Hello Jeremy,
I am not sure about questions 1 and 2.?
In regards to question 3 please see my reply below.
Best Regards,
Serge Antonov, Astro Devices.
Hi all,
I have an FTQ mount I acquired directly from Charles about 8 years ago and I've really enjoyed using it. It's pure simplicity - no encoders (I think only a few were built without), no slow motion, just pure alt/az.?
Today, I received my second HH engineering mount - a decked out Quarter Hitch! Unlike my FTQ, this one has all the bells and whistles - slow motion, encoders, upgraded knobs, counterbalance with extension, finder bracket - it's really dolled up! I'm looking forward to first light with it but have a few questions for owners of this type of mount:
1.) There were three nylon screws in the base of the mount. They prevented it from being screwed onto my tripod, so I removed them. Does anyone know what they are there for?
2.) The slow motion controls appear to be driven by steel rods riding directly on anodized aluminum. My mount arrived in like-new condition, and I hope to maintain it as such. Does anyone have a lot of hours on their mounts that can report on the durability of this mating? I'm a little concerned that the steel rod will eventually damage the aluminum race. I'm wondering if putting some heat-shrink tubing around the rod would maintain the function and provide a replaceable sacrificial surface in between the steel and aluminum.?
3.) Does anyone know the encoder resolution? I set Sky Safari to automatically read it but would like to confirm.?
Most likely the encoders' resolution is 20,000 steps. There is however a possibility that they are 5,000 steps. Do not set SkySafari to get the resolution automatically - it never worked and also Nexus-II does not need to be configured for any particular encoder resolution. What you can do to check the encoder’s resolution is as follows:
- set the encoder steps for both encoders to 20000 in SkySafari
- position the telescope pointing horizontally - using a bubble level is highly recommended
- turn Nexus-II on (the encoder tics will be set to 0 in Nexus-II every time you turn it on)
- tap ‘Connect’ in SkySafari - you will see the telescope cursor located at the horizon in north
- move the telescope slowly to point vertically - but watch the telescope cursor as it should just move to zenith:
- if it reaches the zenith mark before the telescope is pointed vertically then the encoder steps set in SkySafari are too low - this is not likely the case for your mount as the encoders in your photo look to be the ones Charles installed and he did not use any higher than 20K encoders
- if it it does not reach the zenith mark when the telescope is pointed vertically then the encoder steps set in SkySafari are too high - try lowering the encoder steps to 5000, 4096 or 4000
- for the azimuth you can do a 360 degrees test
- when changing the encoder steps in SkySafari please make sure to tap ‘Disconnect’ then change the encoder steps and press ‘Connect’ again; SkySafari will not use new settings if it communicates with Nexus-II
Thanks!
-Jeremy
