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Pegasus Astro NYX-101 Harmonic Mount

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#751 rpineau

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Posted 17 January 2023 - 09:12 PM

Seems that Zwo has responded for the Nyx-101 compatibility issue with the ASIAIR :

 

Source : https://bbs.astronom...t-aa-firmware/5

They must really think we're stupid ! 

Hard to believe when Pegasus Astro is the only one impacted even though a lot of other vendor use FTDI usb-serial adapter with the EXACT same VID and PID and the only difference in the USB Descriptor is the manufacturer string .... I'll say nice try but nobody buys it.

Any Linux sysadmin will quickly realize what they did and that now they are trying to recover from that face plant ... If someone has the "non" working version with the "bug", and a bit of time and a linux box, see my previous post .. it will  be very eye opening. I don't have access to an ASIAIR, but testing what I explain above takes 2 minutes top... they just hope nobody checks (also, if you mount it, remove the ssh key they leave in there if you value your security... this give them full access to your ASIAIR vis ssh).

 

 ho
 


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#752 rpineau

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Posted 17 January 2023 - 11:42 PM

Software Bisque mount need TheSkyX to be controller by another application, so here the problem is more that TheSkyX doesn't run on the ASIAIR (there is an INDI driver to talk to TheSkyX over a TCP connection but you still need TheSkyX to run on the machine physically connected to the mount).



#753 Psychlist1972

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Posted 18 January 2023 - 01:16 AM

They must really think we're stupid ! 

Hard to believe when Pegasus Astro is the only one impacted even though a lot of other vendor use FTDI usb-serial adapter with the EXACT same VID and PID and the only difference in the USB Descriptor is the manufacturer string .... I'll say nice try but nobody buys it.

Any Linux sysadmin will quickly realize what they did and that now they are trying to recover from that face plant ... If someone has the "non" working version with the "bug", and a bit of time and a linux box, see my previous post .. it will  be very eye opening. I don't have access to an ASIAIR, but testing what I explain above takes 2 minutes top... they just hope nobody checks (also, if you mount it, remove the ssh key they leave in there if you value your security... this give them full access to your ASIAIR vis ssh).

 

 ho
 

Yes. It's eye-opening: There's no obvious block on the Pegasus Astro name, at least not in any of the places one would expect. More over, almost none of the OS files have been touched in *years*.

 

You don't even need a Linux box. You can mount the SD card image partitions using the Windows Subsystem for Linux. (and probably natively on a mac)

 

Whatever is going on is more complex.

 

Pete

 

Edit: I realize now you're the poster from the previous page. I replied to that, but you're persisting. Not sure what needs to be said here. The rules you think are there simply aren't.


Edited by Psychlist1972, 18 January 2023 - 01:33 AM.


#754 KC_Astro_Mutt

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Posted 18 January 2023 - 05:37 AM

In stock at Woodland Hills!

https://telescopes.n...gear-mount.html

 

2 at Cloudbreak Optics

https://cloudbreakop...f7032ea6b&_ss=r


Edited by KC_Astro_Mutt, 18 January 2023 - 05:42 AM.


#755 Southstorm

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Posted 18 January 2023 - 10:34 AM

So...tell me more about your new Pegasus Astro NYX-101 Harmonic Mount smile.gif



#756 FrostByte

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Posted 18 January 2023 - 01:33 PM

Ok folks, it’s time to get this thread back on track. If you have questions, comments, or want to discuss the NYX-101 mount, this is the place to do so. If not, then please start your own thread. 
 

If you have issues with any particular vendor or their support, please take it to another thread or directly with the vendor. But it’s time to move on here. 

 

Update: These off-topic posts have been moved to a new topic in this forum.



#757 Sniuk

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Posted 19 January 2023 - 04:39 AM

Ok folks, it’s time to get this thread back on track. If you have questions, comments, or want to discuss the NYX-101 mount, this is the place to do so. If not, then please start your own thread. 
 

If you have issues with any particular vendor or their support, please take it to another thread or directly with the vendor. But it’s time to move on here. 

 

Update: These off-topic posts have been moved to a new topic in this forum.

that's what I was about to say...

 

So, I have the Nyx, have done some tests , but had problems with Dither. Not sure if is the driver, or PHd2, or NiNa, but it seems it crashed phd2 when trying dither. 

 

Anyone else with the mount that uses dither and PHD2 + NiNa had any problem with it ?  it is weird as it seemed, looking at log, that only east dither was affecting the crash. 



