Re: GOTO issue with Mach1GTO
Makes me so glad I plate solve. = )
On Mon, Dec 11, 2017 at 12:44 PM, chris1011@... [ap-gto] <ap-gto@...> wrote:
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Re: GOTO issue with Mach1GTO
Roland Christen
Assuming the RAPAS is accurate, what do you do next? Now go to the Objects Menu, pick a star from the star's list and press GoTo. The mount will slew to that star, but it will probably not be in the center of your scope at this point. You may see it in your finder scope. Now you simply bring the star to the center of your eyepiece via the 4 buttons and press the bottom right hand button to bring up the Recal menu. then press 9 = Recal. Your mount is now pointing accurately in the sky and you can now go to any object that you wish. If you are permanently mounted, you will not have to do any of this again. Just simply put your keypad in Autostart = YES and every time that you turn on the power the mount will always know exactly where it is pointed. Your keypad will start up automatically and you can simply go to any object in the sky without going thru any startup procedure. Rolando -----Original Message-----
From: Bruce Donzanti donza2735@... [ap-gto] To: ap-gto Sent: Sun, Dec 10, 2017 11:01 pm Subject: Re: [ap-gto] Re: GOTO issue with Mach1GTO No, Have Polaris in my sights.
Frankly, I am really lost now. I am balanced and leveled and coordinates and date and time are all entered as location 1. I did a rough polar align followed by the RAPAS. Assuming the RAPAS is accurate, what do you do next? The keypad gives you the choices: 1)Star Sync 2) Polar Alignment 3) Resume last position 4)new setup. I thought was Star Sync based on the manual.
On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 4:31 PM, marfig1970@... [ap-gto] <ap-gto@...> wrote:
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Re: More Troubles Tonight with APPM
Roland Christen
Do you have a CP4, and if so, what firmware? When I upgraded mine to the newest version 10 on my 1100 and Mach 1 the mounts would often stop and park themselves (without a park command being sent) and the light on the CP4 would turn yellow and I could only slew one way (east or west). Basically what happened in your mount was that you had gone around multiple times and had reached an internal limit. The CP4 then stopped going any further and turned on the yellow light to indicate that a limit had been reached. You could slew the other direction out of the limit, but could not slew any more in the same direction. This limit is set so that your internal cord does not wrap around too many times.
Rolando
-----Original Message-----
From: AstroEric@... [ap-gto] To: ap-gto Sent: Sat, Dec 9, 2017 10:48 pm Subject: [ap-gto] Re: More Troubles Tonight with APPM Kerry, Do you have a CP4, and if so, what firmware? When I upgraded mine to the newest version 10 on my 1100 and Mach 1 the mounts would often stop and park themselves (without a park command being sent) and the light on the CP4 would turn yellow and I could only slew one way (east or west). I would also get the MS# Com errors on both USB and ethernet. This was due to a bug in the firmware that only a couple of us saw. Once I was given updated firmware all those problems went away. What made it difficult to debug was that APCC would not give any indication there was a problem or that the light turned yellow. Howard and I had to enter debug commands in the terminal window and look at the responses to determine the state. Eric ------------------------------------ Posted by: AstroEric@... ------------------------------------ To UNSUBSCRIBE, or for general information on the ap-gto list see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ap-gto ------------------------------------ Yahoo Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ap-gto/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ap-gto/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: ap-gto-digest@... ap-gto-fullfeatured@... <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: ap-gto-unsubscribe@... <*> Your use of Yahoo Groups is subject to: https://info.yahoo.com/legal/us/yahoo/utos/terms/
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Re: GOTO issue with Mach1GTO
Suresh Mohan
Hello how did you go to the first star ? I hope you did not slew to it ; did you manually grasp the scope , centred in your eyepiece , locked the clutches and then sync ?
toggle quoted messageShow quoted text
Suresh
On 11-Dec-2017, at 10:18 PM, Suresh Mohan Neelmegh <drsureshmohan@...> wrote:
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Re: GOTO issue with Mach1GTO
Suresh Mohan
Hello how did you go to the first star ? I hope you did not slew to it ; did you manually grasp the scope , centred in your eyepiece , locked the clutches and then sync ?
toggle quoted messageShow quoted text
Suresh
On 11-Dec-2017, at 4:03 PM, 'Christopher Erickson' christopher.k.erickson@... [ap-gto] <ap-gto@...> wrote:
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Re: GOTO issue with Mach1GTO
Bruce Donzanti
Thank you again Christopher.
