RamaSpaceShip

Bonjour, Bien sur, mais les informations peuvent aussi être utiles aux autres utilisateurs. Si vous voulez, contactez-moi par courriel (bouton "send me a message" dans mon profil du forum). Bernard

Bonjour Jean-Baptiste, I have an OK3Z that I control with ACC and through Ascom. No problem to use Focusmax apart from the fact that from time to time, it fails to get the image from my Moravian. It controls the focuser like a charm. How do you get control to the focuser from Focusmax? Can you control the focuser using ACC without trouble? This should be the first step. If it fails, you won't be able to do anything with other software as ACC is the focuser driver. At the very beginning, when I start using the OK3Z, I got several troubles like you describe. They were due to a pourly shieded USB cable. After the replacement with high quality USB cable, all the troubles disappeared. Bernard

Hi Georges, I looked at your balance video and one thing that is different from my DDM85 is the scale used: 3.3A. I used to reach the optimum balance at a full scale of 0.7A. Is it specific to the DDM60? In other words, do other users of DDM60 are able to balance using a much lower full scale than 3.3A? Bernard

Hi Max, ASA can provide a bent pier for the DDM85 standard. It is easy to do, just need to remove a few scews to put off the mount base. Then you have 4 screws on each side to fix on the pier. What Lukas said is that you can do also an upgrade (expensive) to the DDM85 XL that come with a bent pier. Attaching a home made pier is easy, I did it. Just drill 8 holes very precisely to match the mount ones. If you need information about this, don't hesitate to ask me. Here is what I did, it cost me less than 1k USD: Bernard

Hi Max, I think so.I already asked Asa for this feature before I bought my DDM85 standard but I found the option too expensive. As a result, I did a bent pier by myself, much cheaper of course. Best regards. Bernard

Hi Adam, George's idea is to avoid the addition of weight. To balance the dec axis, you either move the OTA in its rings, and/or move the dovetail plate on its support until you reach the perfect balance. If it is too hard to get the exact balance by this way, you can do the best you can and then add a very small weight to improve the balance. I personnaly chose to add a threaded bar on the dovetail plate to do an effortless precise adjustment of the dec balance (see this post: http://forum.astrosysteme.com/index.php?/topic/245-dec-balance-precise-adjustment/). Best regards. Bernard

Hi George, Your solution works perfectly, providing that the OTA is turned at the exact position where its centre of mass is in the plane formed by its axis and the dec axis. As I wrote, the solution I proposed works for all OTA positions. I agree that yours may be much simpler. So you need to add another (and first) step to the balancing work: turn the tube to put its centre of mass in the plane formed by its axis and the dec axis (and preferably below the tube axis to minimise the effects of a position error). This roughly means to align the focuser axis with the dec axis below the tube. You can use Waldemar's method to find the precise correct position: - put the OTA fully equiped on two horizontal bars - wait until it is stable - the line joining the 2 points of contact with the bars must cross the dec axis. Best regards. Bernard

Hi George, I don't know (I own a Dall Kirkham) but they should to ensure a good balance for all tube positions. The idea is to have the OTA equivalent to a thin bar so that moving it along its axis can provide perfect balance. To ensure that, each section of the OTA must be balanced wrt the tube axis. It is easy to get this for OTAs having the focuser on the axis (like the Cassegrain) but harder for Newtons and the like. If you don't do that, you risk to get the behaviour Adam is observing. The motors can compensate for the unperfect balance, but not in all cases. Best regards. Bernard

Hi Adam, A solution is to first compensate for the weight of the focuser and all stuff on it, by adding an appropriate counterweight on the oppositite side of the OTA. Don't also forget the influence of the cables! If they are not linked to the OTA, they have a variable position depending on the position of the OTA, and as such they can ruin the expected balance. Good luck. Bernard

Hi, My first try in such a case would be to power off the computer and the mount for at least one minute. Then boot and retry. If it still fails, try with another PC and another USB cable. If it fails, then probably there is something broken in your mount and you should ask ASA to fix this mount issue. Good luck. Bernard

Hi Max, If the mount is not moved at all after power off, it will know where it is when powered up. But ti can move very easily (gone with the wind) so there is no certainty here. It is very wise to do a home find at start up, as this is how it gets its reference position. To make sure it will find its home, first point to the zenith, as the home is nearby. Of course, you need to have made a good pointing model and set the home position, for the mount to know the correct position. Bernard

