Hello,

I am having issues slewing with my HEQ5 mount. I am connecting my HEQ5 through my synscan hand controller. It connects and everything. I adjust the lat & long. time and date are correct. However when I slew to a target it is WAY off, like not even close! I have no idea what I am doing wrong or what is happening. Any help is appreciated.

To expand a little bit more. I turn on my HEQ5 mount. Set the time, date, latitude and longitude. Perform a 1 star alignment and once that is finished I plug into the bottom of the synscan controller. From there I launch ekos and it connects to my mount no problem. I notice that for some reason the longitude is off. My longitude is -74:15 and it has it as 285:00:00, I also needed to change my elevation from 48m to 26m. The time and date are both correct.

After performing this I try to slew to a target and its going the completely wrong way and ends no where close to where it needs to be. I have no idea if I am missing any steps or what.

Also, is there any tutorials on getting started for connecting a mount?


Thanks!

When you connect, was KStars showing the telescope icon on the same stars you were just pointing at with the telescope? Also the longitude is calculated 0 to 360, so DO NOT CHANGE THAT. If you change that, it could result in wrong position in the sky.

Thanks for the reply!
I did it during the day/ civil twilight and then it got cloudy out. Honestly, I am not sure if it was pointing in the correct direction. I was moving around kstars interface with my mouse and had thought that resetting everything after that would have fixed it. So I am pretty sure it was NOT pointing in the same direction. Tonight will be clear so I will give that a shot. Another issue I had noticed; the target it was saying it was tracking in the first tab was not the target I had input to slew to. For instance. I input M42 and on the first tab in Ekos it said "Tracking: NGC 3665" neither of those were close to my fov though. Maybe that connects back with the telescope icon pointing incorrectly. I had also tried setting my longitude to both 0 - 365 and setting it as 74. I do not think the problem was there since I tried it in both instances. It seems that your assumption of the telescope pointing in the wrong direction will be correct. Lets hope that fixes it! I will report back and take some screen shots!

Thank you for the help!

I don't think it is ok to slew telescope with a synscan controller and then connect Ekos. Why don't you control everything from Ekos, including mount alignment?

Hi,

In order for me to connect to ekos it requires me to perform a star alignment via synscan hand controller. After that it will connect. I was thinking about doing the eqmod wire, but I am not sure it will work with my mac.

Thanks!!

Yes it is OK to connect an HEQ5 to a computer (Mac, Linux) via the hand controller. You will need to put the hand controller in PC direct mode though.

Apart from that, I have been using EQDir cables for my HEQ5 for almost 3 years now both on Linux and Mac without any problems.


HTH, Wouter

Thanks!! When I put it into PC direct mode do i need to change the driver fro synscan? when in PC direct mode it was not responding.

If you can go EQDir cable way I would definitely recommend it. I ride my OTA on EQ6 and it works perfectly. To make things easier you can use of of these USB cables, which already provide 5V UART controller e.g. this
You only need RJ45 plug and RJ45 crimper tool. No soldering whatsoever

I have never tried this so I am not sure but to my best of knowledge you should use the Synscan driver. What do you mean "not responding"? To the hand controller or to Ekos? Please enable debug logs:

www.indilib.org/support/logs-submission.html

and post them here.

In any case, just like Radek I would recommend using an EQDir cable. I have been using them on both my HEQ5 and EQ6-R and they work. Period.


Wouter

Hi,

I have screenshots and I will post them here .

Screenshot_01 Shows what the Dec & Ra is showing on the main tab.
SynscanDec&RA.jpg Shows the synscan Dec & Ra
Screenshot_02 Shows the target (M42) that I had input from the mount control in the Ekos mount tab.
Screenshot_03 Shows where the mount is pointing to in Kstars (which is correct, my mount is pointing in that direction)
Screenshot_04 Shows the mount control target that I had input.
Screenshot_05 Shows my current location
Screenshot_06 Shows the current date and time
Screenshot_07 No idea what this is showing, but it is saying synscan in Kstars. My mount is not pointed this way, but is instead pointing in the diretion from screenshot_03

This is being done during the day right now. I have a rough polar alignment and a rough one star alignment for that reason. I am just trying figure this out during the day and get it into the vicinity to make sure everything is working before I start imaging with this setup. It is still slewing to a totally different target/location. Which is telling me something I am doing is way off. Again, before connecting to ekos the slewing was going in the right direction. Upon resetting everything and performing a rough alignment, I connect to ekos. Type in a target to slew too and it is in a totally opposite direction.

I am sorry if this is something obvious I am missing. I am new to this and it is somewhat confusing to set up as a beginner. I hope that these screenshots can provide better details and you can catch onto what I am doing incorrectly. Thank you for any help!

I will probably be getting the EQ cable then. thanks!

I don't know if the cable is needed to issue correct commands. Or if the PC direct mode is required. But I changed the default time and location in my Sky Safari to match your location and time on your computer.

It shows M42 in a different spot. But all your time and geography information look correct with EKOS. And it looks like EKOS is reading your mount correctly because it's showing the ALT AZ coordinates where you're pointed on the hand controller.

Here's where M42 should be in your sky. Obviously it's off by about 100 degrees or so. All I can think at this point is that the location or time information is incorrect in your mount. One of the two (mount, or Kstars) has to be off for it to slew in the wrong direction. and It looks like you have KStars set up to your location and time properly.

I hope I'm not confusing possible issues here, as it looks like you're getting some good advice. I don't have a SkyWatcher mount, so can't comment on that specifically. Wouter will probably have the best advice for you. It seems like this is a very solvable issue.