#758 ad701xx

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Posted 19 January 2023 - 12:21 PM

that's what I was about to say...

 

So, I have the Nyx, have done some tests , but had problems with Dither. Not sure if is the driver, or PHd2, or NiNa, but it seems it crashed phd2 when trying dither. 

 

Anyone else with the mount that uses dither and PHD2 + NiNa had any problem with it ?  it is weird as it seemed, looking at log, that only east dither was affecting the crash. 

I have no problems dithering with an RST-135, PHD2 and NINA.



#759 Astrogillou

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Posted 19 January 2023 - 12:55 PM

First little test yesterday between the clouds, simple NINA sequencer with dithering and meridian flip

Everything went well including the resumption of guiding, but after a few instants of correct guiding the dec curve went up suddenly and not recoverable...

How do you understand that ?

 

Gilles


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#760 rgsalinger

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Posted 19 January 2023 - 12:59 PM

Are you guiding with ASCOM or with an ST4 cable would be my first question. With ASCOM (pulse) guiding PHD will take care to know which side of the meridian you are on and adjust the DEC guiding accordingly. I'm really not sure what happens if you are using an ST4 cable. I always thought that you had to re-calibrate in that case after a flip. Been too long since I tried that method.

 

Rgrds-Ross


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#761 Sniuk

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Posted 19 January 2023 - 01:01 PM

First little test yesterday between the clouds, simple NINA sequencer with dithering and meridian flip

Everything went well including the resumption of guiding, but after a few instants of correct guiding the dec curve went up suddenly and not recoverable...

How do you understand that ?

 

Gilles

any cable pull?  can you share your log? 



#762 Astrogillou

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Posted 19 January 2023 - 01:13 PM

Thank you for your answers wink.gif

Guiding with Ascom, no cable ST4

No traction I checked, the guiding after the flip was as good as before but it lasted about 30 seconds

I was used to an Atlas and eqmod and no problem like that

I will try to share the log

 

Gilles


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#763 Astrogillou

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Posted 19 January 2023 - 01:25 PM

Voici le journal



#764 Sniuk

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Posted 19 January 2023 - 02:05 PM

Voici le journal

It seems upload was not successful 



#765 rgsalinger

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Posted 19 January 2023 - 03:27 PM

Sometimes the DEC guiding flyaway after the flip occurs somewhat later than you might think. That's because, if the mount is tracking accurately, you won't actually need a DEC correction for some time. Then when you need one it slews off into the night. Still, without a log, it's hard to do more than just speculate. 

 

Rgrds-Ross



#766 ETtheExtraterrestrial

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Posted 19 January 2023 - 03:35 PM

Bit the bullet and purchased one today, already shipped, thanks Woodland Hills.

I’ll be using with a variety of scopes but will test out first with a SW Esprit 80. I, of course assume it will be cloudy now in the mid Atlantic of the US for the next three months but we shall see.

Edited by ETtheExtraterrestrial, 19 January 2023 - 03:35 PM.

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#767 Stefan Lilge

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Posted 19 January 2023 - 05:14 PM

Hi,

 

my Nyx-101 arrived here in Germany a few days ago. I have written down some observations in German and as I am too lazy to translate the rather lengthy text to English myself I have translated it with deepl.com. I was also too lazy to proof-read the translated text but as deepl.com is much better than Google translations I am hopeful that the text will be understandable (probably better than my English ;-).

At the end you can find a few pictures I have taken at 2m focal length (which look fine to me).

 

Translated by deepl.com with only some random (and probably false) corrections by me:

 

Hello,

currently mounts with strain wave gear are all the rage. They have been around for a while, but were very expensive until now. Now these gears seem to be available much cheaper and also companies are bringing such mounts to the market, which did not have mounts in their offer before. This seems to be similar to the situation with cameras: When only CCDs were competitive, there were big differences between the manufacturers (who had to develop their own readout electronics etc.), when CMOS chips became good enough, practically everybody could build cameras, because the whole electronics is on the chip. It seems to be similar with mounts now. Zwo already launched their AM5 a few months ago, which seems to work very well according to user reports. However, I wanted a mount with more load capacity to safely operate my favorite telescope, a 10" Meade ACF on it. The company Pegasus Astro "grabbed" me right away, because they showed a picture with a C11 as a first practical test of their new Nyx-101. That's the way I like it, I'm always annoyed by mount tests with some tiny telescope that doesn't come close to exhausting the mount's capabilities.
The only reason to buy a tension shaft gear mount is the light weight (6.5 kg for the Nyx-101). The mount itself is lighter than worm gear mounts with the same payload, and it usually doesn't need a counterweight. However, the runout is larger than with a good worm gear, so these mounts should not be used unguided. On the other hand, they have almost no backlash, so they react immediately to tracking commands. I was therefore curious if this feature would be sufficient to compensate for the large runout.
After some delays (from September 2022 to January 2023) the Nyx-101 arrived at my home. I spare a description of the features of the mount, which can be found at the manufacturer's website
https://pegasusastro...nic-gear-mount/
to read. I therefore only list some observations from dry tests in the living room and two clear nights, at the end there are also a few pictures with 2m focal length:

