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Some pointing accuracy and polar alignment problems during setup

 

I am not sure whether it¡¯s a daylight savings time issue or what. When I put in all the data including gps location, local time, and time zone, my mount doesn¡¯t go anywhere near the calibration stars it¡¯s supposed to go
to. I have tried changing to a fresh battery in the little back box, but that didn¡¯t seem to change anything. If I do big slews to where the stars are supposed to be I can eventually get things working, but it takes a lot of time to get there. The setup at my dark site is complicated enough without having to trouble shoot my mount every time. My Celestron mounts will ask for standard time or daylight savings time specifically but my Losmandy doesn¡¯t. I?rarely have those issues with my Celestron mounts so I have been using them instead, but it would sure be nice if I could figure out why my Losmandy has become difficult to set up. Sometimes I just need my big G11T
for my bigger SCT¡¯s when I am imaging.
 

The crucial question:? How far is it off, and in what direction?
 

Jeff,

I know daylight savings time can be a pain, been there done that too.? Anyway, check this video out, at least the first half about 8 minutes of it.? It goes through set up info.? There's a website that gives you accurate time zone offset info.



I hope this solves your problem.

Joe
 

Hi Jeff,

Most likely some Gemini setting is entered incorrectly. What version of Gemini are you using, and what level of firmware? Do you connect your PC to the mount before doing that first Goto? And is the star within a 5 degree field of a finder, or even further off??

The most common errors are with:

1. mount type set in Gemini
2. date and/or time
3. timezone
4. geo location
5. large polar misalignment

Regards,

? ? -Paul


On Wed, Dec 6, 2023 at 10:57 PM, jeff marston wrote:
I am not sure whether it¡¯s a daylight savings time issue or what. When I put in all the data including gps location, local time, and time zone, my mount doesn¡¯t go anywhere near the calibration stars it¡¯s supposed to go
to. I have tried changing to a fresh battery in the little back box, but that didn¡¯t seem to change anything. If I do big slews to where the stars are supposed to be I can eventually get things working, but it takes a lot of time to get there. The setup at my dark site is complicated enough without having to trouble shoot my mount every time. My Celestron mounts will ask for standard time or daylight savings time specifically but my Losmandy doesn¡¯t. I?rarely have those issues with my Celestron mounts so I have been using them instead, but it would sure be nice if I could figure out why my Losmandy has become difficult to set up. Sometimes I just need my big G11T
for my bigger SCT¡¯s when I am imaging.
 

I would guess about 15 degrees off, but it¡¯s been about 18 months and I don¡¯t recall the direction.
 

Thanks for the video lead, Joe. I watched it and took some notes.

Jeff
 

I am not using my PC when I am getting pointing accuracy and polar alignment. The stars seem to be about 15 degrees off.?

Thanks for the response, Paul. I think I am going to do a bunch of dry runs in my living room with my Gemini 2 and hand controller.

Jeff
 

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Sounds like 1 hour of RA ¨C so suspect daylight savings versus no daylight savings.

?

David

?

From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of jeff marston
Sent: 08 December 2023 06:53
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Losmandy_users_io] Some pointing accuracy and polar alignment problems during setup

?

I am not using my PC when I am getting pointing accuracy and polar alignment. The stars seem to be about 15 degrees off.?

Thanks for the response, Paul. I think I am going to do a bunch of dry runs in my living room with my Gemini 2 and hand controller.

Jeff

 

David is absolutely right - 15 degrees is 1 hour which very likely means an incorrect time zone offset setting, maybe still set to DST.


On Fri, Dec 8, 2023 at 01:53 AM, jeff marston wrote:

I am not using my PC when I am getting pointing accuracy and polar alignment. The stars seem to be about 15 degrees off.?

Thanks for the response, Paul. I think I am going to do a bunch of dry runs in my living room with my Gemini 2 and hand controller.

Jeff
 

That makes a lot of sense. Thanks, David!

Jeff

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