1394 replies to this topic

[mrkhagol]

Does anyone out there have a NYX101 Hand-Controller (HC) that works?

Mine has been more or less an expensive brick since arrival (20July from Agena), with a failure at setting the date and time.

At first - After setting the initial date and time, along with a successful 1 star alignment.. when selecting the "circle button" to go to the Menu.
The hand-controller immediately displayed a "No Date! No Time!" error.

Per a response from Pegasus support - Firmware 1.31.2 was to resolve hand-controller issues.
Okay - so I waited for the new Firmware and installed 1.31.2
The hand-controller continues to fail - again at the Date/Time
Upon connection the HC quickly flashes the first screen of the mount info - RA coordinates screen, but is too quick to read.
Set the correct Date/ Time - Ok Value Set
The screen quickly flashes page 2 (Az coordinates) of mount info then returns to a Local Date screen with a local date of 2044/04/23 (the Local Date screen tends to fluctuate with different months and days - but always with a year of 2043 or 2044)
No action happens when the "circle button" is pressed.
Am using 110V with the NYX AC/DC adapter.
Fails consistently across multiple days/times. The hand-controller is unusable.

No acknowledgement nor feedback back from Pegasus support after reporting, in detail, the secondary follow-on 1.31.2 failure on 28Aug24.

The NYX101 works fine via a PC - however smart devices tend to walk away during public outreach sessions, or drop wifi when working the crowd. Hence the outlay for a hand-controller.

did you contact them? hopefully they're back from their break..

[Sharatan]

Um.. yes, per the comments -  I have contacted Pegasus support. "Per a response from Pegasus support"  and  secondly, "No acknowledgement nor feedback back from Pegasus after reporting, in detail, the secondary follow-on 1.31.2 failure on 28Aug24.

 

Judging by the lack of responses, other NYX hand-controllers must be working fine and this one is defective.

[Agile Amnesiac]

Hi all, I'm reporting back with an update on my experiences with the v1 NYX-101.

 

George at Pegasus Astro offered to lean in to give me tips for how to get the most out of the mount in an Anydesk session.  Fortunately, after a good amount of testing with PHD2 I am able to get consistent 10-minute exposures with eccentricity typically around 0.4.  Here's what I did to squeeze every bit of guiding performance out of the rig:

1. On the Pegasus Astro carbon fiber tripod I ditched the rubber feet in favor of the steel spikes set on a solid foundation of pavers in the backyard.
2. Moved to an OAG, with a mono guide camera.
3. Installed an IR pass filter on the guide camera.  The jury is still out if the IR pass filter works like expected but it makes sense it would with 1 second exposures where atmospheric seeing would greatly impact the guide stars.
4. I made sure to precisely focus the guide camera once the main camera was focused.  Poor focus on the guide stars is a killer at 1 second exposures.
5. Polar alignment was done three times in a row with Sharpcap with the main camera.  I think this is the best polar alignment tool out there right now if you have visibility of the north pole within about five degrees.  NINA three-point alignment is quite finicky and unpredictable at various points in the sky.  I tried a QHY Polemaster and ended up returning it.  I found it too difficult to use and not as accurate as Sharpcap.
6. At the recommendation of Pegasus Astro, the PHD2 MinMo was dropped to 0.6 on RA and DEC, I later bumped this back up to 0.10 as it appears from some research anything below 0.10 isn't going to help according to some PHD2 dev posts.
7. At the recommendation of Pegasus Astro, Stop guiding when the mount slews is unchecked.  I'm not 100% sure why this was done.
8. At the recommendation of Pegasus Astro, Saturation by Max-ADU value was changed from 255 to 65535.
9. At the recommendation of Pegasus Astro, Guide star tracking search region changed from 15 to 30 pixels.
10. Right Ascension uses Predictive PEC with a Predictive weight changed from 50% to 80%.  Reactive weight stays at 60%.
11. Declination stayed on Resist Switch with Aggressiveness changed from 100% to 20%.
12. Assume Dec orthogonal to RA is set in PHD2 because it's still really hard to get a good calibration with the RA periodic error.  It seems to work fine with this setting enabled.

Guiding on an average night of seeing consistently ran for around 0.5 total RMS over the course of six nights. Short periods can show a total RMS of 0.29.  The Dec can drop as low as 0.16 RMS.  PE on the RA is still really wild but PHD2 is amazing with Predictive PEC to correct the guiding.  It's crazy to watch the corrections pushing the RA so hard while the guideline stays relatively stable on the center line.  Overall, I'm happy with the mount now and this image proves you can make it work with the right setup and configuration.

 

I hope this helps!

 

Here's a recent image taken with the rig: https://www.astrobin.com/wyjtn6/

 

Thanks

Edited by Agile Amnesiac, 15 September 2024 - 10:06 AM.

[Tapio]

Did you check/measure that all you mentioned have meaningful effect on guiding?

[Agile Amnesiac]

For most of the settings I ran a before and after comparison, similar to what you might experience when you have your eyes checked.  I noted guiding performance, made the change, let the mount settle guiding for a few periods and noted if it resulted in an improvement, and repeat.  This took months btw to dial in because some of these changes are not trivial. I'll admit there are a lot of variables and it can be difficult to tell if modifications are actually helping or not.

 

A few settings were not easily tested and are of lower confidence in my opinion.  For example, adding the IR pass filter vs not having it in place changes the physical characteristics of the guiding image train to a point it's difficult to tell if it's helping or not once you refocus, recalibrate, with potentially a slightly different sensor orientation, etc.  Also the stop guiding when the mount slews was not tested. I'm not sure if that's doing anything or not but I left it in place as recommended. 

