to an area of the sky 'near' the target first (I did complete an excellent polar alignment last night, prior to Cold Start tonight).? Are you saying that even though the mount is like 90 degrees away from target, I still need to manual slew to target and start modeling from there?????
-- Brian?
Brian Valente portfolio
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Confused here.? After entering Site Lat, Long and Time, I would expect any mount to at least slew to an area of the sky 'near' the target first (I did complete an excellent polar alignment last night, prior to Cold Start tonight).? Are you saying that even though the mount is like 90 degrees away from target, I still need to manual slew to target and start modeling from there?????
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Have you polar aligned it and built a pointing model as yet? And cold starting it wipes the slate clean. I had weird problems like yours when I got started with the mount. But the Gemini does need to know where it is and where the mount goes when given a target. And if that isn't your cup of tea, its possible to build the pointing model through a plate solving tool like Astrotortilla (what I used). You tell the mount where to go... take an image and have it solved. Most of these tools will solve the image and slew to a less wrong location. Its relatively painless.
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I am so damn furious with my mount right now!!? I had to do a cold restart and verified my site info; Lat, Long and time.? Rebooted Mount and verify settings are saved and correct.
1)? I tell the mount to go to Betelgeuse (which is in the SouthEast sky right now).? But the mount slews to SouthWest; which of course is way off.? Shouldn't it be much closer then this????
2)? When I then go to the Gemini Telescope Software and try to enter my LAT/LONG, it will not allow me to enter any numbers.? What the HELL???
3)? When I exit the Gemini Software and look at my hand controller, the Site information is all zeroed out!!
I am beyond furious that after 2 weeks of crap skies, the first night of clear skies I run into this crap!!!
Any help will be appreciated!!!!
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Re: G11G and Polar Alignment
You want the mount ON and tracking at sidereal
otherwise your stars will blur and/or lose their position and your Polar alignment will suffer
Brian
I used SharpCap Polar Alignment tool last night for the first time and my PA down to like 10 seconds showing Excellent result.? Today, I looked at somemore YouTube videos and thought I heard someone state the mount should be 'off' when using SharpCap for PA.??
Is that a true statement and if so (besides powering off the mount), what tracking should be used when using SharpCap to do PA???
Thanks,
Russ
-- Brian?
Brian Valente portfolio
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I used SharpCap Polar Alignment tool last night for the first time and my PA down to like 10 seconds showing Excellent result.? Today, I looked at somemore YouTube videos and thought I heard someone state the mount should be 'off' when using SharpCap for PA.??
Is that a true statement and if so (besides powering off the mount), what tracking should be used when using SharpCap to do PA???
Thanks,
Russ
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Re: Using Stellarium to Align/Synch on a Bright Star [was: Slewing to target strangely]
On Sun, Jan 17, 2021 at 03:40 PM, Michael Herman wrote:
? I normally don't use the bright star list ... instead I use Stellarium to pick my align points and Synch, or Add Additional Align once I recenter.? For this purpose the Ascom Gemini.net applet is excellent.? ?I might align to a bright small planet like Mars or something.? Or a bright globular cluster.??
Michael Your alternative approach using Stellarium in combination with the Ascom Gemini.net applet to select Bright Stars to align/synch your G11/G-1 on is something I am very interested in but have yet to fathom out how the exact steps needed to achieve this. Would it much trouble for you to briefly outline the steps you use - I would be very grateful. I have my G-1 controller connected to my Windows computer via a serial to usb adapter and have activated the telescope control plug-in within Stellarium but have yet to try moving the mount using this arrangement. The telescope icon on the Stellarium sceen moves to reflect positioning of the scope made using the Losmandy Hand Controller but my hope is to do this from the comfort of my lounge. Thanks for any information. Terry
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great detail! i'll have to check this out more closely
This is around an area passing close to the zenith here about half way between orion and the southern cross. It's not too far from Canopus. There's a lot of very faint stuff in there. More often than not it's imaged in widefield because there are supernova remnants similar to cygnus. This a close up in a brighter region next to the pencil nebula NGC2736. The only thing you're able to see visually would be the bright star in the center of the field. This about 5.5h of integration in 10min exposure with a QHY9 FSQ106N and a duo band filter.
-- Brian?
Brian Valente portfolio
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This is around an area passing close to the zenith here about half way between orion and the southern cross. It's not too far from Canopus. There's a lot of very faint stuff in there. More often than not it's imaged in widefield because there are supernova remnants similar to cygnus. This a close up in a brighter region next to the pencil nebula NGC2736. The only thing you're able to see visually would be the bright star in the center of the field. This about 5.5h of integration in 10min exposure with a QHY9 FSQ106N and a duo band filter.
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Re: Pole master on G11 with Digital Drives
You know this is a funny issue. Years ago when I got the PoleMaster there were issues with the drivers. It was related to power saving features of the PC but a workaround I found that worked was to open a video of anything in the background and for some reason the PM software worked fine and did not lock up anymore as long as the video was playing.? I think this was fixed with later drivers but I don't recall which one I don't think it has need changed in a few years now so it should be stable. Worth trying it out, you can do this inside and just see how long the camera keeps working to see if this fixes the issue for you. Worked for me but I have been using SharpCap for long enough I don't remember this problem well.?
--
Chip Louie Chief Daydreamer Imagination Hardware?
? ?Astropheric Weather Forecast - South Pasadena, CA?
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Re: Entering HIP Star Coordinates Using Hand Controller?
Ken
Yes! It worked. There's a little action button that you have to select to display the html list and its default is a list that you can't download in Android. Unless you know to put in ** and stl you won't find?¦²562?
Thanks
Chuck
-----Original Message----- From: Ken Walker <kwalker501@...> To: Losmandy_users < [email protected]> Sent: Sat, Jan 16, 2021 07:49 PM Subject: Re: [Losmandy_users_io] Entering HIP Star Coordinates Using Hand Controller? Maybe this would help ,haven't navigated this in years but used it for Annotation in PixInsight.
http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/
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Michael Herman
David C. Partridge
Chip Louie