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Re: AP1100AE PHD2 guiding with wind
Roland is right....a windscreen is first thing to consider. Of course a dome or roll off roof observatory helps but when I move away from my home setup to a star party I have a few tricks and things I have noticed.
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Testing SkyTrack continuous tracking with the Mach2
#Mach2GTO
David Johnson
As mentioned in another topic, SkyTrack now has continuous-tracking capability with compatible ASCOM mounts, including the Mach2. Here’s a YouTube video showing some indoor testing I did. It shows the software screen and mount behavior in an inset. Note the automatic meridian flip. It does take a few moments to reacquire the target after the flip. I’m looking forward to trying it out for real as soon as the clouds cooperate. Thanks, Brent, for the exciting new capability.
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Re: Followup: Re: [ap-gto] Mr. Whang's Mach2 with TOA150
Thanks for great explanation of the differences Roland. I have a 900 and also a 1100 (no encoders yet). More information now to make the decision to add encoders to the 1100.
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Re: RA Mesh adjustment for 2104 model Mach 1 GTO
>>>3600/266 yields 13arc seconds per hair. a 13 arcsec error would cause hair to ignite and telescope operators to take up pitch forks. These are tiny tiny movements. that "giant dec leap" seen in the graphs earlier was about 10 arcsec as I recall.
On Thu, Oct 14, 2021 at 1:16 PM Michael Kelly <Michael@...> wrote:
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Re: RA Mesh adjustment for 2104 model Mach 1 GTO
Peter Nagy
This may be a better alternative guide scope setup. Two reasons. One is it's rock solid and other is it has longer 250mm focal length than your 165mm guide scope.
https://www.astro-physics.com/1060vgkit You need to make extremely sure if A-P finder base hole pattern will match to the hole pattern of your scope. Contact A-P for complete dimensions of their finder base and measure your bolt pattern to see if they match. I know it may be a bit expensive but worthwhile if you want robust and no flexure guiding. Peter
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Re: RA Mesh adjustment for 2104 model Mach 1 GTO
Michael Kelly
Howard, I love that analogy. And only because I ‘may have’ been dropped on my head as a child…..’ I decided to do a little experiment.
toggle quoted messageShow quoted text
I measured a human hair…yes I actually did. My hair measure 0.0015”. I measured my pinky nail. 0.400” Roughly 266 ‘hairs per nail’ 3600/266 yields 13arc seconds per hair. Here’s my supporting data!    Enjoy at my personal expense. Lol Best, Michael
On Thursday, October 14, 2021, 4:03 PM, W Hilmo <y.groups@...> wrote:
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Re: Smart Meridian Flip with NINA
#APCC
Joseph Beyer
Hi Dale,
Yes, with Ray's help it looks like things are sorted out and running as expected again. Thanks for posting your MF settings. Mine matched except for the use of "Use telescope side of pier" which I've now turned on. What settings should be selected in the Meridian tab of APCC? I stumbled on a couple settings one in the "Program Operation" box of the "Setup" tab in APCC under the "Advanced Settings" box. It brings up a dialogue that allows the user to link third party applications to APCC. In previous versions of APCC this was limited to SGP but I see it now includes NINA. By checking the box it now changes a check box found in the Meridian Limits tab to read "Send limit with offset to NINA". I'm assuming both of these need to activated to support the Smart Meridian Flip? I initially setup a standard meridian flip in NINA not using the APCC defined limits and it went off without a hitch. The smart meridian flips I've tried not so much. Seems the complicating factor is a lack of measurement points in my dec tracking models which results in poor pointing after the flip. I'll refine my models a bit to see if I can get the mapping model numbers more reasonable to help pointing. Joe
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Re: RA Mesh adjustment for 2104 model Mach 1 GTO
W Hilmo
I like to use this one:
toggle quoted messageShow quoted text
Take a dime and hold it out arm's length, noticing its diameter. Now imagine pushing the dime 2.5 miles away. The diameter of the dime at that distance is one arc second. -Wade
On 10/14/21 12:20 PM, Howard Hedlund
wrote:
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Hi Gang,
One of the great new features in APCC v1.9.x is Dec Arc Tracking. There was some discussion when v. 1.9.x was released, but there were many other subjects for discussion as well. In the meantime, I prepared this little tome to hopefully explain it all a bit better. Please have a look and tell me how I can improve the document. https://ap-gto.groups.io/g/main/wiki/28325
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Updated Wiki Page: Dec Arc Tracking in APCC
#wiki-notice
main@ap-gto.groups.io Notification <noreply@...>
The wiki page Dec Arc Tracking in APCC has been updated by Howard Hedlund <howard@...>.