 

I spent a lot more time testing the predictive weight setting and this seems to have a big impact for me.  Dropping it back to the default setting results in guiding easily going from 0.5 back to 0.9 or higher on a consistent basis.  Dec aggressiveness also has a big impact and I see significantly better results with it dialed back so it's not bouncing around.  MinMo settings closer to the PHD2 recommendation also resulted in worse guiding on a consistent basis.

 

A few changes I made that didn't seem to have any impact and were tested include enabling backlash compensation (at various settings), changing the number of data points for the Predictive PEC model from 100 to 200 didn't seem to change anything, and changing the model retention from 40% to 60% didn't seem to have an effect for me either.

 

Your mileage will vary, and everyone should test for themselves.  MinMo for example is going to depend on your telescope and cameras compared to what I'm using.  Start with the Pegasus Astro guiding recommendations and consult with them on other recommended settings. Based on the advice they were giving me I suspect an update to their guiding recommendations might be helpful.

[mrkhagol]

Hi all, I'm reporting back with an update on my experiences with the v1 NYX-101.

 

George at Pegasus Astro offered to lean in to give me tips for how to get the most out of the mount in an Anydesk session.  Fortunately, after a good amount of testing with PHD2 I am able to get consistent 10-minute exposures with eccentricity typically around 0.4.  Here's what I did to squeeze every bit of guiding performance out of the rig:

1. On the Pegasus Astro carbon fiber tripod I ditched the rubber feet in favor of the steel spikes set on a solid foundation of pavers in the backyard.
2. Moved to an OAG, with a mono guide camera.
3. Installed an IR pass filter on the guide camera.  The jury is still out if the IR pass filter works like expected but it makes sense it would with 1 second exposures where atmospheric seeing would greatly impact the guide stars.
4. I made sure to precisely focus the guide camera once the main camera was focused.  Poor focus on the guide stars is a killer at 1 second exposures.
5. Polar alignment was done three times in a row with Sharpcap with the main camera.  I think this is the best polar alignment tool out there right now if you have visibility of the north pole within about five degrees.  NINA three-point alignment is quite finicky and unpredictable at various points in the sky.  I tried a QHY Polemaster and ended up returning it.  I found it too difficult to use and not as accurate as Sharpcap.
6. At the recommendation of Pegasus Astro, the PHD2 MinMo was dropped to 0.6 on RA and DEC, I later bumped this back up to 0.10 as it appears from some research anything below 0.10 isn't going to help according to some PHD2 dev posts.
7. At the recommendation of Pegasus Astro, Stop guiding when the mount slews is unchecked.  I'm not 100% sure why this was done.
8. At the recommendation of Pegasus Astro, Saturation by Max-ADU value was changed from 255 to 65535.
9. At the recommendation of Pegasus Astro, Guide star tracking search region changed from 15 to 30 pixels.
10. Right Ascension uses Predictive PEC with a Predictive weight changed from 50% to 80%.  Reactive weight stays at 60%.
11. Declination stayed on Resist Switch with Aggressiveness changed from 100% to 20%.
12. Assume Dec orthogonal to RA is set in PHD2 because it's still really hard to get a good calibration with the RA periodic error.  It seems to work fine with this setting enabled.

Guiding on an average night of seeing consistently ran for around 0.5 total RMS over the course of six nights. Short periods can show a total RMS of 0.29.  The Dec can drop as low as 0.16 RMS.  PE on the RA is still really wild but PHD2 is amazing with Predictive PEC to correct the guiding.  It's crazy to watch the corrections pushing the RA so hard while the guideline stays relatively stable on the center line.  Overall, I'm happy with the mount now and this image proves you can make it work with the right setup and configuration.

 

I hope this helps!

 

Here's a recent image taken with the rig: https://www.astrobin.com/wyjtn6/

 

Thanks

really good notes here, maybe i'll try some of it and see how the guiding comes out. really interesting that you pushed it 10 min. don't think anyone here has tried that unless i missed it from earlier posts.

Edited by mrkhagol, 15 September 2024 - 12:28 PM.

[Suedey99]

I think I can safely say I'm a fan of the mount.

 

The attached image is from the ASIAir with default guiding setting. Typically I getting an overal RMS of 0.50 which I'm more than happy with from my local skies.

Attached Thumbnails

• 

[itstom]

Does anyone out there have a NYX101 Hand-Controller (HC) that works?

Sharatan may have resolved this, but I'll post this for the next guy-

 

I've been using my HC since mid July, and while not perfect, it does work.

 

One thing I discovered early on was to connect my phone to the mount via wi-fi and open the app. Once the mount gets it's GPS coordinates and date/time from the phone you no longer need to be connected with the phone. I have used the HC on consecutive days and the date/time are correct, but generally you need to reset it. I have occasionally gotten the "No Date! No Time!" error after following this procedure, but rebooting the mount fixed it.

 

I mentioned this to Pegasus Astro and suggested that they include the info in the manual, as of today they have not.

 

Tom

[Joe G]

I have the original version of this mount.  After a couple firmware upgrades it works well.  I bought the hand controller and have only used it a couple of times.  It needs a firmware update.

 

Trying to set the date/time.  OMG.  It wants you to use the up and down arrow keys to get to the precise date and time.  So you are supposed to hold the up and down arrow keys and watch things scroll by as opposed to setting the day, left arrow key, set the the month, left arrow key set the year, etc.  Crazy.

