¿ªÔÆÌåÓý

  1. Losmandy_users
  2. Topics

Need alignment/modeling help

brianm
 

Hi all, great forum. I¡¯m not sure if what I¡¯m experiencing is normal, hence the post. I have a new G11G/Gemini 2. PA to start is decent but not perfect, probably within a dozen arc minutes of where it should be.

Mount level, CWD down, Quick start. Mount type, location, time and offset all correct. Finder and OTA aligned with each other. Start the model, slew to (in this case) Spica, and Spica isn¡¯t anywhere to be found in my Meade 7x50 finder. After some major centering gymnastics, I do the usual model-align-back routine and go to Arcturus. Same issue, rinse, repeat. Try something in the east - same problem. I¡¯ve been using a 55 Plossl just to make things easier, then fine centering with a 9mm. The same routine is necessary on subsequent gotos; it¡¯s a night-long struggle. ?I have had some success synching, but it¡¯s still not nailing the gotos.

I MUST be missing something. Any ideas?

Thanks!
 

Dear Brian,

Given the changes of daylight savings time starting date over the years, it's easy to get the hour off by 1 hour...at least that's my theory.? ?

The solution is this: only enter the UTC time, which is exact.? To do that, set the time zone offset to zero.? (That is, don't try to enter your local time...it is unnecessary and prone to error).? ?Then enter the UTC time.? Then enter your latitude and longitude.

Then Cold Start from.CWD position.? (Not Quick Start!).? Cold start erases any data in the "model" as these model terms are actually "error" terms.? It is easy for one if these to be wrong and throw your mount pointing into error.

Try those things and report back what you get!

All the best,
Michael

On Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 8:18 PM brianm <bkmiller4463@...> wrote:

Hi all, great forum. I¡¯m not sure if what I¡¯m experiencing is normal, hence the post. I have a new G11G/Gemini 2. PA to start is decent but not perfect, probably within a dozen arc minutes of where it should be.

Mount level, CWD down, Quick start. Mount type, location, time and offset all correct. Finder and OTA aligned with each other. Start the model, slew to (in this case) Spica, and Spica isn¡¯t anywhere to be found in my Meade 7x50 finder. After some major centering gymnastics, I do the usual model-align-back routine and go to Arcturus. Same issue, rinse, repeat. Try something in the east - same problem. I¡¯ve been using a 55 Plossl just to make things easier, then fine centering with a 9mm. The same routine is necessary on subsequent gotos; it¡¯s a night-long struggle.? I have had some success synching, but it¡¯s still not nailing the gotos.

I MUST be missing something. Any ideas?

Thanks!
brianm
 
Edited

Thanks Michael. I¡¯m pretty sure the time and offset are correct, but I am going to try your suggestion.

Also, I understood that a?quick start performs a cold start subsequent to the mount/time/location input. Is that incorrect?

Thanks for the help!

1 - 3 of 3