-Unity" Android app: The mount creates a WiFi hotspot that you can connect to via your cell phone. It is a pity that this is not possible via Bluetooth, then you could use the home WLAN on the cell phone in parallel.
I noticed that after an alignment sometimes the command for a "Goto" or a "go to home position" is not reacted. Here you have to move the mount via the buttons of the virtual hand control a bit, then the mount is ready to make a "Goto" again.
If you have "German" set as language on your phone, the Pegasus Android app "Unity" has some serious bugs, but they disappear if you change the phone to "English". This is probably due to the different number format, as in Germany a comma is used instead of the English period. So this should be easy to fix.
If you try to transfer the GPS position from the phone to the mount, the app quits without doing this task. So currently there is no way to properly enter the mount's position without a PC.
When trying to make a goto to an object from the object catalog via Unity, there is an error message that wrong parameters were passed. But a goto to manually entered RA/DEC coordinates works.
Goto via SkySafari 7 Pro works without problems, you only have to make sure via "Unity" that the motor brake is not active. So "unpark" the mount when it is parked and/or turn on tracking.

Alignment is also problematic in the Android app. If there is an error message during the alignment process (e.g. because the selected star is outside the set limits), the alignment process does not continue because no replacement star is offered for the "invalid" star. Even if you cancel the alignment and start from the beginning, no more stars are offered. This is especially annoying if you do an alignment with multiple stars (up to nine) and this happens in the middle. You then have to remove the app from memory using Android's on-board tools and restart it. The same problem also occurs if you have already made an alignment and want to make a second alignment, for example because you have only made a 1-star alignment and for some reason want to replace it with one with more stars.
But for people who don't do an alignment via the mount, but calibrate the mount by a Platesolve, this shouldn't be a problem. And in the Unity PC app it seems to work as well.

- PC app: The mount can be connected directly to the PC via USB cable and is recognized there without any problems after installing the Pegasus Unity app (which also automatically installs the ASCOM drivers). The "Unity" app for Windows runs well according to my impression so far, there I have noticed only one major bug. But it has no object catalog, so Goto only goes to manually entered coordinates.  But the control via ASCOM (in my case via AstroArt 8) seems to run without problems. You only have to remember to set the mount to "Tracking" mode, otherwise it will not move during "Goto".
You can also connect the PC to the mount via WLAN. Simply connecting the PC to the mount's Wi-Fi hotspot was not enough for me to get the PC Unity app to see the mount. After I connected the mount to my home WLAN and set the network to "Private" in the Windows settings, the PC recognized the mount when I was connected to the WLAN.
It is practical that you can connect the cell phone via WLAN and the PC via USB to the mount at the same time. The WLAN hotspot of the mount and the connection to the home WLAN also work simultaneously. So you can e.g. make the gotos on the cell phone via SkySafari and also use the direction keys in SkySafari for manual movements while the PC also remains connected to the mount and the software there can give commands via ASCOM without having to change anything.
USB is preferred for the PC connection, but if USB is no longer available for some reason, it will seamlessly switch to WLAN.
The Unity PC app bug alluded to above is that the direction of movement of the mount via the virtual direction keys occasionally reverses randomly. So it could be that the same virtual direction key moves the mount in the opposite direction all at once when the key is pressed. Or that I first click on "North" and then on "South" and the mount moves in the same direction both times. There are similar problems with virtual hand control in the Unity Android app. I have not noticed such errors with the manual movement via SkySafari 7 Pro, but I have spent less time with it than with the two Unity variants.

 

- Motor brake: A brake for the case of a power failure is officially only available in RA, but in practice nothing moves even in DEC if you pull the power plug.