 

And they say it is intuitive.  Crazy, crazy. 

 

Hopefully it work out.  Seems like designed by engineers with no deep thoughts for usefulness.

[Joe G]

And I am still unclear if the hand controller can get GPS coordinates, etc from the smartphone app.  Really should make a better manual or do a YT video on how to use it.  Don't get it.  Do we need to wait for a YouTube influencer to do this?

[nyx]

In case anyone is interested, I'd like to share my not so fabulous experience with the NYX-101 (v2). But first, a bit of history...

 

I, like many others, started with a star tracker. It didn't take long for me to upgrade to a proper GoTo mount. My first real mount was the iOptron CEM25p. I took my first steps with it and eventually outgrown it. Or so I thought... Somewhere down the road I sold it, hoping to get something "better", with more consistent tracking performance (spoiler alert: the CEM25p is to this day the best mount I've owned in terms of tracking/guiding performance).

 

Now, I'm always doing (extensive) research before purchasing something new and while the Skywatcher HEQ-5 Pro wasn't getting 5-star reviews, there were (and still are) A LOT of people praising it, as if it is the best thing since sliced bread. So I bought one. In short, probably the worst astronomy product I've ever bought and I've bought quite a few (my empty bank account is the proof). I've even gone through the trouble of sending it for hypertuning/tweaking/repairing, hoping to save the investment. Nothing helped. Consistent terrible tracking and guiding among other equally terrible things. So I sold it.

 

Back to iOptron with a brand new CEM28! At least the RA/DEC axis is moving freely again when releasing the brakes (I'm looking at you, Skywatcher). I had high hopes for this mount. I really thought I'd be seeing consistent 0.5" total RMS guiding again and almost perfect round stars, just like with my CEM25p. Yeah.... no. Shady tracking/guiding, ranging from 0.5-1.2" RMS. And the stars.... Well, they are not round anymore.

 

At this point I was seriously getting burned out doing mobile astrophotography and dealing with horrendous weather. So I decided to build my first remote, fully automated observatory. Far away from home. As in 2000km far away. Since most (all?) my budget went into building the observatory and automating pretty much everything (including the scope), I was stuck with using the CEM28 for a while. 

 

So, back to saving pennies and researching for a new mount. This time, it had to be something "premium". Something that wouldn't make me wanna curse when sorting out the subs on a good night. Unfortunately, my budget wasn't huge. But even if it was, I wouldn't be comfortable leaving a e.g. $10000 mount alone in the dark, with no means of security and no on-site assistance. iOptron and Skywatcher were out of question because "Hey, didn't you get the memo regarding the roulette nature of buying astronomy related products?". Maybe an Avalon Linear? Not too far away from my observatory but the price tag, a bit high. Same with 10micron. American brands were not considered due to support considerations (different continent).

 

Why not something new? An AM5 maybe? But then again I could stretch a bit more and get the "better", more premium NYX-101? So I did!

 

The NYX-101 replaced my iOptron CEM28. For me, this is the first mount with a premium price tag. Not so premium is the tracking/guiding performance. It looks amazing, no doubt. The software (Unity) is nothing groundbreaking, but looks more like a normal, modern piece of software. In contrast, using EQMOD or the iOptron Commander feels like running a Windows 95 era program under Windows 11. Either way, they all have their pros and cons and at the end of the day (night), they do what they're supposed to do....more or less.

 

Regardless, back to the important stuff. I couldn't care less about how mount or software looks, as long as the tracking is good, the guiding graph has no spikes and my stars are round and tight. Are they though? Mostly, no. As far as guiding is concerned: it's pretty wild. Unguided it's like a drunken rollercoaster, but I never expected to run this mount unguided (and neither should you). The total RMS variability is pretty big. I have experienced moments with 0.5" (very rare), as well as 1.3", but it usually swings between 0.7" and 1.2" RMS. And that's the biggest problem. You can see the mount struggling (literally) to achieve 0.7". It usually stays within 0.9" and 1.1" RMS. Using short exposures (0.5-1s) almost guarantees chasing the seeing (which is a russian roulette of its own) while using longer, more relaxed exposures (say 2s) leaves you at the mercy of the mount's inherent, horrible PE, having to use longer pulses to correct its inherent tracking imperfections.

 

Let me give a you a real example of how bad things are: I use NINA for imaging. If I configure NINA to interrupt any subs when RA/DEC goes over 2" in PHD2, I might get 20 subs within a 6 hour imaging session. And we're talking 1-2 minute subs, nothing crazy like 5, 10 minutes or longer!

 

Now before you start throwing suggestions in regards to PHD2 settings, cable management, polar alignment and what have to, let me tell you this:

 

- Cabling is as tight as it gets using a mount that doesn't have through-the-mount-cabling.

- Polar alignment is close to perfect. Repeated iterations with NINA's 3PPA and SharpCap's PA, checked via PHD2's drift alignment and guiding assistant. Oh yeah, I've also tried not-so-perfect-PA as many people often suggest. No improvement.

- Literally every possible option/value PHD2 offers has been tested. No groundbreaking combination found.

 

I'm not talking out-of-the-box, plug-n-play experience here. I've had this mount almost a year now. More than 120 clear nights under my belt using the NYX-101. I've tweaked/optimized everything imaginable. No silver bullets found. Frankly, if this was a $50 product, I'd have disposed it in the trash long time ago.

 

Also worth noting:

 

- I've always used small scopes, no matter what mount I owned. Right now, I'm using a RedCat51. In regards to payload, it's like I've placed a feather on my NYX-101.