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Re: RA Mesh adjustment for 2104 model Mach 1 GTO
steve.winston@...
@Nicolas, to clarify: The GA run shown here was done through the main scope, not the guide scope? So the guide scope connection is not the cause of these DEC jumps...?
Of course, guide camera connection to main scope could still be problematic, dragging cables etc etc. Do these jumps in DEC repeats across multiple GA runs?
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Re: RA Mesh adjustment for 2104 model Mach 1 GTO
>>> Remember we're talking widths of a human hair scale of movement, very small <<<
I always liked this analogy:
Mag. 7 or Better Skies!
Howard Hedlund Astro-Physics, Inc. AP Phone: 815-282-1513 Direct Phone: 815-315-7015 Please include this e-mail with your response.
P Consider the environment before printing this e-mail.
From: main@ap-gto.groups.io <main@ap-gto.groups.io>
On Behalf Of Brian Valente
Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2021 14:04 To: main@ap-gto.groups.io Subject: Re: [ap-gto] RA Mesh adjustment for 2104 model Mach 1 GTO
>>> It is the standard finder bracket included with the Explore Scientific telescope.
can you upload a pic?
If it's what I think it is, that can be (and often is) a huge source of movement. Remember we're talking widths of a human hair scale of movement, very small
On Thu, Oct 14, 2021 at 11:59 AM nicholas via groups.io <chironik=yahoo.com@groups.io> wrote:
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Re: RA Mesh adjustment for 2104 model Mach 1 GTO
>>>
It is the standard finder bracket included with the Explore Scientific telescope. can you upload a pic? If it's what I think it is, that can be (and often is) a huge source of movement. Remember we're talking widths of a human hair scale of movement, very small
thank you I will check I am certain it is not 6 screws. It is the standard finder bracket included with the Explore Scientific telescope. I have always thought about this setup being subject to movement but I am frequently manually checking it to feel for movement which I am not able to discern any. In any case I will follow-up with the images. --
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Re: APCC and SGPro Meridian Flip Issues #apcc #ascom_v2_driver
#APCC
#ASCOM_V2_Driver
I had a similar issue in NINA. In that case both NINA and APCC showed a time to meridian and they did not agree (by 2-3 minutes).
In my case the issue was a mount sync issue. I had NINA set to not sync APCC, and APCC had a polar align but I had done nothing in APPM to sync it (was not using a model either). So it was tracking nicely but was rotationally off a bit in where it thought it was (and a plate solving center on NINA had the object in view so I was clueless).
Allowing NINA to send a sync (which ASCOM or APCC reinterprets as a recal I think) fixed it and all match. I also am getting into the habit (as it might flush other issues) even if not using a model to go into APPM and do a plate solve and recal first thing after polar align in the evening.
Since that, the meridian timing is within a second or few, and flips work flawlessly.
Just a thought. The meridian screen in APPC shows time of meridian, it should match the transit time of the object (if SGP doesn't show it, you can look up in stellerium or others) . Unfortunately it stops showing it once it hits the meridian so it is tough to debug after it fails.
Linwood
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Re: RA Mesh adjustment for 2104 model Mach 1 GTO
nicholas
thank you I will check I am certain it is not 6 screws. It is the standard finder bracket included with the Explore Scientific telescope. I have always thought about this setup being subject to movement but I am frequently manually checking it to feel for movement which I am not able to discern any. In any case I will follow-up with the images.
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Re: APCC and SGPro Meridian Flip Issues #apcc #ascom_v2_driver
#APCC
#ASCOM_V2_Driver
Marcelo Figueroa
On Thu, Oct 14, 2021 at 07:23 AM, Tom Zepf wrote:
Hi folks, I seem to be having issues with getting SGPro and APCC setup for successful meridian flips. In all cases, the mount stops tracking before the meridian limit is reached. There seem to be two issues. I have the same problem, no matter what combination of settings I use, APCC always reaches its meridian limit a couple of minutes before SGP, causing the SGP session to abort.
If I use send the limits to SGP it is even worse, because for some reason SGP thinks it reached the meridian a couple of hours before the real event.
From my ignorant point of view it would be ideal to be able to set in APCC an offset for after the meridian.