 

- Polar alignment: I found the advertised feature of having sensors in the mount that allow approximate polar alignment very disappointing. This was one of the main reasons why I chose this model and did not wait for an Ioptron HAE43EC. On my roof terrace I only have a view of Polaris with a very high tripod, so I can't easily align with a Polemaster or any other method that requires a view of the polar region.
Unfortunately, the Nyx-101 only has tilt sensors that can be used to set the approximate polar altitude and check if the tripod is tilted. But for the adjustment in azimuth, no help is offered at all. In this respect, a promised feature is not delivered here.
I would like to see Pegasus build an electronic alignment help into the mount, something like in Skywatcher mounts, where you can move to a star after an alignment at two stars, which is then moved from the center of the image by the mount and must be brought back to the center of the image with the adjustments for pole height and azimuth on the mount. The drift alignment in PHD2 cost me way too much time on the two clear nights.

- The power supply is identical to the Skywatcher AZ-EQ6. A power supply is included, but if you want to operate the mount e.g. via the cigarette lighter of a car or a power station, this is also possible via the power cable of the AZ-EQ6.

- Power off memory: After a firmware update, the mount knows how its axes were oriented after a power failure and switching on. Before the update, the position was lost in this case. However, it does not have a sensor for the home position, to set this you have to manually move the mount to the home position and confirm there. At least there are good markings on the mount for the "zero position" so you don't have to guess it. However, if you operate the mount remotely somewhere far away, this could be a disadvantage. Especially since you can't move the mount without a cell phone or PC connection, so the request "go to the mount quickly, release the couplings and align it to the home position" doesn't work.

- Tripod: I ordered a Pegasus carbon tripod, but for heavier loads I use the tripod of my Skywatcher AZ-EQ mount. For this, Pegasus offers an adapter. However, they did not consider that the M12 screw of the tripod, which secures the mount from below, is not long enough due to the adapter. With a likewise offered tripod elevation, the connection would work, but I do not have it yet (is ordered). For the time being, I'm using an M12 screw with handle, which I have left over from an EQ6 adapter for my Ioptron Tripier. It has the right length, but now I don't have a spreader stiffener between the tripod legs anymore. Unfortunately, the mount does not fit on the Tripier's EQ6 adapter either, because its central recess is too small to accommodate the Pegasus adapter. This is a pity, because I actually wanted to use the mount on the Tripier. It is also high enough to have a view of Polaris with a polar finder on my roof terrace.

- Counterweights: Now, while operation without counterweights is the main argument for such a mount, you can still attach a counterweight rod. With counterweights you can prevent the tripod from tipping over if the load is too high on one side. With my Explore Scientific 127/952 APO I don't need a counterweight, the EQ6 tripod stands securely and there is no danger of tipping over in any position. However, with my 10" Meade ACF with camera and metal dew cap, there is a strong imbalance that causes the tripod not to fall over by itself, but it does become very "light" on one side, so that an accidental impact could cause a mishap. Therefore, I attach a counterweight rod with a 5kg counterweight for this telescope. The rod is actually intended for the ZWO AM5. The extension for the counterweight rod that comes with the AZ-EQ6 also works, but it is very short. With the 5kg counterweight (I take one from my H-EQ5 mount) the tripod is very stable even with the 10" mirror. Compared to a conventional mount, I also save almost 20 kg of weight, almost 10 kg for the mount itself and another 10 kg for the counterweights.

- Noise: I was a bit disappointed by the noise of the mount during "goto" (normal tracking is inaudible). This is a crucial point for me, because my roof terrace is not far from various windows of other apartments, so the neighbors can be disturbed by too loud "gotos". The declination axis is pleasantly quiet, but the right ascension axis sounds like an old EQ6 (including "buzzing" during acceleration and deceleration phases). This is not so loud that the mount would not be usable for me, but my Ioptron CEM60 is clearly quieter. Mounts with servo motors are usually even louder.
Fortunately, there is always background noise here in Berlin, so then I always have to wait for the traffic light phase for a "goto", then the cars (which "fortunately" are also on the road in the middle of the night) drown out the mount.
I also have the impression that the "buzzing" is now less clearly audible after some living room tests. Either the mount has broken in or I have gotten used to it.
You can also limit the maximum speed of the mount to 3 or 2.3 degrees instead of 5 degrees/second. Especially the lowest speed is audibly quieter than the fastest. But then the noise lasts more than twice as long.
The mount also emits a beep after each goto to confirm this, but it is rather inconspicuous compared to the noise of the motors or gears. Nevertheless, I would wish that this could be turned off.