- I've used both guidescopes and OAGs. No noticeable performance differences, which is more or less expected at this focal length.

 

Wrapping it up: If you want to buy the NYX-101 by all means go ahead. Depending on the mount you will be currently replacing, the NYX-101 might be a breath of fresh air for you. It is not that lightweight, so if you are coming from a CEM26/CEM28 class mount + counterweight, don't expect miracles. Guiding calibration is a hit & miss/iterative process, which works against its grab-n-go nature.

 

One last thing: you're still playing astronomy roulette. Keep burning money until you hit the jackpot.

Edited by nyx, 26 September 2024 - 06:19 AM.

[Aibrahim]

In case anyone is interested, I'd like to share my not so fabulous experience with the NYX-101 (v2). But first, a bit of history...

I, like many others, started with a star tracker. It didn't take long for me to upgrade to a proper GoTo mount. My first real mount was the iOptron CEM25p. I took my first steps with it and eventually outgrown it. Or so I thought... Somewhere down the road I sold it, hoping to get something "better", with more consistent tracking performance (spoiler alert: the CEM25p is to this day the best mount I've owned in terms of tracking/guiding performance).

Now, I'm always doing (extensive) research before purchasing something new and while the Skywatcher HEQ-5 Pro wasn't getting 5-star reviews, there were (and still are) A LOT of people praising it, as if it is the best thing since sliced bread. So I bought one. In short, probably the worst astronomy product I've ever bought and I've bought quite a few (my empty bank account is the proof). I've even gone through the trouble of sending it for hypertuning/tweaking/repairing, hoping to save the investment. Nothing helped. Consistent terrible tracking and guiding among other equally terrible things. So I sold it.

Back to iOptron with a brand new CEM28! At least the RA/DEC axis is moving freely again when releasing the brakes (I'm looking at you, Skywatcher). I had high hopes for this mount. I really thought I'd be seeing consistent 0.5" total RMS guiding again and almost perfect round stars, just like with my CEM25p. Yeah.... no. Shady tracking/guiding, ranging from 0.5-1.2" RMS. And the stars.... Well, they are not round anymore.

At this point I was seriously getting burned out doing mobile astrophotography and dealing with horrendous weather. So I decided to build my first remote, fully automated observatory. Far away from home. As in 2000km far away. Since most (all?) my budget went into building the observatory and automating pretty much everything (including the scope), I was stuck with using the CEM28 for a while.

So, back to saving pennies and researching for a new mount. This time, it had to be something "premium". Something that wouldn't make me wanna curse when sorting out the subs on a good night. Unfortunately, my budget wasn't huge. But even if it was, I wouldn't be comfortable leaving a e.g. $10000 mount alone in the dark, with no means of security and no on-site assistance. iOptron and Skywatcher were out of question because "Hey, didn't you get the memo regarding the roulette nature of buying astronomy related products?". Maybe an Avalon Linear? Not too far away from my observatory but the price tag, a bit high. Same with 10micron. American brands were not considered due to support considerations (different continent).

Why not something new? An AM5 maybe? But then again I could stretch a bit more and get the "better", more premium NYX-101? So I did!

The NYX-101 replaced my iOptron CEM28. For me, this is the first mount with a premium price tag. Not so premium is the tracking/guiding performance. It looks amazing, no doubt. The software (Unity) is nothing groundbreaking, but looks more like a normal, modern piece of software. In contrast, using EQMOD or the iOptron Commander feels like running a Windows 95 era program under Windows 11. Either way, they all have their pros and cons and at the end of the day (night), they do what they're supposed to do....more or less.

Regardless, back to the important stuff. I couldn't care less about how mount or software looks, as long as the tracking is good, the guiding graph has no spikes and my stars are round and tight. Are they though? Mostly, no. As far as guiding is concerned: it's pretty wild. Unguided it's like a drunken rollercoaster, but I never expected to run this mount unguided (and neither should you). The total RMS variability is pretty big. I have experienced moments with 0.5" (very rare), as well as 1.3", but it usually swings between 0.7" and 1.2" RMS. And that's the biggest problem. You can see the mount struggling (literally) to achieve 0.7". It usually stays within 0.9" and 1.1" RMS. Using short exposures (0.5-1s) almost guarantees chasing the seeing (which is a russian roulette of its own) while using longer, more relaxed exposures (say 2s) leaves you at the mercy of the mount's inherent, horrible PE, having to use longer pulses to correct its inherent tracking imperfections.

Let me give a you a real example of how bad things are: I use NINA for imaging. If I configure NINA to interrupt any subs when RA/DEC goes over 2" in PHD2, I might get 20 subs within a 6 hour imaging session. And we're talking 1-2 minute subs, nothing crazy like 5, 10 minutes or longer!

Now before you start throwing suggestions in regards to PHD2 settings, cable management, polar alignment and what have to, let me tell you this:

- Cabling is as tight as it gets using a mount that doesn't have through-the-mount-cabling.
- Polar alignment is close to perfect. Repeated iterations with NINA's 3PPA and SharpCap's PA, checked via PHD2's drift alignment and guiding assistant. Oh yeah, I've also tried not-so-perfect-PA as many people often suggest. No improvement.
- Literally every possible option/value PHD2 offers has been tested. No groundbreaking combination found.

I'm not talking out-of-the-box, plug-n-play experience here. I've had this mount almost a year now. More than 120 clear nights under my belt using the NYX-101. I've tweaked/optimized everything imaginable. No silver bullets found. Frankly, if this was a $50 product, I'd have disposed it in the trash long time ago.

