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Re: Drying the mount before reassembly ?

Dan_Paris
 

Thanks Tony. I agree it make sense. I would have to secure the OTA as well.
regards,

Dan
Re: Balancing A-P1100

Roland Christen
 

I have never done it to the observatory mounts which have been running for many years. I suppose I should at some point.

Rolando


-----Original Message-----
From: ap@... <ap@...>
To: main@ap-gto.groups.io
Sent: Sat, Nov 12, 2022 5:46 pm
Subject: Re: [ap-gto] Balancing A-P1100

On Sat, Nov 12, 2022 at 10:07 PM, Roland Christen wrote:
It's a window that can be removed for easy re-greasing of the mount.
Ah... well... I guess I'll have to work harder when it's time.  Harder work, I'll appreciate it more?  :) 

Any guidance on how often it is done?   Say in a hot humid area where it's kept inside in AC except while actually in use?  Or do you just wait until you see un-smooth tracking? 

Linwood

--
Roland Christen
Astro-Physics
Re: Balancing A-P1100

Arvind
 

Thanks, Linwood. 

Thanks for clarifying, Roland. Nice to see continued improvements to the mount. Looks like it's so new it's not even mentioned in the manual (perhaps it's there, and I have yet to spot it).

My understanding is that it's not something one does regularly, but if it's easier to do, then folks like me would consider it more often. I remember George's advice on this topic some time ago over an email exchange with him where he said if the mount is working well to leave it alone.

On Sat, Nov 12, 2022 at 19:07 Roland Christen via groups.io <chris1011=aol.com@groups.io> wrote:
It's a window that can be removed for easy re-greasing of the mount.

Roland


-----Original Message-----
From: ap@... <ap@...>
To: main@ap-gto.groups.io
Sent: Sat, Nov 12, 2022 4:27 pm
Subject: Re: [ap-gto] Balancing A-P1100

Congratulations on the new mount, and thanks for the video.  It did bring up a question, as I have the same mount except not low temp encoders, but about a year old.  

What's the black thing indicated by the arrow below, mine doesn't have that?   Encoder warmers?   Some new feature? 

Enquiring minds (who currently have a cloudy sky) want to know!
 
Linwood


--
Roland Christen
Astro-Physics

Re: Balancing A-P1100

ap@CaptivePhotons.com
 

On Sat, Nov 12, 2022 at 10:07 PM, Roland Christen wrote:
It's a window that can be removed for easy re-greasing of the mount.
Ah... well... I guess I'll have to work harder when it's time.  Harder work, I'll appreciate it more?  :) 

Any guidance on how often it is done?   Say in a hot humid area where it's kept inside in AC except while actually in use?  Or do you just wait until you see un-smooth tracking? 

Linwood
Re: Balancing A-P1100

Roland Christen
 

It's a window that can be removed for easy re-greasing of the mount.

Roland


-----Original Message-----
From: ap@... <ap@...>
To: main@ap-gto.groups.io
Sent: Sat, Nov 12, 2022 4:27 pm
Subject: Re: [ap-gto] Balancing A-P1100

Congratulations on the new mount, and thanks for the video.  It did bring up a question, as I have the same mount except not low temp encoders, but about a year old.  

What's the black thing indicated by the arrow below, mine doesn't have that?   Encoder warmers?   Some new feature? 

Enquiring minds (who currently have a cloudy sky) want to know!
 
Linwood


--
Roland Christen
Astro-Physics
Re: Balancing A-P1100

ap@CaptivePhotons.com
 

Congratulations on the new mount, and thanks for the video.  It did bring up a question, as I have the same mount except not low temp encoders, but about a year old.  

What's the black thing indicated by the arrow below, mine doesn't have that?   Encoder warmers?   Some new feature? 

Enquiring minds (who currently have a cloudy sky) want to know!
 
Linwood
Balancing A-P1100

Arvind
 

Had my first light with the new 1100GTO-AEL last night. Being a work day I only got a chance to unbox and assemble things late into the night, so I hadn't done fine balancing. Just after rough balancing I did a quick session with ASIAIR -- guided ofcourse. Overall a good first-light to check things out with CP4 + ASIAIR.