 

- Meridian Flip/Limits: A big plus is the flexibility of the mount when dealing with meridian flip. I don't do an automatic meridian flip because I have to set up close to the railing of my small rooftop terrace and it's hard to predict if the telescope will hit the railing during the flip. So if a mount stops right at the meridian flip, I have to be awake at that time and then flip by hand. With the Nyx-101, you can set it to stop at the meridian or have two hours of leeway both before and after. So the mount can continue to run until two hours after meridian pass, which in some cases makes a meridian flip unnecessary. And if I want I can also bring the meridian flip forward, so flip already two hours before meridian passage and then go to bed. Here I would wish for an extension of the time period to three hours, because only after this time with most of my telescopes there is the danger that they hit tripod legs. With my AZ-EQ6 and G11 mounts, I have regularly exposed for three hours beyond the meridian without slewing over.

 

- Software installation on PC: The software installation on the PC should be emphasized positively. You only have to install one program ("Unity"), all drivers including ASCOM are also installed. So you don't have to download and install several programs.

- Tracking accuracy: Finally the most important point, the tracking accuracy. Without an autoguider a strain wave mount makes no sense, so it is only a question of whether the autoguider manages to keep the stars round. I did this test with my 10" Meade ACF with reducer set to f/8, so at 2 meters focal length. Camera was the ASI2600MC unbinned, magnification thus 0.37"/pixel. Tracking was done with an ASI174mini on an off-axis guider, software was AstroArt 8. At this magnification the stars are rarely really sharp and even with my previous mounts (including a G11 with Ovision worm and a very good CEM60) the stars were not always perfectly round. The images with the Nyx were similarly good, though not perfect. When the images are reduced to half size (which still gives an image scale of 0.74"/pixel) the stars look good and sharp to my taste. So I am very happy with the guiding accuracy. It's not better than G11 or CEM60, but it can keep up with these much heavier mounts. And my Skywatcher mounts (H-EQ5 and AZ-EQ6) give good round stars with a small-pixel camera only up to about 1m focal length (and both are heavier, too).

I show three images here, first M42 (of which I had made only one exposure), then three randomly opened images from a series on M78 and three also randomly selected images from a series on NGC 4157. All photos are five minutes exposed, to see in each case a section in 100% size (so 0.37"/pixel). The images are debayered and logarithmically stretched, otherwise no image processing.
For M42 the stars are not perfectly round, but reduced to half size this is not noticeable. For M78 actually all three images look very good, that one star is elongated is due to a second star standing close to it. At NGC 4157 two of the three randomly selected images have small "corners" at bright stars, most of the single images of the more than 30 photos long series looked better. However, even these worse images are fully usable.

[Bild]https://astronomicum...e=orig&id=15265[/Bild]
[Bild]https://astronomicum...e=orig&id=15266[/Bild]
[Bild]https://astronomicum...e=orig&id=15267[/Bild]
Finally, a photo of the equipment:
[Bild]https://astronomicum...e=orig&id=15268[/Bild]


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#768 Astrogillou

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Posted 19 January 2023 - 05:35 PM

J’espère que ce lien fonctionnera: https://we.tl/t-ADKfsYc7EJ

Je ne sais pas comment interpréter les journaux de doctorat

En effet, pas de problème tant qu’aucune correction en DEC n’était nécessaire

 

Gilles


Edited by Astrogillou, 19 January 2023 - 05:51 PM.

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#769 carbon12

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Posted 19 January 2023 - 07:10 PM

....

The Unity PC app bug alluded to above is that the direction of movement of the mount via the virtual direction keys occasionally reverses randomly. So it could be that the same virtual direction key moves the mount in the opposite direction all at once when the key is pressed. Or that I first click on "North" and then on "South" and the mount moves in the same direction both times.

....

Hi Stefan

thanks for taking the time to write up all these experiences and details. I'm totally fascinated because I recently ordered the mount smile.gif .

Regarding the reaction to the keys, is it really a bug? My 10micron mount responds in a similar way because if the scope is pointing left of North and I press the N key, the scope moves rightwards, towards actual North but if I keep going past North and then press the S key it moves in the same direction as before because now that's where South is from its last stationary position. Alternatively if I pressed N a second time instead, the mount reverses direction compared to the first time I pressed N because that's where actual North is now. I'm always pressing the wrong button because my brain can't compute these things after midnight. 