Also worth noting:

- I've always used small scopes, no matter what mount I owned. Right now, I'm using a RedCat51. In regards to payload, it's like I've placed a feather on my NYX-101.
- I've used both guidescopes and OAGs. No noticeable performance differences, which is more or less expected at this focal length.

Wrapping it up: If you want to buy the NYX-101 by all means go ahead. Depending on the mount you will be currently replacing, the NYX-101 might be a breath of fresh air for you. It is not that lightweight, so if you are coming from a CEM26/CEM28 class mount + counterweight, don't expect miracles. Guiding calibration is a hit & miss/iterative process, which works against its grab-n-go nature.

One last thing: you're still playing astronomy roulette. Keep burning money until you hit the jackpot.

Reading your comments about guiding accuracy makes me think it’s a user error. P.S you can chase the seeing and still get good results on nights of average to good seeing.
I say that respectfully because I had mounts that were twice the price of the NYX and didn’t guide nearly as good.

[nyx]

Reading your comments about guiding accuracy makes me think it’s a user error. P.S you can chase the seeing and still get good results on nights of average to good seeing.
I say that respectfully because I had mounts that were twice the price of the NYX and didn’t guide nearly as good.

No offense taken, you are free to think however you like

 

I'm judging the mount's performance by inspecting the subs and not by the RMS values reported by PHD2. It's neither coincidence nor my fantasy that all subs with RMS higher than 0.9-1.0" have fuzzy, egg-shaped stars. The proof is literally in the pudding!

 

I really hope it's user error like you say, cause then it's fixable. I'm still looking for the "magic settings" that will make this mount fly, but I've kinda lost hope. At the end of the day, I can only buy so much quality with my wallet. That's life!

[Aibrahim]

No offense taken, you are free to think however you like

I'm judging the mount's performance by inspecting the subs and not by the RMS values reported by PHD2. It's neither coincidence nor my fantasy that all subs with RMS higher than 0.9-1.0" have fuzzy, egg-shaped stars. The proof is literally in the pudding!

I really hope it's user error like you say, cause then it's fixable. I'm still looking for the "magic settings" that will make this mount fly, but I've kinda lost hope. At the end of the day, I can only buy so much quality with my wallet. That's life!

Hard to tell. What that is, took me close to a year to get decent guiding on my Crux170HD with the help of the engineer and owner of the company over teamviewer. Sometimes it’s a mixture of a little bit of everything. ( little bit of unbalanced load, bit of bad seeing, bit of cable snag, etc…)
Sometimes you gotta really know your mount and how it behaves. Mine for example doesn’t like declination imbalance so I have to roughly balance mine in declination ( put the centre of the load on top of the declination gear ) if I don’t do that then all hell break lose.
My crux 170 HD likes very fast guiding exposures (0.2-0.5s ) my NYX likes it a bit longer (0.7-1s )
Just food for the thought and may not be applied to you but have you really considered every detail?

[Rasfahan]

In case anyone is interested, I'd like to share my not so fabulous experience with the NYX-101 (v2). But first, a bit of history...

 

I, like many others, started with a star tracker. It didn't take long for me to upgrade to a proper GoTo mount. My first real mount was the iOptron CEM25p. I took my first steps with it and eventually outgrown it. Or so I thought... Somewhere down the road I sold it, hoping to get something "better", with more consistent tracking performance (spoiler alert: the CEM25p is to this day the best mount I've owned in terms of tracking/guiding performance).

 

Now, I'm always doing (extensive) research before purchasing something new and while the Skywatcher HEQ-5 Pro wasn't getting 5-star reviews, there were (and still are) A LOT of people praising it, as if it is the best thing since sliced bread. So I bought one. In short, probably the worst astronomy product I've ever bought and I've bought quite a few (my empty bank account is the proof). I've even gone through the trouble of sending it for hypertuning/tweaking/repairing, hoping to save the investment. Nothing helped. Consistent terrible tracking and guiding among other equally terrible things. So I sold it.

 

Back to iOptron with a brand new CEM28! At least the RA/DEC axis is moving freely again when releasing the brakes (I'm looking at you, Skywatcher). I had high hopes for this mount. I really thought I'd be seeing consistent 0.5" total RMS guiding again and almost perfect round stars, just like with my CEM25p. Yeah.... no. Shady tracking/guiding, ranging from 0.5-1.2" RMS. And the stars.... Well, they are not round anymore.

 

At this point I was seriously getting burned out doing mobile astrophotography and dealing with horrendous weather. So I decided to build my first remote, fully automated observatory. Far away from home. As in 2000km far away. Since most (all?) my budget went into building the observatory and automating pretty much everything (including the scope), I was stuck with using the CEM28 for a while. 

 

So, back to saving pennies and researching for a new mount. This time, it had to be something "premium". Something that wouldn't make me wanna curse when sorting out the subs on a good night. Unfortunately, my budget wasn't huge. But even if it was, I wouldn't be comfortable leaving a e.g. $10000 mount alone in the dark, with no means of security and no on-site assistance. iOptron and Skywatcher were out of question because "Hey, didn't you get the memo regarding the roulette nature of buying astronomy related products?". Maybe an Avalon Linear? Not too far away from my observatory but the price tag, a bit high. Same with 10micron. American brands were not considered due to support considerations (different continent).

 

Why not something new? An AM5 maybe? But then again I could stretch a bit more and get the "better", more premium NYX-101? So I did!