On Mon, Dec 11, 2017 at 3:07 AM, 'Christopher Erickson' christopher.k.erickson@... [ap-gto] <ap-gto@...> wrote:
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Re: GOTO issue with Mach1GTO
Bruce Donzanti
Christopher That is correct. Thank you very much! This is excellent. Bruce
On Mon, Dec 11, 2017 at 2:33 AM, 'Christopher Erickson' christopher.k.erickson@... [ap-gto] <ap-gto@...> wrote:
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Re: AP1200 CP3 power supply
There has been quite a lot of discussion on power supplies on
this list in the past several months. Lots of good information in the
message archives.
Buying your power supplies directly from AP will always be the
safest decision. If your mount is damaged by one of their power supplies
you can bet that AP will go above and beyond to make everything right. You
bought an AP mount. This isn't the time to start pinching
pennies.
It sounds like your web switch has 120/240VAC outlets on it
and your AP mount wants ~13.7VDC. Every possible solution is going to have
a box or brick in the middle of the cord to make the voltage conversion.
Possibly I am misunderstanding your question.
I hope this helps.
-Christopher Erickson
Observatory engineer Summit Kinetics
From: ap-gto@... [mailto:ap-gto@...] Sent: Sunday, December 10, 2017 3:06 PM To: ap-gto@... Subject: [ap-gto] AP1200 CP3 power supply I am in the process of buying a used 2006 AP1200 and have a question about which power supply to use? First some basics - 1) The mount will be used in a remote observatory at around 4500ft. While the observatory is in West Texas, it does get cold in the winter months - will repeatedly go below 32F. 2) The power supply will be purely for the mount. I will have a dew zapper, but I don't intend to use the power supply that I wil have for the mount to be used with anything else. 3) The power supply will be hooked to a web switch, which in turn will be hooked to an UPS. Anything else the group wants to know, please ask - I am not sure what all information y'all will need. I have seen AP sell the 25 amp continuous variable voltage PS, however that looks expensive to me. There is a similar version of that, one made by Jetstream JTPS28M and that is almost half the price. I may buy that - is that any good? Do people use that? I realize that does me very little good in a remote setting in terms of being able to set the voltage, but I might set it at a consistent 14v. I believe the mount will draw about 5amps and should be good enough for that. Separately, I would ideally like an AC power supply - I am not a big fan of cigarette lighters being plugged in to power supply boxes - I would much rather that I just have a 3-pin plug and attach one end to the web switch and the other end to the mount. What are my options there - other than building one myself? Thanks, Dhaval
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Re: GOTO issue with Mach1GTO
Better to set the hand controller startup Auto-Connect mode to
YES instead of NO or EXT. Then simply do a GOTO to a known star and then a
9=Re-Calibrate, which will be a function you will see when you press the
[RA/DEC/REV] button. In fact if the mount has not been disturbed since it
was last used then the 9=Re-Calibrate probably won't be
needed.
AP mounts don't need star alignment every time they are turned
on. They remember where they last were when power was
cut.
-Christopher Erickson
Observatory engineer Summit Kinetics
From: ap-gto@... [mailto:ap-gto@...] Sent: Sunday, December 10, 2017 7:01 PM To: ap-gto@... Subject: Re: [ap-gto] Re: GOTO issue with Mach1GTO No, Have Polaris in my
sights.
