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INDI Library v2.0.6 is Released (02 Feb 2024)

Bi-monthly release with minor bug fixes and improvements

EQMod moving to wrong direction

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Hi,

I'm continuing my night tests without any success, this is not as easy and straightforward as I expected :( .

I started the alignment procedure manually from a non-park position because indi stopped working (I had to manually hard-reboot the Raspberry PI).

The procedure I followed to 'recover' the position after reboot is:

- Take a picture with the DSLR.
- Solve it (solve-field -z 4 --overwrite file.jpg). I use this because my kstars does not solve neither jpgs nor fits files.It keeps saying that it's launching the astrometric solver or something like that.
- In the devices control panel, in the first tab of EQMod, I set the option Sync, write down the AR/DEC coordinates and press set. I made this Mars.
- In kstars, the EQMod label moves to the correct position.

But then, if I move to my target, the region around Coma cluster, in the real life the mount moves to the horizon, only slighly above it. Just in the opposite direction (I think only in DEC, but I'm not 100% sure).

I tried to solve the new image (with success) and sync it. Then if I move to Mars, it moves correctly. But I cannot move to Coma as I wanted, because it keeps moving to the wrong direction. It seems to affect only DEC ???.

Am I doing something wrong here?. Is this the correct way to align the mount?.

Do I need to select Reverse DEC or something like that?. I'm using a normal EQdir cable.

I'm trying reverse DEC now, but it seems that INDI stopped working again (the imaging devices stopped answering) :( .
Last edit: 9 years 10 months ago by Miguel.
9 years 10 months ago #1172

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  • Posts: 117
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Hi, Minaya,

I don't know whether your problem was already solved, but this seems somehow familiar to me. I bought recently my new NEQ6-PRO and read a lot about alignment procedures on the internet. When starting to align on polaris using the polar scope there was going something wrong. While thinking that everything was OK, I tried to use the alignment procedure with 1 star, selecting one that was known to me and visible. The telescope moved also in strange directions and I did not understood why. Trying to correct with the hand controller resulted in an angular difference detected by the controller as being too big.

When analysing the axis positions in the hand controller I saw that at least the R.A. axis was pointing in a strange direction and it was impossible to change it. With a level I put the Declination axis horizontal and the telescope clamp on the declination axis pointing vertically to the Zenith.
Un-clamping the R.A. axis allows you to rotate the R.A. axis without moving the telescope. When watching the R.A. orientation on the hand controller you can turn the R.A. axis to a position equal to the Local Sidereal Time being by definition the R.A. of the zenith. When the R.A. angle is equal to the LST, and the telescope points to the zenith you should close the clamp of the R.A. axis. The Declination of the Zenith is always 90°-the observers altitude. The same procedure can be followed for adjusting the Declination axis with its reading on the hand controller. Clamp the Decl. axis clamp. At this moment the Zenith position is correctly known by the hand controller. When doing this I tried to do a 1star alignment and this time the mount turned to the right direction. I could now adjust the telescope pointing to the alignment star until it was spot on the reticule cross in the finder scope and in the centre of the telescope FOV. I repeated the alignment procedure with 2 star alignment and also that worked fine. I have not tried the 3 star alignment yet. I need to repeat this procedure carefully and also test the 3 star alignment, but until now the weather did not allow me a lot of time to observe. I will keep you posted. It is also very important to make sure that the local time of the hand controller is correct and and the controller's LST is the one of that moment on the observer's position. I remember having problems with the DST setting (Daylight saving time).

Regards,

Stefan
9 years 4 months ago #2161

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