 

The NYX-101 replaced my iOptron CEM28. For me, this is the first mount with a premium price tag. Not so premium is the tracking/guiding performance. It looks amazing, no doubt. The software (Unity) is nothing groundbreaking, but looks more like a normal, modern piece of software. In contrast, using EQMOD or the iOptron Commander feels like running a Windows 95 era program under Windows 11. Either way, they all have their pros and cons and at the end of the day (night), they do what they're supposed to do....more or less.

 

Regardless, back to the important stuff. I couldn't care less about how mount or software looks, as long as the tracking is good, the guiding graph has no spikes and my stars are round and tight. Are they though? Mostly, no. As far as guiding is concerned: it's pretty wild. Unguided it's like a drunken rollercoaster, but I never expected to run this mount unguided (and neither should you). The total RMS variability is pretty big. I have experienced moments with 0.5" (very rare), as well as 1.3", but it usually swings between 0.7" and 1.2" RMS. And that's the biggest problem. You can see the mount struggling (literally) to achieve 0.7". It usually stays within 0.9" and 1.1" RMS. Using short exposures (0.5-1s) almost guarantees chasing the seeing (which is a russian roulette of its own) while using longer, more relaxed exposures (say 2s) leaves you at the mercy of the mount's inherent, horrible PE, having to use longer pulses to correct its inherent tracking imperfections.

 

Let me give a you a real example of how bad things are: I use NINA for imaging. If I configure NINA to interrupt any subs when RA/DEC goes over 2" in PHD2, I might get 20 subs within a 6 hour imaging session. And we're talking 1-2 minute subs, nothing crazy like 5, 10 minutes or longer!

 

Now before you start throwing suggestions in regards to PHD2 settings, cable management, polar alignment and what have to, let me tell you this:

 

- Cabling is as tight as it gets using a mount that doesn't have through-the-mount-cabling.

- Polar alignment is close to perfect. Repeated iterations with NINA's 3PPA and SharpCap's PA, checked via PHD2's drift alignment and guiding assistant. Oh yeah, I've also tried not-so-perfect-PA as many people often suggest. No improvement.

- Literally every possible option/value PHD2 offers has been tested. No groundbreaking combination found.

 

I'm not talking out-of-the-box, plug-n-play experience here. I've had this mount almost a year now. More than 120 clear nights under my belt using the NYX-101. I've tweaked/optimized everything imaginable. No silver bullets found. Frankly, if this was a $50 product, I'd have disposed it in the trash long time ago.

 

Also worth noting:

 

- I've always used small scopes, no matter what mount I owned. Right now, I'm using a RedCat51. In regards to payload, it's like I've placed a feather on my NYX-101.

- I've used both guidescopes and OAGs. No noticeable performance differences, which is more or less expected at this focal length.

 

Wrapping it up: If you want to buy the NYX-101 by all means go ahead. Depending on the mount you will be currently replacing, the NYX-101 might be a breath of fresh air for you. It is not that lightweight, so if you are coming from a CEM26/CEM28 class mount + counterweight, don't expect miracles. Guiding calibration is a hit & miss/iterative process, which works against its grab-n-go nature.

 

One last thing: you're still playing astronomy roulette. Keep burning money until you hit the jackpot.

If you have a guiding RMS < 1.5" the star problems you see are not from the mount. Your setup has a resolution of 3.1"/px. So to see any elongation you'ld need more differential between the axis than 3" (at least, probably more). A single short 2" extrusion wouldn't even be visible in your subs.

 

Did you check if the stars get better with shorter exposures? 

If not, it's not the guiding/etc. at all but an optical problem.

If so, I'ld think differential flexure or some other rigidity problem in your setup (tripod fastened? Hard ground? This is concrete or rocks, not "hard earth"). Not getting below 1" guiding can also just be bad seeing.

 

Did you check unguided 10s or 30s exposures? Longer?

[nyx]

If you have a guiding RMS < 1.5" the star problems you see are not from the mount. Your setup has a resolution of 3.1"/px. So to see any elongation you'ld need more differential between the axis than 3" (at least, probably more). A single short 2" extrusion wouldn't even be visible in your subs.

 

Did you check if the stars get better with shorter exposures? 

If not, it's not the guiding/etc. at all but an optical problem.

If so, I'ld think differential flexure or some other rigidity problem in your setup (tripod fastened? Hard ground? This is concrete or rocks, not "hard earth"). Not getting below 1" guiding can also just be bad seeing.

 

Did you check unguided 10s or 30s exposures? Longer?

The problem is not a single short 2" extrusion like you say. More like 3+ every minute. Sometimes over 3", very rare up to 4".

 

The tripod is on solid ground with a counterweight hanging in the middle. In my eyes rock-solid. Not concrete-pier-rock-solid, but still. Enough for the load put on the mount I'd say.

 

Bad seeing is my best guess. I don't know how much the local weather conditions could affect my imaging/guiding, but I'm sure this is a factor one cannot ignore. The observatory is located 250m away from sea water at sea level. Whether that plays a role, I cannot really say. Observing the night sky on-site, one can see that the stars are twinkling quite a bit, most nights.

 

I might have tried unguided exposures sometimes, but I can't recall for sure.

 

Oh and yes, the stars did get "better" with shorter exposures. Initially I was doing 10m SHO and 2m RGB. Now I'm down to 2m SHO and 1m RGB in order to keep the star size and shape under control.

 

Edit: The best imaging nights I've experienced in Germany on very cold nights (-10° or colder). The sky was very still as if it was frozen and the stars were very calm.