And just in case, if I totally disable the meridian limits in APCC and let SGP do everything on its own, it works perfect. But I would like to have some safety in case something goes wrong.
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Re: RA Mesh adjustment for 2104 model Mach 1 GTO
Peter Nagy
Nicholas,
Please show us several good pictures of your guide scope setup including how it's mounted to either your main scope or mount. Does your guide scope bracket have 3 or 6 thumbscrews supporting the guide scope? Peter
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Re: RA Mesh adjustment for 2104 model Mach 1 GTO
Hi Nicholas I'm a little confused/concerned about these large and fairly instant jumps in DEC I see it happened a couple of times. I don't see it affecting RA, so it looks to me like something is loose in your imaging train for this guiding setup? 
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Re: RA Mesh adjustment for 2104 model Mach 1 GTO
Roland Christen
Hello Nicholas,
The good news is that your mount is working fine. Both the RA periodic error curve and the Dec backlash curve are well within reason for this old mount. I don't see any sign of stiction in Dec, so it will guide quite well in that axis. RA is between 8 and 10 arc seconds, which is slightly out but not enough to cause any guiding problems. So, the mount is healthy and will be able to do imaging with a 6" refractor just fine. Your 6" is not too large for the Mach1. The mount can actually handle somewhat bigger scopes and guide well.
I do have some comments about your settings:
First, your high frequency star motion (seeing) is very high, you must be either experiencing some air flows from an east wind over the mountains, or your particular location is just not very steady for seeing (2.66 arc sec star motion as reported in your GA is very high). If it really is that high then your setting of Min Move (0.18 for RA and 0.23 for Dec) is totally wrong and it shows in your RA Guider graph when you started guiding. Such a low setting of Min Move will cause oscillation back and forth as the guide software tries to chase the seeing. Your GA run recommended 0.39 for RA and 0.6 for Dec. I would start with those settings, but if the guide graph doesn't settle down I would increase RA to 0.5 or 0.6, same as Dec. There is no reason to try keeping the RA axis to such a low threshold as 0.18 arc seconds. When I am guiding even with my largest and longest scopes I rarely ever set the min Move below 0.3 arc seconds.
The other thing I would do is to set the aggressiveness for both axes to 50% when the seeing is not good, and only increase it to 70% under very good seeing conditions. Seeing is NOT transparency! Seeing is high frequency star motion or the back and forth motion that you record in the Dec axis when no guide pulses are being sent.
It is imperative that you Do Not set any backlash compensation in your guide software, and that you always use 1x guide rate. Normally I would guide with 2 to 3 second guide exposures. That will help to smooth out the star motion and minimize chasing the seeing.
You can guide with the present RA periodic error of 8 to 10 arc seconds since that occurs over a 6.4 minute cycle and is slow enough for your guide software to handle. However, if you ever want to really get your mount tracking well, then you might consider using PEMPro to create a PE curve and feed it to your CP controller. Then turn it on and watch the mount's RA tracking improve dramatically. However, it will only work if you do it right. If you mess up the measurement and don't follow the instructions, you can easily make things worse. It's up to you if you are confident that you can do it right. Even if you mess up, you can always turn the PE correction off.
Finally, Some of your previous runs show a very high Dec drift rate which is an indication that your Polar Alignment is quite a ways off. A Dec drift rate of 1 to 2 arc seconds in a 5 minute period would be ideal, in your case it was more than 10 times that amount, and this will limit your ability to get tight guiding and tight sharp stars. You will get all kinds of recommendations but just pick the one that works for you and stick with it. Polar alignment the same way each time will give you consistent results.
Good luck and fair skies.
Roland Christen
Astro-Physics Inc.
-----Original Message-----
From: nicholas via groups.io <chironik@...> To: main@ap-gto.groups.io Sent: Thu, Oct 14, 2021 2:49 am Subject: Re: [ap-gto] RA Mesh adjustment for 2104 model Mach 1 GTO I posted the GA ss above if that is what you mean.
there is this which Andrew generated of the test run n I have not gotten to PEC yet. the attached Phd2 ss is from current guide about 25 minutes thereof. -- Roland Christen Astro-Physics
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Re: GoTos
Jodi McCullough <jmccul@...>
When we had this problem, it was one of the handpaddle batteries. Call George at AP and he can send you the right part. If I remember correctly, it was the wired battery.
toggle quoted messageShow quoted text
Jodi
On Oct 13, 2021, at 10:24 AM, Michael Hamburg via groups.io <michael_hamburg44@...> wrote:
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