Frankly, I am really
lost now. I am balanced and leveled and coordinates and date and time are
all entered as location 1. I did a rough polar align followed by the
RAPAS. Assuming the RAPAS is accurate, what do you do next? The
keypad gives you the choices: 1)Star Sync 2) Polar Alignment 3) Resume last
position 4)new setup. I thought was Star Sync based on the manual.
On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 4:31 PM, marfig1970@... [ap-gto] <ap-gto@...> wrote:
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Re: GOTO issue with Mach1GTO
I assume you are upgrading from another
mount?
I wrote the following post on Cloudy Nights to help people a
bit who are migrating from Celestron (or Meade) mounts to
Astro-Physics. It covers some of the important differences that might
trip up people who are familiar with the other GOTO systems. Not sure if
it will help you or not. I hope it does.
-Christopher Erickson
Observatory engineer Summit Kinetics
From: ap-gto@... [mailto:ap-gto@...] Sent: Sunday, December 10, 2017 7:52 AM To: ap-gto@... Subject: [ap-gto] GOTO issue with Mach1GTO Tired my new Mach1GTO for the first time last night. Mount was leveled E/W and balanced per instructions. I used the RASPA right out of the box to do PA following initial rough polar alignment. I then did a SYNC to a bright star in the east and I thought I had the scope aligned on the west side as they say instruct in the KeyPad manual. When I started to slew, I was able to see objects on my computer screen using a CCD camera in the east and southeast but nothing in the FoV west and north. I also did drifting testing and the star low in the east did start to drift after 5 minutes. So, I am thinking I have 2 problems: 1) I did not SYNC correctly for the GOTOS and/or 2) the RASPA needs to be aligned following drift alignment due to the slight drifting occurring. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
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Re: GOTO issue with Mach1GTO
Bruce Donzanti
No, Have Polaris in my sights. Frankly, I am really lost now. I am balanced and leveled and coordinates and date and time are all entered as location 1. I did a rough polar align followed by the RAPAS. Assuming the RAPAS is accurate, what do you do next? The keypad gives you the choices: 1)Star Sync 2) Polar Alignment 3) Resume last position 4)new setup. I thought was Star Sync based on the manual.
On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 4:31 PM, marfig1970@... [ap-gto] <ap-gto@...> wrote:
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AP1200 CP3 power supply
Dhaval
Hello all,
I am in the process of buying a used 2006 AP1200 and have a question about which power supply to use? First some basics - 1) The mount will be used in a remote observatory at around 4500ft. While the observatory is in West Texas, it does get cold in the winter months - will repeatedly go below 32F. 2) The power supply will be purely for the mount. I will have a dew zapper, but I don't intend to use the power supply that I wil have for the mount to be used with anything else. 3) The power supply will be hooked to a web switch, which in turn will be hooked to an UPS. Anything else the group wants to know, please ask - I am not sure what all information y'all will need. I have seen AP sell the 25 amp continuous variable voltage PS, however that looks expensive to me. There is a similar version of that, one made by Jetstream JTPS28M and that is almost half the price. I may buy that - is that any good? Do people use that? I realize that does me very little good in a remote setting in terms of being able to set the voltage, but I might set it at a consistent 14v. I believe the mount will draw about 5amps and should be good enough for that. Separately, I would ideally like an AC power supply - I am not a big fan of cigarette lighters being plugged in to power supply boxes - I would much rather that I just have a 3-pin plug and attach one end to the web switch and the other end to the mount. What are my options there - other than building one myself? Thanks, Dhaval
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Re: APCC Virtual port problems after upgrade
R Edelson
Hi Ray,
Thank you very much! I appreciate the response! I'm usually connecting after coming from the park 3 position Richard
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Re: GOTO issue with Mach1GTO
Marcelo Figueroa
Is it possible that you performed polar alignment on the wrong star? I live in the southern hemisphere and Sigma Octantis is difficult to identify, especially in an area of high light pollution. When I first received my Mach1 it took a little while to make the polar alignment and I was using the wrong star, so my GOTOs were quite wrong and the tracking horrible. But once I identified Sigma Octantis correctly and performed the polar alignment (and later Sync), it was like magic, the GOTOs were accurate and the tracking perfect. And if you use SGP and Plate Solving is more "magic", incredibly accurate. SGP and Mach1 seem to be made for each other. (By the way, I wasn't using RAPAS, I already had a PoleMaster and I used this one).