Edited by nyx, 27 September 2024 - 06:23 AM.

[Suedey99]

The problem is not a single short 2" extrusion like you say. More like 3+ every minute. Sometimes over 3", very rare up to 4".

 

The tripod is on solid ground with a counterweight hanging in the middle. In my eyes rock-solid. Not concrete-pier-rock-solid, but still. Enough for the load put on the mount I'd say.

 

Bad seeing is my best guess. I don't know how much the local weather conditions could affect my imaging/guiding, but I'm sure this is a factor one cannot ignore. The observatory is located 250m away from sea water at sea level. Whether that plays a role, I cannot really say. Observing the night sky on-site, one can see that the stars are twinkling quite a bit, most nights.

 

I might have tried unguided exposures sometimes, but I can't recall for sure.

 

Oh and yes, the stars did get "better" with shorter exposures. Initially I was doing 10m SHO and 2m RGB. Now I'm down to 2m SHO and 1m RGB in order to keep the star size and shape under control.

 

Edit: The best imaging nights I've experienced in Germany on very cold nights (-10° or colder). The sky was very still as if it was frozen and the stars were very calm.

If you have had ‘issues’ with your last three mounts, then I say you are either very unlucky or the mount is not the main issue. A very simplist analysis I know.

 It’s a pity the mount is remote as I would suggest trying to use a friends ‘good’ mount or see if your local astronomy club could help to test the rest of your setup.

[nyx]

If you have had ‘issues’ with your last three mounts, then I say you are either very unlucky or the mount is not the main issue. A very simplist analysis I know.

 It’s a pity the mount is remote as I would suggest trying to use a friends ‘good’ mount or see if your local astronomy club could help to test the rest of your setup.

You are free to assume anything you want about me or my skills. I might as well be a bad astrophotographer who doesn't have a clue how things work.

 

All I'm saying is, lower your expectations before spending $4k on a NYX-101. You might get unlucky. Or you might just be clueless, like me

[archer1960]

You are free to assume anything you want about me or my skills. I might as well be a bad astrophotographer who doesn't have a clue how things work.

 

All I'm saying is, lower your expectations before spending $4k on a NYX-101. You might get unlucky. Or you might just be clueless, like me

From the description above, with visible twinkling, ISTM that seeing is the limiting factor, which means no amount of skill or equipment upgrades will get much better results. That is, unless you go the route of large professional observatories and get a high-speed adaptive optics system, which likely costs 5-digit dollars at the minimum.

Edited by archer1960, 27 September 2024 - 05:26 PM.

[Aibrahim]

Seeing is just not gonna make stars streak. It’s gonna make it fatter but not streaky.
As NYX said, lower your expectations for anything you buy. I honestly thought my NYX-101 would not be so much better than my CRUX 170 or my trusty EQ6R or my previous CEM60 and it was miles ahead of all those. I whole heartedly recommend it for anyone who understands how harmonic mounts work.

[Andy Lucy]

 

Oh and yes, the stars did get "better" with shorter exposures. Initially I was doing 10m SHO and 2m RGB. Now I'm down to 2m SHO and 1m RGB in order to keep the star size and shape under control.

The fact that star shapes improve as you shorten the exposure time is an indicator of a drift problem, possibly associated with differential flexure.  There is an easy way to determine if drift is a problem.  Plate solve frames at the start and end of a (preferably long) undithered run and find the positions of the image centres.  If they aren’t the same, you can calculate how fast the centre is drifting and see if this is sufficient to cause your egg-shaped stars.

[Roland9173]

Hello, 

What about the performance with this mount in altaz mode? I intend to defork my LX200GPS 10" in order to save weight and storage , but I like the easy altaz alignment and accuracy pointing of the LX200, whitout any need for plate solve or so (only 2 star alignment and I get any target in eyepiece FOV even et high power).

My purpose is also to use this mount in eq mode for deep sky imaging with a 80mm refractor in replacement of my celestron AVX. The NYX -101 seems a good candidate for that. 

[licho52]

You are free to assume anything you want about me or my skills. I might as well be a bad astrophotographer who doesn't have a clue how things work.

 

All I'm saying is, lower your expectations before spending $4k on a NYX-101. You might get unlucky. Or you might just be clueless, like me

All the mounts you've purchased were risky buys, except HEQ-5 which should have worked well, maybe you were unlucky.  I can tell you were following internet forum/youtube advice and trying to go "off the beaten path" which is always terrible.  Had you bought AM5 you'd have been in the clear, but no, internet hype said go for the oddball one, it's better!

[Joe G]

In case anyone is interested, I'd like to share my not so fabulous experience with the NYX-101 (v2). But first, a bit of history...

 

I, like many others, started with a star tracker. It didn't take long for me to upgrade to a proper GoTo mount. My first real mount was the iOptron CEM25p. I took my first steps with it and eventually outgrown it. Or so I thought... Somewhere down the road I sold it, hoping to get something "better", with more consistent tracking performance (spoiler alert: the CEM25p is to this day the best mount I've owned in terms of tracking/guiding performance).

 

Now, I'm always doing (extensive) research before purchasing something new and while the Skywatcher HEQ-5 Pro wasn't getting 5-star reviews, there were (and still are) A LOT of people praising it, as if it is the best thing since sliced bread. So I bought one. In short, probably the worst astronomy product I've ever bought and I've bought quite a few (my empty bank account is the proof). I've even gone through the trouble of sending it for hypertuning/tweaking/repairing, hoping to save the investment. Nothing helped. Consistent terrible tracking and guiding among other equally terrible things. So I sold it.