Your rig looks mad with that scope and mount pairing. You made a pretty stringent test with your 2M scope and 5 minutes, I'm happy to see those results, thanks again for sharing

All the best

Richard


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#770 OzAndrewJ

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Posted 19 January 2023 - 07:11 PM

Gday Gilles

OK, something looks odd but i need to edit your debug file first before going further.

 

ie in your log i see

ScopeASCOM::GetGuideRates returns 0 1800.000 1800.000 a-s/sec

 

Now, based on recent comments that ASI Air has made their own version of PHD

i assume this is something ZWO need to fix.

If so, can someone who knows someone at ZWO ask them to put the correct values

into the log.

I am currently assuming the value of 1800 is really meant to be (1800/3600) * 15

ie 7.5arcsec/sec, but thats only a guess.

More after i change the log data

Andrew Johansen Melbourne Australia



#771 bendgrampie

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Posted 19 January 2023 - 07:55 PM

You talk about tracking accuracy, but provide no log or other data?

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#772 OzAndrewJ

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Posted 19 January 2023 - 09:01 PM

Gday Gilles

OK, my guess is you simply need to check ( or uncheck ) the "change DEC on flip" setting.

You calibrated ( reasonably nicely ** ) at 19:42

At 20:27 you started guiding and it looked normal

At 20:41 you had flipped and started guiding

              for 70 seconds, no DEC guides were required so it looked good

             but as soon as the first ( DEC ) guide got sent it went further the wrong way

             then accelerated off the screen as it amplified the error

At 20:45, the same thing happened but it only took 5 seconds before DEC guides got sent

               so it would have appeared as an "immediate" runaway

 

** I did note something odd in the Calibrates when the RA went from West to East

but there isnt enough data to confirm if it is a form of cross contamination or not.

 

Andrew Johansen Melbourne Australia


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#773 Astrogillou

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Posted 20 January 2023 - 12:45 PM

Thank you Andrew for your expertise, I'm impressed !

"Change DEC on flip" is uncheck as I practiced until now, I'll try check

 

Gilles



#774 Stefan Lilge

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Posted 20 January 2023 - 03:28 PM

Hello,

 

as somebody was upset that I did not include any guide logs in my post #767 I will now catch up.

 

The difficulty with guiding logs is that I don't use PHD2 but AstroArt 8. So I am not sure if my guiding logs are of any use to most people here. Nevertheless I post a cell phone photo of the AstroArt guiding statistics (photographed during the exposure of M78) and the corresponding guiding log.

Note that the values are in pixels and not in arcseconds, see "header" in the guiding log for details. The image scale of the autoguider was 1.15"/pixel, so the values have to be multiplied by 1.15 each to get the value in arcseconds.

So after a good hour of exposure, the average error was 0.54" in RA and 0.35" in DEC. The obvious drift in DEC is due to my lack of patience with the drift alignment and thus poor polar alignment.

Photo: http://ccd-astronomy...0117_224453.jpg

Guidelog (you probably have to right click on the link and choose "save as"): http://ccd-astronomy...Nyx_guiding.txt

 

@Richard (post #769): You may well be right with your assumption that the mount takes "north" and "south" etc. seriously and reverses directions accordingly. If that is the case it is not a bug, only a poor design decision :-) I have used a good number of motorized mounts in the last 27 years and so far none of them has reversed directions in the handpad. With the Nyx I have experienced that I have been slewing the mount with the virtual keypad, overshot the target and pressed the opposite button to return to the target. And the mount did drive in the previous direction, even further away from the target. That should not happen, even if it has a logical explanation.


Edited by Stefan Lilge, 20 January 2023 - 03:29 PM.


#775 OzAndrewJ

OzAndrewJ

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Posted 20 January 2023 - 04:03 PM

Gday Stefan

I have used a good number of motorized mounts in the last 27 years and so far none of them has reversed directions in the handpad.

If you have a Meade scope, depending on speed, they behave this way

In Speed 1 ( Guide Speed ), Meades go in true celestial coordinates

In Speed 2 and above, they go in a set motor direction

ie for South Hemi users in Polar, the "Up" key also means North

At Speed 2 and above, the Up key slews UP ie "South"

At speed 1, the Up key slews "North" ie down.

Can really screw with your head, but my guess is the system was designed

so that when getting guide commands, it always obeyed celestial coords.

 

All good fun

Andrew Johansen Melbourne Australia


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