Hi John, If you were a beginnner, I would have said: check your balance! But in your case, this cannot be the trouble. Have you checked the braking screw (if any on the XL, I have such a screw on my DDM85 standard)? Else, it looks like your mount is having troubles. Did you look at the log files? I think this issue deserves a contact to ASA support. Bernard

Bonsoir Thibault, It's probably because ',' (comma) is your decimal separator in place of '.' (dot). You can change this in your locale settings. Then, the number conversions should work correctly. I think that Autoslew and ACC use locale dependent number conversions where the configuration files are not set for this. Bernard

Hi Prefetch, Sorry to answer lately, but I was away all the week and unable to post here due to local internet restrictions. I usually do only your step 2 of Dec balance and RA dec, but with a 0.7A scale. I manage so that the red lines partially touch each other, and don't try further precision. May-be it is not well balanced in other positions. I will check. On my setup (DDM85, OO ODK16. Moravian G4-16000 with a 7 positions filter wheel), it appears sufficient. For me, your star shapes are due to variable flexure of your imaging train, as I doubt that the culprit is the balance, unless you are at the weight limits of your mount (but it would be surprising with a C14). Bernard

Hi Dave, It looks as if ACC is not able to keep or get the connection with the focuser. During the focuser home find, do you see if the focuser do any movement? If not, you should check the USB cables, the focuser power supply, and the USB settings of ACC. Bernard

Hi Prefetch, Happy to see that your setup has highly improved. Good job. Collimation gap is a predictable error that the software is able to compensate precisely. So you don't have to worry about it if it has reasonable value like the one you got. For flexure, it is impossible to predict the impact in any position of the scope so it should be minimized as it cannot be compensated. Bernard

Hi Robert, From my understanding, CCD AP will need to do the flip at the end of the last possible exposure before the flip, while Autoslew will only do the flip when it reaches the limit angle. So you cannot expect that the flip is done at the right time by these two programs. There should be an explicit MeridianFlip command sent by CCD AP to Autoslew. This is what I found in the Autoslew manual: This means that CCD AP can send an ASCOM MeridianFlip command at the time it wants the flip to occur, and that the Autoslew Flip option needs to be set to PreferWest for this command to be executed. Otherwise you will get the behaviour you are observing. Best regards. Bernard

As far as I know, the OK3Z didn't exist before 2010, so it should be an old OK3. Bernard

Hi Benoit, It seems to me that you have an old version of the OK3, before 2010, as far as I can see. Best regards. Bernard

Hi Robert, You tell your setup but I don't see what your problem is Can you please detail what is failing? To Denis: I have a DDM85 in France near Bordeaux since nearly two years now, and I speak french too. Don't hesitate to send a message if you need any explanations in french. Bernard

For sure, if you believe in Santa Claus.... Merry Christmas anyway. Bernard

Hi Prefetch, Ok, I understand now. But adding such a weight as you indicate, appears to me as a bad idea, as it can create other issues. I think that you need a longer dovetail to replace the ASA 15" one, probably a 24" dovetail would be ok. This is not a complex piece of metal and you should be able to find someone in Salt Lake City that can build it precisely at a very reasonnable price. In addition, it can be designed stronger enough to highly reduce the flexure issues. You can also make it even longer to add a handler that will also support your imaging train, thus limiting the flexures in it. Bernard

Hi Prefetch, I am not sure I understand your issue and, if it is not the case, please ignore the following question: Instead of adding weight on the other side of the tube, can't you simply slide the dovetail to put your current center of balance exactly on the DEC axis? This is what I do to balance my OTA on my DDM85. I added a mechanism on my dovetail to make this easy and precise by only turning a knob to adjust the balance. (see this post: http://forum.astrosysteme.com/index.php?/topic/245-dec-balance-precise-adjustment/). Bernard

George, you are probably right. I had the same message the first time I started Autoslew. It appears that Autoslew uses the locale decimal separator to read its config files, but these files use '.', whatever the locale is. Ivan, you then need to change the decimal separator to '.' in the locale parameters on the computer you use to run Autoslew. Bernard

Hi Bob, I don't know the OK4Z, and didn't see it on the ASA website. Are you talking about the OK3Z? I own one and can give you its dimensions. Best regards. Bernard