 

Back to iOptron with a brand new CEM28! At least the RA/DEC axis is moving freely again when releasing the brakes (I'm looking at you, Skywatcher). I had high hopes for this mount. I really thought I'd be seeing consistent 0.5" total RMS guiding again and almost perfect round stars, just like with my CEM25p. Yeah.... no. Shady tracking/guiding, ranging from 0.5-1.2" RMS. And the stars.... Well, they are not round anymore.

 

At this point I was seriously getting burned out doing mobile astrophotography and dealing with horrendous weather. So I decided to build my first remote, fully automated observatory. Far away from home. As in 2000km far away. Since most (all?) my budget went into building the observatory and automating pretty much everything (including the scope), I was stuck with using the CEM28 for a while. 

 

So, back to saving pennies and researching for a new mount. This time, it had to be something "premium". Something that wouldn't make me wanna curse when sorting out the subs on a good night. Unfortunately, my budget wasn't huge. But even if it was, I wouldn't be comfortable leaving a e.g. $10000 mount alone in the dark, with no means of security and no on-site assistance. iOptron and Skywatcher were out of question because "Hey, didn't you get the memo regarding the roulette nature of buying astronomy related products?". Maybe an Avalon Linear? Not too far away from my observatory but the price tag, a bit high. Same with 10micron. American brands were not considered due to support considerations (different continent).

 

Why not something new? An AM5 maybe? But then again I could stretch a bit more and get the "better", more premium NYX-101? So I did!

 

The NYX-101 replaced my iOptron CEM28. For me, this is the first mount with a premium price tag. Not so premium is the tracking/guiding performance. It looks amazing, no doubt. The software (Unity) is nothing groundbreaking, but looks more like a normal, modern piece of software. In contrast, using EQMOD or the iOptron Commander feels like running a Windows 95 era program under Windows 11. Either way, they all have their pros and cons and at the end of the day (night), they do what they're supposed to do....more or less.

 

Regardless, back to the important stuff. I couldn't care less about how mount or software looks, as long as the tracking is good, the guiding graph has no spikes and my stars are round and tight. Are they though? Mostly, no. As far as guiding is concerned: it's pretty wild. Unguided it's like a drunken rollercoaster, but I never expected to run this mount unguided (and neither should you). The total RMS variability is pretty big. I have experienced moments with 0.5" (very rare), as well as 1.3", but it usually swings between 0.7" and 1.2" RMS. And that's the biggest problem. You can see the mount struggling (literally) to achieve 0.7". It usually stays within 0.9" and 1.1" RMS. Using short exposures (0.5-1s) almost guarantees chasing the seeing (which is a russian roulette of its own) while using longer, more relaxed exposures (say 2s) leaves you at the mercy of the mount's inherent, horrible PE, having to use longer pulses to correct its inherent tracking imperfections.

 

Let me give a you a real example of how bad things are: I use NINA for imaging. If I configure NINA to interrupt any subs when RA/DEC goes over 2" in PHD2, I might get 20 subs within a 6 hour imaging session. And we're talking 1-2 minute subs, nothing crazy like 5, 10 minutes or longer!

 

Now before you start throwing suggestions in regards to PHD2 settings, cable management, polar alignment and what have to, let me tell you this:

 

- Cabling is as tight as it gets using a mount that doesn't have through-the-mount-cabling.

- Polar alignment is close to perfect. Repeated iterations with NINA's 3PPA and SharpCap's PA, checked via PHD2's drift alignment and guiding assistant. Oh yeah, I've also tried not-so-perfect-PA as many people often suggest. No improvement.

- Literally every possible option/value PHD2 offers has been tested. No groundbreaking combination found.

 

I'm not talking out-of-the-box, plug-n-play experience here. I've had this mount almost a year now. More than 120 clear nights under my belt using the NYX-101. I've tweaked/optimized everything imaginable. No silver bullets found. Frankly, if this was a $50 product, I'd have disposed it in the trash long time ago.

 

Also worth noting:

 

- I've always used small scopes, no matter what mount I owned. Right now, I'm using a RedCat51. In regards to payload, it's like I've placed a feather on my NYX-101.

- I've used both guidescopes and OAGs. No noticeable performance differences, which is more or less expected at this focal length.

 

Wrapping it up: If you want to buy the NYX-101 by all means go ahead. Depending on the mount you will be currently replacing, the NYX-101 might be a breath of fresh air for you. It is not that lightweight, so if you are coming from a CEM26/CEM28 class mount + counterweight, don't expect miracles. Guiding calibration is a hit & miss/iterative process, which works against its grab-n-go nature.

 

One last thing: you're still playing astronomy roulette. Keep burning money until you hit the jackpot.

I dunno.  Just a few years ago that guiding RMS would have been considered good.  Post a pic of your results.  That would help.

[Darrenlh]

You are free to assume anything you want about me or my skills. I might as well be a bad astrophotographer who doesn't have a clue how things work.

 

All I'm saying is, lower your expectations before spending $4k on a NYX-101. You might get unlucky. Or you might just be clueless, like me

Your experience mimics mine. I cannot guide anywhere near .5 RMS. I accept this characteristic of the mount, and I also get a little tired of the blame pointed at the user. I cannot achieve unguided subs regardless of focal length, and seem to do better with 1 second guiding exposures. I love the quiet slews and power of this mount, and the weight of it too. A gerrman equatorial mount delivers more consistency within it's weight limits when guided.