This morning I spent a few mins adjusting fine balance, and recorded a bit of it: https://youtu.be/cAe_7V88Ue4

I'll start recording bits and pieces along the way given the low amount of YT videos on A-P mounts, especially on ASIAIR. Hopefully this will complement the growing number of high-quality videos from A-P on Windows specific programs. My videos will be very light weight as-I-do things -- not much time to edit videos. I hope it's useful for some... and I also hope folks with more experience can comment on if I'm doing something wrong as a feedback.

Overall, super excited for the mount.. thanks to A-P for the mechanical craftsmanship all around and the opportunity to own one of these portable beasts.

Best regards,
Arvind
Re: ASCOM observing conditions for Pegasus Astro Uranus Metro Sensor #APCC

Bharath
 

Hi Frank,

Not sure whether the GPS data is available over a USB connection. Per the manual, "GPS port allows you to output full GPS NMEA messages to a serial RS232 protocol device". Not sure whether a RS232 cable is needed. 

Thank you for your input.

Bharath
Re: ASCOM observing conditions for Pegasus Astro Uranus Metro Sensor #APCC

Frank Widmann
 

I recently acquired one and was able to connect it to APPC to get environmental data. I couldn’t get GPS input, but haven’t had time to investigate.

Frank
ASCOM observing conditions for Pegasus Astro Uranus Metro Sensor #APCC

Bharath
 

Hi

I am thinking of getting the Uranus Meteo Sensor as opposed to the Astromi.ch MGBoxV2. Has anyone used the Pegasus Astro Uranus Meteo Sensor which supposedly uses the ASCOM 6 Observing Conditions driver to provide the GPS data to APCC?

Thank you
Bharath
Re: How do I compete a pointing alignment using only a camera and not a visual setup?

Roland Christen
 

The sky never changes time, objects always follow the correct time. It does not mean that our clocks are synced to the actual sky time. Nothing is messing with the mount, it's just a simple time difference between what your laptop send to the mount and what time the sky is actually running on. At noon, the sun should be pretty much due south. That's noon sky time. You might check sometime what your local time thinks is noon, and where the sun is at that time.

Roland


-----Original Message-----
From: Phil Hoppes via groups.io <rimcrazyph@...>
To: main@ap-gto.groups.io
Sent: Fri, Nov 11, 2022 12:58 pm
Subject: Re: [ap-gto] How do I compete a pointing alignment using only a camera and not a visual setup?

[Edited Message Follows]
Thank you Roland for your excellent explanation.  It is still, somewhat interesting/confusing in that I live in Arizona which ignores daylight savings so the compensation in one respect is zero, but in another it probably still messes with your system in that part of the year Arizona technically is on Mountain time and the other part of the year is on Pacific time but as far as we are concerned we are on Arizona time.  We never change our clocks.  But, yes, I have not told the keypad that information as I "assumed" syncing to my PC just took care of things.

Sorry again for my confusion. I had this wonderful mount at my observatory in Overgaard for about 8 years.  About 4 years into those 8 my dome decided to commit suicide and I've not been able to use my observatory for about 4 years.  I have now retired.  I moved my AP1600 mount to Phoenix to work with my soon to arrive C14 and my Vixen and I am fixing the dome with my son and hope to have an L-350 with a CDK14 in there in about a year.  For Phoenix my AP1600 should work wonderful with my C14 and Vixen and provide me with lots of hours of enjoyable visual as well as imaging sessions.  I just need to "relearn" what I use to know but have now forgotten on how the AP mounts work.

--
Roland Christen
Astro-Physics
Re: How do I compete a pointing alignment using only a camera and not a visual setup?

Roland Christen
 

Send the mount to a star (Vega) center it manually and press Recal. Then send the mount to Park3. See where it ends up. If it is in the correct position, then whatever app initialized the mount did send the proper time to the mount. If Park 3 is off by 15 degrees, change the time in the mount by 1 hour until Park3 ends up in the correct position. Once you have done that then the time in the mount corresponds correctly with the actual sidereal time of the sky.

Roland

-----Original Message-----
From: Phil Hoppes via groups.io <rimcrazyph@...>
To: main@ap-gto.groups.io
Sent: Fri, Nov 11, 2022 12:58 pm
Subject: Re: [ap-gto] How do I compete a pointing alignment using only a camera and not a visual setup?

