Hi Wayne, you are free to e-mail me directly as well, I'm theresamarie11@....     Might be good to compare notes.   I haven't figured out how to do a polar alignment during the day yet.  Is that a feature of APCC?    

Also curious if you installed the 5.30.08 V2 driver?  I did my day one testing with 5.30.7 which went fine and yesterday installed 5.30.8.    I saw some strange behavior where Cartes du Ciel thought the mount pointing around Deneb when it was clearly pointing at the pole.   The V2 driver coordinates were consistent with where it was pointing in cartes du ciel, but the mount was in a park 3 orientation (pointing at pole).   I did various resets, restarts to no avail, the driver coordinates would not align to where the mount was pointing.     So I uninstalled the 5.30.8 and reinstalled the 5.30.7, which did nothing.   But given some of my experience with ascom and how it may store things, I went to the telescope selection screen in cartes du ciel and selected EQmod (to presumably force a refresh of wherever ascom puts the code) then then re-loaded the V2 driver and this seemed to do the trick and all was back to normal.

At this point, not sure if this was an issue with the 5.30.8, or even the way I updated the driver (which was error free).  I'll stick with 5.30.7 for now until I get some clarification.   I also need to figure out how to report such things formally.   I'm sure a totally new mount will have a few glitches.

best,
Terri

Good morning Terri!

Good idea on sharing. My email is wayneh9026@....

I did refresh to the new ASCOM version but didn’t run into that issue. I’m not familiar with CDC.  

With respect to support, there are a couple ways. The AP guys do a good job of monitoring the forum and other users often can help too. This often works during off hours. You can also call AP directly and get help during their working hours. Ray Gralak is the author of both APCC and the ASCOM driver and also frequents this forum. I see he’s on this morning.

The Daytime Polar Alignment is great and especially easy with the Mach 2. Don’t need APCC, can even do it with the keypad once we have those. Roughly point the mount north. Go to Park 5 and with a carpenter’s level on the scope, use the Altitude adjustment to bring the scope to level. Do a goto a bright object (Sun, moon, bright star or planet. With a wide field eyepiece or camera, adjust the azimuth to bring the object to as close as possible to the center of the FoV. That generally gets you close to be able to goto objects and refine PA later using other techniques. 

A couple tips I’ve found useful. Start with the azimuth adjuster centered. With the Eagle pier, I also center the mount attachment knobs in the attachment slots on the pier. For initial adjustment, loosen those knobs and rotate the the mount on the pier to center the object. Save the azimuth adjuster for fine adjustment. Also make sure you start with the telescope in focus, or you know where focus is! It’s hard to spot a bright star or planet in the daytime when you’re having to play with the focus. Trust me I’ve been there! I did this routine last night with the Moon, which was hiding and emerging from clouds and got what I think is a pretty good start. 

 

I’m hoping it will clear up enough to try my Polemaster tonight, which is also new to me. 

Clear skies!

Wayne

Hi Terri,

At this point, not sure if this was an issue with the 5.30.8, or even the way I updated the driver (which was error
free). I'll stick with 5.30.7 for now until I get some clarification. I also need to figure out how to report such things
formally. I'm sure a totally new mount will have a few glitches.

I'm absolutely sure whatever issue you saw with had nothing to do with the 5.30.08 driver. The only change was to add the missing custom slew rate option.

-Ray Gralak
Author of APCC (Astro-Physics Command Center): http://www.astro-physics.com/index.htm?products/accessories/software/apcc/apcc
Author of PEMPro V3: https://www.ccdware.com
Author of Astro-Physics V2 ASCOM Driver: https://www.siriusimaging.com/apdriver

-----Original Message-----
From: main@ap-gto.groups.io [mailto:main@ap-gto.groups.io] On Behalf Of Terri Zittritsch
Sent: Sunday, March 8, 2020 5:40 AM
To: main@ap-gto.groups.io
Subject: [ap-gto] Notified

Hi Wayne, you are free to e-mail me directly as well, I'm theresamarie11@gmail.com. Might be good to compare
notes. I haven't figured out how to do a polar alignment during the day yet. Is that a feature of APCC?

Also curious if you installed the 5.30.08 V2 driver? I did my day one testing with 5.30.7 which went fine and
yesterday installed 5.30.8. I saw some strange behavior where Cartes du Ciel thought the mount pointing
around Deneb when it was clearly pointing at the pole. The V2 driver coordinates were consistent with where it
was pointing in cartes du ciel, but the mount was in a park 3 orientation (pointing at pole). I did various resets,
restarts to no avail, the driver coordinates would not align to where the mount was pointing. So I uninstalled the
5.30.8 and reinstalled the 5.30.7, which did nothing. But given some of my experience with ascom and how it
may store things, I went to the telescope selection screen in cartes du ciel and selected EQmod (to presumably
force a refresh of wherever ascom puts the code) then then re-loaded the V2 driver and this seemed to do the trick
and all was back to normal.

At this point, not sure if this was an issue with the 5.30.8, or even the way I updated the driver (which was error
free). I'll stick with 5.30.7 for now until I get some clarification. I also need to figure out how to report such things
formally. I'm sure a totally new mount will have a few glitches.

best,
Terri

Ray, do you suggest I try re-installing the 5.30.8 driver and give it another try.    Should I do an uninstall first, or just install over the top?    

best,
Terri

Hi Wayne, thanks
You will enjoy the polemaster.    I used mine last night.   You can use it as soon as the lowest gain settings allow you to see polaris and at least one of the surrounding stars that it uses.   I've seen the AP RAPAS  finder view which seems very similar, although much finer detailed, than an 80's 2080 LX5 polar scope I had. It came with a paper wheel which decoded where to find polaris on the finder.    I always liked that, not sure why they discontinued it on newer models.    If I didn't already have a polemaster I'd probably have purchased the RAPAS.

Thanks on the daytime polar alignment.   I'll have to see if it'll work good enough for solar imaging.. On my atlas, the only way for me to do this was to mark places on my drive, after getting good polar align in the evening,  that I could bring the mount back to during the day.    I use those little 3-wheel dollies to move the whole setup around.

T

Ray, do you suggest I try re-installing the 5.30.8 driver and give it another try. Should I do an uninstall first, or
just install over the top?

There is no need to uninstall first. You can install over the top either going to a newer or older version of the driver.

The same is true for APCC. You don't need to uninstall first when installing a newer or older version of APCC.

-Ray Gralak
Author of APCC (Astro-Physics Command Center): http://www.astro-physics.com/index.htm?products/accessories/software/apcc/apcc
Author of PEMPro V3: https://www.ccdware.com
Author of Astro-Physics V2 ASCOM Driver: https://www.siriusimaging.com/apdriver

-----Original Message-----
From: main@ap-gto.groups.io [mailto:main@ap-gto.groups.io] On Behalf Of Terri Zittritsch
Sent: Sunday, March 8, 2020 7:56 AM
To: main@ap-gto.groups.io
Subject: Re: [ap-gto] Notified

Ray, do you suggest I try re-installing the 5.30.8 driver and give it another try. Should I do an uninstall first, or
just install over the top?

best,
Terri

You use the threaded adapter that is made for the AP900 mount.   

Terri