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Hi all, I am having a frustrating time with the balance function in Autoslew 5.1.1.6 I am trying to balance my N10 on my DDM60Pro. I can achieve good balance using the balance function with the red lines aligned. The problem is if I then slew the telescope to another position and then back again to the original balance position, Autoslew then says it is out of balance! On the 1.5A full scale graph, the red lines are now anything up to 200 or 300mA apart. This happens on both axes though Dec seems worse. Is this normal behaviour? Has anyone else balanced in a particular position, moved the telescope, moved it back to the balance position and then checked the balance again? I cannot see the point of being able to make such measurements if the results are not repeatable and consistent. Or is something wrong? Thank you Ian

Thanks very much to those who replied. Collimation seems to be a controversial area. I have read as much as I can and there does not seem to be a "best solution" that most agree on. I have ended up ordering a Howie Glatter laser and tuBlug. Time will tell whether I have done "a good thing" or not. thanks again Ian

Hi all, I am completely new to fast astrographs. I understand that accurate collimation is critical for good performance. I will soon be mounting my N10 on my DDM60Pro for the first time. My dealer sold me an unbranded laser collimator. I have experimented with it and it seems to show collimation errors which I guess are to be expected after transport from Austria to Australia. However, I have little confidence in the results as there is so much play between the collimator and its 2" adapter. Could more experienced users please advise me on what collimation tools they have found to be easiest to use and most reliable and accurate? I notice that ASA recommends Catseye collimators. I have had a look at the Catseye website but I find it fairly confusing. So what I am really asking for is recommendations on what to buy. Thankyou Ian

Hi Dave, Interesting question. I recently took delivery of my new N10. After I ordered it, it occurred to me to ask the same question of ASA through my ASA agent in Australia. The short reply I got from my agent was that "they (ASA) were not keen on the idea". Unfortunately that is all I was told so I don't know their reasons. I ended up buying a 102mm refractor for visual use which I eventually intend to mount on top of the N10 tube rings. Ian

Hi Bob and welcome to the new forum. It would be something I would be interested in if I could be sure it would be rock solid and reliable. I don't know what other users have experienced but I have not seen any success with USB3 as yet. I have a brand new Dell I7 laptop which has four USB3 ports. My wife has a fairly new Toshiba laptop which has one USB3 and two USB2 ports. I have been cloning hard drives on these laptops recently using an external USB3 enclosure. I get the same transfer speeds whether the external drive is connected to USB2 or 3 (around 25 MB/s) which is well inside USB2 speed. If I check the properties of the USB ports they state they are operating at "High" speed which is USB2. USB3 is "Superspeed" . Checking on the internet I have seen references to BIOS settings to fix this but there are no settings for this in mine. So I don't get it. New USB3 computer, new USB3 external box containing a fast Solid State Drive, new USB3 cable and it all works at USB2 speed! Anyone else encountered this or know the answer? Ian

Hello again George and others, I have been in contact with ASA through my ASA agent. I very quickly received an email from Martin Puchner of ASA. I have been reassured by what Martin has said. I will quote some of his email:- It is not unusual that your DE axis does not feel consistent while moving by hand. There are 2 factors that cause this: There are a lot of cables within the axes that interfere smooth movement. Because of the way they are installed, they have much more influence in DE than in RA. Magnetic effects caused by remanence of the motors I can’t exclude that there is a problem with your mount, because I can’t feel the inconsistency. But probably it is not a problem of quality check but only a thing that is caused by the way it is designed. The motors are able to handle this easily. So I am happy for now. I have said I will contact them again if further issues arise when the mount is more heavily loaded. I have interpreted "magnetic effects caused by remanence of the motors" to mean that there is some residual magnetisation in motor components which can result in the perception of regular "tight spots" as the axis is rotated by hand. This is what I experience. I hope this reassures you too George. Regards Ian

Hi George, The variation in resistance is most evident with the mount unloaded. To ease my learning curve I have sofar only had a fairly light carbon fibre refractor on the mount, around 6.5 Kg with diagonal and eyepiece while my N10 astrograph waits patiently in the house. When manually balancing this scope I can still feel the varying resistance in the dec axis. Having had a lot of mechanical experience, it feels to me like a bearing which has excessive preload similar to a wheel bearing on a vehicle which has been over tightened. I also was hoping for a comment from ASA. The prospect of returning a mount from Australia to Austria is not very appealing! Thanks George. Ian

Hi Josch, No, not yet. Weeks of cloud and rain and very cold. 250 mm of rain. Also had to deal with condensation problems I have posted about in Tips and Tricks. Soon I hope. Ian

Thanks Bernard, but I have already checked this and have even removed the screw completely. Also I have checked that the plastic plug that the lock screw presses on is not itself jammed. Ian

Hi all, I recently finished building my observatory and mounted my new DDM60Pro on the pier for the first time. As soon as I was ready to start initial polar allignment a long period of cold wet weather happened. We had 250mm of rain and I was very pleased that there was no sign of any leaks in the observatory (a Sirius 2.3m). Then the sun returned but temperatures remained low. It was at this point that I entered the observatory during the day and was alarmed to find the entire pier and mount wet with condensation. I realised that with the sun warming the observatory walls that the mount and pier were now the coldest part in the building and thus were collecting the atmospheric humidity as condensation. I decided that if I was able to raise the temperature of the mount slightly that this may solve the problem. So I have made a small heater to sit inside the mount on the baseplate. I soldered three 68 Ohm 9 Watt wire wound resistors in parrallel and placed them in the bottom of a diecast metal project box and half filled the box with epoxy resin. I attached an old scanner power supply (measured at 14.3 volts). So with around 23 Ohms and 14.3 V we get just under 9 Watts. I then added an LED to indicate that the heater was running as it is not possible to feel any warmth when the heater is in position as the mount conducts the heat away so well. I am now running this heater continuously and, so far, it seems to be working. By touch, the mount is just slightly warmer than the pier and although some condensation still collects on the pier, so far the mount has remained dry. Ian