Thank you Roland for your excellent explanation.  It is still, somewhat interesting/confusing in that I live in Arizona which ignores daylight savings so the compensation in one respect is zero, but in another it probably still messes with your system in that part of the year Arizona technically is on Mountain time and the other part of the year is on Pacific time but as far as we are concerned we are on Arizona time.  We never change our clocks.  But, yes, I have not told the keypad that information as I "assumed" syncing to my PC just took care of things.

--
Roland Christen
Astro-Physics
Re: Anyone know who first discovered that there was a vast HA field around M31?

dvjbaja
 

The first deep Ha images of this region were probably from the 48-inch Schmidt camera at Palomar.  There have been multiple all sky surveys in Ha at lower resolutions that recovered these clouds about a decade ago.   The deep Ha survey of Walker and Dicicco recently recovered signal this area.  Rogelio can certantly be credited for the first deep color image of this region. 

jg
Re: Anyone know who first discovered that there was a vast HA field around M31?

Chris White
 

Ooof... that screen shot was ugly.  Hopefully this looks better:
Re: Anyone know who first discovered that there was a vast HA field around M31?

Chris White
 
Edited

Here is 8 hours of HA with my epsilon.  I pulled the stars so you could see it.   In grayscale its tough to see, but I imagine that when added to the red channel in a color image it might pop a little bit. 

The questions is... do I want to spend the kind of time it would require?  I could easily spend 50 hours on HA alone on this 2 pane mosaic.  If I get some clear nights I'll switch to LRGB so I can at least make an image out of this and boost the galaxy knots. 

This sea of HA is a pretty cool feature though, that not many people realize is there.  More now thanks to Rogelio and those who have followed....
Re: How do I compete a pointing alignment using only a camera and not a visual setup?

Phil Hoppes
 
Edited

Thank you Roland for your excellent explanation.  It is still, somewhat interesting/confusing in that I live in Arizona which ignores daylight savings so the compensation in one respect is zero, but in another it probably still messes with your system in that part of the year Arizona technically is on Mountain time and the other part of the year is on Pacific time but as far as we are concerned we are on Arizona time.  We never change our clocks.  But, yes, I have not told the keypad that information as I "assumed" syncing to my PC just took care of things.

Sorry again for my confusion. I had this wonderful mount at my observatory in Overgaard for about 8 years.  About 4 years into those 8 my dome decided to commit suicide and I've not been able to use my observatory for about 4 years.  I have now retired.  I moved my AP1600 mount to Phoenix to work with my soon to arrive C14 and my Vixen and I am fixing the dome with my son and hope to have an L-350 with a CDK14 in there in about a year.  For Phoenix my AP1600 should work wonderful with my C14 and Vixen and provide me with lots of hours of enjoyable visual as well as imaging sessions.  I just need to "relearn" what I use to know but have now forgotten on how the AP mounts work.
Re: APPC & Mach2: Dec Arc model results and RA drift connection? #APCC #Mach2GTO

Andrea Lucchetti
 

Hi Brian,
please try again with this link:

I've added the pnt file and the screenshot.
thanks a lot for your help
Andrea


Il giorno ven 11 nov 2022 alle ore 23:17 Brian Valente <bvalente@...> ha scritto:
PS - i did not see a .pnt file in your dropbox?

On Fri, Nov 11, 2022 at 2:13 PM Andrea Lucchetti <andlucchett@...> wrote:
Hello,
I'd need some help to understand the model results (Dec arc) of my Mach2.
From the results and point data it seems that the Hour angle offset error on the west side is much bigger than that on the est side.
The error is visible in the different points on the west side, that are really off and in a consistent way.
Non perpendicularity errors also show the same behavior but we discussed that they are not significant for a dec arc model.

So, my two questions:
-what can be the source for this error?
-can this error, that seems to affect all the points on the west side cause a drift in RA? I don't know how an RA tracking rate adjustment is calculated from the pointing data.

Different model in different nights exhibit the same characteristics.
Applying them and enabling tracking corrections does improve Dec tracking but produce a drift in RA.
Actually in DEC drift goes to zero  over several hours ( a clear improvement over an already  good polar alignment)

-the telescope is a newtonian, 200mm f4 
-the set up is "nomad"
-longitude is checked 
-environment data were approximate but "good enough" (temperature was 15 instead of 20 used in the model)
-I usually polar align with NINA or polemaster, then launch a Dec arc model of three arcs (1 Deg separation), about 30 points in total
-I still guide with PHD bacause of the drift in RA

At the link you can find: 

https://www.dropbox.com/t/o0IjqEn2hsTerLrY

The APPC log, the Appm model, point data, and PHD log.

