Hello,
my astrophotography setup shows severe pointing problems several times during an imaging night. The problem seems not to be missing precision, but sometimes missing or strange movement of the mount.
The Voyager log of last night counts 56 precision pointing operations (due to slewing to different targets or refocus operations). 20 of these succeeded with the initial movement, 23 after 1 retry and 1 after 3 retries. But 12 operations failed even after 3 retries with “Error out of range”. Of course, my setup of 25” error limit might be too low for the HEQ5 mount, but two observations seem to indicate another problem: The pointing error was even after the 3rd retry still above 10’ (not " - no typo) several times and it seems like in these cases the error seems not to improve from one retry to the next retry.
If you look at this partial extract of the Voyager log:
[PrecisePointing] - [SYNC_MOUNT_Code ] - Solved (J2000) coord converted to (JNow) RA=11 19 29,566 DEC=13 07 50,03
[PrecisePointing] - [SYNC_MOUNT_Code ] - Telescope Coord Before Sync => (JNow) RA=11 19 29,458 DEC=13 07 56,28
[PrecisePointing] - [SYNC_MOUNT_Code ] - Begin Sync
[PrecisePointing] - [SYNC_MOUNT_Code ] - Mount Sync on (JNow) RA=11 19 29,566 DEC=13 07 50,03
[PrecisePointing] - [SYNC_MOUNT_Code ] - Telescope Coord After Sync (JNow) => RA=11 19 29,567 DEC=13 07 49,96
[PrecisePointing] - [SYNC_MOUNT_Code ] - Target Coord (JNow) => RA=11 20 50,121 DEC=13 10 12,03
[PrecisePointing] - [CHECK_POINTING_ERROR_Code ] - Pointing Error Spherical => 00 19 45,08
[PrecisePointing] - [CHECK_POINTING_ERROR_Code ] - Error out of range [Max 00 00 25,000 ], retry another time [3]
[TelescopeGoto ] - [CHECK_TELESCOPE_CONNECTION_Code] - Actual Position (JNow) (RA=11 19 29,573 / DEC=13 07 49,96 )
[TelescopeGoto ] - [RUN_ASYNC_Code ] - Slewing Async (JNow) RA=11 20 50,121 DEC=13 10 12,03 …
[TelescopeGoto ] - [FINISH_Code ] - Actual Position (JNow) (RA=11 19 30,032 / DEC=13 07 50,68 )
[PrecisePointing] - [SYNC_MOUNT_Code ] - Solved (J2000) coord converted to (JNow) RA=11 19 29,566 DEC=13 07 51,36
[PrecisePointing] - [SYNC_MOUNT_Code ] - Telescope Coord Before Sync => (JNow) RA=11 19 30,037 DEC=13 07 50,68
[PrecisePointing] - [SYNC_MOUNT_Code ] - Begin Sync
[PrecisePointing] - [SYNC_MOUNT_Code ] - Mount Sync on (JNow) RA=11 19 29,566 DEC=13 07 51,36
[PrecisePointing] - [SYNC_MOUNT_Code ] - Telescope Coord After Sync (JNow) => RA=11 19 29,581 DEC=13 07 51,40
[PrecisePointing] - [SYNC_MOUNT_Code ] - Target Coord (JNow) => RA=11 20 50,121 DEC=13 10 12,03
[PrecisePointing] - [CHECK_POINTING_ERROR_Code ] - Pointing Error Spherical => 00 19 45,14
[PrecisePointing] - [CHECK_POINTING_ERROR_Code ] - Max retry reached
I wonder especially what the line “[TelescopeGoto ] - [FINISH_Code …” means. The “Slewing Async” command one line above issues a slew to the correct target position, but the mount reports a wrong position at the end of the slew (even before solving)?
My setup: HEQ5 mount with EQDirect/EQmod, ASCOM, Voyager 2.2.16
Does anyone have discovered similar problems or any idea how I can fix the problem? I do not care about a small error, but sometimes the frame displacement is way to large to stack frames captured after a pointing operation with the frames captured before.
Clear skies,
Joachim