Hi all, I took delivery of my DDM60 Pro about two months ago and have only recently finished my observatory so I could finally put the mount on the pier. I have noticed something about the mount which concerns me. If I gently rotate the RA axis by hand, the motion is beautifully smooth and even. However, when rotating the dec axis the resistance to turning varies quite a lot as though something is causing friction more at some positions than others, I wondered if the plastic locking/rotation limit post was not free in its hole so I removed the top plate and undid the screws holding on the plate which contains the hub etc. I was then able to check the freedom of the plastic post and was easily able to rotate it in its hole thus establishing that it was not jammed. I was not willing to investigate futher so I reassembled the top plates. What do other owners think? It seems to me that varying rotational resistance in the dec axis will require varying amounts of power for a given angular movement. Before I complain to ASA through my ASA agent I would like some opinions from other owners. Thank you, Ian

My view has been that if anyone knows and can fix vulnerabilities in MS software, it is MS. I have a PC that has been running 24/7 now for several years which runs my weather station. It is permanently connected to the internet and is behind a router firewall. Other than that it is only protected by MSSE. I reckon that is a fair test for MSSE as I have had no issue in that time. Of course, the monthly Malicious Software Removal Tool from MS gets run as well. My concern with the likes of Norton is the number of times I have seen it cause problems itself, which you don't want for a remote situation. Ian

Hello Nigel, Having run a PC servicing business, my opinion would be to steer well clear of complex software such as Nortons. For years now I have exclusively used Microsoft Security Essentials on all the machines I have anything to do with. It is free, runs unobtrusively in the background and looks after updates and scans etc without user intervention. I personally have not heard of anyone having an issue with MSSE. However,I have heard of many having issues with all encompasing do everything programs like Nortons. These days most viruses etc get in with the help of unwise operators who open email attachments from unknown sources etc. which won't apply in your remote control situation. Ian

As a new user I would like to suggest a small change to Autoslew that I think would be an improvement. I have installed a Logitech gamepad to control my DDM60 Pro which generally works very well. I have two buttons programmed for the Motor On/Off function. At first I thought this was not working but soon found that it actually does work. The reason I thought it did not work was that I expected that the Motor On/Off button on the computer screen would change colour the same as when it is directly clicked. But it does not. This is confusing. So may I suggest that Autoslew is changed so that the screen button state changes when the buttons on a gamepad are used to turn on or off the motor. Regards Ian

Hello Paulo, I had not heard of C2A. I have had a look at the site and the author's programming philosophy is impressive. I have downloaded the programme to try it out. Thank you. Ian

Hi Dale and Josch. Thanks for the kind offer Dale. Josch, I am about to attempt my first polar allignment. I have run into some issues with my dome rotation which I am working through first. I have installed the latest version of Autoslew from the ASA site. I would be very interested to hear about SH users experiences with polar allignment. Ian

Thankyou to eveyone who answered. Thanks particularly to Michael for the screen shots. Frankly, modern astronomy/astrophotography is all so new to me that I am not really sure what I need or want. Probably I should have asked a question more like:- " Knowing what you know now, if you were starting again, which Planetarium software would you choose, without regard to the cost, to use with an ASA mount.?" Thanks again, Ian

Hello, I am at the stage of setting up my new DDM60 Pro and learning Autoslew. I have been away from astronomy for many years and have thus set myself a big learning task. I guess I will need to get a planetarium program soon. I notice The Sky is mentioned in the Autoslew manual. Is this a recommendation to use The Sky? Are other programs as good or better to use with ASA software and hardware? What do experienced members think? I have read about Software Bisque's software not being directly ASCOM compatible. Does this make other options better? I am happy to take on leaning yet more software but I do not want to learn one package only to discover I would have been better off with another. Ian

Hello George, Thankyou, you are absolutely right. Its interesting how wrong connections get made in the mind when learning something new. I think the house icons in the park buttons sent me astray. Of course, actually hovering the mouse over the buttons reveals them to be park 1 and 2. Thanks again George Ian

Hello all, This is my first post in this forum and I am a complete novice with DDM mounts so please forgive any stupid questions. I live in south eastern Australia and have recently taken delivery of my DDM60 Pro and N10 astrograph. After months of building my observatory I am now up to the fun part of installing the mount etc. My question is about Home position. In the Autoslew manual (which,unfortunately ignores the existence of the southern hemisphere) it speaks of the sense of having home position near the reference marks so there is not much movement required to do a Homefind after power on. Of course, in the southern hemisphere, the reference marks are where the weight shaft points west so I thought I could set a new home position to suit this fact. So I position the mount with the weight shaft pointing west and the telescope pointing to the zenith and go to Mount/Set new Home Position. I press Yes to agree that I want to set a new home in the box that appears. Then I move the mount away somewhere and then click the Home1 button and the green Slew button. Instead of moving to the new Home that I think I set, the mount slews to the zenith but with the weight shaft pointing East. What am I missing here? It appears that either I have misunderstood something or the change Home position routine does not work or the Home1 position is not able to be changed. I have the ASA GPS stick so the mount knows it is in the Southern Hemisphere and has reversed the motor directions to suit. Any help would be appreciated. Ian