I have a couple of weeks before new moon and I hope to get new ideas and try them next time.
Thanks a lot,
Andrea



--

Re: APPC & Mach2: Dec Arc model results and RA drift connection? #APCC #Mach2GTO

Brian Valente
 

PS - i did not see a .pnt file in your dropbox?


On Fri, Nov 11, 2022 at 2:13 PM Andrea Lucchetti <andlucchett@...> wrote:
Hello,
I'd need some help to understand the model results (Dec arc) of my Mach2.
From the results and point data it seems that the Hour angle offset error on the west side is much bigger than that on the est side.
The error is visible in the different points on the west side, that are really off and in a consistent way.
Non perpendicularity errors also show the same behavior but we discussed that they are not significant for a dec arc model.

So, my two questions:
-what can be the source for this error?
-can this error, that seems to affect all the points on the west side cause a drift in RA? I don't know how an RA tracking rate adjustment is calculated from the pointing data.

Different model in different nights exhibit the same characteristics.
Applying them and enabling tracking corrections does improve Dec tracking but produce a drift in RA.
Actually in DEC drift goes to zero  over several hours ( a clear improvement over an already  good polar alignment)

-the telescope is a newtonian, 200mm f4 
-the set up is "nomad"
-longitude is checked 
-environment data were approximate but "good enough" (temperature was 15 instead of 20 used in the model)
-I usually polar align with NINA or polemaster, then launch a Dec arc model of three arcs (1 Deg separation), about 30 points in total
-I still guide with PHD bacause of the drift in RA

At the link you can find: 

https://www.dropbox.com/t/o0IjqEn2hsTerLrY

The APPC log, the Appm model, point data, and PHD log.

I have a couple of weeks before new moon and I hope to get new ideas and try them next time.
Thanks a lot,
Andrea



--

Re: APPC & Mach2: Dec Arc model results and RA drift connection? #APCC #Mach2GTO

Brian Valente
 

Andrea would you mind also posting a screen capture of the model window?

I just want to see what you're seeing without overwriting my model with yours, at least not yet ;)

On Fri, Nov 11, 2022 at 2:13 PM Andrea Lucchetti <andlucchett@...> wrote:
Hello,
I'd need some help to understand the model results (Dec arc) of my Mach2.
From the results and point data it seems that the Hour angle offset error on the west side is much bigger than that on the est side.
The error is visible in the different points on the west side, that are really off and in a consistent way.
Non perpendicularity errors also show the same behavior but we discussed that they are not significant for a dec arc model.

So, my two questions:
-what can be the source for this error?
-can this error, that seems to affect all the points on the west side cause a drift in RA? I don't know how an RA tracking rate adjustment is calculated from the pointing data.

Different model in different nights exhibit the same characteristics.
Applying them and enabling tracking corrections does improve Dec tracking but produce a drift in RA.
Actually in DEC drift goes to zero  over several hours ( a clear improvement over an already  good polar alignment)

-the telescope is a newtonian, 200mm f4 
-the set up is "nomad"
-longitude is checked 
-environment data were approximate but "good enough" (temperature was 15 instead of 20 used in the model)
-I usually polar align with NINA or polemaster, then launch a Dec arc model of three arcs (1 Deg separation), about 30 points in total
-I still guide with PHD bacause of the drift in RA

At the link you can find: 

https://www.dropbox.com/t/o0IjqEn2hsTerLrY

The APPC log, the Appm model, point data, and PHD log.

I have a couple of weeks before new moon and I hope to get new ideas and try them next time.
Thanks a lot,
Andrea



--

Re: Why is PemPro always upside down....

Ray Gralak
 

yes the only scope on the mount is an FSQ.
I tell you, when I started it was a mess. I then lowered the polar axis like 3 degrees lower than where it should. It
kept telling me to lower the axis.
All I can say is that I haven't observed that behavior. The direction of adjustment is determined by the calibration steps, so incorrect calibration can cause the direction to be inverted.

-Ray
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