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Re: GOTO issue with Mach1GTO
Bruce Donzanti
OK- thank you very much
On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 1:51 PM, Dean Schwartzenberg dean@... [ap-gto] <ap-gto@...> wrote:
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Re: GOTO issue with Mach1GTO
Dean S
The RAPAS needs to initially be adjusted after you do a good drift alignment the first time. Then you recal on a star.
toggle quoted messageShow quoted text
On Dec 10, 2017, at 4:17 PM, Bruce Donzanti donza2735@... [ap-gto] <ap-gto@...> wrote:
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Re: GOTO issue with Mach1GTO
Bruce Donzanti
I did- as I stated in my post.
On Sun, Dec 10, 2017 at 1:04 PM, 'Woody Schlom' woody@... [ap-gto] <ap-gto@...> wrote:
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Re: GOTO issue with Mach1GTO
Woody Schlom <woody@...>
1) My RAPAS came with specific initial alignment instructions. I think you need to read the stuff that came with the RAPAS and do the initial alignment. Once you do that, the RAPAS will be aligned for not just your mount, but other AP mounts as well. You can move it back and forth between AP mounts and it’ll still be aligned. 2) I believe “SYNC” is the wrong command for what you’re trying to do with an AP mount. I think RECAL is what you want. Nomenclature and terms are often different for AP mounts. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve made this same mistake because SYNC is the correct term for other brands of mounts and software. 3) You really do need to read the excellent manuals that came with your new Mach1.
Woody
From: ap-gto@... [mailto:ap-gto@...]
Sent: Sunday, December 10, 2017 9:52 AM To: ap-gto@... Subject: [ap-gto] GOTO issue with Mach1GTO
Tired my new Mach1GTO for the first time last night. Mount was leveled E/W and balanced per instructions. I used the RASPA right out of the box to do PA following initial rough polar alignment. I then did a SYNC to a bright star in the east and I thought I had the scope aligned on the west side as they say instruct in the KeyPad manual. When I started to slew, I was able to see objects on my computer screen using a CCD camera in the east and southeast but nothing in the FoV west and north. I also did drifting testing and the star low in the east did start to drift after 5 minutes. So, I am thinking I have 2 problems: 1) I did not SYNC correctly for the GOTOS and/or 2) the RASPA needs to be aligned following drift alignment due to the slight drifting occurring. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
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Re: APCC Virtual port problems after upgrade
Ray Gralak
Hi Richard,
toggle quoted messageShow quoted text
I think the problem is that TheSky6/X expect 2-digit zero-padded values in responses and it is possible for APCC to respond without a leading zero in some cases. For example, if an application sends a command to get declination (":GD#") and the mount is at exactly 8 degrees declination, the response TheSky expects is (without quotes): "08*00:00#" But, APCC will send (without quotes): "8*00:00#" I'm not sure if this is technically a bug in APCC, but it will be fixed in the next APCC build. -Ray Gralak Author of APCC (Astro-Physics Command Center): http://www.astro-physics.com/index.htm?products/accessories/software/apcc/apcc Author of PEMPro: http://www.ccdware.com Author of Astro-Physics V2 ASCOM Driver: http://www.gralak.com/apdriver Author of PulseGuide: http://www.pulseguide.com Author of Sigma: http://www.gralak.com/sigma
-----Original Message-----
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Bug in VCP4-P01-10 Firmware
Kerry Williams
Thanks, Stephane.
Yes. it appears there is a bug in the latest firmware release (VCP4-P01-10). We'll have to ask Howard to get us a new release fixing this issue. --- Kerry
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